Flight of the Barr Bros
The New York Times on Monday published a mea culpa by career lawyer Erica Newland, who joined the Justice Department under Obama and then served under Trump. Working in the Office of Legal Counsel, she...
View ArticleCongress Doesn’t Care About Your Surprise Ambulance Bill
While campaigning this spring in the Democratic primary for Missouri’s first congressional district, then–insurgent candidate Cori Bush found herself struggling to breathe: a hallmark symptom caused by...
View ArticleIf the U.S. Already Had a Covid Variant, We Wouldn’t Know
News of specific, potentially more contagious coronavirus variants in the United Kingdom and South Africa have swept global headlines in recent days. The two unrelated variants, health officials say,...
View ArticleThe Return of Corporate Tax Incentives Is a Bad Omen for Blue States
In September, New Jersey officials announced a plan to borrow $4.5 billion to cover what The New York Times referred to as a “gaping financial hole” in the state’s budget. It was an understandable move...
View ArticleMake Media Small Again
In 2020, the media got bigger. The New York Times continued its hegemonic expansion, announcing that it had topped five million subscribers in March, six million in June, and seven million in November....
View ArticleCongress Is the Problem Child of American Democracy
When Americans learn about Congress in civics classes, they’re taught that passing legislation can be a lengthy, multi-stage process. Bills are introduced by a member of either the House or the Senate,...
View ArticleMeritocracy on Trial
In 1958, a British sociologist named Michael Young, in a book called The Rise of the Meritocracy, portrayed a dystopia. He imagined a society in which the old class system of Britain had been swept...
View ArticleThe Green Fantasy and Messy Reality of Nuclear Power
Joe Biden will have to do more about climate change than any president before him. He has no choice. Already, close U.S. allies are openly expressing their relief about the end of the ecologically...
View ArticleEnd the Cops’ Cannibalization of Our Budgets
Six months ago, after Minneapolis police killed George Floyd, the city moved to defund the department. That was the headline in June, but the story in the months since has been more complicated....
View ArticleHow to Make Kleptocrats Fear America Again
Four years ago, the United States was widely viewed as the towering, swaggering leader of global anti-corruption efforts. While other countries struggled with money-laundering banks and corrupt...
View ArticleCarbon Capture Is Not a Climate Savior
In December, the Vatican became one of the latest entities to unveil a plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, joining far less pious actors like BP, Shell, and President-elect Joe Biden. Net-zero...
View ArticleSimply Talking About the Pandemic the Right Way Can Help Rebuild American...
It’s democracy’s death knell: The feeling that the future is beyond us, the sensation that we’ve lost, as citizens, the ability to direct our lives together in a meaningful way. Sometimes it feels as...
View ArticleRevenge Is Sweet in Promising Young Woman
Sexual violence and misogyny have for so long provided mainstream film and television with a wellspring of entertaining tropes, that when writers and directors set out to examine their workings...
View ArticleWe’re Outsourcing Our Self-Awareness to Silicon Valley
Would you like to give your friends and loved ones the gift of surveillance this holiday season? Your options abound. The market for “smart” devices is booming: There are smart toothbrushes that...
View ArticleLabor Power Is the Key to Racial Equity
When President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January, he’ll inherit a country that’s riven with divisions along ethnic and socio-economic lines. The central tenets of his “Build Back Better” plan...
View ArticleJoe Biden Doesn’t Need the GOP’s Permission to Fix Our Broken Immigration System
The state of affairs that President-elect Joe Biden will inherit when he’s sworn into office next month already has many on the left, along with anyone just generally interested in governance, staring...
View ArticleThis Beleaguered Federal Agency Is America’s Best Hope to Curb Guns
The ATF is a federal law enforcement agency that focuses on gun crimes. It also inspects gun dealers and manufacturers to make sure they follow the law. Despite this incredibly important mission, the...
View ArticleOperation Santa Is a Horror Story About American Poverty
On a cloudy Christmas Eve in 1907, Mary McGann, a 10-year-old Irish girl living in Hell’s Kitchen with her younger brother and mother, wrote a letter to Santa Claus. “I am very glad that you are coming...
View ArticleThe Case for Biden to Muddle Through America’s Political Crisis
Even as America hits low ebb with an out-of-control pandemic and staggering economic pain, there is, at least, the comfort that the nation can wrest itself out of its current situation if only it can...
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Can Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock Make History?
If you speak with people who have long known Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff—the Democratic candidates hoping to flip Georgia’s two U.S. Senate seats in tightly contested runoff elections on...
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