LeavittDC

" This kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy, " said Barack Obama  after Charlie Kirk was killed last week.  Ezra Klein, in the clip below, says " We have to find a pathway forward to de-escalation. " Charlie Kirk's murder " is a reminder of how important it is for all of us, across the political spectrum, to foster genuine discourse on issues that deeply affect us all without resorting to political violence, " said Gavin Newsom . Americans want politicians and activist groups to come together and focus on similarities where they agree.  Or so we're told by both Democrats and political pundits.  But what if they're wrong? After all, have you ever heard the MAGA movement say it wants to find common ground with Democrats? Have any leftists rewarded politicians who compromise their position to meet Donald Trump's? Americans do not, actually, want their own political party to moderate. Only the legacy establishment of only o...

President Trump signed an executive order yesterday to extend the deadline for the congressional ban on TikTok if its parent company does not sell its U.S. operations to an American company. This is the third 90-day extension that Trump has signed.  Yet this action to extend the deadline a third time is clearly illegal. (It was also illegal the second time he took this action.) After all, the law allows only for one extension.* Congress voted for this law, and Trump himself signed it.  So why is this extension allowed to happen? The White House has not provided an explanation or the legal grounds for its actions, reported NPR's Jon Ruwich . Given everything else on the political agenda — mass  kidnappings deportations, a $3 trillion tax bill that cuts both Medicare and Medicaid, a potential war in Iran — the stakes on extending the TikTok ban seem low. Indeed, most people are comfortable with the delay and there are no objections to the extension. Not from TikTok, ...

TikTok, Instagram, podcasts, Substack, the metaverse. Digital creators have an endless array of buzzy platforms to reach online audience. Yet there's one old school channel that still dominates when it comes to credibility and esteem: billboards. (Yes, billboards!) In a fascinating twist, digital natives are flipping the traditional advertising playbook in a desire to transcend "internet famous" and become simply famous. As Taylor Lorenz points out,  old fashioned out-of-home billboards are giving legitimacy to content creators. "For a world that now lives online, nothing hits harder than seeing your name and your face lit up in the real world," Creators Inc. CEO Andrew Bachman told Lorenz.   It's a digital world, yet the most cutting edge move is decidedly old school. 

Every Olympics, NBC reminds its American viewership that swimming and gymnastics are the most important sports, which is convenient since the United States excels at those events. It's handy to be the arbiter of what matters. The same dynamic applies to how we've defined athletic strength itself. If sports didn't exist and we were starting from scratch, we might intuitively define athletic strength as endurance, resilience, and ability to handle pain. After all, the ultimate test is who can keep going the longest when everything hurts. Study after study shows that women excel over men in those categories. As Starre Vartan points out in the Washington Post , determining which gender is stronger depends entirely on what success metrics we choose to prioritize.

Universities are under fire. Yet instead of mounting a compelling defense, Democrats are responding with outrage that fails to connect with Americans and their concerns. You, dear reader, may not realize that  most Americans have lost confidence in universities . As a result, expressing shock at attacks on higher education isn’t enough. Instead, defenders of universities should reframe the debate: this isn’t just about institutions — it’s about opportunity. Donald Trump went to college. His children went to college. His wealthy friends went to college. Now that they've benefited, they're working to pull up the ladder behind them.  Trump's efforts to dismantle higher education threaten to deny that same opportunity to millions of ordinary Americans. The real issue isn’t about protecting universities, it’s about protecting each American's right to learn, advance, and secure a better future for their family. Universities need to make it clear that defending higher educatio...

A court has struck down the Trump administration's ban on Harvard University enrolling foreign students. Yet Trump's judicial defeat does not weaken Trump — instead it reinforces to Americans that he is fighting for a popular policy while universities and courts (and Democrats) stand in the way. Polls show that only 36% of Americans have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in higher education ( Gallup ) and just 14% say college provides a clear financial return ( College Investor ). These numbers make it clear that America lacks confidence in institutes of higher learning. On immigration, 55% of Americans say they want immigration levels reduced ( Gallup ). 62% say people trying to immigrate to the United States have "worse character" ( Axios ). 66% say they they support deporting immigrants ( Ipsos ). Clearly, the public mood is strongly anti-immigrant.  As a result, politicians who challenge universities and take the maximalist position...