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How to Break Up Corporate Giants
Anyone who lived in New York City in the 1970s and ’80s is likely familiar with the discount electronics store chain Crazy Eddie. By 1987, there were over 40 stores spread across four states, which...
View ArticleWho Run the World? Charlie’s Angels!
The deeply silly late-1970s television show Charlie’s Angels is a camp artifact, the tale of three comely lasses jiggling their way to justice. It’s not exactly Shakespeare or the Ramayana, the sort of...
View ArticleDeval Patrick Was an Overrated Governor
When Deval Patrick was preparing to leave the job of Massachusetts governor five years ago, the state Democratic Party found itself in a unique bind—not through any fault of his, mind you. The local...
View ArticleThe War Criminals I Have Known
The lower-ranking accused war criminals I’ve known all struck me as really nice guys, right up until it seemed they weren’t. That’s war for you. Things are fine until they’re not, and then after that...
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Locking People Up: South Dakota’s On It
“Meth: We’re On It.” For the briefest of moments Monday evening, these words managed to drown out impeachment analysis as social media cocked a collective eyebrow in the direction of South Dakota.The...
View ArticleTrump’s Ukraine Defenders Are Caught in an Existential Crisis
In the White House’s telling of events, the two staffers who testified on Tuesday morning weren’t credible and also cleared the president of any wrongdoing. “We have learned nothing new in today’s...
View ArticleThere’s Only One Way the Patrick and Bloomberg Campaigns Make Sense
I’m going to write something annoying. I’m going to write some horse-race campaign analysis. I’m going to write very broadly and subjectively about trends in the race without using hard data or...
View ArticleReturning to Wounded Knee
What you think of when you hear the phrase “Wounded Knee” depends largely on two factors: how old you are, and whether or not you are Native.Younger, non-Native individuals may remember Wounded Knee as...
View ArticleWhy the Hell Did Democrats Just Extend the Patriot Act?
It may seem to many Americans that Washington is entirely consumed by the impeachment inquiry, and that no other important business is getting done on Capitol Hill. But on Tuesday, in a break from...
View ArticleGordon Sondland Rips Out the Heart of Trump’s Defense
What did President Donald Trump know, and when did he know it? According to Gordon Sondland, he knew everything about the Ukraine scheme, and he knew it all along. The U.S. ambassador to the European...
View ArticleHow Gordon Sondland Broke the Media’s Savior Complex
If Hollywood producers were to cast a foil to Donald Trump, they seemingly could not have done better than the witnesses who testified during the first three days of the House Intelligence Committee’s...
View ArticleTo Lock Up a President
“Lock him up?” It’s a question that Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden both addressed at the fifth Democratic primary debate (in Atlanta, hosted by MSNBC and The Washington Post). Moderator Rachel Maddow had...
View ArticleAnother Debate Marks Time in an Endless Primary Season
Does there need to be another Democratic primary debate? It’s not an easy question to answer. On the one hand, the primaries are still three months away. What will we do? On the other, we have had, by...
View ArticleThe Lucrative Liberal Business of Killing Health Care Reform
If you don’t live in Washington or work within the realm of politics or public affairs, you might not realize just how many people in this city have completely fake jobs. Obviously, my job is pretty...
View ArticleFukuyama’s Inner Civic Republicanism (Part 2)
“For virtually coeval with the enunciation of Lockean Liberalism,” Francis Fukuyama wrote in a passage in his 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, “has been a persistent unease with the...
View ArticleTian’anmen Sonnet
Dead air in airThe anniversary of languageholds you back againstbucolic dreaming, down streamfrom here is runninga miraculous color, elegybursts like a ribbon in airThinking again of the Square...
View ArticleMason Jar
Most miracles be small—lightning bugsflicking off & onin the dusk beforethe storm, hoping to be caughtby fire& each other. Instead,...
View ArticleThe Dark Side of Bikram Yoga
You need a strong constitution to attempt a hot yoga class. The same is true even if you only want to watch Eva Orner’s Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator, a documentary about the form’s champion, Bikram...
View ArticleMaking Impeachment Matter
A national poll in September, one of the first taken after Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives would initiate a formal impeachment inquiry regarding the president’s...
View ArticleThe Media’s Irrational Obsession With Campaign War Chests
Political reporters will do almost anything to avoid making a judgment call. That’s why they revel in seemingly objective truths like poll numbers and fund-raising reports, often taking as gospel the...
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