That’s the first question on today’s solo “To the Contrary” podcast. I try to break down why Donald Trump is fumbling the Epstein scandal — and why his attempted cover-up is only making the story bigger. In this Q&A episode, I tackle subscriber questions on everything from GOP fractures to the role of the military, free speech, pardons, and the future of accountability.
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In May, just after the pope’s election, I wrote that the most important American in the world was no longer named Donald Trump. The president has less than four years left at the center of the international stage. The pope will present a global moral witness for years to come, and it’s a moral witness that is fundamentally incompatible with the cruelty and corruption of Trumpism.
If you examine the new pope’s pronouncements, there is a consistent through line. He defends human dignity and condemns government brutality. In addition to his defense of the human rights of migrants, he’s decried Russian abuses in Ukraine, and he’s called for a cease-fire, hostage release and compliance with international humanitarian law in Gaza.
Each of the pope’s statements are part of a consistent ethic of life….
Trump’s check distribution plan would require $218.6 billion to cover those earning less than $75,000, or $301.8 billion for those earning less than $200,000. The U.S. median income in 2024, by the way, was about $84,000. That suggests that the “low and middle income” line might be drawn at about $100,000 in income, requiring $249 billion — far more than has been taken in and almost all of what might be received by year’s end.
The decline in test scores started well before the pandemic, around 2012. One obvious culprit is smartphones, which became popular just as test scores started to decline. Since 2017, I’ve been doing research on what smartphones do to our mental health, and I recently started to study how they affect academic performance. The negative impact of smartphones on learning is one reason many school districts have instituted a bell-to-bell ban on smartphones in K-12 education, including all public schools in New York State, which also banned students’ personal laptops, tablets and smart watches.
That’s progress, especially when 83 percent of K-12 teachers surveyed by one major union think that smartphone bans are a good idea.
But they are not a complete solution, because phones are not the only electronic devices students use at school. These days, nearly every middle and high school student — and a good number in the elementary grades as well — brings a laptop or tablet to school and uses it at home for homework.
Many of these devices are provided by schools. You might think that these school-issued devices allow only a limited number of functions, like access to classroom Canvas pages and Google Docs. If you assumed that, you would be wrong.
