After the End of Native Mascots
If recent reports hold true, the Washington NFL team name is finally on its way out. Despite a lot of grand declarations about tradition, legacy, and tribute, it seems that the winds have shifted...
View ArticleThe Two Sides of Biden’s Economic Plan
Joe Biden gave a speech Thursday and released an economic plan. News coverage focused on the latter, which mimics President Donald Trump’s “Buy American” theme and promises that Biden will be more...
View ArticleThe Most Corrupt President in American History
The United States is in the grip of a pandemic that already has killed more than 130,000 Americans; tens of thousands more will likely die in the months ahead. The U.S. economy is in free fall while...
View ArticleThe Government Is Walking Blind Into the Coronavirus Housing Crisis
The 2008 financial crisis saw failures at every level of elite institutions. There was the failed promise of Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan that the markets would self-regulate. The failure of...
View ArticleThe Great Germ War Cover-Up
In late September of 1950, just as U.S. armed forces were surging up the Korean peninsula, residents of the San Francisco Bay Area noticed an odd odor. The unidentifiable smell hung around for a week....
View ArticleThe GOP’s Murderous Anti-Intellectualism
Future generations will be astounded to learn that in the face of a deadly and unprecedented global pandemic, it became controversial to adopt simple and long-standing public health protocols—and that,...
View ArticleDon’t Give Dan Snyder a Stadium
On Monday, the Washington NFL team announced that it will officially retire and replace its name, a slur originally used to encourage the murder of Native people. The announcement raises many questions...
View ArticleIn Defense of Free Stuff During (and After) the Pandemic
There’s nothing the American government hates more than handouts, at least those that are intended for anyone who isn’t already rich. In the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson stressed that the War on Poverty was...
View ArticleThe Pioneers of the Misinformation Industry
There is an hour on the west side of Los Angeles, before the evening traffic slows to a crawl, when the falling light turns thin and clean. But young Andrew Breitbart often had to drive all day. After...
View ArticleAmerica’s Immigration System Is Fractured Beyond Repair
Among all the ongoing crises currently fighting for prominence in the national conversation, the broad suspension of immigration barely registers, despite the enormous scale of the chaos happening...
View ArticleAmerican Individualism Is My Climate Fear
For years you were a bore and a doomsayer if you mentioned climate change at a party. It wasn’t even the elephant in the room: There were no elephants. Just people.When an unapologetic denier of...
View ArticleThrow the Bums Out
Earlier this month, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled the Covid-19 mountain, a three-dimensional foam mound representing the pandemic’s toll on his state. He had used the “mountain” metaphor...
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The Tragic Politicization of Hagia Sophia
Last Friday, the Turkish Council of State overturned the 1934 ruling that had allowed Hagia Sophia, Istanbul’s soaring cathedral-turned-mosque, to be converted into a museum. Minutes later, President...
View ArticleA Window of Possibility on Self-Managed Abortion
Following what reproductive rights and justice advocates have long fought to secure, a federal judge in Maryland ruled this week that, for now, people seeking a medication abortion do not need to visit...
View ArticleDonald Trump Jr. Wages a Culture War on the Publishing Industry
There have been smoother book announcements than the one for Donald Trump Jr.’s second book, Liberal Privilege. After Axios’s Mike Allen reported that the book, focused on tarring Joe Biden, will be...
View ArticleThe Dark Obsessions of QAnon Are Merging With Mainstream Conservatism
The online furniture seller Wayfair is not engaged in child sex trafficking. The high prices of some of its industrial-grade cabinets do not mean that they conceal children. And yet these absurd,...
View ArticleIvanka Trump and Lockheed Martin Want You to Reach for the Stars and Stop...
Two weeks ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a record 4.8 million people were hired in the month of June. “Our economy is roaring back,” the president said at the time as CNBC marveled that...
View ArticleThe Supreme Court’s Unconscionable Rush to Kill a Prisoner
The federal government ended its 13-year moratorium on executions on Tuesday morning by killing Daniel Lewis Lee at the federal death chamber in Terre Haute, Indiana. Lewis is the first in a series of...
View ArticleDeb Haaland’s Plan to Embarrass Jair Bolsonaro
Support from the White House is one of the last things President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil has going for him, politically. His administration’s dismissive and callous response to the Covid-19 pandemic...
View ArticleWhy Is Biden Clinging to the Dream of Green Factories?
Just about everyone seems to want a green recovery from the coronavirus and its economic upheaval. Rishi Sunak—Britain’s Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer—has pledged to decarbonize Britain’s...
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