Me versus AI: When will the US-Iran War end?
My “John Henry” exercise with the machine on national security forecasting.
The Long Memo (TLM)
I wrote memos for senior government officials to make better policy decisions. Now I write them to help people like you understand our world.
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Assume Nothing Changes. Now What?
Every American who sees the numbers clearly ends up, sooner or later, in the same posture: waiting.
The Middleman Is the Product
The American health intermediary does not mediate risk — absorbing it, owning it, engineering the world to reduce it. It mediates responsibility.
Your Health Insurance Was a Decision. You Weren’t in the Room.
February 17, 1971.
The Billionaires Aren’t Fleeing. They’re Renegotiating.
The record says American wealth uses the threat of exit as leverage — and then deploys voice at a volume no one else in the country can afford.
Three Powers, No Referee
In the last piece I laid out how the repricing of American reliability has triggered the larges arms buildup since the Cold War. This one is about the geometry the money is building.
How Would You Know? - TLM Q&A Recap
Three of you wrote to me this month about three completely different things.
The Arms Boom Nobody Voted For
The interesting question is not what Canada bought. The interesting question is what Canada stopped believing.
Reminder: The Long Memo Q&A — This Saturday
This Is Happening Saturday at 10 AM CDT
The Only Test That Matters
My thoughts on Substack/Pangram and justifying my existence to robots.
Unintelligible
I went through the docs that allegedly show that the Chinese, Iranians, and Venezuelans interfered in US elections and the intelligence community covered it up. It's nonsense.
Ask Me Anything, Live — July 25
A new addition to TLM: I'm putting the memo down and taking your questions directly. It only happens if you show up with them.
6-3, 6-3, 6-3 ... Civil Rights Takes a Beating
When the law becomes theatre, and Supreme Court doctrine moves from stare decisis to "Nobis nihil prorsus curae est" the final pieces of the Republic fade from view.