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"Luke Ford reports all of the 'juicy' quotes, and has been doing it for years." (Marc B. Shapiro)
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff) LATEST POSTS:
- Dennis Prager v Cedars-Sinai Lawsuit
- Dennis Prager Through Randall Collins: Interaction Ritual Chains
- What is a ‘Received Idea’?
- Jordan Bardella: The Manufacture of Normality
- Everyone Became Television: Bourdieu’s Warning and the 2026 Iran War
- Marine Le Pen
- The Coalition-Proximity Rule
- Nigel Farage
- Bernard Haykel: A Life Between the Text and the Gun
- Walker Connor (1926-2017)
- Benedict Anderson and the Nation as Imagination
- Anthony D. Smith: The Student Who Kept the Question and Rejected the Answer
- Ernest Gellner
- Eric Kaufmann: The Man Who Made the Majority Visible
- Dominic Cummings: A Biography
- Steve Lopez: The Last City Columnist
- California Historian Kevin Starr
- Stephen Kotkin: A Life in Power
- William T. Vollmann: An American Life in Excess
- Rod Dreher: A Life in Exile
BEST POSTS:
- * The Enlightenment Wasn’t Enlightened (6-23-26)
* Mr. Burge Draws The Line (6-23-26)
* 'Improving on Democracy' (6-17-26)
* People Leak To People Who Are Fun (6-11-26)
* Why Does Australia Produce So Many Great Journalists? (6-11-26)
* Steve Wynn and the Press: Power, Litigation, and the Contest Over Las Vegas (6-3-26)
* Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists (6-3-26)
* The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility (6-2-26)
* The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth (6-2-26)
* Show Me How It Travels (6-2-26)
* The Norm Explainers (6-2-26)
* Centering Marginalized Voices (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Washington Post put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Financial Times put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for the Los Angeles Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for The New York Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* Why Wembanyama Lives on the Perimeter (5-31-26)
* The Emotional Palettes Of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco & Sacramento (5-27-26)
* The Administrative Capital: Sacramento Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* San Diego - The Quiet Republic (5-27-26)
* The Quiet Bar: San Diego Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* SF v LA Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* Why Talent Travels Poorly Between San Francisco and Los Angeles (5-27-26)
* San Francisco and Los Angeles as Rival Models of Urban Access (5-27-26)
* Social Cliques in New York, 2026 (5-25-26)
* Social Cliques in San Francisco, 2026 (5-25-26)
* The Rival Courts of Washington (5-25-26)
* The City of Private Rooms (5-25-26)
Category Archives: Pundits
The Sean Hannity Show
Sean Hannity (b. 1961) speaks fast and loud. His voice sits in a bright mid-range tenor, a little nasal, with the flattened vowels of Long Island still in it. On radio he runs hot and quick. On the television monologue … Continue reading
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The Pundit and the Paycheck
The media system in America does not primarily sell news. It sells authority. Once that distinction becomes clear, cases like Garrett Ventry stop looking like scandals and start looking like normal operations. Ventry worked as a regular pundit on NBC … Continue reading
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High-Brow New York Times Op/Ed By Iran Expert Destroyed By Reality
Eyal Yakoby posts: “BREAKING: Mojtaba Khamenei was reportedly severely injured, one of his legs has been amputated, and he may not even be aware that he is the Supreme Leader.” I spent my weekend reading the 2025 book “Iran’s Grand … Continue reading
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Decoding Jack Keane
Jack Keane sits in the hawkish national security alliance. Military leadership. Defense intellectuals. Fox News tier media. Republican foreign policy elites. Parts of the pro Israel ecosystem. Defense industry adjacency. His credibility rests on three pillars. Combat proximity. Institutional rank. … Continue reading
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Why Are The High Status Pundits So Pained?
Why is tragic and pained such an essential part of the high status commentator? Do consumers of this punditry ever tire of this pain and tragic performance? Why do the high status need to pretend to care about the pain … Continue reading
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How Do You Build A Career As A Right-Wing Pundit?
ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory would say that making a living as a right-wing pundit is not mainly about being correct, original, or even persuasive. It is about finding and occupying a valuable alliance niche in a polarized coalition and then … Continue reading
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The Porous Appeal: Why Institutions Misread Mike Benz
Mike Benz sits in a contested zone. The establishment sees him as a threat or at least a vector of narratives that need explaining or de-escalating. To understand the appeal of Mike Benz—and the fierce polarization he generates—one must look … Continue reading
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Winning The Opinion Game
David Pinsof writes: We’re a judgy species. We’re constantly judging each other for every little thing we do. And we deny that we’re doing this, because one of the things we get judged for, ironically, is being judgy. And we … Continue reading
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Ira Israel: Could Enlightenment Mean Accepting Our Own Insignificance?
I’ve spent my life chasing distinction instead of connection. When I change this habit and spend more energy on connection instead of attention, I not only increase my happiness, I also become more effective. We can’t always win in the … Continue reading
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Decoding The Pundits
The hosts of the podcast Decoding the Gurus developed the Gurometer, which is “not a scientific instrument, not a psychometric scale, not a revolutionary theory.” Rather, it’s a fun analysis developed by psychologist Matt Browne and cognitive anthropologist Chris Kavanagh. … Continue reading