Category: 3-SometimeCommentary

Mike tracks the interstate absurdities created by the EPA's repeal of emissions standards. Buy a car in Iowa, and by the time you hit Illinois, you're dodging an environmental, legal, and ideological patchwork quilt. Then, it's the grand opening of a brand new Cultural/ Podcast institution! Author and critic Kat Rosenfield joins Mike to cut the ribbon on the "Museum of Bad Ideas." Today's inaugural exhibit: Harvard University's proposal to introduce the "A+" grade. With 60% of Harvard students already getting A's, is the solution really to just add an 11 to the grading dial? Mike and Kat break down the customer-service model of higher education, the loss of youth resilience, and why the Ivy League's meritocracy is starting to look a lot like Spinal Tap's volume knob.

Produced by Corey Wara

Video and Social Media by Geoff Craig

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On Feb. 19, 1776, Ben Franklin wrote to Gen. Charles Lee, an admirer of Thomas Paine's to connect the two. Just a month after its publication, Paine's 47-page pamphlet is making waves all over the colonies.

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-22-02-0214

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• Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE shows in Dallas on March 18 and in Austin on March 19: TheBulwark.com/Events.

On this episode of The Kylee Cast, detransitioner and advocate Chloe Cole joins Federalist Managing Editor Kylee Griswold to break down the Fox Varian case and other detransitioner lawsuits, discuss the Tumbler Ridge shooting and the broader epidemic of transgender violence, and share the role of Christianity in Chloe’s own story.

Follow Chloe on X: https://x.com/ChloeCole

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChoooCole/videos

And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chooocole/?hl=en

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Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket have seen explosive growth over the last year. These platforms allow people to put money on the outcomes of everything from local elections to the Super Bowl.

But an epic battle is underway between state regulators and these companies. At least 20 federal lawsuits have been filed against these companies. The cases claim these markets are simply gambling by another name and should be regulated like betting platforms.

Now, the federal government is putting its thumb on the scale, arguing prediction markets should be looked as as a financial exchange, not a betting platform. This paves the way for their further expansion, not regulation. What does the future hold for companies like these?

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Navy veteran Dr. Theodore Roosevelt Johnson, his family name a legacy first chosen to honor the new possibilities for Black Americans many presidents ago, writes about a football game when he stood during the National Anthem and his son—on the field as a player—chose to kneel. Both, he argues, are acts of love of country. Ted's life, service and scholarship are a love letter to America—both when he confronts our failure and takes pride in our accomplishments.

Now Ted leads New America's Us@250 initiative which "seeks to reimagine the American narrative with a focus on three themes: pride in the nation's progress, reckoning with historical and contemporary wrongs, and aspiration for a better future."

Learn more about our guests and find the program online here.

This program is part of the series in partnership with Florida Humanities — "UNUM: Democracy Reignited," a multi-year digital offering exploring the past, present and future of the American idea — as it exists on paper, in the hearts of our people, and as it manifests (or sometimes fails to manifest) in our lives. View the full series of programs online here.

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The Village Square is a proud member of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

UNUM: Democracy Reignited is funded in part by Florida Humanities with support from Federation of State Humanities Councils and the Mellon Foundation. (Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of our funders.)

By the People: Conversations Beyond 250 is a series of community-driven programs created by humanities councils in collaboration with local partners. The initiative was developed by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada is nobody’s idea of a partisan firebrand. She’s a moderate, swing-state Democrat with a résumé steeped in law enforcement — all of which makes her an unlikely leader of the Democratic-led shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, which has now entered its sixth day.

But over the past few months, Senator Cortez Masto said she was horrified by the conduct of federal immigration enforcement agents in her own state and across the country. By last week, she and many of her Democratic colleagues in the Senate decided to act on their outrage.

In an interview with her on “The Daily,” Senator Cortez Masto talks about why she decided to support withholding homeland security funding, the political perils for her party in blocking that funding and why she believes most Americans support the strategy.

Guest: Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada

Background reading: 

• Democrats and the White House traded offers, but a deal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security remained elusive.
• A polling memo circulated among centrist senators urged Democrats to talk tougher on crime, while noting an opportunity for the party to appeal to voters with criticism of ICE.

Photo: Eric Lee for The New York Times

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