The Memo That Killed a City
In 2013, a single legal memo from Treasury quietly redefined what counted as a 'municipal bond' — instantly making it nearly impossible for Detroit to restructure its debt outside of bankruptcy. How o...
4 Jun 19min
The Revolving Door That Stopped Revolving
When a little-known government ethics office quietly blocked dozens of high-profile Washington job switches in 2023, it sent shockwaves through K Street and corporate boardrooms. We examine how one ob...
3 Jun 12min
The Pentagon's $60 Billion Accounting Error
In May 2024, Pentagon accountants discovered they had miscalculated the value of weapons sent to Ukraine by $6.2 billion—meaning they could send billions more without new Congressional approval. What ...
2 Jun 13min
The Bureaucrat Who Broke Big Tech
How Lina Khan went from writing a law school paper to wielding the Federal Trade Commission like a sledgehammer against Amazon, Google, and Meta. Her aggressive antitrust agenda has CEOs lawyering up ...
1 Jun 16min
The Judge Who Couldn't Say No
In 1978, a single federal judge in Alabama became the de facto administrator of the entire state prison system—and held that power for nearly four decades. How Chief Judge Frank Johnson's contempt cit...
31 Mai 17min
The Midnight Memo That Broke FEMA
In 2005, a single bureaucratic decision made 72 hours before Katrina's landfall turned a disaster response into a disaster itself. We trace how one lawyer's memo about federal authority created a coor...
30 Mai 17min
The Revolving Door's Last Stop
When a mid-level FDA regulator quietly rewrote drug approval guidelines three weeks before joining a pharmaceutical company, it exposed how the revolving door between government and industry actually ...
29 Mai 16min
The Janitor's Key to the Pentagon
How a routine background check delay for a civilian contractor in 2013 accidentally exposed that the Defense Department had been operating a massive off-books surveillance program without Congressiona...
28 Mai 15min
