Beyond the Earthquake, Syrians Need US Sanctions Lifted
The Biden administration has thankfully lifted the sanctions on Syria to provide for earthquake relief. It’s a good first step. The next: lift the sanctions regime entirely.
519 Articles by: Branko Marcetic
Branko Marcetic is a Jacobin staff writer and the author of Yesterday’s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden.
The Grinding War in Ukraine Could Have Ended a Long Time Ago
An early peace deal could have ended the bloody war in Ukraine. But NATO opposition and revelations about the Russian massacre of civilians at Bucha, along with US media that all but ignored potential routes to peace, dashed those hopes.
The US Is Doing Far Worse Than Floating Balloons in Other Countries’ Airspace
Let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that the recently shot-down Chinese balloon was indeed spying. The US doesn’t like other countries snooping on them — something the US is constantly doing all over the planet.
Ilhan Omar Should Wear Her Expulsion From the House Foreign Affairs Committee as a Badge of Honor
Ilhan Omar has been kicked off the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The move is a backhanded acknowledgment by her enemies of her unusual effectiveness as a critic of the hypocrisies of US foreign policy.
Israel Is Threatening to Turn Iran Into Another Ukraine
Israel’s air strikes on Iran highlight the risk that Israeli bellicosity and Biden administration fecklessness could combine to produce a disastrous regional war in the Middle East.
Tyre Nichols’s Death Is What Happens When You Get “Tough on Crime”
As soon as it became electorally inconvenient, the Democrats largely dropped their support for police reform and adopted a crime-fighting approach straight out of the ’90s. The result: shocking police murders like Tyre Nichols’s have become more common.
Ukraine’s Postwar Reconstruction Has Big Business Licking Its Lips
Ukraine is being sized up by neocolonial vultures from BlackRock to the EU for a carve-up after the war is over. On the menu is deregulation, privatization, and “tax efficiency” — measures that may have already begun.
Ron DeSantis Prefers to Call His War on Workers a War on “Wokeness”
Ron DeSantis’s crusade against “woke ideology” was always a thinly disguised assault on the rights of Florida teachers and their unions. His recent “Teacher’s Bill of Rights” only makes it explicit.
Joe Biden’s Rooseveltian Ambitions Are Officially Dead
Austerity-minded Jeff Zients’s appointment as White House chief of staff signals Joe Biden’s return to the fiscal hawkishness that has always been his sweet spot.
Jacinda Ardern’s Leadership Was a Cautionary Tale of Liberal Inaction
Kindness, empathy, and compassion were values at the heart of Jacinda Ardern’s political career — but they were often absent from her government’s policies. The result was a squandered opportunity to overhaul New Zealand’s economy for the better.
When It Comes to Mishandling Classified Documents, the Powerful Are Treated With Kid Gloves
Mishandling classified documents, as both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are now accused of doing, is just one type of crime for which America increasingly has one justice system for the rich and powerful and another, far harsher system for everyone else.
Democrats’ Hypocrisy on the Bolivian Coup Is Truly Staggering
For Democrats, taking a stand for democracy requires prosecuting coup plotters wherever and whenever they show their seditious faces. This rule holds fast except for in Bolivia, where prosecuting coup plotters apparently amounts to authoritarianism.
If Even Ken Roth Can’t Criticize Israel, No One Can
Ken Roth, the ex-head of Human Rights Watch, recently had his hiring at Harvard vetoed by administrators. Because when it comes to criticism of Israeli apartheid, even a notorious friend of the powerful like Roth can’t get a pass from the establishment.
The US Should Learn From Brazil and Actually Punish Its Coup Plotters
The riots in Brazil have drawn Jan. 6 comparisons, but they’re even more reminiscent of a different episode: the Bolivian coup that liberals misguidedly backed. Another big difference from Jan. 6: Brazil is actually prosecuting its high-level coup plotters.
A Tiny Cut in the Military Budget That Probably Won’t Happen Is Causing Panic in Washington
The bipartisan establishment is having a freak-out over the prospect of a modest cut to the defense budget. It’s not clear it will actually happen — but even if it did, the gargantuan US military budget would still be wasteful and counterproductive.
No, the GOP Has Not Become the Party of Workers
The bare minimum requirement of being a party of workers is to actually support measures that would improve those workers’ lives. By that metric, the GOP has failed over and over again.
Elon Musk Is Bad at Running Tesla, Too
With Elon Musk’s unending display of incompetence in running Twitter, it’s easy to forget that the enterprise that made him famous, Tesla, is just as riddled with scandal, lies, and even death.
Good Riddance, Juan Guaidó
Juan Guaidó was supposed to be the appealing, human face of US-backed regime change in Venezuela. His ouster as “interim president” this week is another signal that those efforts have failed.
Why the Twitter Files Are in Fact a Big Deal
On the Left, there’s been a temptation to dismiss the revelations about Twitter’s internal censorship system that have emerged from the so-called Twitter Files project. But that would be a mistake: the news is important and the details are alarming.
The January 6 Report Is a Christmas Gift to the Far Right. Thank Liz Cheney for That.
For the sake of her political ambitions and her desire to protect the national security state, Liz Cheney ensured the January 6 committee’s final report wouldn’t cover law enforcement’s failures. It’s a huge boon to the Trumpist forces she claims to oppose.