“The end of the Cold War ushered in a long period of make-believe in American foreign policy. We saw ourselves, in the words of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, as ‘the indispensable power. We stand tall. We see farther into the future.’ And we could use our unmatched abilities to transform the world in unprecedented ways. … Things obviously did not go as planned. President Trump’s new National Security Strategy says goodbye to such magical thinking.” (12/15/25)
“California used to be the place where people went to chase dreams. Today, it’s the place where fiscal discipline goes to die. The Golden State, which is home to Hollywood glitz, Silicon Valley billionaires and the highest state taxes in America, is broke again. It’s staring down another multibillion-dollar deficit that exposes just how unstable and dysfunctional its financial model has become. In short, the Golden State isn’t so golden anymore. For years, politicians like Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom have insisted that California is the shining example of fiscal sensibility that America should follow. But when you peel back the layers, what you really find is a state government that can’t stop spending, can’t plan for the future and is now caught in a structural budget crisis of its own making.” (12/15/25)
“DOGE fell victim to the absurdly unrealistic standards set by its leaders. Elon Musk originally pledged that his administrative actions to slash government waste could immediately save $2 trillion out of a $7 trillion federal budget. As Musk familiarized himself with basic federal budgeting, he quickly reduced his target to $1 trillion and then $150 billion. These ambitious goals reflected the long-held conservative fantasy that budget deficits are driven primarily by obvious waste, fraud, and abuse that any competent business leader could simply zero out, saving trillions of dollars. … DOGE’s failure was entirely predictable to anyone with a baseline understanding of the federal budget, public administration, or basic politics.” (12/15/25)
“I write this from the front of a Columbia classroom in which about 60 first-year college students are taking the final exam for Frontiers of Science. Yes, it’s a Sunday, but the class is required of all Columbia College students and so having the exam on the weekend ensures that there won’t be conflicts with the exams for other courses they are taking. The 60 students in my classroom are a fraction of the nearly 740 taking the course this semester. The exam began at 2 pm, less than 24 hours after the shooting at Brown University, and just hours after many of us learned about the shooting in Sydney, Australia. Given these devastating events, I offered this morning that anyone who was adversely affected could take the exam later in the week …” (12/15/25)
