Naomi Schalit
@democracyeditor.bsky.social
Politics and Legal Affairs Editor @us.theconversation.com; co-founder w/hubby John Christie of The Maine Monitor. Family of journos & writers. We proofread menus.
This is simultaneously the most eye-opening, slightly-scary-if-you're-in-the-news-business and entertaining thing I've read about AI ever anchoragepress.com/this-ai-agen...
This AI agent has written thousands of Alaska news articles. We interviewed it.
The AI behind AlaskaNews.com cracks jokes and acknowledges a “trust burden.”
anchoragepress.com
September 17, 2026 at 8:15 PM
This is simultaneously the most eye-opening, slightly-scary-if-you're-in-the-news-business and entertaining thing I've read about AI ever anchoragepress.com/this-ai-agen...
SCOTUS has a huge decision in front of it, in the mail voting case that could disenfranchise a lot of voters. I asked former federal judge John Jones the kind of annoying reporter question I never ask, but which seemed OK to ask in this context @us.theconversation.com youtube.com/shorts/SxWim...
How important is SCOTUS vote-by-mail decision?
YouTube video by The Conversation U.S.
youtube.com
September 11, 2026 at 2:12 PM
SCOTUS has a huge decision in front of it, in the mail voting case that could disenfranchise a lot of voters. I asked former federal judge John Jones the kind of annoying reporter question I never ask, but which seemed OK to ask in this context @us.theconversation.com youtube.com/shorts/SxWim...
I asked former fed'l judge John Jones where he'd put the mail voting case at SCOTUS on a 1-10 scale of importance: "Ultimately, the decision in this case is at least a 9, if not a 10," he said. "It has the potential, if decided in a certain way...." 1/2 theconversation.com/supreme-cour...
Supreme Court to decide on whether Trump’s voting-by-mail rules can go into effect – but might not rule yet on whether they’re constitutional
How will the Supreme Court justices approach the vote-by-mail case that concerns the most fundamental right in a democracy, the right to vote? A former federal judge weighs in on their task.
theconversation.com
September 9, 2026 at 1:58 PM
I asked former fed'l judge John Jones where he'd put the mail voting case at SCOTUS on a 1-10 scale of importance: "Ultimately, the decision in this case is at least a 9, if not a 10," he said. "It has the potential, if decided in a certain way...." 1/2 theconversation.com/supreme-cour...
If the Ds win the House, depending on the size of their majority, "the DSA-affiliated lawmakers’ reach and power, despite their small numbers, could extend beyond elections and deep into the process of legislating," write SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor & @charlesrhunt.com theconversation.com/from-the-fre...
From the Freedom Caucus to the democratic socialists, small groups inside parties can wreak havoc with leaders’ agenda in Congress
What role might DSA-affiliated candidates play if they win election to Congress in the midterms and the Democrats gain a majority in the House of Representatives?
theconversation.com
September 3, 2026 at 12:43 PM
If the Ds win the House, depending on the size of their majority, "the DSA-affiliated lawmakers’ reach and power, despite their small numbers, could extend beyond elections and deep into the process of legislating," write SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor & @charlesrhunt.com theconversation.com/from-the-fre...
TFW when your kid restarts an alt-weekly...in PRINT: anchoragepress.com. Huge mazel tov to Nat Herz and Veri di Suvero for bringing back a beloved Alaska paper -- I only wish I could get in my trusty VW and deliver copies for you to subscribers' homes
September 2, 2026 at 8:53 PM
TFW when your kid restarts an alt-weekly...in PRINT: anchoragepress.com. Huge mazel tov to Nat Herz and Veri di Suvero for bringing back a beloved Alaska paper -- I only wish I could get in my trusty VW and deliver copies for you to subscribers' homes
Post SPLC indictments, crucial questions from @aperliger.bsky.social about the ethics of extremism research: When is it legitimate to cultivate, and pay, insider sources in violent movements? theconversation.com/indictments-...
Indictments against a top extremism researcher and the SPLC force a reckoning on research ethics – an extremism scholar reflects on the field’s challenges
Indictments of a longtime extremism researcher and her former organization raise a crucial question for researchers in the field: What are the ethical limits on research about often-dangerous groups?
theconversation.com
August 31, 2026 at 5:21 PM
Post SPLC indictments, crucial questions from @aperliger.bsky.social about the ethics of extremism research: When is it legitimate to cultivate, and pay, insider sources in violent movements? theconversation.com/indictments-...
Election officials and voters face confusion and uncertainty over the ability to carry out mail voting in the midterm elections youtube.com/shorts/oWIaH...
SCOTUS mail-in voting ruling adds doubt
YouTube video by The Conversation U.S.
youtube.com
August 26, 2026 at 2:55 PM
Election officials and voters face confusion and uncertainty over the ability to carry out mail voting in the midterm elections youtube.com/shorts/oWIaH...
Having trouble understanding what the SCOTUS ruling on Trump's mail voting EO means? I asked election law scholar John Martin at Quinnipiac to explain it all -- bottom line, it's procedural, but SCOTUS will have to deal with the substance eventually theconversation.com/narrow-mail-...
Narrow mail-in voting ruling by Supreme Court adds uncertainty to midterm elections without addressing constitutionality of Trump’s executive order
Will an Aug. 24, 2026, Supreme Court decision lead to chaos in the midterm elections? An election law scholar dissects the decision, its background and possible effects.
theconversation.com
August 25, 2026 at 5:56 PM
Having trouble understanding what the SCOTUS ruling on Trump's mail voting EO means? I asked election law scholar John Martin at Quinnipiac to explain it all -- bottom line, it's procedural, but SCOTUS will have to deal with the substance eventually theconversation.com/narrow-mail-...
It's not just governors, state legislators, local officials & reps to Congress who will be on the ballot this fall; "voters in almost every state this year will have the opportunity to amend the language of their state constitution," writes @yeargain.bsky.social theconversation.com/how-state-co...
How state constitutions became the battleground for American rights and liberties – on both the left and right
State constitutions play a growing role in American politics. But turning to such documents to recognize rights and liberties is not a new project – nor is it an entirely liberal one.
theconversation.com
August 11, 2026 at 6:49 PM
It's not just governors, state legislators, local officials & reps to Congress who will be on the ballot this fall; "voters in almost every state this year will have the opportunity to amend the language of their state constitution," writes @yeargain.bsky.social theconversation.com/how-state-co...
Today’s reminder, from a NYTimes headline, that the world has definitely changed since I watched Geraldine Ferraro stand in front of the crowd at the Moscone Center during the 1984 Democratic convention and drive them wild by simply saying “My name is Geraldine Ferraro.”
August 9, 2026 at 11:53 PM
Today’s reminder, from a NYTimes headline, that the world has definitely changed since I watched Geraldine Ferraro stand in front of the crowd at the Moscone Center during the 1984 Democratic convention and drive them wild by simply saying “My name is Geraldine Ferraro.”
"Working-class voters have a worldview. For 50 years, it has been growing less compatible with the Democratic Party’s – not because working-class voters changed, but because Democrats did," writes Nick Jacobs theconversation.com/democrats-ha...
Democrats have a working-class voter problem that progressives like Abdul El-Sayed are still struggling to solve
Class-war rhetoric from Democratic candidates jams working-class voters into a prefabricated progressive agenda, an expert on rural and working-class communities argues.
theconversation.com
August 7, 2026 at 3:40 PM
"Working-class voters have a worldview. For 50 years, it has been growing less compatible with the Democratic Party’s – not because working-class voters changed, but because Democrats did," writes Nick Jacobs theconversation.com/democrats-ha...
White parents telling their children 'race does not matter' imply racism does not exist. Their children may not "understand how their own life chances are shaped by the same racist forces that limit opportunities for others" writes @insurgentprof.bsky.social theconversation.com/white-parent...
White parents who tell their kids that race doesn’t matter are ignoring the long shadow of racism
18-year old Nolan Wells’ death in Mississippi has raised again the importance of ‘the talk’ that Black parents have with their children. But what do white parents tell their kids about race?
theconversation.com
August 5, 2026 at 3:57 PM
White parents telling their children 'race does not matter' imply racism does not exist. Their children may not "understand how their own life chances are shaped by the same racist forces that limit opportunities for others" writes @insurgentprof.bsky.social theconversation.com/white-parent...
Thanks to John King, I can finally pronounce Hamtramck
August 5, 2026 at 1:10 AM
Thanks to John King, I can finally pronounce Hamtramck
Trump asked SCOTUS to let him implement his lower-court blocked executive order limiting mail-in voting. Here, former federal judge John Jones, now Dickinson College's president, discusses how the order aimed to wrest control of mail-in voting from states &... theconversation.com/mail-in-voti... 1/5
Mail-in voting: Trump administration appeals to Supreme Court to revive executive order setting limits, rejected by lower courts
The U.S. Constitution gives states control of elections. An executive order by President Donald Trump aims to take away that control and limit mail-in voting. The Supreme Court will now weigh in.
theconversation.com
July 28, 2026 at 4:30 PM
Trump asked SCOTUS to let him implement his lower-court blocked executive order limiting mail-in voting. Here, former federal judge John Jones, now Dickinson College's president, discusses how the order aimed to wrest control of mail-in voting from states &... theconversation.com/mail-in-voti... 1/5
Reposted by Naomi Schalit
"I very much doubt a majority of the high court will want to wade into this controversy," Dickinson President and former federal judge John E. Jones III tells @democracyeditor.bsky.social in this updated interview for @theconversation.com dson.co/4xbBLSE
Mail-in voting: Trump administration appeals to Supreme Court to revive executive order setting limits, rejected by lower courts
The U.S. Constitution gives states control of elections. An executive order by President Donald Trump aims to take away that control and limit mail-in voting. The Supreme Court will now weigh in.
dson.co
July 28, 2026 at 3:51 PM
"I very much doubt a majority of the high court will want to wade into this controversy," Dickinson President and former federal judge John E. Jones III tells @democracyeditor.bsky.social in this updated interview for @theconversation.com dson.co/4xbBLSE
It's at least the 2nd time a NYTimes writer has called Troy Jackson a "lumberjack" www.nytimes.com/2026/07/27/u.... Today it was Jess Bidgood. Paul Bunyan was a lumberjack. Troy Jackson is a logger, not a mythic character out of folktales and children's books - national media, please take note!
July 27, 2026 at 10:11 PM
It's at least the 2nd time a NYTimes writer has called Troy Jackson a "lumberjack" www.nytimes.com/2026/07/27/u.... Today it was Jess Bidgood. Paul Bunyan was a lumberjack. Troy Jackson is a logger, not a mythic character out of folktales and children's books - national media, please take note!
Trump's new Air Force One is mired in controversy. Historian Peter Kastor says it's important to get past the politics and see that "the presidency as we know it would have been impossible without Air Force One, which has shaped and defined that role for decades" theconversation.com/air-force-on...
Air Force One is more than transportation – it has defined how presidents run the country and meet the world
Air Force One shouldn’t be seen as only a cool piece of flying technology or a political flash point. Instead, writes a historian, the presidential plane has shaped and defined the modern presidency.
theconversation.com
July 27, 2026 at 2:11 PM
Trump's new Air Force One is mired in controversy. Historian Peter Kastor says it's important to get past the politics and see that "the presidency as we know it would have been impossible without Air Force One, which has shaped and defined that role for decades" theconversation.com/air-force-on...
In his NYT op-ed, @mattyglesias.bsky.social calls Maine's Troy Jackson a "lumberjack." Come on, Maine's not a children's book and Jackson isn't a figure out of a Monty Python ditty (youtu.be/B6mzobwTYyo?...), he's a LOGGER
July 21, 2026 at 1:29 PM
In his NYT op-ed, @mattyglesias.bsky.social calls Maine's Troy Jackson a "lumberjack." Come on, Maine's not a children's book and Jackson isn't a figure out of a Monty Python ditty (youtu.be/B6mzobwTYyo?...), he's a LOGGER
A presidential national security directive is the legal engine behind terrorism prosecutions against left-wing protesters, writes @mindyhaas.bsky.social, who says the directive "reorients the machinery of national security toward the policing of belief" theconversation.com/the-trump-ad...
The Trump administration’s global campaign against ‘radical left terrorism’ is built on a national security memo without congressional approval
Almost a year after President Trump authorized preemptive law enforcement measures based on political or ideological beliefs, a wave of terrorism prosecutions against left-wing protesters has begun.
theconversation.com
July 17, 2026 at 9:38 PM
A presidential national security directive is the legal engine behind terrorism prosecutions against left-wing protesters, writes @mindyhaas.bsky.social, who says the directive "reorients the machinery of national security toward the policing of belief" theconversation.com/the-trump-ad...
The Declaration was made -- and then a government had to be designed for the new country that took account of the inherent flaws of human nature, writes Donovan Fifield @sc.edu theconversation.com/after-1776-t...
After 1776, the founders designed a government that accounts for ‘a degree of depravity in mankind’
After the colonists declared their independence, designing a government was next. Three of the founding generation said the new government needed to account for the flaws in human nature.
theconversation.com
July 17, 2026 at 5:09 PM
The Declaration was made -- and then a government had to be designed for the new country that took account of the inherent flaws of human nature, writes Donovan Fifield @sc.edu theconversation.com/after-1776-t...
Reposted by Naomi Schalit
Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner from Maine dropped out of the race following allegations of sexual assault, which he has denied.
As his campaign unraveled, our politics editor spoke with Colby College political scientist Nicholas Jacobs, who had interviewed Platner during his campaign.
As his campaign unraveled, our politics editor spoke with Colby College political scientist Nicholas Jacobs, who had interviewed Platner during his campaign.
July 10, 2026 at 4:29 AM
Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner from Maine dropped out of the race following allegations of sexual assault, which he has denied.
As his campaign unraveled, our politics editor spoke with Colby College political scientist Nicholas Jacobs, who had interviewed Platner during his campaign.
As his campaign unraveled, our politics editor spoke with Colby College political scientist Nicholas Jacobs, who had interviewed Platner during his campaign.
In which Graham Platner tells Colby College's Nick Jacobs that the only reason he ran as a Democrat "is to get access to Act Blue, so I can raise money” theconversation.com/graham-platn....
Graham Platner’s campaign implosion highlights the hollowness of America’s political parties and how they can be hijacked by insurgents
Graham Platner’s Senate campaign has imploded amid credible accusations of rape. A Maine political scientist looks at what happened and how the populist Platner resembles Donald Trump in key ways.
theconversation.com
July 8, 2026 at 10:21 PM
In which Graham Platner tells Colby College's Nick Jacobs that the only reason he ran as a Democrat "is to get access to Act Blue, so I can raise money” theconversation.com/graham-platn....
From my interview today w/Colby prof Nick Jacobs: "I sat down with Platner in October 2025. I asked him, “Well, why are you wearing the Scarlet D – for Democrat – around your neck? Why would you do that?" 1 of 2 theconversation.com/graham-platn...
Graham Platner’s campaign implosion highlights the hollowness of America’s political parties and how they can be hijacked by insurgents
Graham Platner’s Senate campaign has imploded amid credible accusations of rape. A Maine political scientist looks at what happened and how the populist Platner resembles Donald Trump in key ways.
theconversation.com
July 8, 2026 at 9:24 PM
From my interview today w/Colby prof Nick Jacobs: "I sat down with Platner in October 2025. I asked him, “Well, why are you wearing the Scarlet D – for Democrat – around your neck? Why would you do that?" 1 of 2 theconversation.com/graham-platn...
If elected, DSA candidates' "far-left positions on issues -- Medicare for All, defunding the police and taxing the ultrawealthy -- are likely to divide the Democrats, many of whom are more moderate and/or represent conservative districts," writes @charlesrhunt.com theconversation.com/democratic-s...
Democratic socialists aren’t the only young, progressive Democrats dividing the party
How will Democrats in Congress deal with the DSA-affiliated candidates likely to join their ranks in the new year? There are lessons from the tea party’s challenge to traditional GOP values.
theconversation.com
July 7, 2026 at 8:26 PM
If elected, DSA candidates' "far-left positions on issues -- Medicare for All, defunding the police and taxing the ultrawealthy -- are likely to divide the Democrats, many of whom are more moderate and/or represent conservative districts," writes @charlesrhunt.com theconversation.com/democratic-s...
Just heard a prominent NPR host say to a Maine reporter who covers politics: "A lot going on in your little state." A reminder that Maine, like every other state, has 2 senators.
July 7, 2026 at 4:29 PM
Just heard a prominent NPR host say to a Maine reporter who covers politics: "A lot going on in your little state." A reminder that Maine, like every other state, has 2 senators.