Adam Walter

[Brandon Fuller @fuller_brandon]

San Francisco spent a decade without 8th-grade algebra. Boston spent five years without an entrance exam at its most competitive public schools. Both are now being rolled back.

The anti-merit experiment is ending the way failed experiments usually do: quietly, with no one taking responsibility. @ManhattanInst's @neetu_arnold tallies the damage in @CityJournal.

Those who dismantled merit-based schooling promised to close gaps. Instead, they deprived high achievers of instruction at their level and left struggling students no better off. Parents discovered their kids couldn't compete for college admission because their schools had gutted advanced coursework.

The receipts kept piling up. A 2022 study of Texas students found that grouping kids by achievement level lifted scores at the top without harming students at the bottom — and that the grouping was driven by test scores, not race or income.

Democratic pollsters underscored the verdict: their 2024 postmortem found that ending achievement-based grouping was the single most unpopular K–12 policy they tested at net -39.

Every kid deserves to be taught at the level they're ready for. That used to be uncontroversial. Thankfully, it's becoming uncontroversial again.

https://t.co/hoFiVJK8a9

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

Republican Rep. Kean voted against 40 hours of paid medical leave for workers, then took 4 months paid leave himself.

[Bill Kristol @BillKristol]

If DOD needs $80b to replenish stocks and pay for Trump’s unauthorized, unwise, and unsuccessful war, every cent should come out of the bloated appropriation for ICE and border patrol for Trump’s awful mass deportation project.

[Jamie Bonkiewicz @JamieBonkiewicz]

They’ve arrested more people for touching the peeling paint at the Reflecting Pool than they’ve arrested from the Epstein files.

[Jon Cooper 🇺🇸 @joncoopertweets]

Imagine Trump ever being invited to join a photo like this — not in a million years.

Four presidents. Zero drama. Just smiles, respect, and a shared love of country. 🇺🇸

[Epstein File Search @epsteinsearchin]

At least 40 minors gave sworn statements to the FBI that Jeffrey Epstein raped and trafficked them. The line prosecutor wrote an 82-page memo recommending charges.

Alex Acosta declined and signed a non-prosecution deal.

He was later confirmed as Labor Secretary.

[Rep. Mike Levin @RepMikeLevin]

There is no world in which this is okay.  

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito did not recuse himself from cases involving Trump’s Treasury Department while his own son was secretly working there as a political appointee and attorney. 

His son's employment was hidden so thoroughly that his name appears nowhere on the Treasury Department website, he has no public resume, and his bar listings are outdated. 

If Alito had recused himself, the secret would have come out. He didn’t recuse himself. 

This is a clear conflict of interest, and the American people deserved to know about it. 

The federal recusal standard is clear: a justice must step aside in any case where there is a reasonable basis to question whether he or she can be impartial. A justice ruling on cases involving the department where his son works fails that test. The Treasury Department sits at the center of some of the biggest legal fights of this administration, and challenges to Trump’s $1.776 billion January 6 slush fund could be headed to the Court next. 

The Supreme Court is the only court in America with no binding code of conduct. That is completely unacceptable, and it has to change NOW. 

Congress controls the Power of the Purse, and therefore the Court’s funding. If the Court will not adopt a binding code of conduct with real recusal review on their own, I support withholding their funding until they do. 
 https://t.co/FV2Tkpz7Dk

[David Frum @davidfrum]

I said on @MSNOW just now:

What *is* the Trump slush fund?

It's not an appropriation: Congress did not vote.

It's not a settlement: There was no valid litigation because (as the judge said) Trump was suing himself.

On what basis is this money leaving the Treasury?

[Tim Miller @Timodc]

You would think that Fox News and the Republican hawks would be concerned about a trio of Sharia Law Dictators paying off the president’s family and then dictating our national security decisions. Certainly seems like it merits investigation.

[Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @AdamKinzinger]

I simply could not imagine being in congress and staying silent as Trump builds a slush fund of $1.776 (cute right… 1776) billion dollar slush fund for insurrrectionists.

What are these people even there for?

History will be brutal to them. And their kids will be embarrassed

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

MIN: Do you know how much new energy China put online last year?

BURGUM: Intermittent or base load?

MIN: All energy. 543 GW. How much was renewable? 434 GW.

BURGUM: But only when the wind is blowing and sun is shining

MIN: Meanwhile, the US put up 53 GW of new energy last year -- less than 10% of China. You're clear bias against renewables is harming our national security.

[Joe Perticone @JoePerticone]

Mike Lee when Biden proposed a gas tax holiday in 2022.

[Wilson Ricks @wilson_ricks]

Seems to be flying enormously under the radar that Trump has banned wind power in the United States. A full 10% of our electricity. Just imagine if another administration did this extrajudicially to any other industry.

[Adam Walter @Adam_W5]

@BleacherNation Your website will not work for me at all. I am on a Chrome browser on a PC. I have to clear the internet cache each time I want to access your website. At some point it will no longer be worth the extra effort. I really love your site, but it needs to work on a regular basis.

[Mark Zandi @Markzandi]

We have a year’s worth of economic data since Liberation Day, when President Trump announced much higher tariffs on most imported goods and countries, and the data are definitive; the tariffs have done significant damage to the economy. Since that day, job growth has come to a standstill, with only the non-traded healthcare industry adding meaningfully to payrolls. Also, since that day, inflation has accelerated, with the consumer expenditure deflator increasing at a 3% year-over-year pace, up from 2.5% before the tariffs and well above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%. And the trend lines don’t look good, especially as the economic fallout from the Iran War hits with full force. The higher energy and other commodity prices caused by the war threaten to do even more economic damage than the tariffs, further undermining growth and pushing inflation higher. The U.S. economy is resilient, but just how resilient is set to be tested.

[CWBChicago @CWBChicago]

Judge John Lyke put suspected cop killer Alphonso Tally on an ankle monitor “over the state’s rigorous objection.”

He pointed to the SAFE-T Act.

“It appears his mind is finally developing," Lyke said. "He may be on the path to making better decisions."

https://t.co/rVJbuoKtTg

[Alex Cole @acnewsitics]

JD Vance compared Trump to Hitler.

[Rep. Mike Levin @RepMikeLevin]

This should be on the front page of every newspaper in America.

A Syrian billionaire needed U.S. sanctions lifted so he could cash in on $12 billion in reconstruction contracts.

In an attempt to influence American foreign policy, he proposed a Trump-branded golf course, cut Jared Kushner & Ivanka Trump into a multibillion-dollar real estate deal for a resort in Albania, and had someone physically deliver a stone engraved with the Trump family crest to a Republican Member of Congress with instructions to take it to the White House to get the President's attention.

Trump threw his weight behind repealing the sanctions. They were lifted. The contracts are moving, the Trump family’s deals are expanding, and not a single Washington Republican is willing to say a word about any of it.

This is a corruption of everything the office of the presidency is supposed to stand for, and the American people deserve to know about it.
https://t.co/A4lQE3ktoG

[Adam Walter @Adam_W5]

@mikeywoj In April!