4 days agoMember-onlyOf Tehran and TucsonMisogyny knows no borders. Last month, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman from the provinces of Iran, was visiting Tehran when she was arrested and jailed by the country’s so-called “morality police” — the “guidance patrol,” as they call themselves — for wearing her head covering too loosely. Three days…Iran11 min read
Sep 24Member-onlyBeware a Rat Being CorneredThe justice system roars back, carrying us into a fraught new phase…. Last week in these pages, I wrote about the longstanding and exceptionally dangerous campaign by the Republican Party to co-opt the American judiciary such that it functions as a column in that organization’s brazen march toward authoritarianism in…Politics16 min read
Sep 10Member-only“Once You Have the Courts…”It’s very useful to own the refs. The first part of this story is obvious, and would not even shock Captain Renault: A judge that Trump appointed sided with Trump in a criminal case against Trump, in a ruling that stunned virtually every credible legal expert. Also: dog bites man…Justice19 min read
Aug 31Member-onlyPersecuted Innocent or Serial Offender?Roughly a third of all Americans think the Democratic Party and its fellow travelers are “out to get” Donald Trump, and have been ever since he became the presumptive Republican nominee in the summer of 2016. Might they actually be right? The answer may surprise you. To get there, I’m…Trump21 min read
Aug 19Member-onlyThe Perils of Pursuing Justice (and Why We Have to Do It Anyway)Don’t be afraid of making the Trumpies mad. One of the chief tactics of terrorist groups is to create conditions after the fact to justify their atrocities. Terrorists routinely insist that their foes are brutal oppressors who are deserving of the violence visited upon them, and can be defeated by…Politics22 min read
Aug 15Member-onlySecrets and LiesBelieve it or not, Trump might have done something even worse than inciting January 6th. Remember when August was traditionally a slow news month? This week I had a whole essay about Donald Trump’s theft of classified documents ready to go when even bigger news on that front broke. The…Trump17 min read
Aug 8Member-onlyShow of Hands: Camilla Nielsson’s “President”In Zimbabwe, a textbook case of election theft that should be a cautionary tale for us all. How bad was life in Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe, the brutal kleptocrat who held power in that sorrowful nation for almost 40 years? This bad: When the British mercenary Simon Mann tried to…Zimbabwe13 min read
Jul 20Member-onlyThe Atomic Bomb of Election Subversion, Part 2Part two of Moore v. Harper, the case that could wipe out American democracy for good. Will the Supreme Court let it? Just kidding. Of course it will. Last week in part one of this essay, we examined Moore v. Harper, the North Carolina case that the Supreme Court will…Politics13 min read
Jul 16Member-onlyThe Atomic Bomb of Election SubversionAs summer winds on and the House Select Committee on January 6th continues to lay out its evidence against the disgraced, twice-impeached 45th president of the United States, any doubt that Donald J. Trump attempted to defraud the US by trying to overturn a free and fair election is being…Politics17 min read
Jul 2Member-onlyThe High Cost of Letting People Off the HookIt’s been a blockbuster week, from the overturning of Roe (imagine if we hadn’t been warned) to the explosive testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to Trump’s fourth and final chief of staff Mark Meadows. While seemingly distinct, those two tentpoles are actually holding up the same canvas, which is…Politics15 min read
