Latest posts

  • Review of 107 Days by Kamala Harris

    Review of 107 Days by Kamala Harris

    I listened to Kamala Harris’s new memoir 107 Days on audiobook today, and I can say without hesitation: I loved it. I’ve been a Kamala Harris fan since her days as District Attorney in San Francisco, when her mix of sharp legal instincts and political fearlessness made her one of the most interesting figures in

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  • Elon Musk and the Free-Speech Flamethrower: How One Billionaire Turned Tragedy Into Trending Content

    Elon Musk and the Free-Speech Flamethrower: How One Billionaire Turned Tragedy Into Trending Content

    Charlie Kirk is dead, felled by a bullet that cracked open the already brittle shell of American politics. A tragedy, a headline, an FBI investigation with reward money stapled to it. And then, like clockwork, Elon Musk did what Elon Musk always does: treated the entire ordeal as if it were just another opportunity to

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  • Jimmy Kimmel Live, Dead, and Resurrected: Disney, the FCC, and America’s New Speech Test

    Jimmy Kimmel Live, Dead, and Resurrected: Disney, the FCC, and America’s New Speech Test

    Disney can reanimate cartoon deer and resurrect billion-dollar franchises, but even they didn’t think they’d have to stage a primetime Lazarus trick for Jimmy Kimmel. Yet here we are. After an extraordinary two-week suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live!—a late-night show that once got canceled only for recycling too many “Matt Damon” bits—Disney announced the show

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  • How Trump Invented the Two-Tiered System of Human Decency

    How Trump Invented the Two-Tiered System of Human Decency

    The Scene at Glendale The memorial for Charlie Kirk was never going to be quiet. A man whose career thrived on microphones and grievance could hardly be remembered in whispers. So when President Donald Trump stood at the podium in Glendale and declared that this was a time for “respect” and “civility,” it was almost

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  • The Strongman Starter Pack: From Manila to Mar-a-Lago

    The Strongman Starter Pack: From Manila to Mar-a-Lago

    Rodrigo Duterte’s rise in the Philippines wasn’t an accident—it was a case study in how democracies willingly hand the keys to strongmen when fear, spectacle, and fatigue collide. Donald Trump is running the same script in America: cult of personality, demonization of enemies, attacks on the press, selective empathy, institutional erosion, and an endless blurring…

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  • When Congress Governs by Split Screen

    When Congress Governs by Split Screen

    Democracy has always been a little theatrical. The marble halls, the pomp, the roll calls delivered like Broadway overtures—it’s part politics, part melodrama, part daytime soap. But lately the Capitol has taken the metaphor too literally. On one screen: a government funding bill collapsing in the Senate. On the other: a resolution sanctifying Charlie Kirk,

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  • The Prosecutor Who Wouldn’t Bend (and the President Who Couldn’t Tolerate It)

    The Prosecutor Who Wouldn’t Bend (and the President Who Couldn’t Tolerate It)

    The American legal system prides itself on independence, impartiality, and the quaint notion that prosecutorial decisions are made in courtrooms, not at golf resorts. But on September 19, 2025, Washington delivered another episode of its long-running tragicomedy: Erik Siebert, interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, resigned. His crime? Not mortgage fraud, not

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  • JD Vance Turns Charlie Kirk’s Memorial Into a Campaign Rally With Tax Audits

    JD Vance Turns Charlie Kirk’s Memorial Into a Campaign Rally With Tax Audits

    When Mourning Means Monetizing Charlie Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University. That’s the fact. It happened. A 33-hour manhunt followed. Police arrested 22-year-old Tyler Robinson. The motive remains under investigation. This should have been the moment for solemnity. Reflection. A funeral, not a fundraiser. Instead, the White House turned it into programming content. Vice

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  • The Charlie Kirk Narrative Smells Like Yesterday’s Fox News Leftovers

    The Charlie Kirk Narrative Smells Like Yesterday’s Fox News Leftovers

    Not a Conspiracy Theorist, Just a Smell Test Enthusiast I don’t wear tin foil hats. I don’t subscribe to newsletters about the Denver Airport being a Masonic portal to lizard people. I am not a conspiracy theorist. I follow the facts wherever they lead, even if they lead me to deeply inconvenient places like “Charlie

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  • COTALAND: Austin’s Roller Coaster to Nowhere (Yet)

    COTALAND: Austin’s Roller Coaster to Nowhere (Yet)

    A Park Delayed, but Dreams are Never Late The theme park industrial complex has a formula: announce early, overpromise wildly, and then pray nobody notices when the opening date slides into the next election cycle. COTALAND, Austin’s would-be roller coaster Mecca, is now on that exact track—ironically the only track they’ve managed to finish on

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