The Toxic Nationalism of the Pharmaceutical Industry
A few years after 9/11, while the United States was at war with Iraq and fears about national security were at a fever pitch, the drug industry embarked on a short-lived literary venture. At the behest...
View Article“Blood for Oil” Is Official U.S. Policy Now
In between playing five hours of golf on Saturday and getting booed at a baseball game on Sunday, President Donald Trump caught up on his other favorite sport: playing military. American service...
View ArticleTrump’s World Series Boo-Birds Are a Sign of a Healthy Democracy
President Donald Trump rarely ventures out in public before crowds that aren’t predisposed to like him. His Sunday evening jaunt to Washington, D.C.’s Nationals Park was a rare exception. When the...
View ArticleWhy Did CNN Hire a Moron Like Sean Duffy?
There are bad first days at work and then there is Sean Duffy’s first day at CNN. Appearing as the network’s latest pro-Trump talking head last week, the former Wisconsin congressman (and Real World:...
View ArticleThe False Comfort of Higher Seawalls
Two weeks ago, Super Typhoon Hagibis barrelled into Japan, unleashing “unprecedented” rain that caused floods and landslides. At least 80 are dead, thousands of homes in Japan’s main island were...
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What John Rawls Missed
John Rawls, who died in 2002, was the most influential American philosopher of the twentieth century. His great work, A Theory of Justice, appeared in 1971 and defined the field of political philosophy...
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Boeing Is MAXed Out on Smoking Guns
The name Mark Forkner is by now familiar to even relatively casual followers of the Boeing 737 MAX saga. Forkner is the former chief technical pilot who conducted a series of Grey Goose–addled Skype...
View ArticleHow We Misremember the Internet’s Origins
The first message transmitted over ARPANET, the pioneering Pentagon-funded data-sharing network, late in the evening on October 29, 1969, was incomplete due to a technical error. UCLA graduate student...
View ArticleThe League of Anti-Environmental Extremists
The number of anti-climate appointees running federal public lands and environmental policy has become, like a great many alarming situations, unnervingly pedestrian three years into the Trump...
View ArticlePete Buttigieg Is Still Fighting the Last War
It’s Pete Buttigieg’s moment. Again. His combative performance at the most recent debate, coupled with the release of a few polls suggesting he’s entered the top tier of candidates in Iowa, have...
View ArticleWarren’s “Plan For That” Slogan Is Getting Old
A quick scroll through the official Elizabeth Warren merch store reveals a teeming marketplace of campaign wares: branded T-shirts, lawn signs, bumper stickers, and an assortment of buttons. Ardent...
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Redesigning American Schools in an Age of Mass Shootings
Early in September, in Fruitport, Michigan, a new building at a local high school made headlines across the country. It had been designed for a single purpose: to try to mitigate the carnage of school...
View Article“Affordable” Child Care Is a Failure of Imagination
Imagine if public K-12 education in America were no longer free, no longer a right. Parents would need to come up with tuition fees—an average of about $12,000 per child—or else figure out alternative...
View ArticleWhat Did Turkey Know About Baghdadi’s Hideout?
The death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi last weekend set spy services to public bragging: CIA officials told The New York Times that the discovery of the ISIS leader’s location came after the arrest and...
View ArticleMega-Donor Ambassadors Are Corrupting American Diplomacy
Those who’ve followed the Ukraine scandal are familiar by now with Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union. He’s a key player in the alleged scheme to subvert President Donald...
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Facing Up to the Past, German-Style
A compulsion to find meaning in chaos has produced many Theories of Trumpism. Initially shocked by such an erratic candidate and a startlingly racist campaign immediately following the United States’...
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Trump, Blackface, and Guns
For most Americans, the 2019 political calendar has been overshadowed by next year’s presidential battle royale, which will feature an embattled incumbent, possible impeachment proceedings in Congress,...
View ArticleTrump’s Claims About Fighting Corruption Are a Joke
In February of 2017, just a few weeks into President Donald Trump’s reign, GOP legislators employed powers granted to them under the 1996 Congressional Review Act (CRA)—a legislative tactic described,...
View ArticleDid a Drug Company Illegally Experiment on a Louisiana Prisoner?
In May, a drug company called BioCorRx began offering free Naltrexone implants, a slow-release drug that reduces opioid cravings, to incarcerated people. The first prisoner underwent the surgical...
View ArticleThe Class War of Fare-Dodging Crackdowns
With New York City making the decision to shut down Rikers Island, and Americans increasingly aware of the deep inequities of the current justice system, one would almost think the U.S. is on the brink...
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