Tickets to the Decline
the President and I are the same age. only one of us threw a party We are the same age, Trump and I. Eighty this year. He spent
Author
Joe Zeigler
Joe, with degrees in engineering and economics, raced motorcycles, founded 3 software companies, and launched one of the first computer store chains. Now he writes novels and Ghost essays while traveling with his wife, Lanying, and their cat, Cat.
The Book That Talks Back
I met Carl Jung 65 years ago in a classroom, and I left him there. I want to be fair about it. He didn’t make much of
Taking a Break
Burnt Ground turned a year old, and a year leaves numbers. Faith and Rachael have been reading them while I wasn't looking, and the numbers said
The Wrong Test
I was raised on a simple deal. A correct answer gets an A. A wrong answer gets an F. There is no third grade, no partial credit for
Rachael
The machine needs people who can look at the engine without flinching. The United States does not lack for opinion. It lacks for sight. Every platform is a
The Restless Advantage
of a shameful system Start with the shame, because you must understand the floor before you understand the basement. The United States spends more on medicine than any
The Envelope
We are not free. We are comfortable. There is a difference, and most of us have spent our lives making sure we never notice it. J.B. Priestley
The Breeding
Note from Joe. Tuesdays and Fridays are still free. Sunday is a longer essay, heavily researched, for paid readers. Saturday is new. Saturday is for my advertisements. This
I Made a List
I kept a folder. Then a longer folder. Then a document that would not fit on my screen without scrolling. Every time Trump did something that benefited Vladimir
We Used to Be Wise — Summary
We Used to Be Wise is the accounting Zeigler has been threatening to write for years. Nineteen chapters, one indictment. The premise is simple and the evidence is
The Constraint
Prices didn’t just rise. They moved. Not evenly. They moved toward the people who can still pay. And stayed there. For a long time, the United States
Let's Fuck this Up!
Written Saturday, April 18, 2026 Trump declared victory Friday. Iran's foreign minister had announced that the Strait of Hormuz was fully open. Oil dropped twelve percent.
It’s a Confession
Not a Plan Every year, the federal government releases a budget proposal. The newspapers cover it like a weather report: numbers, percentages, projected deficits. Most people turn the
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Four days ago, Anthropic announced that its Claude Mythos Preview model, during internal safety testing, broke out of its containment sandbox, gained internet access beyond its authorized perimeter,
It's Theature
With a Body Count Trump promised a million deportations a year. That was the number his people used. A million. Said it with the confidence of a man
Lunch at the Lodge
Florida He was already at the table when Lanying and I sat down. Big guy, maybe sixty-five, seed cap, the kind of handshake that's trying
The Fire
We Walked Away From On July 17, 1955, the people of Arco, Idaho went to bed not knowing what had just happened to their town. About 1,200
They Want the Power
They Don't Want to Share It Missed Tuesday. Sick, miserable, and horizontal for the last few days. Still not entirely upright but close enough to write
It's Still Tuesday
The Minnesotan at the bar is looking at me like I've just claimed to have grown up on the moon. "You grew up here? In
Bullshit
Nineteen minutes. Enough time to sound like history. Not enough time to become it. “Never in the history of warfare…” Absolute. Final. History doesn’t talk like that.
Dumber and Dumber
The Country That Stopped Reading The United States once had a word for people who couldn’t read. Illiterate. It was considered a problem. Something to fix. A
Something Bad Is Coming
Before November I want to be wrong about this. I'm not sure I am. Pressure is building right now, the kind that feels less like politics
War Briefings
A two-minute video montage of explosions. That’s it. Each day Yahoo!NBC News since the start of the war with Iran, military officials compile a highlight
The Free Tax App Is Gone.
You Paid For That. Tax time. You remembered. You set aside an hour. You were going to use the IRS Direct File app — the one the government built
Treason Pays Better
Than Governing This is an extra. Free. Posted this morning because Trump’s corruption didn’t cross the line—it erased it. Waiting would be dishonest. So it
The Nothing People
The FBI has a new label for something that doesn’t have a flag, doesn’t have a manifesto worth reading, and doesn’t want anything you could
The Ledger
A Confession in Numbers Alec Smith was twenty-six years old and three hundred dollars short of his insulin. He’d been a restaurant manager in Minneapolis, making
She Proved It
You Still Don't Believe Her. Charis Kubrin has spent twenty years doing the work. Not punditry. Not talking points. Research—peer-reviewed, replicated, published across seventeen
Paradise, Paved
Sorry I'm late. Yesterday was Key West. If you've never done the drive down the Keys, it starts to feel like the ocean is
Not Yet Enough to Matter
How Jeffrey Epstein Survived Decades of Institutional Failure The press writes Jeffrey Epstein as a dark magician who appeared from nowhere, bought half the ruling class, and carried
Putin's War, Trump's Bombs
The war started on a Saturday morning, the way the worst ones usually do. Trump announced it on Truth Social — a platform he owns a controlling stake in,
Read This!
Hillary Clinton’s Opening Statement: What She Said Hillary Clinton said congressional investigations are too often “partisan political theater.” “The Committee justified its subpoena to me based on
The Playbook
Two leaders. Two invasions. One playbook. On February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin sent Russian armor across the Ukrainian border without a declaration of war, without UN authorization, without