https://therottendog.com/ Independent, ad-free journalism from The Rotten Dog. en-us Wed, 20 May 2026 14:22:37 GMT https://therottendog.com/article/the-taiwan-opening/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-taiwan-opening/ Wed, 20 May 2026 12:49:31 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) politics economy tech regional [[1]] More than 90 percent of the world’s most advanced chips are made in Taiwan.¹ That sentence should stop any government that reads it. It should stop the U.S. It should stop Canada. The chips that run phones, hospitals, vehicles, data centers,… https://therottendog.com/article/the-bag-first-opened/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-bag-first-opened/ Wed, 20 May 2026 10:48:37 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) law society politics [[1]] The knife went into the seam of the suitcase, and the wall gave way. Inside was not clothing, not books, not the harmless clutter of travel, but compressed green packages hidden behind a false panel. Around the officers stood Buddhist monks in robes, covering… https://therottendog.com/article/the-software-layer-of-the-state/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-software-layer-of-the-state/ Tue, 19 May 2026 11:18:47 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) politics technology By the time he saw the paper, the government had already finished the hard part. It had found him. No officer stood at the door. No badge flashed. No machine announced itself. There was only a sheet of… https://therottendog.com/article/the-machine-can-write-can-we-still-read/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-machine-can-write-can-we-still-read/ Mon, 18 May 2026 10:42:44 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) education tech AI did not create America’s literacy problem. It changed the penalty for it. The boy was not reading the word. He was circling it. He looked at the picture, then at the teacher’s face, then back at the page. The word sat there in… https://therottendog.com/article/bad-assumptions/ https://therottendog.com/article/bad-assumptions/ Sat, 16 May 2026 16:43:56 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) local weather climate El Niño begins in the Pacific. In New England, it shows up where the region thinks it is safe. The water won’t ask permission before it enters the house. Through the bulkhead, up through the floor drain, under the garage door, across the… https://therottendog.com/article/the-doctor-who-remembered/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-doctor-who-remembered/ Thu, 14 May 2026 11:36:21 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) economy health American medicine did not lose the family doctor by accident. It built a system that pays more for movement than memory. The waiting room at 7:15 on a Tuesday morning used to sound different. You could hear people talking to each other. Nurses knew which… https://therottendog.com/article/nuclear-to-mars/ https://therottendog.com/article/nuclear-to-mars/ Wed, 13 May 2026 19:03:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Technology The checklist sits on a second monitor, half-hidden behind a telemetry window, while Alvarez leans back just far enough to see both without moving his chair. He came over from propulsion analysis five years ago, after a launch scrub that turned on a valve fault… https://therottendog.com/article/the-wrong-kind-of-winter/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-wrong-kind-of-winter/ Wed, 13 May 2026 15:30:30 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) climate local weather The tide doesn’t have to roar into Portsmouth to make its point. Some mornings it just arrives a little too high, stays a little too long, and pushes through a piece of infrastructure that was built for a different version of winter. A storm drain… https://therottendog.com/article/judge-hurleys-revenge/ https://therottendog.com/article/judge-hurleys-revenge/ Sun, 03 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) politics regionl national How a Procedural Ruling Collided With a Statewide Vote—and What Comes Next [1] The line started before the doors opened, a loose arc of people holding coffee and folded sample ballots, shifting their weight against the chill as poll workers unlocked the glass entrance in… https://therottendog.com/article/the-map-the-notice-and-the-gate/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-map-the-notice-and-the-gate/ Thu, 30 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Voting Rights Immigration Law and Courts Political Power politics The Court narrows Black political power. The administration moves to strip protection from Haitians and Syrians. White South Africans are invited in. The old order has learned paperwork. Rose-Thamar Joseph stood outside the Supreme Court… https://therottendog.com/article/the-indictment-effect/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-indictment-effect/ Wed, 29 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Law and Courts Political Power Democrats Campaigns politics How legal exposure is reshaping decisions across politics and civil society The envelope was heavier than it needed to be, thick cream stock with a return address that looked routine enough to ignore, which is why he left it on the corner… https://therottendog.com/article/the-brains-we-left-behind/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-brains-we-left-behind/ Tue, 28 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Labor Artificial Intelligence Mental Health economy For a century, we rewarded one kind of mind. The next economy may reward the ones we left behind. At 2:17 a.m., the emergency department at Portsmouth Regional Hospital slipped into that narrow, deceptive quiet that falls between surges.… https://therottendog.com/article/the-shot/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-shot/ Mon, 27 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Campaigns Political Power Republicans politics By the time we see what happened, we’ve already decided what it means. I didn’t hear the shot as a shot. What I saw first was the reaction. It came through the television during the Correspondents’ Dinner, where the rhythm had already… https://therottendog.com/article/an-ordinary-night/ https://therottendog.com/article/an-ordinary-night/ Sun, 26 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) War and Security Ukraine Drones Military Technology politics What a single message from Kyiv reveals about how this war is really being fought The message came in just after dawn. “Two people died, 15 people were injured. Unfortunately, this is an ordinary night in Ukraine.” Svetlanka in Kyiv sent… https://therottendog.com/article/the-power-of-the-gatekeeper/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-power-of-the-gatekeeper/ Thu, 23 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) War and Security Iran Middle East Law and Courts politics How war in the Middle East is quietly increasing Turkey’s leverage at home and abroad The fluorescent lights inside the Istanbul courthouse hummed faintly as lawyers carried thick binders across the polished floor. A clerk began reading… https://therottendog.com/article/swamscot-brewing/ https://therottendog.com/article/swamscot-brewing/ Wed, 22 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) New Hampshire Community Business Food Systems local The machine doesn’t announce itself. It settles into the room. There’s a rhythm to it—glass against metal, a soft release of gas, the almost polite click of caps sealing—that takes a minute to notice and then, once you do, becomes… https://therottendog.com/article/locked-in-the-house/ https://therottendog.com/article/locked-in-the-house/ Tue, 21 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Cost of Living Markets Macroeconomics economy The keybox sticks for a second before it gives, the metal catching just long enough to register as resistance, and when it finally opens the agent hands over the key with a quick,… https://therottendog.com/article/the-renewal/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-renewal/ Thu, 16 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Political Power Congress Trade Business politics When Emergency Power Stops Feeling Temporary The dock smells like salt, diesel, and wet rope — the smell of work that has already started before sunrise. Kristan Porter stands over a clipboard damp from ocean spray, running a finger down a… https://therottendog.com/article/the-pope-didnt-say-that/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-pope-didnt-say-that/ Tue, 14 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Political Power Immigration Platforms Artificial Intelligence politics But it sounded better than what he actually says The man at the counter wasn’t trying to start anything. He was just waiting for his coffee, still damp from the walk in, scrolling the way people scroll when they’ve got a minute to burn and… https://therottendog.com/article/when-it-stops-being-a-coin-toss/ https://therottendog.com/article/when-it-stops-being-a-coin-toss/ Mon, 13 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Voting Rights Political Power Law and Courts Europe politics The quiet ways a system can start picking the same winner A country can keep its elections—and still stop changing. Hungary figured it out first. The television over the bar had Fox News on, the volume set just high enough that you… https://therottendog.com/article/the-war-ends-now-what/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-war-ends-now-what/ Thu, 09 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Energy Prices Inflation Clean Energy Grid economy The damage to our economy from energy shortages doesn’t end when the war does. The man on the loading dock in Scranton keeps the engine running, even though every second burns money he can’t get back. He isn’t waiting on the pallet… https://therottendog.com/article/the-waiting-room/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-waiting-room/ Wed, 08 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Public Health Medicine Immigration Political Power health The Emergency That Learned to Stay The exam room smells like hand sanitizer and powdered gloves — that sharp, clean scent that promises order. It’s the smell of systems that are supposed to work. Dr. Dolly Lucio Sevier smells it every day.… https://therottendog.com/article/no-way-in/ https://therottendog.com/article/no-way-in/ Tue, 07 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Labor Artificial Intelligence economy The first thing AI removes isn’t jobs. It’s the path into them. The calls don’t come the way they used to. She notices it in the pauses, the steady stream breaking into uneven gaps, the headset warm against her ear while nothing comes… https://therottendog.com/article/down-for-the-count/ https://therottendog.com/article/down-for-the-count/ Mon, 06 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Voting Rights Law and Courts State Politics Political Power politics Why counting votes no longer ends an election The printer in the back room of the Maricopa County tabulation center had been running long enough that the paper came out warm, edges curling slightly as a technician lifted a stack and… https://therottendog.com/article/which-energy-gets-an-escort/ https://therottendog.com/article/which-energy-gets-an-escort/ Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Energy Clean Energy Political Power Nuclear climate The wind was coming hard off the Atlantic that morning, rattling the loose siding on a half-finished seafood shack in New Bedford. The kind of wind that makes you stop mid-sentence and look past the breakwater, imagining turbines where… https://therottendog.com/article/playing-poker-with-donald/ https://therottendog.com/article/playing-poker-with-donald/ Wed, 01 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Political Power The table absorbed sound the way good tables do—leaving nothing but the parts people didn’t mean to reveal. A man in a gray hoodie leaned back, riffling chips, listening not for information but for drift—the moment a sentence leans too… https://therottendog.com/article/the-war-you-dont-see/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-war-you-dont-see/ Tue, 31 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) War and Security Ukraine Military Technology Energy Prices politics When war doesn’t spread geographically, it spreads through capacity The first explosion in Dubai sounded nothing like Kyiv. That’s what made it worse. Iran’s retaliation had reached the Gulf. Airspace tightened. Interceptors flared in the… https://therottendog.com/article/the-end-of-the-parking-lot-dividend/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-end-of-the-parking-lot-dividend/ Mon, 30 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) New Hampshire Local Government Public Finance Taxes local How Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is replacing retail with housing—and why Newington isn’t sure it can The chain-link fence went up on a damp morning off Durgin Lane, the kind of coastal gray that flattens everything into a single tone until… https://therottendog.com/article/the-new-math-of-dinner/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-new-math-of-dinner/ Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Food Culture Restaurants Cost of Living Inflation economy The counter at my local fish market on the seacoast has become a place where people pause. Chilean sea bass sits at thirty-eight dollars a pound. Salmon beside it reads nineteen ninety-nine—still reasonable, but no longer casual. No one… https://therottendog.com/article/watching-the-tv-watching/ https://therottendog.com/article/watching-the-tv-watching/ Mon, 23 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Surveillance Platforms Law and Courts Political Power tech The television didn’t react when he picked up his phone, and that was part of what made the moment unsettling rather than obvious. It kept playing, voices folding into the room while he searched for a gift he hadn’t quite decided to buy,… https://therottendog.com/article/the-therapy-hour/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-therapy-hour/ Sun, 22 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Medicine Health Insurance Public Finance Labor health The therapy room is quiet except for the soft clicking of a tablet, a steady, mechanical rhythm that fills the pauses between prompts as a technician kneels on the carpet across from a small boy and holds up a laminated card—a… https://therottendog.com/article/meatball-talks/ https://therottendog.com/article/meatball-talks/ Sat, 21 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Public Safety Massachusetts New England local The refrigerated truck idled at the loading dock while the driver checked his clipboard. It was a poultry rig—the kind that moves cages of chickens from farms to processing plants across New England before dawn. The air carried the dull… https://therottendog.com/article/losing-a-free-press/ https://therottendog.com/article/losing-a-free-press/ Fri, 20 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Political Power White House Law and Courts Business politics “Trump is waging war on the media… and winning.” –The Guardian The badge scanner at the Pentagon press entrance gives a short electronic beep. A reporter slides the credential across the reader, signs a revised access form at the desk, and… https://therottendog.com/article/the-speed-of-the-factory/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-speed-of-the-factory/ Thu, 19 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) War and Security Middle East Military Technology Business politics On the production floor in Camden, Arkansas, the missiles are not called Patriots. They are called units . The word appears on the screens above each workstation. A unit enters the line as a long metal cylinder holding the basic structure… https://therottendog.com/article/the-cost-of-staying-warm/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-cost-of-staying-warm/ Wed, 18 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Energy Prices Cost of Living New Hampshire Energy economy In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a colder winter and a sharp jump in electricity rates exposed the complicated machinery behind an ordinary utility bill. The surprise wasn’t the total. It was the supply charge. For the century-old house a few… https://therottendog.com/article/just-messing-with-computers-part-v/ https://therottendog.com/article/just-messing-with-computers-part-v/ Tue, 17 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Artificial Intelligence How Brains Learn the World About a year ago I was sitting on the living-room floor watching my grandson try to walk. He had decided, with the absolute confidence of a one-year-old, that upright travel was clearly the next step in life.… https://therottendog.com/article/the-moving-truck-on-middle-street/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-moving-truck-on-middle-street/ Mon, 16 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Health Insurance Public Health Cost of Living New England health Why thousands of American families lose the house long before they expect to. The moving truck arrived on Middle Street in Portsmouth a little after nine on a cold February morning. On the kitchen table inside the house sat the bill that… https://therottendog.com/article/rejected/ https://therottendog.com/article/rejected/ Wed, 11 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Voting Rights Congress Political Power Immigration politics My wife and I were married in Switzerland. Two Americans, both born in the United States. Under the SAVE America Act, that marriage certificate could one day determine whether she is allowed to vote. Fifty years ago, we walked into a Swiss… https://therottendog.com/article/what-are-we-fighting-for/ https://therottendog.com/article/what-are-we-fighting-for/ Mon, 09 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) War and Security Political Power politics …and its 1,2,3 what are we fightin for? don’t ask me i don’t give a damn, the next stop is tehran. The line is wrong, of course. The original lyric said Vietnam. But change a single word and the old chorus lands in the present with eerie… https://therottendog.com/article/the-toll-booth-presidency/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-toll-booth-presidency/ Wed, 04 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Political Power White House Public Finance Business politics When Access to Power Starts Carrying a Price The statue arrived in a crate. Yesterday afternoon, Kristi Noem sat under Senate lights defending her leadership while members of her own party dismantled it in public. “What we’ve seen is a… https://therottendog.com/article/just-the-facts-maam/ https://therottendog.com/article/just-the-facts-maam/ Tue, 03 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Political Power Law and Courts Business politics When the State controls the media, who can you trust? At 6:03 a.m., I’m in my kitchen. I just let Sofia outside, and I’m waiting for coffee to brew. I’m reading about something that supposedly changed the country overnight. By 6:07, three… https://therottendog.com/article/breaking-up-is-hard-to-do/ https://therottendog.com/article/breaking-up-is-hard-to-do/ Mon, 02 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) War and Security Iran Middle East politics The song was built to make you move. Bright piano. Snapping rhythm. Neil Sedaka leaning into a studio microphone in 1962, singing, “Breaking up is hard to do.” It was teenage heartbreak wrapped in bubblegum pop. Harmless. Catchy. And yet… https://therottendog.com/article/political-abstinence/ https://therottendog.com/article/political-abstinence/ Sun, 01 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Political Power Voting Rights Immigration Law and Courts politics On a damp Tuesday afternoon in Durham, a freshman named Tom is scrolling Pinterest in the back row of a lecture hall at the University of New Hampshire. He’s building a board called “First Apartment Vibes.” Exposed brick. String lights. A… https://therottendog.com/article/trumps-poland/ https://therottendog.com/article/trumps-poland/ Sat, 28 Feb 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) War and Security Political Power Iran Middle East politics At 3:12 a.m., the sky over Tehran tore open. Windows rattled. Car alarms screamed. Tracer fire ripped upward and burst white. By sunrise, the Pentagon had a name— Operation Epic Fury —a coordinated U.S.–Israel strike on Iranian military… https://therottendog.com/article/the-gangster-and-the-gardener/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-gangster-and-the-gardener/ Wed, 25 Feb 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Immigration Republicans Campaigns Labor politics The warning did not come from a Democrat. It came from a Republican in pearls, standing in a district where Spanish is as common as sea air. The banner on WFOR-TV compressed it into five words: Republican breaks with Trump on deportations.… https://therottendog.com/article/selling-leukemia-at-9-14-p-m/ https://therottendog.com/article/selling-leukemia-at-9-14-p-m/ Tue, 24 Feb 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Drug Policy Medicine Health Insurance Business health The Strange Economics of Drug Advertising in the Only Country That Does It This Way At 9:14 p.m., my dog, Sofia, was asleep, the dishes were done, and the television was selling leukemia. Not bluntly.… https://therottendog.com/article/the-noise-is-the-strategy/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-noise-is-the-strategy/ Mon, 23 Feb 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Campaigns Political Power Immigration Trade politics Making noise to hide in plain sight The bass hit first—low, clean, just a little too loud for a room where half the people were still wearing their winter coats. Cheap lights hung over the stage the way you hang lights when you want a… https://therottendog.com/article/call-it-stealing-if-you-want-but-it-s-clearly-a-plot-to-move-the/ https://therottendog.com/article/call-it-stealing-if-you-want-but-it-s-clearly-a-plot-to-move-the/ Sun, 22 Feb 2026 14:27:46 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Trade Taxes Cost of Living Public Finance economy Call it stealing if you want, but it’s clearly a plot to move the tax burden downward — toward the checkout line, not the top tax bracket. Tariffs show up in the price of the things you buy — groceries, clothes for your kids, a new… https://therottendog.com/article/you-ve-been-told-that-tariffs-are-paid-by-other-countries/ https://therottendog.com/article/you-ve-been-told-that-tariffs-are-paid-by-other-countries/ Sun, 22 Feb 2026 13:51:54 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Trade Taxes Cost of Living Law and Courts economy They aren’t. A tariff is a tax on goods coming into the United States. The bill goes to the American company importing it. That company pays U.S. Customs. The money goes to the U.S. Treasury. On a $1,000 laptop, that’s $150 at the border.… https://therottendog.com/article/the-1-241-trillion-experiment/ https://therottendog.com/article/the-1-241-trillion-experiment/ Sat, 21 Feb 2026 12:00:00 GMT dog@rottendog.com (Bill Southworth) Trade Macroeconomics Business Law and Courts economy We Paid the Tariffs. The Deficit Stayed–and the Court Hit Back The warehouse manager in Elizabeth, New Jersey, still keeps the spreadsheet open. It sits on the second monitor to his right, frozen in the columns that mattered most last…