Latest posts
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The Real Housewives of the House Republican Conference: A Play in Three Acts of Self-Destruction

If you want to understand the current state of the Republican Party, do not look at their policy papers. Do not listen to their speeches about fiscal discipline or the sanctity of the border. Instead, imagine a community theater production of Julius Caesar directed by a substitute teacher who has lost control of the classroom,
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The Canary Just Coughed Up Blood: Why a “Safe” Seat in Tennessee Is the GOP’s Chernobyl

When a twenty-two point lead shrinks to single digits, you don’t pop champagne; you check the foundation for termites. In the grandiose, self-mythologizing atlas of the Republican Party, Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District is supposed to be a fortress. It is drawn with the kind of jagged, protective geometry that ensures a generic conservative can sleepwalk
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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 Pardon of King Bibi: How to Turn a Criminal Trial into a Coronation

The architecture of a modern democracy is usually designed with a few load-bearing walls intended to prevent the whole structure from collapsing into a authoritarian heap. One of those walls is the novel concept that the person running the country is subject to the same penal code as the person sweeping the floor. But in
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The Sanctuary City That Requires a Garbage Barricade: A Review of the Lower Manhattan ICE Follies

If you want to understand the current state of American immigration policy, do not look at the statute books or the federal register. Look at a pile of trash bags on Centre Street. On the weekend of November 29, that refuse pile became the most effective border wall in the United States, a tactical fortification




