The $186 Billion Shrug
Washington keeps calling taxpayer leaks a paperwork problem, which is a cute way to describe a machine that can misplace a stadium full of money and then ask for a better spreadsheet.
Latest
-
-
America’s Worst Sequel
Washington has turned into the kind of sequel nobody asked for: louder trailer, worse plot, same cast, and somehow a bigger bill at the…
-
Trump’s Tariff War Gets a Bad Review
Phil McCracken here, and Trump’s tariff war is the rare patriotic theater production where the audience gets charged twice: once at the door, and…
-
Gulf of America, Paid for in Fireworks
When politics starts renaming water for applause, you can usually hear the filing cabinet laughing in the next room. The “Gulf of America” routine…
-
Brawndo-Kratom and the Access Economy
In America, we’ve gotten so used to the donor-class smoothie that people now try to sell cronyism as a wellness product. That’s the gag…
-
Peace President, Meet the Receipt Cabinet
“Peace president” is a tidy phrase, brother, the sort of thing a man can repeat until it starts sounding like policy. But a slogan…
-
Peace by Rebranding
Harlan Quill would like to know why every grand promise about peace eventually needs a translator, a denial memo, and a fresh coat of…
-
X Discovers Clickbait Has a Payroll
X wants to sound like a serious media ecosystem now, which is adorable for a platform that spent years paying people to act like the loudest tab in the room. The ordinary-user result is predictable: if the payout machine rewards rage bait and aggregation, the feed fills up with it until everybody starts calling the sludge “content.”
-
Peace President, Fine Print
He promised peace like it was a campaign jingle and not a contract, which is always the first clue the fine print is carrying…
-
Public Risk, Private Reward
Elon’s favorite origin story is the rugged lone innovator routine: one man, one vision, one heroic grin, and somehow no one else involved except…
End of content
End of content