Evening Roundup, September 4
Featuring "The Tea" with April Ryan, Meredith Blake, Judd Legum, Marvin Kalb, Brian O'Neill, Azza Cohen, Julie Sweetland, and Wendy Weiser with Thomas Wolf
The Tea w/ April Ryan ft. Rep. Espaillat and Kurt Schmoke
***HAPPY ALMOST-BIRTHDAY, APRIL RYAN!***
Thank you for your voice, your wisdom, and your willingness to tip over the pot week after week. Sending much love and gratitude from your Contrarian team.
Tune into The Tea with April Ryan, live every Thursday at 5pm ET.
Culture recs: The Paper Satirizes the Sorry State of Journalism in 2025
Labor Day is behind us, the kids are back in school, and the leaves are beginning to turn, which means one thing: festival season is upon us.
How much is Trump benefiting from his crypto deals?
Jen sat down with “force of nature in journalism” Judd Legum, the founder of Popular Information, to break down how Trump and his family are enriching themselves through a crypto scheme that benefits mightily from Trump’s executive orders, a compliant SEC, and a disinterested media.
Is Trump Building His Own Okhrana?
By Marvin Kalb
Vladimir Putin did not have his own powerful, quasi-military “National Guard,” controlled exclusively by him, until 2016—a decade and a half after seizing power in the Kremlin. His summit colleague, Donald Trump, pushing presidential power to the edges of dictatorship, has been absorbed lately in transforming America’s once-quaint “National Guard...”
The Nation Cannot Afford Silent Generals
Federal Judge Charles R. Breyer’s Sept. 2 ruling that the Trump administration’s deployment of federalized troops to Los Angeles was unlawful will not end there; the case will be appealed, and the U.S. Supreme Court will almost certainly have the final word.
Split Screen: The visuals of a military takeover
Images have the power to normalize the extraordinary. When military personnel appear on the streets of Washington, D.C., the visual record doesn't just document events, it also shapes how we understand them. We are watching in real time how the military takeover of D.C. is being sold to the American people through provocative photographs and videos.
They want us to be scared
I am a longtime Washington, D.C., resident who studies and shapes public language for a living and a mom raising an adolescent here. Recent public depictions of children and youth make me fear the policies that might lie ahead. We're witnessing a daily, disturbing trend in which hyperbolic claims about...
Don’t debase the census
By Wendy Weiser and Thomas Wolf
Meddling in the census fits into the Trump administration’s broader efforts to manipulate data and institutions to skew elections in his party’s favor.
All of you Contrarians from the DC area prepared to peacefully protest and demand an immediate withdrawal of federal troops from the District, join us for a rally this Saturday, September 6 at 11 am ET. We’ll be marching from Malcolm X Park (aka Meridian Hill) to Freedom Plaza. For more information, check out: wearealldc.com
Hope there is a HUGE turnout in DC this Saturday! (See the announcement at the very end.)
Just read that a panel of “judges” have ruled the Alligator Alcatraz can stay open after all. Please have that lawyer from the Center of Biological Diversity back on to discuss possible next steps. This is sooooo depressing. The judge’s ruling in the initial trial was so thorough and the lawyer so confidant that it would be upheld on appeal, we desperately need some new words of hope.