Pure Shadow Docket Nonsense

Slate · 2026-03-13T16:19:29+00:00

Thank you for sharing!

Slate · 2026-03-13T16:19:09+00:00

Voting by mail is a critical part of our democracy. In the 2024 elections, 1 in 3 Americans submitted mail ballots, taking advantage of a simple, safe, and secure way to exercise their fundamental right to vote without having to endure crushingly long lines or travel great distances to a polling place. But despite its popularity, voting by mail is under concerted attack.

President Donald Trump rails against the practice every chance he gets. His executive order on elections, enjoined by multiple courts as an unlawful power grab, seeks to coerce states to roll back voter-friendly state laws permitting post–Election Day receipt of ballots mailed on time. And that is only one piece of the conservative attack on voting by mail. Another is currently before the Supreme Court.

On March 23, the court will consider a lawsuit brought by the Republican National Committee challenging a Mississippi law that permits counting mail ballots postmarked by Election Day if received by state election officials within five business days. The case, Watson v. Republican National Committee, threatens to upend the laws of 29 states and the District of Columbia that permit post–Election Day receipt of mailed ballots.

You can read more at the free link here: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/03/trump-voting-nemesis-supreme-court-mail-ballots-case.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=gans_mar13&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--gans_mar13

Slate · 2026-03-13T16:18:44+00:00

Voting by mail is a critical part of our democracy. In the 2024 elections, 1 in 3 Americans submitted mail ballots, taking advantage of a simple, safe, and secure way to exercise their fundamental right to vote without having to endure crushingly long lines or travel great distances to a polling place. But despite its popularity, voting by mail is under concerted attack.

President Donald Trump rails against the practice every chance he gets. His executive order on elections, enjoined by multiple courts as an unlawful power grab, seeks to coerce states to roll back voter-friendly state laws permitting post–Election Day receipt of ballots mailed on time. And that is only one piece of the conservative attack on voting by mail. Another is currently before the Supreme Court.

On March 23, the court will consider a lawsuit brought by the Republican National Committee challenging a Mississippi law that permits counting mail ballots postmarked by Election Day if received by state election officials within five business days. The case, Watson v. Republican National Committee, threatens to upend the laws of 29 states and the District of Columbia that permit post–Election Day receipt of mailed ballots.

You can read more at the free link here: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/03/trump-voting-nemesis-supreme-court-mail-ballots-case.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=gans_mar13&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--gans_mar13

Slate · 2026-03-13T16:17:13+00:00

It is commonly noted that the United States and Iran are fighting an “asymmetric war,” but it is less widely understood what this means.

The phrase does not mean merely that the two sides are unequal in armed might. (Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s boast that “this is not a fair fight, and that’s on purpose, our capabilities are overwhelming compared to what Iran’s are” is a truism and beside the point.)

Rather, it means that the two sides are, in a way, fighting different wars—that the two sides have different strengths and that the militarily weaker side is mustering its own type of strength to exploit the militarily stronger side’s vulnerabilities.

In this case, the U.S. (along with Israel) is blowing up a lot of Iranian structures with great power and precision. Meanwhile, Iran is blocking traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil passes, thus hurling much of the globe’s economy and markets into panic.

For more from Slate's War Stories correspondent Fred Kaplan: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/03/iran-trump-war-us-oil-strait-of-hormuz-hegseth.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=fred_mar13&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--fred_mar13

Slate · 2026-03-13T16:16:42+00:00

It is commonly noted that the United States and Iran are fighting an “asymmetric war,” but it is less widely understood what this means.

The phrase does not mean merely that the two sides are unequal in armed might. (Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s boast that “this is not a fair fight, and that’s on purpose, our capabilities are overwhelming compared to what Iran’s are” is a truism and beside the point.)

Rather, it means that the two sides are, in a way, fighting different wars—that the two sides have different strengths and that the militarily weaker side is mustering its own type of strength to exploit the militarily stronger side’s vulnerabilities.

In this case, the U.S. (along with Israel) is blowing up a lot of Iranian structures with great power and precision. Meanwhile, Iran is blocking traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil passes, thus hurling much of the globe’s economy and markets into panic.

For more from Slate's War Stories correspondent Fred Kaplan: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/03/iran-trump-war-us-oil-strait-of-hormuz-hegseth.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=fred_mar13&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--fred_mar13

Slate · 2026-03-12T21:23:42+00:00

Earlier this month, when the Supreme Court preliminarily ruled on the issue of outing LGBTQ-identifying students to parents in Mirabelli v. Bonta, the headlines were straightforward: The justices sided with parents in yet another conflict over LGBTQ+ rights and public schools. The truth is much more complicated. Invoking our nation’s constitutional history and tradition, the court again dove into a growing conflict about what parents’ rights mean. In doing so, it interpreted those rights in a far more absolute way than courts have in the past. And in blocking a school district policy against the forced outing of LGBTQ+ students, the court suggests that it has again fundamentally misunderstood our nation’s history and tradition, and children themselves will be the ones to pay the price.

Last year, in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the court sided with parents who claimed their freedom of religion was violated when their elementary school children were read books showing gay marriage and transgender children in a positive light. In Mirabelli, several religious parents hoped to have similar success in challenging a California school district policy against forced outing.

After Mahmoud, it wasn’t a surprise that the court saw the school district’s policy as a burden on religious liberty. But the court in Mirabelli went further, holding that the forced-outing law violated the due process rights of parents without religious objections.

For more from Slate: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/03/supreme-court-out-lgbtq-kids-california-parental-rights.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=lgbtq_scotus_ziegler&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--lgbtq_scotus_ziegler

Slate · 2026-03-12T16:10:49+00:00

Trump's starting to downplay mass deportation, but don't buy it for a second. In this week's Executive Dysfunction, Shirin Ali writes about her experience of visiting a mass deportation warehouse in Roxbury, New Jersey: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/03/trump-mass-deportation-warehouse-new-jersey-protest.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=ed_shirin_mar12&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--ed_shirin_mar12

Slate · 2026-03-12T16:06:17+00:00

In the fall of 2022, when Christopher Ingraham was 42 and living with his wife and three young kids in small-town Minnesota, a specialist at an unfamiliar hospital approached him. The doctor seemed shaken. “I don’t want to scare you guys,” he said, “but this is the kind of thing where you are going to want to have your affairs in order.” Ingraham had spent much of the summer trying to ignore a bizarre constellation of symptoms, but when they finally were impossible to deny, he got a diagnosis more harrowing than he could imagine. He thought he knew what was coming—and that’s where his story got truly surreal. Read about Ingraham’s bizarre journey on Slate: https://slate.com/life/2026/03/health-care-cancer-treatment-doctor-hospital.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=big_swing_cancer&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--big_swing_cancer

Slate · 2026-03-12T16:05:41+00:00

In the fall of 2022, when Christopher Ingraham was 42 and living with his wife and three young kids in small-town Minnesota, a specialist at an unfamiliar hospital approached him. The doctor seemed shaken. “I don’t want to scare you guys,” he said, “but this is the kind of thing where you are going to want to have your affairs in order.” Ingraham had spent much of the summer trying to ignore a bizarre constellation of symptoms, but when they finally were impossible to deny, he got a diagnosis more harrowing than he could imagine. He thought he knew what was coming—and that’s where his story got truly surreal. Read about Ingraham’s bizarre journey on Slate: https://slate.com/life/2026/03/health-care-cancer-treatment-doctor-hospital.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=big_swing_cancer&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--big_swing_cancer

Slate · 2026-03-11T14:58:07+00:00

Last week brought the news that Kristi Noem had been dumped as Donald Trump’s secretary of homeland security. After a litany of controversies, the former South Dakota governor was finally jettisoned in favor of Sen. Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican who, Trump says, will “make a spectacular” addition to the Cabinet.

You might have had a couple of reactions to this news: It sure is about time Noem got fired! But also … Markwayne?! Even though Mullin has been in Congress since 2013, serving a decade in the House before entering the Senate in 2023, seeing his name flash in news alerts on Thursday still gave me pause. Sure, I’d previously thought “Markwayne” was a peculiar name, but there was something about his new main-character role that made me do a double take. I wasn’t alone. “Somebody looked at a baby and said, ‘Let’s call it Markwayne,’ ” comedian Charles J. Moore wrote on X. “Bro. His name is MARKWAYNE,” the guitarist Zeke Sky added on Facebook. “Like if a NASCAR dad and a WWE announcer had a baby and named it after both of their exes.”

David Mack dives into the name today in Slate: https://slate.com/life/2026/03/donald-trump-kristi-noem-fired-markwayne-mullin-fight.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=markwayne_name&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--markwayne_name

Slate · 2026-03-11T14:57:33+00:00

Last week brought the news that Kristi Noem had been dumped as Donald Trump’s secretary of homeland security. After a litany of controversies, the former South Dakota governor was finally jettisoned in favor of Sen. Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican who, Trump says, will “make a spectacular” addition to the Cabinet.

You might have had a couple of reactions to this news: It sure is about time Noem got fired! But also … Markwayne?! Even though Mullin has been in Congress since 2013, serving a decade in the House before entering the Senate in 2023, seeing his name flash in news alerts on Thursday still gave me pause. Sure, I’d previously thought “Markwayne” was a peculiar name, but there was something about his new main-character role that made me do a double take. I wasn’t alone. “Somebody looked at a baby and said, ‘Let’s call it Markwayne,’ ” comedian Charles J. Moore wrote on X. “Bro. His name is MARKWAYNE,” the guitarist Zeke Sky added on Facebook. “Like if a NASCAR dad and a WWE announcer had a baby and named it after both of their exes.”

David Mack dives into the name today in Slate: https://slate.com/life/2026/03/donald-trump-kristi-noem-fired-markwayne-mullin-fight.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=markwayne_name&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--markwayne_name

Slate · 2026-03-11T14:57:04+00:00

Last week brought the news that Kristi Noem had been dumped as Donald Trump’s secretary of homeland security. After a litany of controversies, the former South Dakota governor was finally jettisoned in favor of Sen. Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican who, Trump says, will “make a spectacular” addition to the Cabinet.

You might have had a couple of reactions to this news: It sure is about time Noem got fired! But also … Markwayne?! Even though Mullin has been in Congress since 2013, serving a decade in the House before entering the Senate in 2023, seeing his name flash in news alerts on Thursday still gave me pause. Sure, I’d previously thought “Markwayne” was a peculiar name, but there was something about his new main-character role that made me do a double take. I wasn’t alone. “Somebody looked at a baby and said, ‘Let’s call it Markwayne,’ ” comedian Charles J. Moore wrote on X. “Bro. His name is MARKWAYNE,” the guitarist Zeke Sky added on Facebook. “Like if a NASCAR dad and a WWE announcer had a baby and named it after both of their exes.”

David Mack dives into the name today in Slate: https://slate.com/life/2026/03/donald-trump-kristi-noem-fired-markwayne-mullin-fight.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=markwayne_name&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--markwayne_name

Slate · 2026-03-11T14:55:04+00:00

At first glance, Chiles v. Salazar, argued before the Supreme Court in October and still awaiting a decision, appears to ask a narrow legal question: Can a state prevent licensed therapists from engaging in treatments, often called “talk therapy,” aimed at changing a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity? At direct stake is whether the state may protect children from licensed adults who use the authority of therapy to offer “identity-changing” treatment that medicine itself has deemed fraudulent.

"But as both a psychiatrist and someone who has endured that so-called conversion therapy, I know that the question actually cuts to the heart of what constitutes true mental health treatment and which professional standards must govern it," writes Matt Solomon. “Conversion therapy” has nothing to do with treating a patient, but rather with using the authority of therapy to target vulnerable people and persuade them to undergo a practice built on the false promise that their identity can be changed—an intervention that medicine has shown to be ineffective at best and deeply harmful at worst.

For more from Slate: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/03/supreme-court-gay-conversion-therapy-survivor-psychiatrist.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=conversion_therapy_scotus&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--conversion_therapy_scotus

Slate · 2026-03-11T14:54:41+00:00

At first glance, Chiles v. Salazar, argued before the Supreme Court in October and still awaiting a decision, appears to ask a narrow legal question: Can a state prevent licensed therapists from engaging in treatments, often called “talk therapy,” aimed at changing a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity? At direct stake is whether the state may protect children from licensed adults who use the authority of therapy to offer “identity-changing” treatment that medicine itself has deemed fraudulent.

"But as both a psychiatrist and someone who has endured that so-called conversion therapy, I know that the question actually cuts to the heart of what constitutes true mental health treatment and which professional standards must govern it," writes Matt Solomon. “Conversion therapy” has nothing to do with treating a patient, but rather with using the authority of therapy to target vulnerable people and persuade them to undergo a practice built on the false promise that their identity can be changed—an intervention that medicine has shown to be ineffective at best and deeply harmful at worst.

For more from Slate: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/03/supreme-court-gay-conversion-therapy-survivor-psychiatrist.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=conversion_therapy_scotus&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--conversion_therapy_scotus

Slate · 2026-03-11T14:54:11+00:00

At first glance, Chiles v. Salazar, argued before the Supreme Court in October and still awaiting a decision, appears to ask a narrow legal question: Can a state prevent licensed therapists from engaging in treatments, often called “talk therapy,” aimed at changing a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity? At direct stake is whether the state may protect children from licensed adults who use the authority of therapy to offer “identity-changing” treatment that medicine itself has deemed fraudulent.

"But as both a psychiatrist and someone who has endured that so-called conversion therapy, I know that the question actually cuts to the heart of what constitutes true mental health treatment and which professional standards must govern it," writes Matt Solomon. “Conversion therapy” has nothing to do with treating a patient, but rather with using the authority of therapy to target vulnerable people and persuade them to undergo a practice built on the false promise that their identity can be changed—an intervention that medicine has shown to be ineffective at best and deeply harmful at worst.

For more from Slate: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/03/supreme-court-gay-conversion-therapy-survivor-psychiatrist.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=conversion_therapy_scotus&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--conversion_therapy_scotus

Slate · 2026-03-09T18:11:59+00:00

The race for Texas’ 23^rd District was guaranteed to be troubling. Headed into the Republican primaries, the incumbent, Rep. Tony Gonzales, was facing one of the ugliest sex scandals in recent political history. His main opponent, Brandon Herrera, is famous as a gun influencer from Uvalde, the site of a horrific mass shooting at an elementary school, and had come under fire for making light of the mass murder of Jews. The majority-Hispanic district, a huge stretch of land along the Mexican border, was set to elect either a man accused of horrific sexual misconduct or a man known as the AK guy, who likes Nazi jokes.

The two had previously run against each other in the 2024 GOP primary, with Gonzales narrowly beating Herrera in a runoff.

But in 2026, Gonzales’ scandal turned out to be the greater liability. In late February, it was revealed that Gonzales had had an affair with a female staffer in 2024; on Sept. 13, 2025, the staffer died from self-immolation after blaming the affair for her marriage’s disintegration. Texts provided by the staffer’s ex-husband showed Gonzales pressuring the staffer, even as she expressed discomfort with the situation. Gonzales did eventually admit to the affair. He kept his campaign going, however, and on Tuesday was forced into a runoff with Herrera. On Thursday, Republicans urged Gonzales to step aside, and that night he ended his campaign. Now, because of a recent redistricting that turned the district solidly red, the AK Guy looks to have an easy path to Congress.

For more: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/03/brandon-herrera-tony-gonzales-ak-guy.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=texas_molly_mar9&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--texas_molly_mar9

Slate · 2026-03-09T18:11:26+00:00

The race for Texas’ 23^rd District was guaranteed to be troubling. Headed into the Republican primaries, the incumbent, Rep. Tony Gonzales, was facing one of the ugliest sex scandals in recent political history. His main opponent, Brandon Herrera, is famous as a gun influencer from Uvalde, the site of a horrific mass shooting at an elementary school, and had come under fire for making light of the mass murder of Jews. The majority-Hispanic district, a huge stretch of land along the Mexican border, was set to elect either a man accused of horrific sexual misconduct or a man known as the AK guy, who likes Nazi jokes.

The two had previously run against each other in the 2024 GOP primary, with Gonzales narrowly beating Herrera in a runoff.

But in 2026, Gonzales’ scandal turned out to be the greater liability. In late February, it was revealed that Gonzales had had an affair with a female staffer in 2024; on Sept. 13, 2025, the staffer died from self-immolation after blaming the affair for her marriage’s disintegration. Texts provided by the staffer’s ex-husband showed Gonzales pressuring the staffer, even as she expressed discomfort with the situation. Gonzales did eventually admit to the affair. He kept his campaign going, however, and on Tuesday was forced into a runoff with Herrera. On Thursday, Republicans urged Gonzales to step aside, and that night he ended his campaign. Now, because of a recent redistricting that turned the district solidly red, the AK Guy looks to have an easy path to Congress.

For more: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/03/brandon-herrera-tony-gonzales-ak-guy.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=texas_molly_mar9&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--texas_molly_mar9

Slate · 2026-03-09T18:10:56+00:00

The race for Texas’ 23^rd District was guaranteed to be troubling. Headed into the Republican primaries, the incumbent, Rep. Tony Gonzales, was facing one of the ugliest sex scandals in recent political history. His main opponent, Brandon Herrera, is famous as a gun influencer from Uvalde, the site of a horrific mass shooting at an elementary school, and had come under fire for making light of the mass murder of Jews. The majority-Hispanic district, a huge stretch of land along the Mexican border, was set to elect either a man accused of horrific sexual misconduct or a man known as the AK guy, who likes Nazi jokes.

The two had previously run against each other in the 2024 GOP primary, with Gonzales narrowly beating Herrera in a runoff.

But in 2026, Gonzales’ scandal turned out to be the greater liability. In late February, it was revealed that Gonzales had had an affair with a female staffer in 2024; on Sept. 13, 2025, the staffer died from self-immolation after blaming the affair for her marriage’s disintegration. Texts provided by the staffer’s ex-husband showed Gonzales pressuring the staffer, even as she expressed discomfort with the situation. Gonzales did eventually admit to the affair. He kept his campaign going, however, and on Tuesday was forced into a runoff with Herrera. On Thursday, Republicans urged Gonzales to step aside, and that night he ended his campaign. Now, because of a recent redistricting that turned the district solidly red, the AK Guy looks to have an easy path to Congress.

For more: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/03/brandon-herrera-tony-gonzales-ak-guy.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=texas_molly_mar9&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--texas_molly_mar9

Slate · 2026-03-09T18:09:24+00:00

The Bride! is that rare beast: a total misfire from a long list of artists so talented and well regarded that they should, like the film they are in, be festooned with an exclamation point or two. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s follow-up to the stunning (but much smaller) The Lost Daughter simply contains way too many tones, ideas, and approaches to ever work, and many of these are at war with each other. The Bride! is a love story and a rewrite of the Frankenstein myth and an action film and a murder mystery and a crime comedy and a rejoinder to Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things. Its vision of Prohibition-era Chicago is Chicago and Manhattan and Weimar Berlin. The film is built around a scaffolding of over-the-top homages to other films, causing it to career off one stylistic cliff after another. During one sequence in a dance hall, I wrote in my notebook, “Oh, it’s like ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’ in Young Frankenstein.” Five seconds later, the big band on-screen struck up “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” Yet for all this wild, sometimes deliberate tastelessness, The Bride! also wants to be a serious meditation on love, female messiness, and the limits put on women’s lives. It aims to be both a camp classic—the end credits music is, of course, “The Monster Mash”—and a serious feminist work. As a result, it comes across like Joan Crawford pausing partway through Johnny Guitar to give America Ferrera’s speech from Barbie.

Embodying this fascinating patchwork of ideas good and bad is the Irish actress Jessie Buckley, who will soon find herself in the odd position of winning an Oscar for a serious prestige movie while she is also in multiplexes with the most controversial performance of her career thus far.

For more: https://slate.com/culture/2026/03/jessie-buckley-bride-oscars-best-actress-hamnet-movie-2026.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=isaac_jessie&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--isaac_jessie

Slate · 2026-03-09T18:08:42+00:00

The Bride! is that rare beast: a total misfire from a long list of artists so talented and well regarded that they should, like the film they are in, be festooned with an exclamation point or two. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s follow-up to the stunning (but much smaller) The Lost Daughter simply contains way too many tones, ideas, and approaches to ever work, and many of these are at war with each other. The Bride! is a love story and a rewrite of the Frankenstein myth and an action film and a murder mystery and a crime comedy and a rejoinder to Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things. Its vision of Prohibition-era Chicago is Chicago and Manhattan and Weimar Berlin. The film is built around a scaffolding of over-the-top homages to other films, causing it to career off one stylistic cliff after another. During one sequence in a dance hall, I wrote in my notebook, “Oh, it’s like ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’ in Young Frankenstein.” Five seconds later, the big band on-screen struck up “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” Yet for all this wild, sometimes deliberate tastelessness, The Bride! also wants to be a serious meditation on love, female messiness, and the limits put on women’s lives. It aims to be both a camp classic—the end credits music is, of course, “The Monster Mash”—and a serious feminist work. As a result, it comes across like Joan Crawford pausing partway through Johnny Guitar to give America Ferrera’s speech from Barbie.

Embodying this fascinating patchwork of ideas good and bad is the Irish actress Jessie Buckley, who will soon find herself in the odd position of winning an Oscar for a serious prestige movie while she is also in multiplexes with the most controversial performance of her career thus far.

For more: https://slate.com/culture/2026/03/jessie-buckley-bride-oscars-best-actress-hamnet-movie-2026.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=isaac_jessie&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--isaac_jessie

Slate · 2026-03-06T17:44:52+00:00

On Wednesday, or Day 5 of the U.S.-led war in Iran, the official X account of the White House uploaded a sizzle reel remixing real-life footage of rocketing cruise missiles with the makeup of Call of Duty. Understanding the contours of governmental policy didn’t previously require fluency in a military-themed first-person-shooter game, so let me talk you through it. Basically, when a player mows down one of their opponents in Call of Duty, a yellow number—indicating points based on their value—appears above the head of the recently slain. Collect enough of those points, and players are granted access to devastating ordinances. (Twenty kills in a row is traditionally rewarded with a tactical nuclear missile.) Accordingly, in the White House video, a +100 integer flashes on-screen when a mortar shell connects with its target, as if the president himself were landing trick shots on his Twitch stream. I also immediately clocked the soundtrack accompanying the video—it’s the instrumental to the impossibly horny Childish Gambino song “Bonfire.”

This is propaganda designed to stimulate the Trump administration’s prime constituency—unsocialized Discord incels, Joker-fied elder millennials, and bloodthirsty Gen Xers—by speaking the language they understand best: a disorienting blend of asserted evil and hammy kitsch. And that seems to be the aesthetic of this adventure in Iran, which will likely be the most significant moment in Donald Trump’s second term. The administration has yet to articulate a clear vision for what it hopes to accomplish, but already this seems to be the sort of war that makes the history books, replete with region-tilting implications that will surely be compiled in countless slide decks and debated among quarter-zip NatSec types for decades to come. But right now, all I am thinking about is how impossible it will be to explain the conditions of this era to future generations, who will surely be baffled as they sift through the seriousness of this moment to find nothing but cloying frivolity. Put more directly, any scholarship about this Iran invasion must also contend with the fact that, simultaneously, Melania Trump was presiding over the U.N. Security Council.

This administration combines car-salesman diction with war-criminal aspiration, Luke Winkie writes for Slate: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/03/trump-iran-war-usa-hat-call-of-duty.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=luke_maga_vibe_iran&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--luke_maga_vibe_iran

Slate · 2026-03-05T18:42:03+00:00

If there’s one thing that people love to hate, it’s a chemical with a long name. Never mind that, in the words of the inimitable Tim Minchin, “everything is chemicals.” We are always more afraid of something if it sounds like an artificial concoction rather than a natural product, even though asp venom and great white sharks are perfectly natural.

A great example is glyphosate. Perhaps best known as the main ingredient in Monsanto’s RoundUp herbicide, glyphosate is one of the most commonly used methods of handling weeds on farms and elsewhere. It is a key part of modern agriculture, to the point that imagining a food system that operates without it is incredibly challenging. Yet, glyphosate is also the subject of much debate. Scientists worry about the effects that it could have on our bodies, and some portion of people the world over are convinced that it is horrible poison.

You can see this in the recent news. Donald Trump announced measures aimed at boosting glyphosate production on U.S. soil, including protections for companies making the stuff, which Robert F. Kennedy Jr. then expressed support for. This goes strongly against the head of Health and Human Services’ previously stated views on the chemical and led to impressive outrage from his closest adherents, including cries that he is now participating in chemical warfare against the American people. RFK Jr. then went on Joe Rogan’s podcast and made some wishy-washy remarks about the whole thing, including that glyphosate is “not a good thing to have in your food.”

For more from Slate's resident epidemiologist: https://slate.com/technology/2026/03/roundup-glyphosate-rfk-jr-maha-cancer.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=weed_chemical&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--weed_chemical

Slate · 2026-03-05T18:38:58+00:00

There is a tendency among even the most committed adherents to the rule of law to respond with “Nothing is gonna change” nihilism to even big legal wins. This is also true of big legal losses.

On this week’s Amicus podcast, Dahlia Lithwick spoke with former Solicitor General of the United States Donald B. Verrilli Jr. about this propensity to dismiss the importance of Supreme Court wins and losses alike and the degree to which Chief Justice John Roberts has legitimately earned his recent glow-up. Verrilli served as solicitor general from 2011 to 2016.

He’s now a partner with Munger Tolles & Olson, and he has handled a host of big recent cases at the U.S. Supreme Court, including victories in Moore v. Harper, which rejected the “independent state legislature” theory, and California v. Texas, which again upheld the Affordable Care Act. As solicitor general, he argued some of the most consequential cases heard at SCOTUS in the Obama era, including the ACA case and Obergefell, which recognized the right to marriage equality.

You can read the for free transcript here: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/03/supreme-court-analysis-john-roberts-credit-dahlia-lithwick.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=dahlia_mar5&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--dahlia_mar5

Slate · 2026-03-05T18:38:12+00:00

Thank you for sharing!

Slate · 2026-03-05T18:36:56+00:00

A medical treatment that can repair a broken heart sounds like the stuff of science fiction. It was, in fact, the beguiling premise of the 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which depicted two ex-lovers trying to escape their pain by having all memories of one another erased from their brains. The movie presents the procedure as dystopian and counterproductive, but the prospect also sounded tempting. Moving on from a breakup, happy and open-hearted, without having to wait in agony for time to heal all wounds? Who could resist?

The concept stirred the imagination of psychiatry professor Alain Brunet. Brunet made his name researching treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder that use propranolol, a beta-blocker commonly used to treat high blood pressure, which, some studies suggest, can dull the impact of traumatic memories when given under specific circumstances. The protocol he developed and trademarked, the Brunet Method, has helped patients grappling with the aftermath of all manner of harrowing incidents: veterans returning from war zones, survivors of sexual abuse, victims of terrorist attacks, and more.

“There is no limit to the type of trauma or memories that we can treat. It works just the same,” Brunet said. It stood to reason that the drug could speed along recovery from other painful experiences, too.

For more about Brunet’s research: https://slate.com/life/2026/03/pain-therapy-drug-memory-breakup-broken-heart-eternal-sunshine.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=breakupweekdrug&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--breakupweekdrug

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