James Foster Reding

Cannes today

Anybody who knows anything about albedo knows that this reflecting pool water will now be about 15-20° hotter than it used to be…becoming an algae cesspool. Fitting for the times we’re in.

@KBAndersen There's more of him for America to love!

Beijing in 2017…vs Beijing yesterday. What a miserable-looking fatso he’s become.

Don’t let this go viral

A 10-year-old wrote MAGA Congresswoman Virginia Foxx for a school project. He chose to write about an electric vehicle tax credit. Something he thought was good for the environment. Virginia responded by attacking him and his teacher for being propagandized. Her words: “your teacher will not be able to give you a good education as they are too interested in indoctrinating you... How sad.” An 80-year-old woman. Attacking a 10-year-old. For doing his homework. These people have power over your life.

Am on here tonight talking about the greatness of Documentary cinema. bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00…

@markcousinsfilm Wishing you a safe and successful trip!

NEW: Almost every member of the Tennessee Black Caucus in the State House being PUNISHED and stripped of Committee assignments for speaking out against mass disenfranchisement of Black voters. This is the kind of racism we can expect to see more often in the wake of Callais.

@NormOrnstein I think lickspittle is a word we’ll all be using a lot more in these Trump years and I welcome it because it reminds me of Klaus Kinshi in “Dr. Zhivago”

Alabama Lickspittle

There it is at last, the admission that it was Ukraine’s wish to join the EU that led Putin to invade - nothing to do with NATO. Always blindingly obvious but denied for years by anti-European Putin apologists in Europe including Farage and Johnson in Britain

I used to make fun of this kind of thing when reporting in North Korea.

This Mother’s Day, I’m thinking about my mom, and all the lessons she taught me. I'm proud to honor her memory with the Ann Dunham Water Terrace at the Obama Presidential Center.

🇺🇸BREAKING: Someone placed a $920 million crude oil short at 3:40 AM. 70 minutes later Axios reported the US and Iran were close to a deal. Oil dropped 12%. The trade made $125 million in profit. Minutes after that Iran launched the “Persian Gulf Strait Authority” and oil surged 8%. $760 million placed before Trump’s last announcement. $920 million placed before this one. Every major announcement in this war has been front-run by someone who knew it was coming. What kind of war is this? This is more like a trading desk with an army. Never stop connecting the dots.

I think it's very apt. Putin and Trump both thought their wars of choice would be done in a few days and are each trapped in self-created blunders.

The harder part is what comes next. Most of my tribe — academic economists — don't like a microphone. We type. We publish. We earn the respect of seven other economists who read the paper. But almost nobody outside that room ever hears any of it. That's what I want to change.

The thing I appreciate about the piece: Brian got the why. It started on election night 2024. Close to midnight, I had a thought I haven't been able to shake since: I want to teach the world economics.

@daveweigel @RichardRubinDC I mean there's an obvious reason, which is that Republicans run the government. The second Democrats do, the panic will come rushing back. Mark it.

A funny thing happened on the way to launch day. The @nytimes wrote about Platypus Economics. Brian O'Keefe asked tons of questions, interviewed all sorts of folks, and produced something I'm a little stunned by. nytimes.com/2026/05/06/bus… (gift link)

Announcing: @PlatypusEcon — a Substack, YouTube channel, and podcast built around one idea: Economics is one of the most useful, surprising, and weirdly beautiful subjects in the world. It belongs to everyone — not just the people who happened to take it in college. 🧵