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We’re not even a year into the second Pumpkinhead presidency and you already want to Scream. You Saw it coming and you’ve considered whether you should Get Out of the country (or at least root for the Canadian team in the World Series) as you witness Frankenstein’s re-animated political Psycho—along with the nonstop Creepshow from the Right of the Living Dead—orchestrate The Vanishing of our democratic norms. Are we as Hellbound as we feel? Will the constant Howling that has turned the news cycle into a Nightmare on Overwhelm Street from Dusk to Dawn ever offer us the respite of a Quiet Place? Or is that quiet we hear coming from the Silence of the Lambs who have long ignored The Omen and think this will all pass without a political Exorcism? It turns out you’re not the only who’s noticed an American Werewolf trying to turn our democracy into the Don of the Dead. The NYT Editorial Board (Gift Article) has a handy, if scary, horror-card. Are We Losing Our Democracy? “Countries that slide from democracy toward autocracy tend to follow similar patterns. To measure what is happening in the United States, the Times editorial board has compiled a list of 12 markers of democratic erosion, with help from scholars who have studied this phenomenon. The sobering reality is that the United States has regressed, to different degrees, on all 12.” (This Halloween, I thought about dressing up as the Constitution, but I was afraid no one would recognize me...)
+ Maybe I’ll just wear my NextDraft Pro Democracy hoodie. It’s a pretty unique look these days.
2
Snap Judgment
“There is no doubt that the six billion dollars in contingency funds are appropriated funds that are without a doubt necessary to carry out the program’s operation. The shutdown of the government through funding doesn’t do away with SNAP. It just does away with the funding of it. There could be no greater necessity than the prohibition across the board of funds for the program’s operations.” Federal judge orders Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits out of contingency fund. Now, we’ll have to see if the administration actually pays out the money authorized by one branch of government and ordered released by another. After all, they’re the ones who came up with the idea of starving the poorest Americans to score political points. It took a federal judge to say families should still be fed.
3
Crash and Learn?
I keep writing about the AI tech boom (and potential bust) for a few reasons. One, like many other people, my stock portfolio has long been filled with tech heavy stocks (which makes me feel like a genius). Two, it’s a boom that is powering a remarkable portion of the American economy. And three, a lot about it worries me. “America appears to be, at the moment, in a sort of benevolent hostage situation. AI-related spending now contributes more to the nation’s GDP growth than all consumer spending combined, and by another calculation, those AI expenditures accounted for 92 percent of GDP growth during the first half of 2025. Since the launch of ChatGPT, in late 2022, the tech industry has gone from making up 22 percent of the value in the S&P 500 to roughly one-third.” Matteo Wong and Charlie Warzel in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Here’s How the AI Crash Happens. “Listen to the AI crowd talk enough, and you’ll get a sense that we may be on the cusp of an infrastructure boom. And yet, something strange is happening to the economy. Even as tech stocks have skyrocketed since 2022, the companies’ share of net profits from S&P 500 companies has hardly budged. Job openings have fallen despite a roaring stock market, 22 states are in or near a recession, and despite data centers propping up the construction industry, U.S. manufacturing is in decline. It’s clear that AI is both drowning out and obscuring other stories about the wobbling American economy. That’s a concern. But even worse: What if AI’s promise for American business proves to be a mirage? What happens then?” (For one thing, I’ll feel like less like a genius and more like a crash test dummy.)
+ WaPo: One force is propping up the economy. Now it’s getting stronger.
+ NYT: How OpenAI Uses Complex and Circular Deals to Fuel Its Multibillion-Dollar Rise.
+ I covered these deals in more detail last week: The Circular File.
4
Weekend Whats
What to Binge: Dark Winds (with three seasons now on Netflix) “follows Joe Leaphorn, Jim Chee, and Bernadette Manuelito of the Navajo Tribal Police solving mysteries and serving justice as their reservation is besieged by a series of increasingly violent crimes in the 1970s.” Even though the crimes are violent, the pace and vibe of the show is calmingly chill.
+ What to Book: The Buckeye by Patrick Ryan is a sweeping story of two families in a small town during a big war.
+ What to Watch: Stephen Colbert has an excellent sit-down interview with Anthony Hopkins. Maybe this is what Colbert will do post Late Show.
5
Extra, Extra
Just a Matter of Ven: “The Trump Administration has made the decision to attack military installations inside Venezuela and the strikes could come at any moment, sources with knowledge of the situation told the Miami Herald, as the U.S. prepares to initiate the next stage of its campaign against the Soles drug cartel.” And from WaPo: As U.S. ramps up the pressure, Venezuela pleads with Moscow, Beijing for help.
+ Bad to Worse: Hundreds killed in Darfur hospital massacre, ‘hero’ doctors abducted.
+ Brotherly Shove: “King Charles III on Thursday stripped his disgraced brother Prince Andrew of his remaining titles and evicted him from his royal residence after weeks of pressure to act over his relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.” (If real kings punish people for their Epstein involvement, shouldn’t fake kings do the same?)
+ AI Means Never Having to Say Your Sorry: “Confronted with allegations that they had cheated in an introductory data science course and fudged their attendance, dozens of undergraduates at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign recently sent two professors a mea culpa via email. But there was one problem, a glaring one: They had not written the emails. Artificial intelligence had.” (Even AI is like, sorry kids, you’re on your own from here on out...)
+ Remote Controlled: If I come knocking on your door around the time of the Cal football game on Saturday, this will be why. “YouTube TV viewers can no longer see Disney channels including ABC and ESPN after the two sides failed to agree on a new content distribution deal.”
+ Meatheads: “It was only with the advent of modern factory farming that meat became so reliable and ubiquitous that Americans can now eat it three times a day.” Vox (Gift Article) on The myth of the carnivore caveman.
+ Primetime Number: Dictionary.com says 6-7 is the word of the year. No one even knows what it means. (I’ve always assumed it was like 69 for slightly uncoordinated people.)
6
Feel Good Friday
The world is experiencing a solar boom that has vastly outperformed expectations and tempered pessimism around climate change.
+ WaPo (Gift Article): She hiked the entire Appalachian Trail at 80, unaware she’d just made history.
+ Triplets, 18, are