Domestic and international political coverage — campaigns, legislation, power, and policy.
California’s latest audit didn’t uncover a bombshell — it documented a condition. When error becomes normal and oversight becomes procedural, “high risk” stops meaning danger and starts meaning business as usual.
California’s High-Risk State Read More »
The Affordable Care Act is usually judged by what it failed to deliver. A better way to understand it is by asking why it endured anyway. Once a system reaches enough scale, failure can become the safest condition available.
Failure Is the Feature Read More »
Minnesota’s ICE backlash and Medicaid fraud crisis aren’t separate scandals—they’re symptoms of the same governing failure. When enforcement is treated as destabilizing and oversight as optional, disorder becomes policy by default. This piece examines how narrative management replaced control—and why the bill always arrives eventually.
A Sanctuary for Disorder Read More »
New presidents don’t walk into an empty office—they walk into a system that already knows how things are done. Institutional memory and process quietly shape what’s possible long before voters notice anything is wrong. If every administration feels temporary, it’s because the system was built to be permanent.
Why Every New President Governs Like a Temp Read More »
Merrick Garland’s career makes far more sense when read straight through instead of argued about in pieces. From the D.C. Circuit to a blocked Supreme Court nomination to the Justice Department’s most politically charged moment in decades, his defining trait has been restraint.
Merrick Garland: The Art of Standing Still Read More »
The Biden presidency felt unusually quiet long before the debate stage made the reason why obvious. This piece explores why governance continued smoothly despite limited visibility and what that reveals about how power actually functions in modern America. It’s less about who sat in the Oval Office than about the system that ran comfortably without friction.
Auto-Pilot: The Proxy Presidency (2021–2024) Read More »
Migration doesn’t begin with movement—it begins when media signals that movement will be rewarded. From Cold War information operations to the southern border surge and Europe’s open-door crisis, journalism has quietly evolved from observer to infrastructure. Once narratives scale, outcomes follow, whether governments intend them or not.
The Migration of Narratives Read More »
Elections feel decisive, but the moment after the votes are counted tells a quieter story. Presidents inherit legitimacy, not control, and quickly discover a system designed to wait them out rather than obey them. If modern government feels frozen no matter who wins, there’s a reason—and it isn’t voter apathy.
Winning the Election Isn’t Winning Power Read More »
Minnesota’s fraud scandals weren’t just about bad actors — Keith Ellison’s role as the political interface between warnings and accountability, and why that position matters more than intent. Systems fail where enforcement becomes negotiable.
Keith Ellison: The Interface Problem Read More »
We examine modern NGOs through the historical lens of piracy, where intermediaries and “ports” mattered more than the raiders themselves. If the structure doesn’t change, neither will the outcome.
Ports, Factors, and Prize Agents Read More »
