I've covered everything from three wars, a few presidential campaigns, the Stonewall riots and the Rolling Stones. This column reflects that history and is about politics, culture, personal stories, and the nation's descent into anti-democratic madness.
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Yesterday, Donald Trump announced what he bragged would be “the most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country.” You will be astonished to learn that Trump’s threat to economically strangle Iran has a name: “Operation Economic Fury.”
Natalie Harp would be just another of those adoring faces behind Trump at a rally, ever smiling, laughing at the weakest of his jokes, delighted when he breaks into his absurd Trump-dance, fists jutting out, jowl-flaps quivering. Instead, as has been pointed out ad nauseum over the last few days, there she is seated at his side in Marine One, at his heels on the tarmac, even included in his…
Start putting their names on campaign signs: xAI and OpenAI and Amazon and Oracle and Nvidia and Google and Microsoft and Meta and AMD and Scale AI – all the big tech companies that have architects and lobbyists and planning specialists and billions behind SuperPACs, going around the country promising increased tax revenue for shriveling towns in rural areas as they throw up these humongous data…
I am fully cognizant of the uselessness of expecting the daily mutterings of the President of the United States to make sense. He doesn’t, and his mutterings don’t.
The people who voted for Donald Trump apparently don’t see anything wrong with an old man staying up all night using artificial intelligence to compare himself to the first president of the Republic.
There’s a phrase people use to describe their inability to take in the incredible firehose of shit that floods our lives every day: I can’t wrap my head around it. The phrase sums up in a way that perhaps nothing else can two aspects of our modern lives – as everything has become more complicated and hard to understand, the way our leaders have chosen to deal with uncomfortable situations is to…
Remember when 60 Minutes star correspondent Scott Pelley yelled at the show’s puppet executive producer, freshly appointed by freshly appointed CBS News chief Barri “I’m Woke Allergic” Weiss that the new management was bent on “murdering” 60 Minutes?
Let’s say you’re a Middle East expert on the Trump White House national security team, or maybe you’re what they call a “planner” in “Muscles” Hegseth’s Pentagon. It’s sometime in 2025.
This is a photo of Donald Trump playing golf at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey on Sunday, defended by an Army Avenger anti-missile system in case of an attack by an Iranian drone or missile.
This is why I love Substack. I’ve got a place to write when something earthshattering happens, like Ross Douthat putting a period on his 17 years as New York Times op-ed columnist before he makes his way uptown to the studios of CBS, where he will bring his talents to the sure-to-be dwindling audience of its former flagship news show, “60 Minutes.”
Tracy and I were sitting on the couch last night just after the clock struck midnight marveling that we had been married for five years and together for a total of eleven.
The whole running out of ammunition thing is being treated like a problem that can be managed, rather than the complete fuck up that it is. Even when they arrest or kill a mass shooter, police find their houses or cars stuffed with thousands of rounds of ammunition, the great fear being, of course,
