America Voted. The Climate Lost.
The last two years in American politics have spelled trouble for the global climate, thanks largely to the Trump administration. And the next two years probably won’t be much better, given the results...
View ArticleThe Unlearned Lessons of the Beirut Barracks Bombing
The man drove his truck up the road. Plowing through flimsy wire fencing, he veered through the lot, and shot towards a building in the back.He smiled. And then he blew up the building. Using around...
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What Do Our Oldest Books Say About Us?
There are four original manuscripts containing poetry in Old English—the now-defunct language of the medieval Anglo-Saxons—that have survived to the present day. No more, no less. They are: the...
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Is Climate Bipartisanship Dead?
In 2016, two members of Congress—one Republican and one Democrat—decided they wanted to end partisan gridlock over global warming. So, in partnership with the advocacy group Citizens’ Climate Lobby,...
View ArticleThe Agony and Malice of Jeff Sessions
Jeff Sessions, who resigned on Wednesday, ranked as one of the most regressive political figures to ever lead the Justice Department. The ousted attorney general spent the last two years reshaping...
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Scott Walker Thought He Could Get Away With Corporate Welfare
Scott Walker thought he had cracked the code. “You divide and conquer,” he famously told a major right-wing donor, days before beginning his first term as Wisconsin’s governor. If he could break the...
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The Outsider Democrats Who Built the Blue Wave
On Saturday, November 3, three days before the midterms, 200 volunteers gathered in Modena, New York, to canvass for Antonio Delgado, an African American lawyer and first-time congressional candidate....
View ArticleCoal Ash Kills Workers. Trump Kills Coal Ash Regulations.
Ten years ago, environmental disaster struck Kingston, Tennessee. A dike containing massive amounts of coal waste burst, releasing 1.1 billion gallons of the heavy-metal sludge onto land and into...
View ArticleMitt Romney Is the New Jeff Flake
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump spent his first press conference after a midterm rebuke ranting about the media. He said CNN should be “ashamed of itself” for its coverage of his administration...
View ArticleWhat’s Next for Rent Control?
Last night, more than 100 protesters occupied the downtown Santa Monica offices of The Blackstone Group, a real estate and private equity giant that spent millions of dollars to defeat a ballot measure...
View ArticleHow Making A Murderer Reinvented Itself
It took me a long time to start watching the second season of Making a Murderer. The first season, while wildly compelling—and one of the first true crime documentaries to captivate what felt like the...
View ArticleThe 2020 Election Could Come Down to Voter Suppression
Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign scrambled the electoral map, as he won several states that some considered reliably, even irrevocably, blue. This week’s midterms, blue wave or not, reversed...
View ArticleAre 100 Years Enough?
The First World War, which ended a century ago Sunday, was supposed to be a hinge-moment in history: a war to end all wars, and a war to end the imperialism that had shaped the West’s interaction with...
View ArticleThe Republicans Broke Congress. Democrats Can Fix It.
In the great 1972 political satire The Candidate, Robert Redford plays a novice candidate who runs a slick campaign for Senate and wins an upset against an unbeatable incumbent. On election night,...
View ArticleHow Much Damage Will Matt Whitaker Do to the Rule of Law in America?
President Donald Trump makes no secret of his litmus test for an attorney general: They should be loyal to the president first, and the rule of law second. He’s invoked Robert Kennedy and Eric Holder...
View ArticleWhat Makes a Great Movie About Journalism?
Reporters make for odd movie heroes. They are traditionally untidy and unglamorous. But a journalist who is following a story—whether that journalist be Lois Lane or Bob Woodward—can always do...
View ArticleAmazon Scammed America’s Hurting Cities
For over a year, Amazon dangled the prize of a second headquarters, or HQ2, in front of cities across the country, and then watched as they duked it out. The result was a sort of hypercapitalist Hunger...
View ArticleA Democrat Ran on Climate Change in a Republican Stronghold—and Won
If Sean Casten had talked about climate change once during his campaign, that would have been more than most Democrats running for Congress. But Casten didn’t talk about climate change just once, or...
View ArticleThe Menacing Midcentury Aesthetic of Prestige TV
In an early scene in the first episode of Homecoming, Amazon’s new psychological thriller series, Julia Roberts walks through a series of rooms, talking rapidly on her phone. It is an important...
View ArticleDemocrats, Don’t Compromise With Trump
With Democrats in control of the House, they are now faced with the question of how best to use their legislative authority. Nancy Pelosi has already drafted a lengthy list of goals: lowering...
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