David Maraniss
@davidmaraniss.bsky.social
Biographer, historian, journalist, professor, grandfather, Detroit born, DC and Madison based. Believer in Smokey Robinson, George Orwell, democracy, freedom of the press,Jim Thorpe, Roberto Clemente. and the Green Bay Packers.
Tim Bakken, West Point's longest-serving law professor, says officials never tried to silence him — until Trump’s second presidency, when the military academy revised its faculty speech rules. In September, he sued West Point in federal court.
After Trump’s order, West Point curbed faculty speech. One professor said no.
Tim Bakken argues that the Pentagon's attempt to stifle what teachers can say and write makes the military more susceptible to bad decisions.
washingtonpost.com
It pisses me off that so many journalists demeaned themselves by attending the Trump dinner tonight. This was not a celebration of press freedom. It was delusional.
Agree 100 percent. It's Bezos. Not the pro reporters doing their best.
Sally Jenkins@sallyjenx.bsky.social · 3mo agoBezos has yet to make a single good decision for th Washpost. His hires are uniformly awful. The paper's AI is a joke. He's killed revenue, invited a huge realm of gleeful competitors into its turf. He's the Dan Snyder of news org owners - an incompetent amateur without the grace to admit it.
The lack of discipline has been Bezos's - he mistook his mailman money for expertise, and now he's shifting blame for his mishandling of the paper on to ...reporters?? He has his damn nerve. He should fire himself. Go back to reading Isaac Asimov and sell to a professional publisher.
No one at the Washpost wanted Bezos' philanthropy. The staff is one of the most competitive rooms in the world. What they asked for was a winning STRATEGY, which he has been utterly ignorantly abysmally incapable of providing -- out of pure lack of applying himself and disinterest.
All of this Christian nationalism so dangerous and yet my first thought: who's that unseen creep despoiling my Brewers with that logo jersey on the edge of the photo of the odiously oily Mike Johnson?
The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com · 3mo agoDuring “Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving,” attendees raised hands in praise. The event, supported with millions of dollars in public funding, featured Christian clergy, music and appearances by government officials. https://wapo.st/4ds8xqe
"The world's richest men are crushing the world's poorest children." Plaudits to @nickkristof.bsky.social for stating plainly what's happening. We live in ugly times. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/09/o...
Opinion | This Is What Happened When Trump Abandoned the World’s Poorest Children
nytimes.com
There is no excuse for downplaying or eliding the insanity of Trump’s morning post. It is the most unhinged public comment by a president in US history and should be reported and remarked upon as such.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 4mo agotextbook sanewashing
Every Republican member of Congress is complicit in this demented mania.
George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸@gtconway.bsky.social · 4mo ago
I forgot that the U.S. won the Vietnam war.
David Corn@davidcorn.bsky.social · 4mo agoThe stupid hurts.
When Trump in 2016 first told the lie about once meeting Lombardi, I established then that it was bullshit. It was an apocryphal story. Though minus the usual telltale "Sir..." It was also a gross mischaracterization of Lombardi, whose ethos was the opposite of Trump's.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 4mo agoTrump: "I find that people that win, it's much easier to lead when you're successful. Vince Lombardi was a very tough person. He was a violent guy, actually. I knew him. But he won and he got away with things because he won."
On March 26, 1944, twelve-time Grammy and Oscar-nominated singer, actress and producer Diana Ross was born in Detroit. Ross has had a total of 18 #1 hits in the U.S. Learn more: www.detroithistorical.org/learn/online...
As if there weren't ample evidence already, Trump's response to Robert Mueller's death is a reminder that the U.S. president is one of the most vile humans on planet Earth.
Wisconsin just got outcoached and outshot. They weren't lumbering or slow at all. That's an old stereotype that no longer applies. Nick Boyd is one of the fastest guards in the country. The team scored over 90 points many times.
Sally Jenkins@sallyjenx.bsky.social · 5mo agoThe lumbering slow footed Big Ten tricks me every year. EVERY year I fall for it.
On April 20, we'll be in Washington, DC, to celebrate the winners of the 2026 Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics. Join us in honoring Shadid's legacy and hear from @jeffreygoldberg.bsky.social in conversation w/ @davidmaraniss.bsky.social. More info here: ethics.sjmc.wisc.edu/2026-shadid-...
Data only tells you what people already read. It can’t tell you what they will read. It inevitably narrows and homogenizes your content. This killed Sports Illustrated. I’m watching the identical stupidity syndrome at the Washpost
Red@redpainter1.bsky.social · 5mo agoThat KPI/metric language is never good. No I would not stay.
This is a good but incomplete story. First, top editor and publisher ORDERED fewer stories -- insistently. Productivity didn't fall. Second, there is a wave of chaos, backpedaling in newsroom from absurd "data" math that is already seen as terrible miscalculation. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/14/b...
How Jeff Bezos Upended The Washington Post
nytimes.com
The nation is run by corrupt fascists and all The Washington Post editorial editors care about is protecting the advantages of the wealthy. Boring, sloppily written odes to the "free markets" day after day. It is impossible to overstate how much I detest this.
There is nothing in this world quite like @sallyjenx.bsky.social when she is rightfully pissed. Danny Snyder learned this. The boys clubs of the NCAA and IOC learned this. The golfers of bloody LIV learned this. And now she's full on ripping the cruel and stupid ownership/management of the Post.
Sally Jenkins@sallyjenx.bsky.social · 5mo agoIt's also insulting to the reader. They are supposed to pay same price for Associated Press stories and stringers? Bezos supposedly is all about the customer. In this case he's screwing them and treating them like saps and marks. Or Matt Murray is, on his behalf.
www.nybooks.com/articles/202... Our former managing editor smacks winning grand slam against former team's odious management.
Post Mortem | Robert G. Kaiser
When Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post in 2013 and promised to find inventive ways to make journalism profitable in the digital age, he seemed like a godsend. He wasn’t.
nybooks.com
But no self respecting journalist should.
The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com · 5mo agoPresident Trump will attend the White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual dinner for his first time in office, ending a boycott over the gathering of journalists he has repeatedly derided as unfair and biased against him.
And it is what LBJ asked his war cabinet on October 17 1967 as the 2/28 Battalion of the First Infantry was marching into a brutal ambush in the jungle 44 miles northwest of Saigon. 60 soldiers died in that battle. Tens of thousands more deaths would follow.
James Fallows@jfallows.bsky.social · 5mo ago"Tell me how this ends...." —What Ike asked about Laos, Suez —What JFK was reportedly ready to ask about US troops in Indochina —What GWHBush asked, in deciding to limit Gulf War to Kuwait —What GWBush did *not* ask, when going into Iraq —What seems not to have occurred to Trump, Hegseth et al
New Washington Post editorial page motto: comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted.
Is anyone -- besides Bezos and maybe scattered right-wingers -- reading Washpost editorials? They get worse by the day. Boring, predictable odes to the wealthy class, far worse than the Wall St. Journal.
Invaluable. Thank you Nicole. @pastpunditry.bsky.social
Nicole Hemmer@pastpunditry.bsky.social · 6mo agoOver three years, we recorded interviews with more than 450 officials, organizers, activists, and extraordinary people from all walks of life to put together the most expansive presidential oral history in existence. The Obama Presidency Oral History is now live!! obamaoralhistory.columbia.edu
As the Rev. Billy Kyles told me in 1988, "If King was Moses, Jesse is Joshua. He stands on King's shoulders. Whoever comes after Jesse will stand on his shoulders."
Adam Serwer@adamserwer.bsky.social · 6mo agoThere’s no President Barack Obama without Jesse Jackson. It just doesn’t happen.
Jesse Jackson sang the body electric. He was part Walt Whitman, part John Coltrane.
