As we head into the pithy core of the 2024 election season, institutionalists are alarmed, and with good reason. Our highest court just ruled (SEC vs. Jarkesy; overturning Chevron doctrine) that all federal agencies are effectively unconstitutional, and may imminently rule that former president Trump is immune from prosecution. The first presidential debate of 2024 […]

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A little-remembered magazine interview from 1987 may hold clues about what Trump and Putin are ultimately up to. What was on Trump’s mind back then — besides dispensing unsolicited foreign policy advice in full page newspaper ads? Nothing less than making a deal with the Soviets to jointly seize the world’s nuclear weapons and thus […]

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Is there life elsewhere in the universe? Statistically, it’s likely. But don’t count on the tightly-knit band of UFO activists who have monopolized the subject to be the ones to deliver the news. For decades, a highly entrepreneurial group of researchers, scientists, and journalists has been at the center of the movement to “disclose” the […]

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Official Washington has lost the plot, and I’ve never been more frightened for the future of America. No, I’m not talking about the fear of losing our democracy to authoritarian theocrats, though that remains a constant existential threat. I’m concerned that the pro-democracy “good guys” have settled into a debilitating groupthink. To use the Rumsfeldian […]

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It has become an article of faith in Washington circles that conflict between China and Taiwan is a palpably real near-term concern. Most recently this idea has been given new life because funding for Taiwan is baked into the Biden administration’s massive $105 billion aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan — even though the […]

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