Jim Newell

Nearly every time Tea Party conservatives make a move, we read some version of a particular opening sentence. The latest is from the New York Times: “Shortly after President Obama started his second term, a loose-knit coalition of conservative activists led by former ...

Same-sex marriage is all the rage in Pennsylvania politics these days, as it is in many places. Now that New Jersey appears to be on its way to legalizing same-sex marriage via their superior courts, the Keystone state will have the distinction of being the only Northeastern ...

As The Baffler’s Zero Tolerance blog noted Wednesday, a full 95 percent of the news coverage of the 2013 government shutdown, days one and two, was devoted to our Greatest Generation not being able to visit the World War II memorial in Washington, D.C. For a little while, at ...

For some reason, Alex Pareene was booked on the CNBC Friday afternoon program, Closing Bell. It is baffling why Pareene, a senior writer at Salon, was asked to come on the show–though his appearance does, so far as we know, mark the only time a Baffler contributor has ...

On Monday at midnight, funding for the federal government is set to expire. As they stand now, here are each party’s negotiating postures: the Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, insist they will not fund the government so long as the new health care reform ...

Ahh, the Dignity of Work. It is time, once again, to consider those old standbys, Work and Dignity. According to the House of Representatives, it seems that many a wayward American soul has lost sight of that most cherished ideal: the workday. These Americans have come up with ...

There are a spate of sprawling cover stories published this week that concern the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary—the clearest signal yet that the next election cycle, which officially kicks off in three years’ time, has begun. Five years ago, during the marathon race for ...

At some point, President Barack Obama got it in his head that it would be a good idea to nominate the former Treasury secretary and director of his president’s National Economic Council, Larry Summers, to be the new chairman of the Federal Reserve. Most people who know of ...