Latest posts
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In response to prematurely blaming liberals for Charlie Kirk: Maybe Stop Acting Like Fascists If You Don’t Want to Be Called Fascists
There’s a game the American right has perfected. It goes like this: they say or do something horrifying—racist, misogynist, homophobic, authoritarian—then when people point it out, they act wounded, offended, persecuted. How dare you call us fascist? they cry, clutching their pearls with one hand while sharpening voter suppression laws with the other. It’s a
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Charlie Kirk’s Killer Tyler Robinson Wasn’t Who They Wanted. Turns out MAGA is the Terrorist Organization That’s Full of Violence
The Great Unmasking Well, the smoke has cleared, the police reports have landed, and the identity of Charlie Kirk’s killer is public: Tyler Robinson. A white Mormon groyper. A 4chan radical. The exact flavor of basement-bred extremism that the right pretends doesn’t exist until it’s too obvious to ignore. So naturally, this is the moment
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Charlie Kirk’s Assassination by MAGA Gun Nut Tyler Robinson and the Myth of Martyrdom
It’s troubling—horrifying, really—that Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Political violence is never the answer, not when it’s directed at the left, not when it’s directed at the right, not when it’s directed at the loud, obnoxious pundits who thrive on outrage, and not when it’s directed at their most vulnerable targets. A functioning democracy cannot survive
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The GOP’s Sudden Case of Rhetorical Modesty: Please Clap for Our Hypocrisy
America, we are living through a miracle. Not the miracle of bipartisan cooperation, or the miracle of clean water infrastructure, or even the miracle of a functioning Congress. No, the miracle is this: Republicans have suddenly discovered the concept of rhetorical responsibility. Like a toddler who’s just realized the stove is hot—after years of sticking
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The EU Declares Independence (From Us, Mostly)
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission and owner of Europe’s most determinedly practical haircut, took the stage in Strasbourg on September 10 to deliver her State of the Union. And let me tell you, it was not the milquetoast Euro-babble of years past. Instead, von der Leyen announced what she called Europe’s
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America’s New Age of Political Violence: Or, How to Lose Friends and Radicalize People
The Washington Post says we’ve entered “a new age of political violence.” How quaint of them to suggest there was ever an old age that ended. The difference, perhaps, is that now we livestream it, brand it with hashtags, and serve it to audiences like a Netflix series that never gets canceled. The latest episode
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The Week America Became Judge, Jury, and Caribbean Executioner
September began with a bang—and 11 bodies floating in the southern Caribbean. President Donald Trump, in a tone that straddled triumph and reality TV cliffhanger, announced that the U.S. military had “destroyed” a Venezuelan vessel, killing alleged members of Tren de Aragua. Alleged being the operative word. Alleged as in “we’ll circle back with details
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Ceasefire, Interrupted: Israel Bombs the Meeting About Peace
There’s an old joke about Middle East negotiations: the closer the diplomats get to an agreement, the louder the bombs outside the hotel. On September 9, that punchline wrote itself when Israel decided the most efficient way to respond to Hamas’s leadership meeting in Doha—called to weigh a U.S.-backed ceasefire proposal—was to obliterate the venue
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When Drones Mistake Neighbors’ Airspace for Buffer Zone: NATO’s Midnight Wake-Up Call
Some stories write themselves; others are written at 3 a.m. by frantic air defense operators staring at radar screens while politicians rehearse their outrage in bathroom mirrors. The overnight drone incursion into Polish airspace belongs to the latter category, a saga of buzzing machinery, scrambled jets, and the uncomfortable realization that Article 4 of NATO
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107 Days of Recklessness: The Democrats Let Ego Write the Playbook
Kamala Harris has decided the best way to heal the wounds of 2024 is to re-open them in hardcover. 107 Days, her memoir about the hundred-odd days between Biden’s exit and her own defeat to Donald Trump, isn’t even out yet and already it has Democrats chewing the furniture. The headline excerpt: it was “recklessness”