An Evening in the Old South
I’m having a painful attack of nostalgia. I feel a deep pang of loss as I think about the Confederate statues that line Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia. Are their days numbered? They stand only a...
View ArticleConfederate Monuments: History Lessons or Symbols of White Supremacy?
The movement to unmoor Confederate monuments gained momentum in 2015, when self-proclaimed white supremacist Dylan Roof posed with a Confederate flag and murdered nine African Americans in a...
View ArticleGOP Quickly Running Out of Time to Dump Trump
One headline today read, “Republicans in Despair After Trump’s Disastrous Week.”It brought to mind heated conversations I had years ago with Republican aides on The Hill, folks I have known from when I...
View ArticleThe Long Battle to Remove the Stain of White Supremacy
Following the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA last week, Republican and Democratic politicians alike were quick to condemn what they saw. Almost to a man — that man being President...
View ArticleIs Turkey about to Test Trump with New Syria Attack?
Just when US-backed and Kurdish-led forces have encircled the Syrian capital of ISIS, Raqqa, a threatened Turkish invasion could undermine the war against the terror group. Even without meddling from...
View ArticleHow Kushner Punishes Debtors
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View ArticleAmerica’s Longest War Gets Another Shot in the Arm
One cannot view in isolation President Donald Trump’s decision about US troop levels in Afghanistan. Because this is bigger than Trump — or any president.As WhoWhatWhy has repeatedly emphasized, the...
View ArticleWill Zeal for Profits Hinder High-tech Farming from Feeding People?
Vegetables grown on modular indoor farms in the hearts of cities may soon give roadside you-pick farms a run for their money. From produce ordered on-demand from smartphones to retrofitted shipping...
View ArticleTrump Tower’s Russian Spy?
PICKS are stories from many sources, selected by our editors or recommended by our readers because they are important, surprising, troubling, enlightening, inspiring, or amusing. They appear on our...
View ArticleCivil War History is Factual, But Fluid
It is said that winners write history. In the case of the US Civil War it’s a bit more complicated. For the sake of uniting a divided country, the losers of the war have been allowed to cling to their...
View ArticleRebuilding China’s ‘Heartland’
PICKS are stories from many sources, selected by our editors or recommended by our readers because they are important, surprising, troubling, enlightening, inspiring, or amusing. They appear on our...
View ArticleThe Village Voice’s Death by a Thousand Cuts
When word broke late Tuesday that the Village Voice would end its six-decade print run, it provoked dutiful hand-wringing on social media by fans of the counterculture icon. At the same time, the...
View ArticleWho Will Save Social Security When the GOP Tries to Break It?
The 2017 Social Security Trustees Report, published on July 13, contains 250 pages of statistics and text so dense that only policy wonks will plow through. Yet one brief footnote reveals how Social...
View ArticleFTC Approves Whole Foods-Amazon Merger
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View ArticleA Real Home of Real Fake News
Lately, the media is just as much in the news as it is covering the news. Most of it we see. The power of Fox and Friends. The daily scoops from The New York Times and Washington Post. Sean Hannity and...
View ArticleMedia: War Makes Trump ‘Presidential’
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View ArticleThe Voyager Probes — Monuments to Science and Human Ingenuity
The dazzling spectacle of Monday’s Great American Eclipse — and the national paranoia about prolonged eye damage it inspired — overshadowed an epic milestone in US aerospace history.On August 20, 1977,...
View ArticleArpaio Pardon Is Trump’s Latest Attempt to Obstruct Justice
On its surface, President Donald Trump’s pardon of Joe Arpaio is many things: a slap in the face of Hispanics and an affront to the rule of law as well as a nod to Trump’s alt-right base and, of...
View ArticleIs Anybody Running the Deep State?
Barry Eisler has had many jobs. He was a covert operative for the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, an attorney in an international law firm, in-house counsel at the Osaka headquarters of Panasonic, an...
View ArticleDOJ’s Anti-Trump Crackdown
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