Latest posts
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Welcome to Visa Purgatory: Where Degrees Expire Before You Do
In late August 2025, while half the country was still coughing on wildfire smoke and the other half was adjusting to troops parked in their capitals, the Trump administration slipped in a bureaucratic bombshell. The Department of Homeland Security quietly proposed new rules that would gut the long-standing “duration of status” system for international students
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Katrina at 20: America Remembers, Forgets, and Repackages
Twenty years later, America still doesn’t know how to talk about Hurricane Katrina. Not because there’s nothing left to say, but because the event itself was already so saturated in meaning that everything since feels like a remix. The anniversary observances in New Orleans this August were equal parts solemnity and stagecraft—brass-band second lines echoing
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America’s Newest Crime: Fighting Fires Without Papers
On August 27, 2025, as the Bear Gulch Fire raged through Washington state—thousands of acres incinerated, towns choking on smoke, families evacuating with pets stuffed into backseats—the federal government identified the real emergency. Not the wildfire consuming homes. Not the climate that breeds a new inferno each week. No, the emergency was the possibility that
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The CDC Purge: When Science Got Fired by Press Release
In the latest American remake of Night of the Long Knives, the White House traded soldiers for scientists and staged the firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez like it was an HR issue instead of a constitutional one. On August 27, 2025, less than a month into her tenure, Monarez was dismissed for the crime
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“Law and Order” or Martial Theater? Trump’s Crime Emergency in D.C.
On August 11, 2025, Donald J. Trump declared a “crime emergency” in Washington, D.C., and like every pageant he has ever hosted, it was less about substance than spectacle. With the flourish of a reality TV host in his twilight season, he seized control of the Metropolitan Police Department, flooded the streets with National Guard
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White House Chaos: CDC Director Fired After 27 Days as Top Scientists Resign in Protest
On August 27, 2025, a seismic crack split the already fragile floorboards of American public health. Susan Monarez, freshly sworn in as CDC director less than a month earlier, was abruptly ousted by the White House. Within hours, four of her top deputies—Debra Houry, Daniel Jernigan, Demetre Daskalakis, and Jennifer Layden—submitted their resignations, citing irreconcilable
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When Xi Jinping Plays Musical Generals — And the Tune Sounds Like Alarm Bells
In mid-2025, Beijing’s military brass found themselves in the political equivalent of a high-stakes game of musical chairs. On August 27, it emerged that President Xi Jinping—he of the teleprompter-stare and tightly rolled sleeve branding—has carried out the most sweeping purge of military leadership since Mao’s Cultural Revolution-era showdowns. Call it “Operation Guillotine General.” Up
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FEMA’s Katrina Declaration: When Disaster Response Becomes Highest National Performance Art
On August 26, 2025, something seismic occurred—not an earthquake, not a storm, but a different kind of tremor. Over 180 current and former FEMA employees—many anonymous—signed an Open Katrina Declaration, warning Congress and the FEMA Review Council that the Trump administration is unravelling decades of post-Katrina reforms. It wasn’t just a letter; it was a
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The Devil Wears Bulletproof: America’s Sacred Tradition of Gunfire at School
Ah, Minneapolis. The city of lakes, the birthplace of Prince, and now—because we clearly didn’t have enough entries in the “Things Europeans Think Are Fake But Actually Happen in America” catalog—the latest setting for that quintessentially American ritual: a school shooting. This time, we leveled up. It wasn’t a hallway. It wasn’t a cafeteria. No,
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Bill Maher: The Liberal Bulwark Who Fell in Love with His Own Contrarianism
Bill Maher: The Liberal Bulwark Who Fell in Love with His Own Contrarianism For a long time, Bill Maher was the voice I wanted in the room. He was brash, unapologetic, smarter than most of his guests, and willing to say the things the polite class of liberal pundits wouldn’t touch. In the Bush years,