Sure, Trump and Musk are endangering America by their cuts to the Department of National Security, the FBI and the CIA. Sure, those cuts make it easier for the next 9/11 attack. But whatabout back when the Democrats held the WH and Congress and had the clairvoyance to foresee all this and didn’t pass any […]

Josh Marshall won’t come out and say it, but I will. Musk’s attack on Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” is political kayfabe. Josh points out that they could each draw blood but haven’t. “Both of these guys have very big weapons each can use against the other. Musk can invest money against the GOP budget bill […]

The Department of Homeland Security was created in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, ostensibly to consolidate and coordinate anti-terrorist activities previously housed in several different federal agencies. We can debate whether DHS has been an unalloyed good, but it at least paid lip service to the notion that the federal government has an […]

There’s no evidence that DOGE has saved any money so far: “Picking apart the “estimated savings” of $175 billion on the DOGE website, Tolan told me that less than half that figure is backed up with even the most basic documentation. That means it’s possible only even to start investigating about $32 billion of savings […]

Since Musk is a big ketamine user and Trump is allegedly hopped up on Adderall, it’s no wonder they want the evidence of harm from drug abuse buried: “A federal study on mental health problems and substance use across the country that has been running for decades and is used by a wide range of […]

So Elon is headed back to the private sector after a star turn as chainsaw-in-chief and co-president. How did that work out, anyway? “Musk’s original goal was $2 trillion in annual savings, downsized several times to the range of $500 billion. DOGE currently claims $175 billion in savings. But the House bill would formalize barely […]

One of my favorite aphorisms, for which I haven’t located the source, is: “There’s something about the sound of a clock striking 13 that calls into doubt everything that came before.” That came to mind when I read about RFK Jr’s “Make America Healthy Again” report: “ The Washington Post reported, “Some of the report’s […]

The latest meme around the Trump tariffs is TACO: Trump Always Chickens Out. Savvy traders are buying on the TACO tariff dips and selling on the TACO caves. And those caves are popular. “Yesterday, the Conference Board reported that in May consumer confidence surged by 12.3, the largest monthly increase in four years. Bloomberg said […]

I recall a time when the Republican Party stood for small government and local control. The grandiose Trump GOP cult has abandoned that principle in favor of meddling in anything and everything public and private that Trump opposes. “The administration has threatened to hold back the funds and permissions unless New York stops charging tolls […]

I didn’t apply to Harvard. I wouldn’t have gotten in if I had. Even though I lettered in track and field and was captain of my high school cross country team, I was a B student in high school. I didn’t apply to Harvard for grad school either. The lab where I did my postdoc […]