Latest posts

  • We Are All D.C. (Except the People Running It)

    We Are All D.C. (Except the People Running It)

    The nation’s capital looked less like the seat of democracy and more like the set of a dystopian reboot of COPS. Thousands of residents packed Meridian Hill—also known as Malcolm X—Park, then marched down 16th Street to Freedom Plaza for the “We Are All D.C.” rally. The name was both poetic and desperate: a reminder

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  • The Machines Won’t Kill Us—But the Shareholders Might

    The Machines Won’t Kill Us—But the Shareholders Might

    On September 6, 2025, Geoffrey Hinton—better known as the “godfather of AI” and now the reluctant Cassandra of our algorithmic era—delivered a blunt sermon to Fortune. AI, he argued, will not simply usher in a productivity boom or a Skynet apocalypse. No, its most reliable prophecy is more familiar: a massive rise in profits for

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  • The Million-Dollar Letter: Austin’s “A” and the Art of Public Branding

    The Million-Dollar Letter: Austin’s “A” and the Art of Public Branding

    On September 4–5, 2025, Austin unveiled its first-ever unified city logo: a wavy blue-green “A” allegedly inspired by the hills, rivers, bridges, and violet-crown skies that define the Texas capital. It is, in the words of the city, a “strategic modernization.” In the words of the internet, it’s “Dallas-adjacent,” “corporate clipart,” and “the most expensive

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  • Apocalypse Now, But Make It Truth Social

    Apocalypse Now, But Make It Truth Social

    On September 6, 2025, President Donald J. Trump escalated his “law-and-order” offensive in Chicago not with a policy paper, not with a briefing, not even with a garbled campaign rally rant. No, he escalated with Photoshop. The President of the United States posted an Apocalypse Now–style image of himself looming over a flaming Chicago skyline,

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  • Trump’s Bruised Hand, Swollen Ankles, and the Press That Forgot How to Ask Questions

    Trump’s Bruised Hand, Swollen Ankles, and the Press That Forgot How to Ask Questions

    On September 5, 2025, media critic Margaret Sullivan delivered what should’ve been obvious but somehow wasn’t: the mainstream press is tiptoeing around President Donald J. Trump’s health. Days have gone by without a sighting. When he does appear, the ankles look like someone stuffed dinner rolls into his socks, his hand is bruised like a

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  • SEAL Team 6, Shellfish, and the Raid That Nobody Briefed

    SEAL Team 6, Shellfish, and the Raid That Nobody Briefed

    On September 5, 2025, the New York Times detonated a story so bizarre it sounded like rejected fan fiction from a Tom Clancy knockoff: in 2019, SEAL Team 6 allegedly slipped into North Korea to plant a covert listening device, stumbled across a small boat of unarmed shellfishers, opened fire, and then—because this was the

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  • The Department of Defense Is Dead. Long Live the Department of War.

    The Department of Defense Is Dead. Long Live the Department of War.

    On September 5, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order that rebranded the Department of Defense as the “Department of War.” It was the kind of move that sounds like a late-night Onion headline but instead became federal reality, complete with Pete Hegseth introducing himself on Fox & Friends the next morning as

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  • The Antichrist With a Red Tie

    The Antichrist With a Red Tie

    I am not religious. I have never mistaken a casserole for communion or believed that a televangelist’s sweaty forehead could save me. But if you flip through the Book of Revelation—an acid-trip fever dream of beasts, trumpets, and plagues—it feels like a spoiler alert for American cable news. Specifically, it reads like a casting call

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  • Trump the Informant? Mike Johnson’s Improv History Lesson

    Trump the Informant? Mike Johnson’s Improv History Lesson

    On September 5, 2025, House Speaker Mike Johnson stood before reporters and unleashed a claim so improbable it deserves its own Netflix docudrama: Donald J. Trump, former president, serial golf cheat, and part-time beauty pageant impresario, was an FBI informant against Jeffrey Epstein. The defense was as brazen as it was bizarre. Johnson, cornered by

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  • Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vs. Science: The Senate Hearing That Doubled as a Public Health Funeral

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vs. Science: The Senate Hearing That Doubled as a Public Health Funeral

    On September 4, 2025, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—yes, that Kennedy, now moonlighting as the nation’s Health and Human Services Secretary—sat before the Senate Finance Committee for a grilling so blistering it should’ve required SPF 100. What unfolded was three hours of bipartisan carnage, a hearing less about policy than about the collective horror of watching

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