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Straight Out of Centrist Casting
Say what you will about this demented presidential election cycle—it has, at a minimum, forced the myths of Beltway centrism out into gloriously open view. The meme that has lately captured the responsible commentariat is not that the rise of Donald Trump represents the ...

Daily Bafflements
March 09, 2016
• Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders threw pollsters and pundits for a loop last night in Michigan by winning the state’s Democratic primary when everyone and their mother (literally, this author’s mother) thought it was impossible—or at the very ...

Daily Bafflements
March 08, 2016
• Say “hullo” to our thirtieth issue, a breezy look at the collective panic afflicting the nation in election year! As John Summers writes, “Sober pundits intone, how do we balance liberty and security, freedom and security? We? Balance?  The ...

Daily Bafflements
March 07, 2016
 • Today in ostriches, their heads buried in the sand: “The future is clearly coming much faster than science had expected,” writes Bill McKibben in the Boston Globe. Well, that’s a bit uncharitable, Bill. He’s concentrated on his short fingers and on ...

Donald Trump, Trickster God
The witch-doctors of the electoral season have utterly failed in their essential task; that is, to explain the alarming spectacle that has befallen the land like a sudden eclipse. Political reporters, consultants and pundits are flailing in astonishment as “the unthinkable ...

Daily Bafflements
March 04, 2016
 • In case you felt let down after price-gouging pharma bro Martin Shkreli escaped a congressional hearing after rolling his eyes and invoking his Fifth Amendment right to avoid answering even a single substantive question, fear not. As Jaya Saxena reports, some witches have ...

Your Media Future: Cheesy and Skeezy
For decades, American parents and authority figures have fretted over how the goddamn kids in their lives might be induced to pull themselves out of TV’s stupefying thrall and start really living. Now, however, media worthies are feverishly trying the opposite tack: to get our ...

Daily Bafflements
March 03, 2016
• “Just imagine this scenario: It is the first day of class and I, the professor, walk into the classroom, throw my bag on the table; the bag sags open, showing the glimmer of a concealed, holstered gun,” writes Keffrelyn Brown in Pacific Standard. It’s a ...

Daily Bafflements
March 02, 2016
• Today in Super Tuesday hangovers: Donald Trump wins big, bringing him to a total of 315 delegates, giving him a 110 delegate lead over Ted Cruz and a 200-something lead over Marco Rubio. While we encourage you to start crafting a plan for where and how you’ll flee the ...