Among the many striking features of Trump’s appalling betrayal of Ukraine has been the gaucheness and utter naïveté of the Trump ‘team’s’ diplomacy. Perhaps Trump thinks it’s clever to break basic rules of effective negotiation, who knows. Watching the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, meet the new US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio in Saudi Arabia […]

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There is no point in sugarcoating it: the United States has been captured by adversarial interests. Whether we’re talking about Putin’s grip on Trump and Musk or their deference to Xi, or about tech bros and their devotion to neo-reactionary fascism, or about the disastrous string of foreign-aligned cabinet confirmations, America is in deep trouble. We may […]

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In 1971, a lawyer named Dr. Peter Beter claimed that the vaults at Fort Knox had been emptied of their gold. Beter, who had run for governor of his home state of West Virginia in 1968 (and lost) said that he had heard this from two British intelligence officers he had encountered after establishing a […]

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Donald Trump’s recent declaration of unbounded power — “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law” — serves as his dismissive response to at least 75 separate lawsuits that have been filed against his administration in federal courts as of February 18, with more inevitably to come. These cases span a staggering range […]

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So much winning. Unjammed bridges and tunnels. Speedier deliveries. On-time buses. Calmer, more inviting streets. Fewer traffic crashes. Repairmen getting to more jobs. Not Donald Trump’s kind of winning, however. Trump didn’t invent congestion pricing. A Nobel economist — a Canadian, at that — worked out the theory 60 years ago, and a ragtag crew […]

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