Latest posts
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The Million-Dollar Letter: Austin’s “A” and the Art of Public Branding
On September 4–5, 2025, Austin unveiled its first-ever unified city logo: a wavy blue-green “A” allegedly inspired by the hills, rivers, bridges, and violet-crown skies that define the Texas capital. It is, in the words of the city, a “strategic modernization.” In the words of the internet, it’s “Dallas-adjacent,” “corporate clipart,” and “the most expensive
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Apocalypse Now, But Make It Truth Social
On September 6, 2025, President Donald J. Trump escalated his “law-and-order” offensive in Chicago not with a policy paper, not with a briefing, not even with a garbled campaign rally rant. No, he escalated with Photoshop. The President of the United States posted an Apocalypse Now–style image of himself looming over a flaming Chicago skyline,
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Trump’s Bruised Hand, Swollen Ankles, and the Press That Forgot How to Ask Questions
On September 5, 2025, media critic Margaret Sullivan delivered what should’ve been obvious but somehow wasn’t: the mainstream press is tiptoeing around President Donald J. Trump’s health. Days have gone by without a sighting. When he does appear, the ankles look like someone stuffed dinner rolls into his socks, his hand is bruised like a
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SEAL Team 6, Shellfish, and the Raid That Nobody Briefed
On September 5, 2025, the New York Times detonated a story so bizarre it sounded like rejected fan fiction from a Tom Clancy knockoff: in 2019, SEAL Team 6 allegedly slipped into North Korea to plant a covert listening device, stumbled across a small boat of unarmed shellfishers, opened fire, and then—because this was the
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The Department of Defense Is Dead. Long Live the Department of War.
On September 5, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order that rebranded the Department of Defense as the “Department of War.” It was the kind of move that sounds like a late-night Onion headline but instead became federal reality, complete with Pete Hegseth introducing himself on Fox & Friends the next morning as
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The Jobs Report That Wasn’t a Crash, Just a Stall With the Seatbelt Light On
On September 5, 2025, the August jobs report landed like an anemic cough. U.S. nonfarm payrolls rose by a mere 22,000, a number so small you could tuck it into a single suburban warehouse and still have space for a pickleball court. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3%, the highest in nearly four years.
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Trump the Informant? Mike Johnson’s Improv History Lesson
On September 5, 2025, House Speaker Mike Johnson stood before reporters and unleashed a claim so improbable it deserves its own Netflix docudrama: Donald J. Trump, former president, serial golf cheat, and part-time beauty pageant impresario, was an FBI informant against Jeffrey Epstein. The defense was as brazen as it was bizarre. Johnson, cornered by
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The EV Jobs Miracle That Ended in Handcuffs
On September 5, 2025, the largest worksite immigration raid in DHS history turned Hyundai’s much-hyped “Metaplant” electric vehicle complex in Ellabell, Georgia, into a live broadcast of American contradiction. About 475 workers were detained—most of them South Korean nationals—during a sweep that hit not just Hyundai’s $12.6 billion EV complex but especially the adjacent Hyundai–LG
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The Rose Garden Wasn’t the Only Thing Repaved
On September 4, 2025, President Trump staged what the official invite called a “White House dinner to celebrate American innovation.” What actually unfolded was a glossy loyalty ritual with better catering. The guest list read like a Silicon Valley shareholders’ meeting relocated to Washington: Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella, Arvind
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vs. Science: The Senate Hearing That Doubled as a Public Health Funeral
On September 4, 2025, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—yes, that Kennedy, now moonlighting as the nation’s Health and Human Services Secretary—sat before the Senate Finance Committee for a grilling so blistering it should’ve required SPF 100. What unfolded was three hours of bipartisan carnage, a hearing less about policy than about the collective horror of watching