Trump’s Labor Secretary’s Impressive Legacy of Sleaze Lori Chavez-DeRemer is perhaps the least well known of the administration’s departing Cabinet members. That’s not for want of trying.

My latest: The many tawdry scandals of Lori Chavez-DeRemer. I don’t think you’ll find elsewhere a catalog this complete.

From the archives, a photo of me in 1999 explaining to Cspan viewers what exactly Slate is.

The Hidden Factor in Choosing a College: Did It Rain on Your Tour? Adverse weather during a campus visit reduces students’ likelihood of applying, with fewer applications when a tour was too hot, too cold, rainy or even cloudy.

I have long maintained that college consumer choice hinges on whether it’s sunny or rainy when the prospective student visits, which makes spring break a uniquely bad time to take the college tour (b/c it rains too much). A new study proves me right.

www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

Is Pete Hegseth Back on the Sauce? A Backbencher investigation.

Also, more here on the question of whether Hegseth is drinking (deeper dive into that odd NY Post piece):

timothynoah.substack.com/p/is-pete-he...

What I Learned About Billionaires at Jeff Bezos’s Private Retreat For the richest men on Earth, everything is free and nothing matters.

This is excellent.

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

Does the SEC Care Whether Hegseth Is Killing Iranians To Get Rich? Senator Elizabeth Warren has requested an insider-trading probe of the defense secretary.

Elizabeth Warren sent a letter this morning to SEC chair Paul Atkins requesting an inquiry into FT allegations that Pete Hegseth attempted an insider trade to profit from the war he was planning. My latest (with link to the letter). This is actual News.

newrepublic.com/article/2092...

Actually a tad disappointing. The wine makes it very acidic. My wife hated it. I didn’t hate it; I found it kind of interesting; probably would work best as a side dish; but I’m in no hurry to make it again.

Even for Europe’s populist firebrands, Trump is going too far The symbiosis between the president and European nationalists has reached a potential breaking point as he issues genocidal rhetoric and criticizes the pope.

Trump’s fascist support is waning.

www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/0...

Got it.

You say that as if it’s a bad thing.

One-Pot White Wine Pasta

This seems important.

cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/7706...

Hegseth Quotes Made-Up Bible Verse From Pulp Fiction Does Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth actually know what’s in the Bible?

Um, wow.

Aging in a Brightly Lit, Big City

The bright lights reveal Jay McInerney’s wattles, and now I feel very sad.

www.nytimes.com/2026/04/16/s...

?

Let’s Replace All Corporate Chiefs With AI Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, and Jim VandeHei are halfway there already. Let’s follow that train of thought.

Nobody is more expensive than corporate chief executives, so in the coming AI dystopia of their making they'll have to be the first to go. My latest.

Pete Hegseth Directly Compares Trump to Jesus Amid AI Post Scandal Hegseth said the media were the non-believers.

There are sycophants, and then there is Pete Hegseth.

Stock Market Today: S&P 500 Ticks Higher as Bank Earnings Show U.S. Economy Holding Up Live updates on stocks, bonds and markets, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite.

Stock Market Sees Shit Everywhere, Concludes Santa Must Have Brought It A Pony

www.wsj.com/livecoverage...

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Is Being Sold to Baltimore Banner Owner The Nonprofit Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism will buy the newspaper, which was set to close in May.

As a matter of policy I disbelieve any businessman who claims not to be losing money in journalism. But I may have to make an exception for my former Newsweek colleague Bob Cohn, who seems to rack up one victory after another.

www.wsj.com/business/med...

Announcing the 2026 Guggenheim Fellows — Guggenheim Fellowships: Supporting Artists, Scholars, & Scientists Since 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has given Fellowships to exceptional artists, writers, scholars, and scientists, empowering them to pursue meaningful work under the freest possible conditions.

Home news: My missus, Sarah McNamer, has been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship.

www.gf.org/stories/anno...

Trump Wants You to Cheat on Your Taxes He probably cheats himself and just wants a little company.

In the absence of any public release this year of Trump’s income tax payments (routine for all other presidents; verboten for Trump) I’m going to assume he cheated. That would help explain why his policies encourage everybody else to cheat, too.

“It’s supposed to be me as a doctor.”—Donald Trump.

Dear Bill Ackman: Remind me again why you dispute that Elon Musk is an antisemite?

I spoke too soon:

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Will any conservative religious leaders denounce this image, posted on Trump’s Truth Social account, as blasphemous? Of course they won’t.

Blazing Saddles - Nobody move or ... YouTube video by LearningBase33

Trump’s Hormuz blockade is a strategy straight out of “Blazing Saddles.”

youtu.be/Z_JOGmXpe5I

Can Trump's pardons be reversed? President Ulysses S. Grant did it, and George W. Bush, and the Constitution would seem to encourage it.

I wrote this in January 2021 with @timothynoah.bsky.social, but there’s a lot more to say about the potential limits — ethical and otherwise—on the president’s pardon power.

This brightened my day.

youtu.be/v49Pxsshz1o

Forty-six years ago Mike Kinsley, the smartest journalist I’ve ever known, steered me away from writing about the Law of the Sea because it was too boring. America should have signed it before Trump made it interesting! My latest:

The Atlantic's Judith Shulevitz on the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building.

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

Absolutely.