The Long Arc, a journey of political weight
A Brief History of Keeping the Riff-Raff Out
The English aristocracy spent 800 years running an arms race against everyone else's money. This is a tour of every weapon they built.
Latest
House Rules
The Veto Nobody Will Name
My stepfather's last property tax bill was $785. On a house we sold for $1.8 million. He did nothing wrong, and neither did I, and that's the problem with letting people like us decide.
foundation
No Second Foundation
Buchanan proved the grievance was real. Limbaugh proved it had its own infrastructure. The Tea Party proved it could be weaponized. National Review and the Kochs never saw any of it coming — because they were never actually in control.
August 29, 2026 - Week in Review
The week of How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Posting[1]. I started the week with a review of the 13 or so months after I moved away from Substack. It was a reflective review, but as a prominent reader told me, I should stop looking at
Political Musing
The Defense Held and the Building Emptied Anyway
Recurring instability turns out to be more efficient than defunding. A real cut would have produced hearings. This produced a quiet, rational, distributed exodus that never made the news.
Political Musing
Same Tenant, New Paint (Cohen)
One network built him a branded show and killed it with a one-line memo. Another platformed him for five years and went silent the moment his story got inconvenient. Neither one got fooled.
The Long Arc, a journey of political weight
The Courage Was Free
Democratic AGs sued over the NIH terminations and got $2.1 billion restored to their states. Republican AGs mostly didn't sue. Their states got back $62 million. Same terminations. Different choices.
Geoff's Musical Musings
Music: The Blues Brothers
My introduction to the rich tapestry of the Blues was from my step father, and this movie was a big part of it.
Political Musing
Traumatically Affected
Russell Vought didn't stumble into defunding the government he now runs. He's been arguing for this exact power since 2019, got caught once, and came back with better lawyers.
Geoff's Musical Musings
Music: Joanna Connor
Been a while, but Joanna Connor deserves the call out. I'll be damned if she doesn't look like she's having a blast.
Tech
The Reticle Limit
The marketed 30x generational leap in AI chips collapses to about 18x once you strip out a one-time accounting trick, and the real hardware improvement underneath both numbers is 47 percent. Not a typo.
This Fucking Guy
This Fucking Guy: Scott Bessent
Scott Bessent built his career finding the gap between what governments promise and what they can actually deliver. Now he's manufacturing that gap himself, and throwing punches at anyone who says so.