The Herculean Task of Remaking the Bureau of Land Management
The Trump administration’s goal for the Interior Department was clear the moment the former president took office: From top to bottom, the Interior’s mission was to eat away at itself bit by bit until...
View ArticleThe Madness of Naomi Wolf
When I graduated from college in 1991, Naomi Wolf was a feminist icon, and the only person of or close to my generation who merited the designation. The weighty feminist classics that had shaken the...
View ArticleKeystone XL Is Dead. Now Kill the Rest.
On Wednesday, TC Energy, the Canadian company backing the Keystone XL pipeline, announced the official cancellation of the controversial project. The decision is the culmination of years of Indigenous...
View Article“Populist” Conservatives Rush to the Defense of Megarich Tax Dodgers
The scandal at the center of the damning ProPublica investigation into the tax avoidance habits of the 25 richest Americans is so obvious it almost doesn’t need to be restated: “According to Forbes,...
View ArticleWe Regret to Inform You That Workers Are Not Suddenly Winning
How do you like the Great American Labor Shortage so far? Wages are rising faster than they have in nearly 40 years, reports Business Insider, excluding a freakish momentary spike last year when...
View ArticleMerrick Garland Is Not Your Liberal Firebrand
After roughly half a year on the job so far, Attorney General Merrick Garland is acting like a relatively normal attorney general. He hasn’t yet made moves that suggest he’s a fervent partisan...
View ArticleThat $5 Uber Ride, $8 Burrito, and the Brutal Costs of “Cheap”
If you listen to the sophistry emanating from corporate leaders and their stenographers in the business press, prices for goods and services are surging, and one of the causes is quite simple: Workers...
View ArticleHerd Immunity Is Not a Magical Percentage
For months, a tantalizing number has driven America’s Covid-19 response. First, it was 60 to 70 percent; then, as the virus blanketed the globe and evolved to become more contagious, it rose to 75 or...
View ArticleThe Trump Justice Department Was Even More Malicious Than We Thought
Though former President Donald Trump’s term ended in January, his administration’s penchant for scandal lives on. In recent weeks, the Justice Department told reporters and news outlets that it had...
View ArticleCorporations Urging “Bold Action” on Climate at the G7 Gave $1.7 Million to...
On the eve of wealthy G7 nations’ conference in England this weekend, an “Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders,” convened under the auspices of the World Economic Forum, called on them to “accelerate a just...
View ArticleHere’s an Idea for Liberals: Propaganda
What does the Democratic Party stand for? What do voters think the Democratic Party stands for? How can Democrats communicate to voters that they actually do stand for things? These are vexing...
View ArticleRepublicans Seriously Think Trump Lost the Election Because of a Lab Leak...
Lindsey Graham believes he has discovered the real reason Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, and it’s not the ghost of Hugo Chavez engineering a massive vote-switching conspiracy. Nor is it the Trump...
View ArticleForget Putin, Merkel, and Macron. It’s Manchin, Sinema, and Feinstein Who...
President Joe Biden meets with Vladimir Putin Wednesday, and he has vowed to communicate some stern messages to the Russian leader about the latter’s efforts to undermine democracy. This work began...
View ArticleThe Sleazy Story of How Biogen’s New Alzheimer’s Snake Oil Got Approved
Last week the Food and Drug Administration approved Aduhelm—the first new Alzheimer’s drug in 18 years—an event that, at first blush, heralds the amazing news of a medical advance. Perhaps it might...
View ArticleHow Deep Is America’s Reckoning with Racism?
In the early 2000s, before the levees broke in New Orleans, it was still possible to be a provincial New Englander and drive in a shiny rental car down Interstate 45 toward Galveston, Texas, without...
View ArticleImpostor Syndrome Explores the Secret Life of a Woman in Tech
What does a spy look like? Rather than drawing attention to himself by being flashy, like James Bond, a good secret agent traditionally mutes his presence. “Obscurity was his nature, as well as his...
View ArticleLet’s Take the Filibuster to Court
The failure of Democrats to surmount a Senate filibuster and pass out of that body a bill that might create a bipartisan committee to investigate the events of January 6 is a gut check for Democrats,...
View ArticleThe Specter of Critical Race Theory Is Rotting Republicans’ Brains
If you were to turn on Fox News or right-wing radio right now, you might not find any news at all about President Joe Biden’s first foreign trip: Conservative media has all but stopped covering any...
View ArticleHow Long Can the West Survive Republican Obstruction on Climate?
Last week, Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah offered the meekest of excuses when asked why conservative leadership in the Senate is fighting to keep crucial climate policies out of the...
View ArticleWhen the Government Supported Writers
When we think about the Works Progress Administration and the millions of jobs it provided, we tend to imagine heavy labor: men with pickaxes chipping away at rock for new roads, strapping masons...
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