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In today’s edition:
WpGet the full experience.Choose your planArrowRight- The ex-congressman who fled to France during Trump’s presidency
- A stain on the Supreme Court, where everyone’s an originalist
- Best bets to avoid heart disease
- How an AI overcorrection gave us Black founding fathers
Searching for a safe house
Who among us hasn’t wondered about skipping out on America after the election of one disagreeable president or another? The difference between us (well, most of us — one won’t assume) and former congressman Jim McDermott is that he has actually nursed three nanny goats in the tiny French village of Civrac-en-Médoc.
“From that moment, I belonged,” McDermott, a Democrat who served 14 terms in Congress, told former Post correspondent Elizabeth Becker.
The life Becker described is idyllic: gentle work in a little vineyard. Snails on the garden fence. Universal health care.
But McDermott also told her about his loneliness, far as he is from his longtime home in Washington state. And the term he uses for his petit chalet is chilling: “safe house.”
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Of course, McDermott means safe from Donald Trump and from Trumpism; France became his primary residence during the former president’s administration.
McDermott’s decisions prompt Becker — who spent years reporting on war in Cambodia, where exile was less about joie de vivre than will to live — to consider a dilemma, especially for powerful Americans: “Is the United States facing a situation so dangerous that you would be foolish if you didn’t have a backup plan? Or is it hyperbole to imagine the country sliding into authoritarian rule that would unleash violence, retribution and repression?”
Becker hopes defenders of democracy will stay in the United States. McDermott points out that the overgrown house next to his could use a new owner.
Chaser: Perry Bacon reminds that it is always acceptable to criticize a sitting president — even when that president is running against Trump. Even if that criticism might help Trump.
Conservatives’ triumph over the court
Crystal Clanton, a 2022 graduate of George Mason University’s law school, will soon begin a prestigious clerkship for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Quite the achievement for a young woman who in 2015 apparently texted a co-worker, “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE.”
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Ruth Marcus traces Clanton’s rise and how Thomas has been in her corner at every step. It’s an unsavory story, Ruth writes, and a stain that “taints the entire federal judiciary, which has proven itself institutionally incapable of and unwilling to enforce basic ethics rules.”
What the high court is devoted to, Ramesh Ponnuru writes, is originalism, the judicial philosophy advocated by conservatives and barely even challenged by liberals. Even when they dissent from conservative opinions, Ramesh writes, “the liberal justices are more likely to accuse the majority of inconsistently applying originalism than they are to dispute it.”
“Originalist” was once thrown around as a marker of extremist temperament, but conservatives won that fight. Now, Ramesh wants to zoom out: “If everyone is an originalist, does the term have any content?”
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He argues yes — and credits the triumph of originalism with dramatic effects on the very makeup of the Supreme Court.
From Leana Wen’s pocket guide on evading cardiac trouble, which she gets in just under the wire of February’s American Heart Month.
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She compiles five tips — which I won’t even make you click through to read because I want you all to still be enjoying the Today’s Opinions newsletter a long time hence:
- Screen for and manage underlying conditions such as diabetes and hypertension.
- Quit or cut back on smoking, alcohol and weed.
- Exercise at least 75 minutes a week. Doable! Or 150 is even better. Still doable!
- Moderate salty and fatty food. (“Doable,” he convinces himself.) Cut out ultra-processed stuff.
- Sleep seven hours or more a night.
Okay, perhaps there is a secret sixth tip. But that one, Leana writes, is up to someone else to implement.
Less politics
White smoke wafts from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney. Conclave is at an end. The College of Cardinals has, at last, anointed Pope … Jessica?
Megan McArdle was amused by the AI images churned out by Google’s Gemini after its recent debut, which invariably produced art that was “a little aspirationally overrepresentative” — female popes, South Asian Athenians, Black founding fathers.
X users competed to get Gemini to spin up just one White dude before Google last week took the image function offline.
It’s not falling for it. pic.twitter.com/diAcN1MeZc
— Frank J. Fleming (@IMAO_)
February 21, 2024 Megan’s amusement dissipated, however, once she dug into Gemini’s text outputs, where the progressive skew persisted. Gemini could effusively praise Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) but not even moderate conservatives?
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It’s a worrying look, Megan says, into the philosophy of the people shaping the AI landscape, but it also puts a necessary spotlight on an implicit, problematic rule in tech, media, etc.: “It’s generally safe to punch right, but rarely to punch left.”
Smartest, fastest
- Karen Tumulty traces the tragic arc of the Artist Formerly Known as Ronna Romney McDaniel, who leaves a mess behind at the Republican National Committee as she heads for the exit.
- Trump’s “racist, super-racist” con-man hustle for the Black vote is not going to work, Gene Robinson writes.
- Jen Rubin notches another triumph for Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, who has “vanquished” the National Rifle Association and its right-wing hucksters.
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … the Bye-Ku.
Callous to begrudge
Trading terror for terroir
Though — what grows back home?
***
Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!
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You’re reading the Today’s Opinions newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox.
In today’s edition:
Who among us hasn’t wondered about skipping out on America after the election of one disagreeable president or another? The difference between us (well, most of us — one won’t assume) and former congressman Jim McDermott is that he has actually nursed three nanny goats in the tiny French village of Civrac-en-Médoc.
“From that moment, I belonged,” McDermott, a Democrat who served 14 terms in Congress, told former Post correspondent Elizabeth Becker.
The life Becker described is idyllic: gentle work in a little vineyard. Snails on the garden fence. Universal health care.
But McDermott also told her about his loneliness, far as he is from his longtime home in Washington state. And the term he uses for his petit chalet is chilling: “safe house.”
Of course, McDermott means safe from Donald Trump and from Trumpism; France became his primary residence during the former president’s administration.
McDermott’s decisions prompt Becker — who spent years reporting on war in Cambodia, where exile was less about joie de vivre than will to live — to consider a dilemma, especially for powerful Americans: “Is the United States facing a situation so dangerous that you would be foolish if you didn’t have a backup plan? Or is it hyperbole to imagine the country sliding into authoritarian rule that would unleash violence, retribution and repression?”
Becker hopes defenders of democracy will stay in the United States. McDermott points out that the overgrown house next to his could use a new owner.
Chaser: Perry Bacon reminds that it is always acceptable to criticize a sitting president — even when that president is running against Trump. Even if that criticism might help Trump.
Crystal Clanton, a 2022 graduate of George Mason University’s law school, will soon begin a prestigious clerkship for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Quite the achievement for a young woman who in 2015 apparently texted a co-worker, “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE.”
Ruth Marcus traces Clanton’s rise and how Thomas has been in her corner at every step. It’s an unsavory story, Ruth writes, and a stain that “taints the entire federal judiciary, which has proven itself institutionally incapable of and unwilling to enforce basic ethics rules.”
What the high court is devoted to, Ramesh Ponnuru writes, is originalism, the judicial philosophy advocated by conservatives and barely even challenged by liberals. Even when they dissent from conservative opinions, Ramesh writes, “the liberal justices are more likely to accuse the majority of inconsistently applying originalism than they are to dispute it.”
“Originalist” was once thrown around as a marker of extremist temperament, but conservatives won that fight. Now, Ramesh wants to zoom out: “If everyone is an originalist, does the term have any content?”
He argues yes — and credits the triumph of originalism with dramatic effects on the very makeup of the Supreme Court.
From Leana Wen’s pocket guide on evading cardiac trouble, which she gets in just under the wire of February’s American Heart Month.
She compiles five tips — which I won’t even make you click through to read because I want you all to still be enjoying the Today’s Opinions newsletter a long time hence:
Okay, perhaps there is a secret sixth tip. But that one, Leana writes, is up to someone else to implement.
White smoke wafts from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney. Conclave is at an end. The College of Cardinals has, at last, anointed Pope … Jessica?
Megan McArdle was amused by the AI images churned out by Google’s Gemini after its recent debut, which invariably produced art that was “a little aspirationally overrepresentative” — female popes, South Asian Athenians, Black founding fathers.
X users competed to get Gemini to spin up just one White dude before Google last week took the image function offline.
It’s not falling for it. pic.twitter.com/diAcN1MeZc
Megan’s amusement dissipated, however, once she dug into Gemini’s text outputs, where the progressive skew persisted. Gemini could effusively praise Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) but not even moderate conservatives?
It’s a worrying look, Megan says, into the philosophy of the people shaping the AI landscape, but it also puts a necessary spotlight on an implicit, problematic rule in tech, media, etc.: “It’s generally safe to punch right, but rarely to punch left.”
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … the Bye-Ku.
Callous to begrudge
Trading terror for terroir
Though — what grows back home?
***
Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!
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