Discussions

Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images As far as Pete Hegseth’s nomination for secretary of Defense goes, Senator Joni Ernst was the ball game, and it was over in the second inning. Given her years of advocacy on behalf of women in the military and against sexual assault, Ernst was understood to be the only roadblock to […]

Photo: Charles E. Knoblock/AP Photo In May 2022, roughly a year before he was removed from the board of directors of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, Michael Barfield saw what was coming. For years, Barfield had been resisting what he describes as mission drift: a retreat by the nation’s premier free-speech organization from

Photo: John McDonnell/The Washington Post/Getty Images Even before Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory, we were being assured — or in some cases warned — that Trump 2.0 would be a lean, mean MAGA machine in sharp contrast to its chaotic predecessor regime. There were an immense number of predictions that the 47th president would “hit

Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images In Joe Biden’s otherwise wan and gloomy farewell address, the president delivered one memorable turn of phrase. Borrowing from Dwight Eisenhower, he warned of an ascendant “tech-industrial complex,” and that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that really threatens our entire democracy, our

Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images Donald Trump’s primary response to the California wildfires has been to blame and taunt the state’s Democratic leaders on Truth Social. But is there a way he can be even more monstrous to the Americans suffering in Southern California right now? Turns out there is! On Thursday afternoon, Trump announced on

Photo: John Moore/Getty Images Having never lacked faith in himself, Donald Trump probably feels completely entitled to his 2024 election win, the governing trifecta it created, and the relatively high levels of popularity (for him, anyway) that made it all possible. But the odds are very high that between the weighty national problems he inherits

Photo: elcuk Acar/Anadolu/Getty Images Mayor Eric Adams has long vowed to fight his pending legal case after federal prosecutors indicted him last year on charges of bribery and campaign-finance fraud. But donations to the fund intended to support his defense appear to be drying up as his trial draws nearer. The City first reported that

Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images The fires ravaging L.A. County are burning in the country’s second-largest metropolitan area and media market. For millions, access to reliable information about the ever-shifting situation became a matter of personal safety. Millions more not in the fires’ paths tapped and pulled at their phone screens trying to figure out

Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: NYPL In the fall of 2022, Molly Jong-Fast made a grave error, though only a select few would have noticed. The liberal pundit was hosting a book party at the Century, the private arts-and-letters club she’d joined during the pandemic, for her friend and fellow Centurion the media critic Margaret Sullivan. Jong-Fast

Photo: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu/Getty Images Tanker 47 rears up as helicopter pilot Darren Davies settles it to hover over the Encino Reservoir, a half-mile-wide artificial lake perched on the shoulder of a hill overlooking the San Fernando Valley. He holds steady a dozen feet over the water as the flight mechanic in back, John Trivellin, lowers