Donald Trump Is Really Racking Up the Racists

Melissa Cronin · 02/27/16 10:14AM

Donald Trump’s army of racists grew by (at least) one on Friday, when noted bigot and Governor of Maine Paul LePage endorsed the presidential candidate.

Melissa Harris-Perry Blasts MSNBC Executives In Scathing Staff Memo

J.K. Trotter · 02/26/16 06:18PM

MSNBC host and Wake Forest professor Melissa Harris-Perry came out against her employer in a scathing staff-wide memo after the network repeatedly replaced her weeked morning show, Melissa-Harris Perry, with presidential campaign coverage—effectively leaving her without an outlet at the channel. In the memo, which was first reported by John Koblin of The New York Times and later published by a former staffer on Medium, Harris-Perry declared her refusal to host campaign coverage this weekend as a way of protesting MSNBC’s decision to leave her show hanging in limbo:

How Long Should a Story Be?

Tom Scocca · 02/26/16 05:45PM

Some articles should be short. Some articles should be long. No articles, as Vox and its SB Nation demonstrated, should be longform. Greg Howard’s postmortem of SB Nation’s “Who Is Daniel Holtzclaw?” debacle offers lots of insights into how a story can go wrong, but the most concise may be his reporting that a freelancer for SB Nation’s now-closed Longform section “said that per the terms of his contract, the story had to be at least 4,000 words long.”

Donald Trump Still Has a Horrible Excuse For Not Releasing His Tax Returns

Jordan Sargent · 02/26/16 05:05PM

Despite being the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump’s campaign is predicated on being non-traditional and non-presidential. So it’s perhaps no surprise that today he forcefully resisted a call to reveal any of his tax returns, which is a routine part of the election process.

Hamilton Nolan · 02/26/16 04:20PM

“A majority of New Yorkers who earn more than $100,000 a year feel they’re likely to be priced out of their neighborhood, according to a new poll.”

The Met Is Still Free

Sam Biddle · 02/26/16 04:13PM

The Wall Street Journal reports the end of a lawsuit against the Metropolitan Museum of Art—one of the greatest museums in the world, though still not as good as most museums in D.C.—that alleged admissions-price trickery. Now, the Met will use less misleading language about the price of entry, but the sign will still be wrong, because it costs $0.

Don't Give Up on PrEP

Rich Juzwiak · 02/26/16 03:42PM

A few people that I talked to yesterday, in the wake of the news of the first documented case of a supposed daily PrEP user who nonetheless contracted a strain of HIV with drug resistance, worried about an almost gleeful, “See, told ya so!” sentiment they were seeing in some gay men’s responses. At this point in my life, I am actively trying to avoid the unreasoned opinions of strangers, particularly when these opinions come with the smell of disregard for the community to which those who voice them belong (if not outright self-hatred). That’s to say that I didn’t really interact with any of that. But it is plausible that because PrEP is a discursive lightning rod, its detractors feel justified and some sense of happiness or pride over what many have taken to be solid evidence that PrEP is not 100 percent effective in eliminating HIV—something, by the way, that no expert I’ve ever read has ever attempted to argue. In fact, every doctor or researcher or activist or counselor that I’ve ever talked to has been extremely careful not to claim 100 percent PrEP efficacy.

Chris Hughes Sells The New Republic to Win McCormack

J.K. Trotter · 02/26/16 02:39PM

Multiple outlets are reporting that Chris Hughes has found a new owner for The New Republic: The Democratic fundraiser, Tin House publisher, and banking scion Win McCormack. The new owner, who is 71, told The Huffington Post that the deal would “preserv[e] the journal as an important voice in a new debate over how the basic principles of liberalism can be reworked to meet the equally demanding challenges of our era.”

How to Harass Union Members in Incredibly Petty Ways

Hamilton Nolan · 02/26/16 02:12PM

Some companies work well with their employees’ unions. Some companies tolerate them. And some companies—like TEGNA, the media company that used to be Gannett—seeks to find the most small-minded ways to make union members’ lives miserable.