Branko Marcetic is a Jacobin staff writer and the author of Yesterday’s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden.
Run-ins with regulators, financial troubles, and a highly publicized penchant for dangerous risk was what Silicon Valley Bank was best known for in the decades before its collapse this year. So why was it allowed to grow so big, and so unregulated?
After two years of touting his presidency as progressive and transformational, Joe Biden appears to be returning to form and moving rightward. It’s not only the wrong thing to do — according to the latest polls, it also isn’t winning voters over to him.
American lawmakers are sounding the alarm about privacy concerns with China and TikTok — at the exact same time US-based social media companies are unaccountably vacuuming up just as much data.
It’s not a conspiracy theory: Ronald Reagan secretly negotiated to keep the Iran hostages captive for an extended period to try to keep President Jimmy Carter from winning reelection.
You might think everyone agrees the Iraq War was a complete humanitarian and strategic disaster. But a casual survey of today’s politicians and mainstream talking heads reveals that many in corridors of power think the invasion was fundamentally a good idea.
The ripple effects of the disastrous Iraq invasion still course through the Middle East and domestic US politics decades later. Yet there’s little evidence those in power have learned anything from it.
The spectacular collapse of Silicon Valley Bank was caused by corruption, financial recklessness, and poor decision-making. With its bailout echoing 2008’s eager bailouts for the rich, it begs the question: How much longer will Americans put up with this?
Congress’s latest failure to pull US troops out of Syria may be more significant for demonstrating the growing appetite in both parties to rein in US adventurism overseas.
Voters aren’t even telling pollsters that crime is a top issue for them. That isn’t stopping President Joe Biden from shifting to the right on crime anyway.
The Biden administration’s domestic “war on terror” was sold as a crackdown on far-right extremists. But it’s left-wing activists and other dissidents, like Atlanta’s Cop City protesters, who are now facing repression and being labeled “terrorists.”
American intelligence agencies have concluded that Havana syndrome isn’t real. No surprise. But that determination comes long after mainstream media credulously and repeatedly reported on and repeated intelligence officers’ absurd claims.
Whether eggs, flour, or baby formula, the household goods that have seen some of the steepest price increases and majorly squeezed average Americans have also made their manufacturers incredible amounts of profit.
One year after Russia’s invasion, Ukraine is backsliding away from democratic freedoms and liberal pluralism.
The East Palestine disaster is a horrifying, spectacular version of what has become the normal occurrence of train derailments in America. Joe Biden could use this as an opportunity to overhaul a crooked and dangerous industry. So far, he appears uninterested.
The US government and media instigate international fearmongering and saber-rattling on a regular basis. But the recent Chinese spy balloon incident belongs in the Hall of Fame as one of the most idiotic panics by a jittery, trigger-happy warfare state.
East Palestine, Ohio’s recent train derailment produced an apocalyptic plume of carcinogenic smoke that may affect residents and the environment for decades. Residents need an aggressive federal response from Joe Biden. They aren’t getting one.
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.
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.
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 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.