Whitewashing American history by Don Moynihan

It is a profound embarrassment that we have turned over stewardship of the nation to a group of individuals who are so pathetic, petty, and weak that one of the primary ways of fortifying their own self-image is by hiding the accomplishments of others. Sergeant William Carney, pictured above, was braver and better by a stunning degree than the white-supremacist blowhards currently infesting the executive branch who are trying to strip away the legacy of William Carney and countless others from the American story. For his own Substack, Don Moynihan writes about this assault on truth and the damage it does the basic morality of the entire nation.

We ran the wrong headline about Trump firing the FTC commissioners by Sarah Jeong

I fired off an angry BlueSky post about the above New York Times article earlier this week, mostly because I was outraged that another flagrant violation of the law was buried deep within the newspaper. I more tightly cropped the image to emphasize the tepid equivocating on criminal actions by the White House. This is a pervasive problem in a news media ecosystem that simply isn’t equipped to accurately name corruption when perpetrated by people in power here. (In other countries? They are very comfortable calling a crime a crime.) Writing for The Verge, Sarah Jeong openly wrestles with those shortcomings in her own editorial approach on the news website. We would be better off if more journalists were engaged in such introspective reckoning and adaptation.

Trump’s Vivisection of the Department of Education by Jessica Winter

Writing for The New Yorker, Jessica Winter writes about the disastrous (and, once again, unlawful) effort to eliminate the Department of Education. The article is a good primer on why closing this federal department is a bad idea and doesn’t even accomplish any of the goals such action is purported to meet, such as curriculum adjustment. I think this piece is especially vital because it’s one of the few that correctly identifies that “[not] knowing much about what he wants to destroy” as one of most contemptible qualities of this U.S. president and the cruel halfwits he has employed in his ravaging of the government.

Chuck Schumer Is Responsible by Tom Scocca

The Republicans are to blame for all the damage being done to the country. It’s not just the amoral felon who is their standard bearer; it’s the entire party. That acknowledged, the senior senator from New York is deserving of all the scorn that has rained down upon him for being inadequately prepared to meet the severe test being administered at this moment. Writing for Defector, Tom Scocca makes the case against Charles Schumer with the right dose of vitriol.