Discourse Blog

4 days ago | discourseblog.com | Jack Mirkinson

With Zohran Mamdani’s decisive, astonishing win in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday, New Yorkers are waking up to an utterly changed political landscape—and a lot of people across the country are grappling with a feeling they’re just not used to these days. I think it’s called “hope”? The conventional wisdom headed into the election was that it would take a good long while for us to find out who’d won. But the race was over almost the second the polls closed.

6 days ago | discourseblog.com | Jack Mirkinson

The United States is now at war with Iran, thanks to Donald Trump’s decision to bomb a string of Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend. This is, of course, very bad, and almost nobody wants a U.S.-Iran war. Unfortunately, all the people who do want a U.S.-Iran war are also in charge of the government and most major media outlets. So war is what we’re getting.

1 week ago | discourseblog.com | Jack Mirkinson

It’s been just over 22 years since the United States launched the Iraq War based on lies about weapons of mass destruction, all with the assistance of an establishment media machine that sidelined dissenters and boosted rabid warmongers around the clock. In the wake of that catastrophe, there was much muttering that lessons must be learned—that good old-fashioned skepticism needed to make a comeback, particularly from news organizations. Today, we find ourselves right back where we were in 2003.

1 week ago | discourseblog.com | Jack Mirkinson

A version of this was originally published at The Nation. You have probably seen the video of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents violently arresting New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander. (And if you haven’t read Rafi’s piece about it, you should.)The footage is disturbing not just because of the thuggish way Lander is manhandled but also because of the brazenness.

1 week ago | discourseblog.com | Rafi Schwartz

This morning, masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents physically detained New York City Comptroller Brad Lander as he attempted to chaperone an unidentified migrant out of a lower Manhattan courthouse and away from the awaiting federal officers.