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Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette--The $2 Billion President
The late great editorial cartoonist Pat Oliphant had an interesting aversion to politicians. Ben riffs. Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette returns just one day after he testified before the senate on waste and fraud in the Trump administration. All those inside deals and conflicts of interest that helped Trump make over $2 billion last year. His crypto deals and his hotel deals and his coin-meme deals and so on. Is Trump accurate when he says, “no one cares”? Also, the performative antics of senate heari…
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July 15, 2026
Bird Crazy
On the road west, we tangent through the mountains outside Tucson, settling in a lodge that bills itself as a sanctuary for bird watchers. As such, the place's crawling with people, quietly scanning the horizon, binoculars out. It’s my…
June 29, 2026
Slouching Towards Fiction
It only took over 50 years, but I finally got around to reading Slouching Towards Bethlehem--Joan Didion's iconic essay. Not sure why I didn't read it earlier. It's a classic of New Journalism, a style of non-fiction where the writers put the…
June 27, 2026
Mark Singer's Warning
In 1996, a magazine writer named Mark Singer got an assignment from his boss that he didn't want to do. Hang around with Donald Trump and write a story about it. I don't blame him for not wanting to hang around with Trump or write about him. Till …
June 17, 2026
April In Spain
Took me awhile to find my way to John Banville, the great Irish novelist. But find him I did, and now I’m hooked. In the last two months, I've read three of his novels and got a fourth on the way, on order from the library. It’s like fr…
June 8, 2026
This Land Was Made For You And Me
A few days ago, my wife and I took off for California by way of Iowa, Nebraska and Arizona--by car. Yes, a real road trip. And before I left, I reminded myself... Benny, old, boy--it's a big country out there, and you'll be driving through MAGA la…
June 5, 2026
Worse Than Chicago
I've been writing and thinking about Chicago politics for so long that just about everything I see in politics reminds me of something I've already seen in Chicago. But sometimes Chicago fools me. Sometimes I'll see something in Chicago and think--…
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