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Like Amsterdam, like New York City, Washington is a rat city. Old buildings and moisture create the conditions for them to thrive. Rats provide the midsized city with classical urban charm. On the other hand, they’re vermin. As of this week, it’s official: DC Health is putting rats on the pill. The agency is planning to put “edible fertility control bait in areas prone to large numbers of rats.” Cockburn wonders if putting rodents on birth control is a little like attempting a regime change in a foreign nation. How much do we actually know about the delicate balance of the ecosystem? If we sterilize the rats, what comes next?

Kristi Noem has just started her new role as Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas. She might need even more protection than a mere shield. The Daily Mail (who else?) this morning published bombshell photos and messages of her husband Bryon, wearing humongous prosthetic breasts and women’s leggings. While his wife was serving as President Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary, Bryon was exchanging “hundreds of messages” with at least “three women from the ‘bimbofication’ scene – where porn performers transform themselves into real-life Barbie dolls by pumping colossal amounts of saline into their breasts.” The Mail has the images. Cockburn is opting not to publish them. Needless to say, the selfies suggest Bryon prefers actual

Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona duit! There’s an Irish lilt to proceedings in Washington today. Vice President J.D. Vance and Second Lady Usha hosted Taoiseach Micheál Martin at the Naval Observatory for breakfast this morning (Cockburn hopes both black and white pudding were served). The Taoiseach then jigged down to the White House for a bilateral meeting with President Trump – and will be hosted alongside the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland for the ceremonial “shamrock bowl” presentation this afternoon. The festivities have been much more delicately handled than up in New York City, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been walking a tightrope over Irish sovereignty issues. A reporter asked him

It’s day seven of “Operation Epic Fury” – and the White House is posting through it. The war in Iran that Team Trump wants to show us is tailored for the short attention spans of the vertical video era. Consider this clip posted on X by the official White House account last night, which intersperses declassified footage of US drones hitting their targets with scenes from Gladiator, Iron Man, Braveheart, Top Gun: Maverick and Yu-Gi Oh. Or the video from earlier in the week that cuts between planes and bunkers being blown up and… SpongeBob SquarePants. The Israel Defense Forces’ X account has been equally out of pocket, while UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s TikTok aping the White House style is, like Starmer,

“If the Supreme Court rules against the United States of America on this…  WE’RE SCREWED!” said Donald Trump on Truth Social last month.  Well, the Supreme Court has finally now ruled, and it is indeed a very serious blow to Trump’s economic agenda. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which the White House used to impose his sweeping levies, “does not authorise the President to impose tariffs,” said the court.  Quite what this setback means for Trump’s tariffs remains unclear. There’s already much talk of the United States having to pay back duties to foreign companies, but that is a fraught legal question. Another highly contentious subject is what now

Turning Point USA’s political-action committee showed just how “family friendly” it is Monday – by endorsing serial adulterer Ken Paxton for Texas’s open Senate seat. Paxton, who’s battling Republican incumbent John Cornyn and Congressman Wesley Hunt for his party’s nomination, accepted the endorsement, saying, “I’m proud to be standing alongside Turning Point Action in carrying on the fight to save this country and defend our freedoms.” Sensible Republicans, of which there are at least a half dozen left, understand the hypocrisy of the organization started by the late Charlie Kirk, the world’s most earnest family man, backing one of America’s most ethically compromised politicians. Texas lawyer and Cornyn supporter Amy