How the Top 0.01 Percent Became America’s Criminal Class
“We don’t pay taxes,” the hotel magnate and 1980s “queen of mean” Leona Helmsley famously said. “Only the little people pay taxes.” That Helmsley would go on to spend 21 months in the slammer for tax...
View ArticleWhy the Media Wants a Crisis at the Border
On Sunday, ABC’s This Week sent its weekly roundtable—excuse me, its Powerhouse Roundtable—on a field trip to the U.S.-Mexico border. It’s possible that a Sunday show has never looked more striking:...
View ArticleThe Fracking Shill Local Newspapers Love to Publish
“If we hit our CO2 targets and every one of us are living in abject poverty, is that really how you really want to live?” Greg Kozera is making his pro-fracking case to me. Later in our phone call,...
View ArticleThe Exaggeration of “Burnout” in America
I bet you’re burned out after enduring a full year of the Covid-19 pandemic. If you have kids, you’re probably trying to teach them at home, either between work shifts out in the world or while sharing...
View ArticleAudre Lorde Broke the Silence
“Is it possible to be a black lesbian writer and live to tell about it?” asked budding writer and scholar Barbara Smith at the 1976 convention of the Modern Language Association. Among those in...
View ArticleBiden’s Worrying Reluctance to Confront Saudi Arabia
Days before the sixth anniversary of its devastating military intervention in Yemen, which began on March 25, 2015, the Saudi government offered a ceasefire to its enemies, the Houthi rebels....
View ArticleThe Amazon Union Vote is Ending in Bessemer. Workers Are Already Preparing...
The Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, is 885,000 square feet of shiny new construction. Signs painted on the windows in bursts of green, red, yellow greet workers at the main entrance with the...
View ArticleThe Obscure Supreme Court Case That Could Radically Redefine Police Powers
Why is the United States so reliant on police officers for basic social services? What societal roles do cops fill other than investigating crimes, arresting suspects, and patrolling communities? And...
View ArticleWhy Is Chuck Schumer Protecting the Rich From Flood Insurance Hikes?
As last week was winding to a close, The New York Times reported on an odd instance of power brokering by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Ahead of a planned April 1 rollout, the New York senator...
View ArticleWhy Are Freelancers Organizing Against the PRO Act?
Shortly after the House of Representatives passed the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, a sweeping labor-law reform bill, on March 9, freelance writers began expressing concerns about the bill,...
View ArticleThe Nail-Biting Story of Obamacare
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A Democratic president takes power amid a national crisis, his power bolstered by Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. The economy is in the tubes,...
View ArticleThe New Republic Names Michael Tomasky as Top Editor
New York, NY (March 25, 2021)—The New Republic announced today it has tapped Michael Tomasky as its top editor. The iconic liberal news, commentary, and opinion outlet also announced that a majority...
View ArticleVaccine Denialism Is the Right Wing’s Favorite New Conspiracy Theory
Right-wing movements ranging from QAnon to the Plandemic, Stop the Steal to the Boogaloo Bois, have always drunk from the same toxic wellspring of paranoid alienation, even as they sometimes differ in...
View ArticleThe Republican Legal Assault on Biden’s Covid Relief Plan Could Be...
From President Biden’s first day in office, when he sent his American Rescue Plan Act to Congress, until March 11, when he signed the $1.9 trillion economic relief package into law, his top officials...
View ArticleAre Climate Progressives Organized Enough to Force Biden’s Hand?
So far green groups have largely praised the Biden administration—its quick cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, its recommitment to the Paris Agreement, and other early steps. But now, as Biden...
View ArticleHow Housing Activists Took On Philadelphia and Won
In late June, in a video on the news site Unicorn Riot, the activist Jennifer Bennetch was standing around, waiting to announce an occupation. The video showed her in front of the headquarters for the...
View ArticlePrince Harry’s New Fake Mental Health Care Job Is a Farce
Having dramatically exited one country’s putrescent ruling class, the former Duke and Duchess of Sussex have officially leapt into another: After landing multiyear content deals with both Netflix and...
View ArticleDerek Chauvin’s Defense Puts Black Lives Matter on Trial
Not long into the official opening of State v. Derek Chauvin on Monday, the voices of community members who protested police violence in Minneapolis were invoked, starting with those at the scene of...
View ArticleSharon Stone and the Fantasy of Female Domination
It was the summer of 1992, and Sharon Stone was learning to play tennis on the French Riviera. Basic Instinct had opened the Cannes festival that spring, and Stone, who would henceforth be famous...
View ArticleLiving Through Detroit’s Perpetual Housing Crisis
My family moved to Detroit in 1998, when I was seven years old, and to the house where we live now on the west side of the city in 2005. Since then, the house to our right has seen a rotating cast of...
View Article