From a piece by one of the New York Times' newest op-ed columnists, Farhad Manjoo:

where progressives argue for openness and inclusion as a cudgel against President Trump, they abandon it on Nob Hill and in Beverly Hills....

Reading opposition to SB 50 and other efforts at increasing density, I'm struck by an unsettling thought: What Republicans want to do with I.C.E. and border walls, wealthy progressive Democrats are doing with zoning and Nimbyism. Preserving "local character," maintaining "local control," keeping housing scarce and inaccessible — the goals of both sides are really the same: to keep people out.

The effect of regulation on housing affordability has been a long-running theme around here.

My column this week begins:

Give the New York Times credit for publishing, over the weekend, a long investigative piece about the strange enthusiasm of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders for the communist strongman Daniel Ortega, who ruled Nicaragua in the 1980s and is in power there again today.

It bears remembering, though, that the group of Democratic presidential candidates who might be described as Ortega groupies extends well beyond the self-described socialist senator from Vermont.

Please check out the full column at the New York Sun (here), Newsmax (here), and Reason (here).

The former CEO of Dow Jones, Warren Phillips, and an author of the "Broken Windows" article about policing, George Kelling, both died recently. They were both my teachers at Harvard, which gave me an opening to write about them in that context for Education Next. Please check out the full article at Education Next here.

Vice President Biden's presidential campaign has echoes of Donald Trump's, I write in my column this week after watching Biden campaign in the Granite State. Please check out the full column at the New York Sun (here), Reason (here), and Newsmax (here).

I also wrote a couple of pieces about Biden for Education Next (here and here), focusing on his plan for "free" community college and the ideas that he and Senator Kamala Harris have to combat school shootings.

Perhaps the biggest compliment to Trump's foreign policy is that in an economy with the lowest unemployment in 50 years, 3.2% GDP growth, and stable prices, his political opponents largely want to make the 2020 election about domestic issues, I write in my column this week. Please check the full column out at the New York Sun (here), Newsmax (here), and Reason (here).

Polls that show Biden or Sanders beating Trump are underestimating the president's chances of reelection, I write in my column this week. Please check out the full column at Reason (here), the New York Sun (here), and Newsmax (here).

Political risk associated with the 2020 presidential election is the topic of my column this week: "The bigger concern is the chance that a Democrat will spook the stock markets by appearing likely to defeat President Trump. In a worst-case scenario for Mr. Trump, this could even be a self-fulfilling prophecy: the stock market declines in anticipation of his potentially losing, and the decline then undercuts one of Mr. Trump's best reelection selling points, the strong economy." Please read the whole thing at the New York Sun (here), Reason (here), and Newsmax (here).

The federal criminal charges facing President Obama's White House counsel, Greg Craig, are the topic of my column this week. Please check out the full column at the New York Sun (here), Newsmax (here), and Reason (here).

Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana and his presidential campaign, which I got a chance to see in action earlier this month, were the subjects of my column last week. Please check the full column out at the New York Sun (here), Newsmax (here), and Reason (here). I also wrote about Buttigieg's education policy for Education Next; you can read that piece here.

The upcoming election in Israel — and its potential similarity to next year's presidential election in the United States — is the the topic of my column this week. Please check out the full column at the New York Sun (here) and Newsmax (here).

In honor of opening day of baseball season, here is a picture from the Library of Congress exhibit "Baseball Americana." The exhibit, I was delighted to discover, quotes a column I wrote in July 2013. If you happen to be in Washington and have any interest in the national pastime, I highly recommend a visit to this exhibit.

Teacher pay is emerging as an issue in the presidential campaign, I write in my latest column for Education Next. Please check out the full article on the Education Next website here.

The presidential campaign of Beto O'Rourke is the topic of my column this week. I trailed him for a day in New Hampshire. Please check out the full column at the New York Sun (here), Reason (here), and Newsmax (here).

Lots of startups are trying to solve the problem of low-quality news with some sort of ranking or rating or review system. One new one, called Credder, is the subject of a piece in the Monday Note. Credder rates or reviews individual articles, rather than publications or journalists. Execution is a challenge in this space, as I learned myself. But it's nice to see people recognizing this as a problem to be addressed.

Education Next, an education policy journal for which I have been doing some work, has published a column I wrote under the headline, "A Teacher Strike Even Conservatives Can Support." Please check out the full column here.