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Why Aetna Should Pay Reparations
July 24, 2014
“This is a civil rights bill—this is reparations,” Rush Limbaugh said of the Affordable Care Act back in 2010. As you might expect, he didn’t mean it in a good way. Limbaugh’s ability to condemn the Civil Rights Act and reparations in a single breath is an achievement ...

On Class and Work in HBO’s “Girls”
March 24, 2014
On the occasion of last night’s season finale of HBO’s Girls, we’re publishing online for the first time Heather Havrilesky’s essay “Sit-Cons: Class on TV,” from Issue 20 of The Baffler. In it, she examines how the subject of class is treated (and should be treated) ...

A Modest Proposal for the Twenty-First Century
October 02, 2013
There is something to be said for having a strong voting bloc, the power to organize, a grumpy scrappiness, and a golden opportunity. On Tuesday, a group of World War II veterans, visiting Washington as part of the Honor Flight network, were kept from visiting their memorial and ...

The Beltway Media Shuck-Down
October 01, 2013
The Beltway media’s standard accounts of how governing and politics operate in the American republic are as oversimplified as patty-cake. And, as the great Guignol show known as Shutdown ’13 amply demonstrates, the end results are about as edifying. The audience for this ...

All Hail the Shutdown Circle Jerk
September 27, 2013
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 ...

The Ted Cruz Show
September 25, 2013
Perhaps a bizarre Twitter account doesn’t rise to the level of high art, but there is something of the Ziegfeld Follies in the kind of political posturing that Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, rolled out this week on the Senate floor. For twenty-one hours and change, the senator ...

The Practical Wife
September 23, 2013
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 ...

Under Fire: Empire and the Politics of Peace
September 19, 2013
Turns out Barack Obama is the commander in chief of the American military, and it’s “a role in which at times he has seemed uneasy.” This uneasiness, as the Washington Post reports, is a feeling whole-heartedly requited by top brass. “The prospect of an ...

The Great American War Dance
September 10, 2013
Academic historians insist upon the uniqueness of periods and places. They tell tales of a world where “the past is a foreign country.” It’s rather striking to note, therefore, that the voice of American military power has remained consistent throughout our ...