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Chicago City Council Just Stabbed Tipped Workers in the Back

After a blitz by restaurant industry lobbyists, Chicago’s city council voted last week to maintain the subminimum wage for service workers, keeping them stuck in precarity and poverty wages. The submi

How Thoreau Challenged America to Live Up To Its Own Ideals

A new PBS documentary, Henry David Thoreau, reveals the Thoreau often softened in high school textbooks — the abolitionist, antiwar dissident, and ecological thinker whose ideas still challenge a coun

The Post-Reality Campaign

Viktor Orban is waging cognitive warfare on a new scale

Increase the Inheritance Tax

For some young workers, the aging of the American population means growing care burdens, while others anticipate a life-changing windfall. Higher taxes on the ever-growing number of inheritances could

Uber Backs Bills to Make It Harder to Sue Them for Crashes

Uber is spending tens of millions on a California ballot measure that could make it harder for riders, pedestrians, and drivers to sue for damages after car crashes. It is part of a broader liability

ICE vs. High Schoolers

We spoke with high school students in Minneapolis about how they were affected by ICE’s occupation of the city. Students from North High School in North St Paul, Minnesota, marched to their local city

The Sordid History of State Collusion With the Far Right

During the conflict in the North of Ireland, British security forces colluded with loyalist paramilitaries responsible for hundreds of sectarian murders. The record of collusion should be a cautionary

Weekend Update #178: Two Weeks Into The Russian Spring Offensive And The Ukrainians Have Gained Territory

The Ranged War and the Ukrainian Destruction of Russian Baltic Oil Terminals; Ukraine Helps The Gulf States

PRISM 2026 NBA draft rankings

Who should be the #1 pick? Our new NBA draft model says teams still overvalue potential and undervalue production.

Saturday discussion post

How our PRISM NBA draft model works

It's a machine learning model ... but with a lot of human curation.

Mental Health Workers Fight for AI Protections in California

In Northern California, 2,400 mental health providers went on strike earlier this month against medical giant Kaiser Permanente. A major point of contention is Kaiser’s efforts to replace human-provid

Student Socialists Are Taking On Madison’s Real Estate Machine

As part of a new wave of young socialist candidates, Madison’s Bobby Gronert is running for city council, bringing lessons learned from student organizing to city hall to challenge developers and shap

Fictional Teen Dystopias Reflect Real Capitalist Nightmares

Dystopian teen films will remain popular as long as they keep reflecting truths about young people’s prospects under capitalism. The pessimistic Lord of the Flies, which has been adapted many times f

The Afroman Ruling Is a Victory for Artistic Speech

Seven sheriff’s deputies sued musician Afroman for defamation after he mocked their failed raid in viral diss tracks. His victory comes at a moment when the lines of what constitutes artistic free spe

We Can't Income-Tax Ultra-Elites. We Must Tax Their Wealth.

To tax the richest Americans, we need to go after their wealth, not just their income. Two proposals — one in California, one in Congress — could finally do it. The alternative is an ever-more-powerfu

When Students Struck to End the War in Vietnam

In May 1970, four million students went on strike across the country, shutting down classes at hundreds of colleges, universities, and high schools and demanding an end to the Vietnam War. Armed Ohio

The case for the “Solid B” city

America’s future is boringly functional

Draft legislation aims to criminalise "sexually suggestive" photographs of fully clothed people in public because AI is scary

The Federal Republic of Germany is becoming a very stupid country.

Ground Troops in Iran: An Idiotic Idea for an Idiotic War

Donald Trump is weighing whether to make the Iran War even more of a disaster by sending in ground troops. It’s a terrible idea that almost everyone agrees won’t achieve anything but kill US troops an

<cite>Bummerland</cite> Sends Up Austin’s MAGA Tech-Bro Culture

A new essay collection by Randolph Lewis chronicles how Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, an Apple campus, and scorched-earth MAGA capitalism killed Austin's famous weirdness — and finds unexpected glimmers of ho

Can America and Iran Reach a Cease-Fire?

Both sides want to dictate the terms—but neither truly can.

Stephen Policoff's "A Ribbon For Your Hair"

not for the faint of heart

Politics as Consolation for Losers

Review of Dostoevsky's Demons, Part 2

ICE Is Trying to Avoid Oversight by Buying Private Prisons

The Trump administration is considering purchasing a number of private immigrant detention centers across the US. Doing so may allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement to bypass state laws geared at

Weekly Roundup: March 27

Sam Moyn and Jamelle Bouie on legislative supremacy, Mariano Féliz on Argentina's debt sustainability, Ntina Tzvouala on dollar hegemony (x2), Ivana Isailović on the LPE of Social Reproduction in the

Ukraine Is Starting To Wage Systems Warfare

The US Might Consider Paying Attention

Unrealistic plans to fix America’s gun problem

Plus Ariel Sharon, the optimal gas tax, and history slop

Behind MrBeast’s Cold, Dead Eyes

Twenty-five years ago, someone like Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson would have had little to offer the world. His rise to global phenomenon suggests that virality is emptier than even pessimists thought pos

Donald Trump Is Unpopular. That Only Matters in a Democracy.

US democracy has been degrading for years. Donald Trump has the motive, the disposition, and the political and legal infrastructure to simply circumvent it, especially with such low approval ratings a

Study How Zohran Mamdani Handles This Heckler

In just a few seconds, Zohran Mamdani takes a fairly sophisticated argument in political theory and translates it into a funny but substantive response to a heckler that redirects the conversation to

In Denmark, the Center Did Not Hold

Tuesday’s Danish election punished the Social Democrats as well as their center-right government partners. The result again showed voters’ distaste for managerial coalitions spanning the neoliberal ce

America’s New Way of Economic War

The dangers of a strategy with no doctrine.

The War in Iran Could Become Like the War in Ukraine

How America can avoid a Russian-style quagmire.

The Price of Strategic Incoherence in Iran

For America, the war’s benefits won’t outweigh its costs.

Thursday discussion post

Here’s more from X!

Live with Phillips P. OBrien and Bohdan Zhelobchuk

A recording from Phillips P. OBrien's live video

COOPER women's NCAA basketball ratings

Silver Bulletin's brand new power ratings for all 363 women's Division I NCAA basketball teams.

Hugh Mulzac’s Journey From Black Nationalism to the New Deal

Pioneering ship captain Hugh Mulzac’s remarkable life story reflects the maturation of black politics in the early 20th century. He began as a black nationalist but soon saw the singular promise of mu