The Baffler

• Your uncle with all the conspiracy theories are right; the Department of Homeland Security does have a secret “kill switch” for the Internet, and a D.C. court has just ruled that it can remain secret. • You may have seen the news this week that the vile ...

• Oh, brands! Red Bull has filed an opposition with the Patent and Trademark Office against a little tiny craft brewery in Ashburn, Virginia called Old Ox Brewery. For trademark infringement. Red Bull argues “that an ox and a bull are ‘virtually indistinguishable ...

• Hey, you’re a busy businessman or woman, right? And you want to give your clients and customers the personal touch, but who has the time? Luckily, there is a new, thoughtful service called Bond that lets you text a robot to write people hand-written notes for you. ...

• The blockbuster series by the New York Times uncovering the faces behind layers and layers of shady shell companies buying up elite real estate in New York is a must-read. The first part of the series unpacks the owners of the condos at the Time Warner Center, from reality ...

• This one goes out to Sady: “When their new $70,000 princess-themed playroom is finished in March, Stella, 4 years old, and Presley, 2½, will have a faux gem-encrusted performance stage, a treehouse loft, and a mini-French cafe. A $20,000 custom carpet with colorful ...

• Today in Billionaires: Some tycoons buy mansions, some buy yachts. Some build a Grand Inter-Oceanic Canal through Nicaragua. It’s “an audacious $50 billion plan by an obscure Chinese billionaire to cross Central America and challenge the Panama Canal for the ...

• Moshe Marvit writes for In These Times about Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, the Supreme Court case that could potentially change the rules that govern how unions are funded, a decision that “could prove to be the most damaging case to labor in ...

• An interior design company that is literally called Euro Trash has decorated the Capitol Hill offices of Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) to resemble a specific room from the fictional palatial estate of “Downton Abbey,” from PBS’s dramatic series of the ...