The Post-Partisan Emporium

  So It Goes, Zuckerberg A Tralfamadorian day at sea Constantin von Hoffmeister In the first days of August 2026, a strange scene unfolded off the coast of Alaska. Mark Zuckerberg’s yacht Launchpad was moving through Farragut Bay when a six-meter Hewescraft ran out of fuel nearby. Two women, a child, and a dog sat helpless in the small boat while the cold grey sea stretched around them. The contrast might have come fromKurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five : one group sealed inside comfort and machinery, another exposed to chance, with both occupying the same moment but almost different worlds. The Coast Guard sent repeated calls for assistance over the emergency frequency. Vessel tracking showed that Launchpad was close to the stranded boat. The yacht slowed near the mouth of the bay, equipped with radar, helicopters, small boats, and every device money could buy. Yet the distance between wealth and need remained greater than the few hundred meters of water between the two boats....

  Burying Lindsey Graham Won’t Be Easy Karen Kwiatkowski Photo by Simone Pellegrini on Unsplash Long ago, great Senators existed. Resolute and accountable, they represented their governors and state legislatures and asserted those interests in Washington. They aspired to conduct themselves as statesmen; we the people expected statesmanship. We the people also hoped they would be better than we could be, while we agreed with the fundamental truth of Colonel Ludlow in Legends of the Fall . No longer. A regal Senate with a bold populist House of Representatives do not exist. What we call Senate and House do not make federal law, nor do they perform the small number of defined duties described in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. The making of law has become the work of lobbyists and the regulatory bureaucracy, while other Constitutional duties have become entirely too frightening to even consider, much less perform. The hydra-headed executive branch has become the permanen...