• Heather Cox Richardson discourses nicely on another reason why the U.S. is so divided (and why Congress is so dysfunctional) – the republican Operation REDMAP.  An excerpt”

“This Operation REDMAP, which stood for Redistricting Majority Project, was a plan to take control of state houses across the country so that Republicans would control the redistricting maps put in place after the 2010 census. 

It worked. After the 2010 election, Republicans controlled the legislatures in the key states of Florida, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Ohio, and Michigan, as well as other, smaller states, and they redrew congressional maps using precise computer models. In the 2012 election, Democrats won the White House decisively, the Senate easily, and a majority of 1.4 million votes for House candidates. And yet Republicans came away with a thirty-three-seat majority in the House of Representatives.”

• Sure, listen to the guy who managed to drive multiple businesses into the ground, doesn’t read, and loves to cut taxes for the rich (perhaps because he’s one of them) when he tells you how to fix your economy and deficit.  Because I’m sure he’s thought things through to the 9th degree…

Matt Yglesias opines in detail in his Slow Boring blog.

• More excellence from David Wallace-Wells, writing in the NYT about how air pollution acts in some ways to mitigate temperature rise. No, he’s not advocating for increased air pollution, but pointing out that some measures to improve pollution and CO2 emissions may contribute to location-specific rising temperatures.   Climate is complicated, lots of work to be done to understand how best to mitigate global warming.

• UCSF’s Bob Wachter along with Abraham Verghese and Eric Topol opine on AI in Medicine on Medscape’s Medicine and the Machine.  Poor Bob is no longer a NOVID, and the three riff about where they see LLMs and AI going in clinical medicine.

• If you have any interest at all in AI, I highly recommend this excellent podcast from Ezra Klein, where he talks with Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind’s CEO, about Hassabis’ personal journey to AI and gets Hassabis’ perspective on its promises and perils.

• David French writes in the NYT about the legal perils besetting Trump and many of his fellow plotters; here’s an excerpt to which the electorate should pay close attention:

“We can’t ask for too much from any legal system. A code of laws is ultimately no substitute for moral norms. Our constitutional republic cannot last indefinitely in the face of misinformation, conspiracy and violence. It can remove the worst actors from positions of power and influence. But it cannot ultimately save us from ourselves. American legal institutions have responded to a historical crisis, but all its victories could still be temporary. Our nation can choose the law, or it can choose Trump. It cannot choose both.”

• Yet another superb essay by Linda Greenhouse in the NYT – “Look at What John Roberts and His Court Have Wrought Over 18 Years“.  An excerpt:

“My focus here on what these past 18 years have achieved has been on the court itself. But of course, the Supreme Court doesn’t stand alone. Powerful social and political movements swirl around it, carefully cultivating cases and serving them up to justices who themselves were propelled to their positions of great power by those movements. The Supreme Court now is this country’s ultimate political prize. That may not be apparent on a day-to-day or even a term-by-term basis. But from the perspective of 18 years, that conclusion is as unavoidable as it is frightening.”

• Kate Shaw writes in the NYT about how the current Supreme Court’s recent decisions are overly accommodating toward religion — I agree.

• David Wallace-Wells does a very good interview with outgoing CDC Director Rachel Walensky in the NYT.

• Definitely worth a read: Alexei Navalny’s essay in the Washington Post, communicated via his legal team.