Homeland Security

The Real ID moment is here, the Y2K panic of 2025. Today is the deadline to update your driver’s license, leading to frantic predictions of something no one alive has ever seen before – long lines at the DMV. Will the center hold, or will the need to have a digitally embossed star on a piece of plastic finally bring the Republic down once and for all? I predict a quiet day. The fact is, though you now need a Real ID, you technically don’t need one today, unless you do. People must now deploy these enhanced IDs any time they’re entering a federal building, which most people don’t do on the reg, or a nuclear-power plant, which most people never do, and, most significantly in the lives of the general public, if they’re trying to get through airport security.

There’s been a vibe shift in Washington. After Thursday night’s debate debacle and a Biden family meeting at Camp David on Sunday in which it became clear the president was not interested in dropping his re-election bid, Democrats closed ranks around Biden. Excuses were workshopped to the press: the debate was a one-off, Biden was actually over prepared by his debate prep team, the president was tired from his overseas travel and Biden’s cognitive decline is nothing compared to Trump’s lies. Unfortunately for Biden, none of these landed well with the public and Democrats are now putting out smoke signals that it’s time to let it go. Representative Lloyd Doggett became the first Democratic elected official to call on Biden to step aside as the nominee.

What is decadence? In popular usage, it is synonymous with “excess,” especially of a sensual or appetitive nature. I am not sure what it means that we encounter the word most often these days in connection highly caloric chocolate confections. Perhaps such linguistic degradation, in which serious things are reformulated in an atmosphere of ironic depreciation, is one sign we live in a decadent age. In any case, at its core I believe that decadence has less to do with excessive consumption or sensuality than with ontological attenuation.   What does that pretentious mouthful mean? It means that decadence is essentially about the hollowing out of vital institutions, not their surrender to gluttony, lust and profligacy.

In front of the whole world, Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas threw the Border Patrol agents he oversees — and our country's reputation — under the bus. Now, two leading border chiefs are ushering the DHS secretary toward the exit. Mark Morgan, head of the US Border Patrol under Barack Obama, has dubbed Mayorkas "the most dangerous man in the Biden administration" and is calling for his impeachment. Morgan also slammed the DHS head for choosing "to withhold the truth." Former ICE director Tom Homan is equally blunt: "He should resign.