From price gouging to risky developing to insurance dysfunction, the dynamics of private housing markets are making the Los Angeles fire disaster considerably worse. We don’t need to prioritize real estate profits over people’s housing needs.
There is no ambiguity about President Joe Biden’s foreign policy record: it was bloody, and it was disastrous.
South Korea’s right-wing president, Yoon Suk-yeol, has finally been arrested after his attempt to stage a coup. But Yoon’s supporters are still mobilizing aggressively, hoping that Donald Trump will take their side over false claims of electoral fraud.
The Trump presidency is not a pathology of mass politics. It’s a problem of our billionaire political economy.
Director David Lynch, who died this week at 78, brought an avant-garde sensibility into the American mainstream when we needed it most. There will never be another like him.
After nearly half a century as a key figurehead in the Democratic Party’s rightward turn on domestic politics, Joe Biden had a chance to undo some of that damage as president. Time after time, he blew it.
TV networks turned the Los Angeles fires into a sensationalist spectacle, repeating words like “inferno” on a loop while almost completely avoiding any mention of climate change. Their coverage treated the disaster as entertainment rather than a warning.
Mexico’s staunchly left-populist former president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, just spent six years in power. But his road to the National Palace was anything but a straight line.
A CGI simian twist isn’t enough to turn Better Man into anything more than a by-the-numbers Robbie Williams biopic.
Joe Biden’s own Energy Department is warning that data centers’ energy consumption, water use, and emissions are already skyrocketing amid droughts and climate disasters. Biden just signed an executive order to accelerate an AI build-out anyway.
The Los Angeles fires threw schools into chaos, revealing their unpreparedness for the escalating challenges of the climate crisis. Schools need comprehensive disaster preparedness systems — not last-minute plans that put students and staff at risk.
While opposing guest-worker programs like H-1B, socialists must clearly reject the Right’s blanket opposition to immigration.
After 15 months of bloodshed, news has emerged of a cease-fire deal in Gaza. The US always had the power to restrain Israel but refused to use it.
The announcement of a cease-fire deal in Gaza is a welcome reprieve after over a year of genocide. But it does nothing to remedy Israel’s numerous violations of international law that produced untold misery among Palestinians and led to the war in the first place.
Even without owning it as a territory, the US already has massive influence over Greenland’s future, from blocking Chinese investment to controlling military installations. As climate change transforms the Arctic, this American influence will only grow stronger.
With record-high damages from climate disasters like the LA wildfires, a deregulated insurance industry is posting record profits.
Yesterday Joe Biden announced Cuba’s removal from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list and eased sanctions against the country. Donald Trump may soon undo the progress.
January 15 marks 50 years since the Alvor Agreement promised Angola’s independence from Portugal. Yet the new state was doomed to be a Cold War battleground, with Washington planners seeking to avenge their defeat in Vietnam.
Direct-to-consumer drug ads are prohibited in almost all countries besides the US. By leading doctors to prescribe unnecessary and more expensive treatments at the request of their patients, they also raise health care costs across the board.
The Democratic Party at every level spent years embracing identity politics that mostly served the interests of professionals, argues Catalyst editor Vivek Chibber. We need a return to class.