President Trump thinks the Russia investigation is pointless. If you have any doubt, look at the statements of his lawyer, Ty Cobb. No, not the content — the font. After Lt. General Michael Flynn pled guilty and became a cooperating witness, Trump’s lawyer Ty Cobb released this statement: Today, Michael Flynn, a former National Security…
Former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn has pled guilty to lying to the FBI. He has also issued a self-praising statement minimizing what he did. It’s an interesting strategy. Should everyone else who apologizes do the same? Flynn’s proud, patriotic apology Flynn spoke to the Russian Ambassador about foreign policy during the transition, when…
On November 6, Tufts student Camilo A. Caballero wrote an op-ed in the Tufts Daily, the student newspaper for Tufts University, demanding that the university remove former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci from the board of advisors of its School of Law and Diplomacy. Scaramucci responded by threatening to sue for libel if the…
This weekend the New York Times published an article about a foot solider in the white nationalist movement. Critics say the article normalizes Nazis. My reaction was the opposite: I found the descriptions of a “normal” midwesterner with these beliefs terrifying. “A Voice of Hate in America’s Heartland,” by Richard Fausset, is a profile of Tony…
There is way, way too much sexual misconduct in the workplace. It’s not all the same — we’re lumping together actors targeting 14-year-old boys, comedians knocking out and raping women, and politicians squeezing buttocks. But while the offenses are varied, the responses aren’t. They tend to come in one of three formats. While every lascivious…
Should companies make political statements? I pondered this when I received a clearly political message in the catalog for the Uline, the company I get my shipping supplies from. Uline’s catalog is over 700 pages long. It’s filled with everything from corrugated cardboard boxes to book shippers, which I use a lot of. You could…
On Papa John’s most recent earnings call, its CEO and founder John H. Schnatter blamed poor results in part on controversies surrounding the NFL, which the restaurant chain sponsors. Stepping into the middle of a political controversy was a mistake. So was clumsily trying to walk it back on Twitter. What Papa John’s said on…
The Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan organization that analyzes tax proposals, posted and then retracted an erroneous analysis of the Republican tax plan. The problem took several days to fix. If you ever screw up (and who doesn’t), take notes; this is a great case study in how to recover. What does a tax proposal…
The Republican tax plan reduces government receipts by $1.5 trillion over the next ten years. This is not a bug, it is a feature: it is, after all, a tax cut. But a trillion is a hard number to wrap your head around. Just how big is a trillion and a half? So, here’s a…