Skip to content

Latest Posts

Web Exclusives

Extreme Hating
January 30, 2017
I had always hoped, our nation’s first President wrote to one of its first refugees, “that this land might— become a safe and agreeable Asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.” It was 1787 and François Van der Kemp, ...

High on the Apocalypse
Maybe we all just decided it was cooler to be George Orwell (who came from money) than H. G. Wells (who did not)—cooler to be the smirker saying, “Pah, it'll never work,” than to be the kid chirping, “Here is what we can do.” The H. G. Wells we find profiled in Krishan ...

Dispatch from the JFK Refugee Rally
I’m at JFK Terminal 4, where hundreds of people and growing every minute are here to denounce the unconscionable and unconstitutional executive orders that Donald Trump signed yesterday and that now are tearing families apart here at JFK Airport, we know of at least twelve ...

Zephyr Teachout: We’re Mired in Corruption
January 27, 2017
Speaking on the morning of January 20, 2017, as Donald Trump was about to take the oath of office, Zephyr Teachout observed: "He’s on track to violate a key provision of the Constitution within the next hour or so. The moment he’s sworn in." Teachout's book "Corruption in ...

Make American Dystopias Great Again
It was a bright cold day in January, and the blogosphere was awash in the world of 1984. After senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway took to the airwaves to declare that her White House colleagues operated in a world of “alternative facts” it only seemed logical—and ...

Putting Our Bodies on the Line
I am not sure how someone goes from the Women’s March to direct action, frankly. I think the thing that would be closest would be the 350.org arrests that happened in Washington [against the Keystone XL pipeline]. That was people who decided to get arrested for climate change. ...

Office-Droned Out
It can be difficult to balance what you can live with and what you can live on. It usually takes experimentation, trial and error. That’s a luxury most people don't have these precarious days, but creativity helps, and you have a good sense of what will grind your psyche into ...

Daily Bafflements
January 25, 2017
• As Democrats roll over and sign off on Trump’s atrocious cabinet appointees, Donald Trump is pressing forward on his campaign promises. Today, his riotous personal Twitter account informed us, is a “big day” for national security. Planning for the wall will ...

2017: A Spy Odyssey
Trump’s people know they do not have the full support of the security state, and this is why they are making early demands for loyalty. But speculation runs rampant about how much potential insubordination there could be in the CIA.

The Festival of Compromise
January 25, 2017
If, in some counterfactual universe, the Maharajah of Jaipur had married the Queen of England and sent their progeny to study at Harvard, the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival, which ran over the weekend, is exactly the sort of cultural jamboree you’d expect the multicultural ...

Justice for Janitors
If workers don’t work, our economy doesn’t work, their communities don’t work, and it begins to break down for the corporations. I think the strike is such a critical tool because it really is a tremendous amount of power that workers have. The bosses spend hours and hours ...

Dynasties of Neoliberalism
January 24, 2017
Always a spouse, never the president might be how we end up remembering Hillary Clinton, whose near-thirty-year career ended, dramatically punctuated with a period, at Donald Trump’s inauguration. Her appearance was everything we expected: the tight, frozen smile, the deep ...