Log In

How the Gun Industry Got Rich Stoking Fear About Obama

The NRA’s dire warnings that the president is a threat to the Second Amendment are bogus—but profitable.

Jarrett Murphy

Locked Up Without a Key in New Orleans

Seven years after Katrina, poor people accused of crimes are being denied their right to counsel and left to languish behind bars.

Karen Houppert

The Brawl Over Fair Trade Coffee

Corporate sponsorship is undermining a wide network of democratic, farmer-owned co-ops.

Scott Sherman

Last Chance for Peace in Syria?

The new UN envoy has a near impossible task. But Washington must support it—arming the rebels will only prolong the civil war.

The Editors

Under Siege in Syria

As the revolt against the Assad regime becomes more militarized, fighting in the town of Zabadani has given way to daily, indiscriminate shelling.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous

Paul Ryan, Class Warrior for the Rich

The jobs are gone in his hometown, but he’s sitting pretty in his mansion on the hill, a perfect metaphor for what a Romney-Ryan America would be like.

John Nichols

The GOP’s Will to Fantasy

Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as running mate is another development in a long-term party trend: the triumph of ideology over reality.

Jonathan Schell

Ayn Rand

Calvin Trillin

Paul Ryan: The Man Who Wasn’t There

How the pundit class is turning a right-wing ideologue into a bold intellectual—and framing the election.

Eric Alterman

Paul Ryan Goddam!

It’s time to update Nina Simone’s iconic song title—the GOP veep candidate is just as extreme on women’s health and rights as he is on economics.

Melissa Harris-Perry

Liehards: On Political Hypocrisy

Hard truths about lying in politics

Sophia Rosenfeld

Shelf Life

W.G. Sebald’s Across the Land and the Water: Selected Poems, 1964–2001; Saturn’s Moons; Grant Gee’s Patience (After Sebald).

Peter C. Baker

The Stone Dies Away Also: On Jimmie Durham

Does a sculptor destroy things or merely change them?

Barry Schwabsky

Behind the Bureau: On the FBI

Tim Weiner’s Enemies is not so much a history of the FBI as a compendium of interesting historical material.

Beverly Gage

Tiny Gold Dress

John Godfrey

Letters

Report from the fifth grade…

Our Readers

Puzzle No. 3249

Don’t miss Kosman and Picciotto’s crossword blog, Word Salad.

Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto