Latest posts
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The Ghost of Competence Past: Joe Biden Accepts an Award While the World Burns
In a hotel ballroom in Washington, a decent man tried to remind us that the government wasn’t always a weapon, while the press corps frantically zoomed in to see if he blinked too slowly. On December 5, 2025, the timeline offered us a split-screen moment so jarring it felt like a glitch in the simulation.
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The United States of Paranoia: When the National Security Strategy Reads Like a Reddit Thread
The new official policy of the United States is apparently that France is too dark, Russia is just misunderstood, and the Western Hemisphere is a gated community that needs a higher fence. There is a specific kind of document that usually emerges from the White House every few years called the National Security Strategy. Historically,
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The Supreme Court Is About to Decide if the Constitution Has a “No Vacancy” Sign
The Fourteenth Amendment is clear, unless you are a lawyer paid to pretend that “born in the United States” is a metaphor for “born in a country club with the right membership dues.” We have reached the point in the American experiment where the user agreement is being rewritten in real time, and the terms
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The Battle of Suriname: How We Saved Ohio from a Boat Headed to the Netherlands
The White House promised us they were stopping a direct threat to the homeland, but it turns out they were just interdicting a shipment for the Amsterdam party scene with a Hellfire missile. Geography has never been a strong suit of the American empire. We have a long and storied history of confusing one desert
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The United States of Amnesia: Importing the European Nursing Home Model to Save the Snowflakes
When the goal is to turn a dynamic superpower into a gated community for the frightened, you end up importing the stagnation along with the prejudice. There is a specific kind of architectural madness currently gripping the West Wing, a design flaw in the blueprint of the new American century that would be laughable if
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Olivia Nuzzi’s American Canto: The Art of Selling a Scandal Without Actually Selling the Goods
When the memoir is less a reckoning and more a press release written in the font of a nervous breakdown. The collapse of a reputation in Washington usually follows a predictable physics. There is the initial transgression, followed by the frantic denial, the inevitable leak of digital receipts, the forced resignation, and finally the exile
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Pete Hegseth Should Have Stuck With Fox News
When the chain of command becomes a group chat, the only thing securing the nation is the battery life of Pete Hegseth’s iPhone. The modern theatre of war is no longer a dimly lit room filled with cigarette smoke and maps pushed around by grim-faced men in uniform. It is not the hushed, sterile environment
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Why the Ukraine “Peace Plan” Looks Like a Distressed Asset Sale
The latest diplomatic envoy to Moscow didn’t bring a treaty. He brought a term sheet. Last Tuesday, a U.S. delegation led by Steve Witkoff—a New York real estate developer whose diplomatic credentials consist largely of owning buildings that don’t fall down—landed in Moscow for a high-stakes sit-down with Vladimir Putin. He was joined by Jared
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The United States of Racketeering: Governing by the Code of the Hitman
When the Situation Room becomes a mob social club, the only difference between a war crime and a pardon is who you know. The water in the Caribbean is warm, blue, and apparently lawless. If you look closely enough at the recent reports coming out of the Pentagon, you can see the stain spreading. It
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The Great American Tariff Refund: A farce in Three Acts (And Counting)
When the “patriotic squeeze” becomes a bureaucratic stranglehold, and the only thing getting squeezed is the American wallet. The latest episode of the great tariff soap opera has arrived, and it is a masterpiece of economic slapstick. It features a plot twist so absurd that if you put it in a screenplay, a studio executive