Latest posts
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ICE Storm: Trump, Kristi Noem, and the Great Chicago Occupation
The Trump administration has a way of treating cities like wayward children—Chicago most of all. For decades, conservative politicians have invoked it as shorthand for chaos, crime, and everything wrong with “blue America.” To them, Chicago is less a place where millions of people live, work, and build lives, and more a stage for proving
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Trump’s Executive Order to Federalize Elections: Democracy’s Paper Cut
The great thing about American democracy is that it’s supposed to be decentralized. States set the rules, counties run the polls, and federal courts swoop in every so often to remind Florida it cannot legally stage a coup in its public libraries. But Donald Trump, never one for details like the Constitution, has now declared
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Tariffs, Treason, and the Long Con of Executive Power
On August 29, 2025, the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 7–4 ruling, finally tapped the brakes on what has essentially been a seven-year joyride through the Constitution conducted by Donald J. Trump in the name of “economic nationalism.” The court declared that most of his so-called “reciprocal” and “trafficking” tariffs exceeded his
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107 Days Without Protection: Kamala Harris and the Trump Doctrine of Spite
On August 29, 2025, President Donald J. Trump did something both petty and perilous, which, to be fair, is his governing style. He revoked the Secret Service protection of former Vice President Kamala Harris—effective September 1—just as she prepares to launch her 107 Days book tour. The timing is not coincidence. It is choreography. Harris
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SNL at 51: Reinventing Reinvention Until It’s Just a Costume Change
Here’s the thing about Saturday Night Live: it is always dying and always about to be reborn. That’s the premise, the pitch, the myth. Every time someone leaves, the show is declared finished; every time someone arrives, it’s hailed as reborn. By now, SNL has spent 50 years on its deathbed and 50 years being
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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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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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Chicago Doesn’t Need an Occupation, but Trump Wants a Backdrop
On August 28, 2025, while most of the country was still digesting the last “crime emergency” episode in Washington, the Trump administration quietly started drafting a sequel. This time, the stage is Chicago. The proposal: turn Naval Station Great Lakes—a training hub for sailors just north of the city—into a makeshift operations center for ICE
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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