Jack Mirkinson

@jackmirkinson.bsky.social

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Senior editor, The Nation (@thenation.com) | Editor/co-owner, Discourse Blog (@discourseblog.com) Get in touch: jmirkinson at thenation dot com / jack at discourseblog dot com

NYT: "The Court's Hypocrisy" June 29
The case for reform is compelling. On average, justices today sit on the bench for more than a decade longer than their predecessors did as recently as the 1960s.? Several justices now on the Court are likely to hold office over as many as nine presidential terms. Unbounded tenure allows a single justice to shape the direction of the law for generations, without regard for the evolving views and composition of the electorate. It puts justices in an elite and unaccountable bubble for decades. No other major democracy in the world provides life tenure for high court judges who hear constitutional cases.8
ActivismFebruary 20, 2023 The New York Times Is Repeating One of Its Most Notorious Mistakes The paper’s anti-trans coverage parallels its failings over gay rights and AIDS. But the Times appears determined not to learn from its own history. Jack Mirkinson
Historians will puzzle over this one. Of the six prime ministers that have led Britain over the last decade, with a seventh now on the way, it will be the fall of Keir Starmer that will most perplex the political analysts of the future. They will ponder a man who won a landslide victory in July 2024 only to be pushed out less than two years later, having started no illegal wars, having triggered no grave economic crises, having been accused of no scandalous act of corruption. They will scratch their heads at a PM who paid the ultimate political price, even though few could point to the single, obvious political crime he had committed. So what did for Starmer – and what legacy, if any – does he leave behind? Perhaps most important, what does the fleeting premiership of the outgoing Labour leader portend for whoever takes his place?
JM: I don’t want to get into making you account for all of your tweets, but, for instance, your tweet about Kamala Harris—you’ve said that you regret saying the exact words that you said. But you were responding to her now pretty infamous warning to [potential migrants from] Latin America, saying, “Do not come.” Do you regret the sentiment behind the tweet—the objection to the Biden administration’s immigration policies? Or do you still stand by the feelings that you had, even if you don’t stand by the exact words that you used to express them? AC: The tweet itself was really related to just feeling deeply frustrated and powerless, as someone who had no political power, with establishment politics that has gotten us to the moment that we’re in—where, for some reason, it’s OK for the language that my opponent is using against me to exist. Where he doesn’t have to answer to the policies that funded ICE, that allowed for fascism to rise, that made it so that we spend more of our tax dollars on war than on our own kids I will apologize for the things that I need to take accountability for as many times as I need to for folks to know how sincere that is. But I have to wonder why it is that someone who had no power when I said those things, no institutional power, is being deeply dehumanized by over $5.5 million of spending against me, while my opponent has yet to answer any question of substance about the things that actually matter to the community here.
AC: I knew that they would come after me. I couldn’t know what form it would take. And I also could not have imagined the degree and the scale [of it]. It’s really reflective of the kind of politics that we’ve had for far too long—of divisiveness, of dehumanization, of cruelty in many ways. I’ve been very intentional this entire campaign about making sure that I was criticizing Adriano on his policies, on his absence, on the impact that his performance as a congressman has had on our community. [I’ve had] no clear answer to any of the questions around his voting record, around the money he takes from special interests. No clear answer as to why he refuses to call it a genocide [in Gaza]. And yet he is engaging in a type of politics that is bringing people to my social media to call me a gorilla, to call me a rat, to call me trash. And they’re calling me Haitian, as though that were a bad thing. They’re questioning my Dominican heritage. He has turned this into a race about Dominican identity versus whatever he thinks I am, which is crazy. My parents are Dominican. My grandparents are Dominican. All eight of my great-grandparents are Dominican.
Politics / March 4, 2026 The Iran War Could Be Catastrophic for the US-Israel Alliance. Good.
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College football fans ate up the moment that Trump was on the Jumbotron at Hard Rock Stadium. Similarly, Trump was shown during the national anthem before the game. As he was surrounded by his grandchildren, Trump waved to the crowd, who went raucous with cheers. SECRET SERVICE, TSA AND NYPD TRANSFORM MADISON SQUARE GARDEN INTO FORTRESS FOR TRUMP'S NBA FINALS VISIT New York fans clearly didn’t share the same sentiment as those from Florida.
New York crowd gives much different reaction to Trump than previous key sporting event - Fox News CONTRASTING CHEERS New York crowd gives much different reaction to Trump than previous key sporting event
What wasn’t included The report is silent on some of the biggest and potentially juiciest aspects of the 2024 campaign. That includes any judgment about Biden’s decision to run again, the impact of the war in Gaza (which split Democrats) and the fact that Harris was allowed to take over the ticket without anything amounting to an electoral process for choosing a replacement. It also doesn’t weigh in on Harris’ failure to do an interview with podcast host Joe Rogan, which many analysts have regarded as a major mistake.
Politics / May 1, 2026 Why Is the DNC Covering Up Its 2024 Autopsy? DNC chair Ken Martin has turned himself into the shifty bad guy from Fargo. Jeet Heer
Is Piker a “Jew hater,” as Third Way alleges? In an interview with the writer Aaron Regunberg, Piker addressed some of his worst comments. I find some of his answers compelling and others less so. The comparison of liberal Zionists to Nazis, for instance, is repugnant and not much improved by Piker clarifying that he opposes ethnostates. What made the Nazis notable wasn’t their support for an ethnostate. Ethnostates are common. What made the Nazis notable was their effort to exterminate the Jewish people. And Piker’s assertion that his opposition is to all “reactionary ideology” is hard to square with his admiration for Hezbollah.
Jacqueline Alemany (@JaxAlemany) on XJust got off a quick call w President Trump who said he didnt “know anything about” FLOTUS’ statement prior to her on camera appearance, but that he was in a meeting about the war & couldn’t speak further. “She didn’t know him,” he added before hanging up, referring to Epstein.
Opinion Bret Stephens The Iranian Advantage Is an Illusion
Tucker Carlson, the commentator who had emerged as another prominent skeptic of intervention on the right, had come to the Oval Office several times over the previous year to warn Mr. Trump that a war with Iran would destroy his presidency. A couple weeks before the war began, Mr. Trump, who had known Mr. Carlson for years, tried to reassure him over the phone. “I know you’re worried about it, but it’s going to be OK,” the president said. Mr. Carlson asked how he knew. “Because it always is,” Mr. Trump replied.
barack obama tweeting about college basketball while the world burns
cory booker looking like he's seeing literal hell in front of him but it's just a pod save dude asking a softball question about benjamin netanyahu being bad
Donald Trump Is Losing the Iran War Despite his constant declarations of victory, the truth about this conflict is clear. Séamus Malekafzali
Donald Trump Is Losing the Iran War Despite his constant declarations of victory, the truth about this conflict is clear. Séamus Malekafzali
the lionel hutz world without lawyers meme
A gay survivor of a Christian cult finds new purpose in LGBT activism and attends Columbia University with the aim of becoming a journalist, only to find himself in a new cult devoted to “queerness,” anti-Zionism and anti-Western radicalism.
Ben Appel Ben Appel Opinion PostScript Mamdani’s ‘gender-affirming care’ plan surgically erases gays — just like Iran By Ben Appel Published Nov. 17, 2025, 10:06 a.m. ET
Nobody Wants This War People know intrinsically that an attack on Iran is an act of insanity.
We should be furious to live in a country that does this—to be at the mercy of a flailing empire that always chooses death and conquest over peace and justice. We should be furious at a political system that makes it so much easier to kill people than to help them. We should be furious at an establishment that lusts so ardently for war, and that has so much contempt for humanity. We should be furious at the untrammeled power of a global ruling class that causes so much suffering. And we should recommit to the most important task ahead: destroying as much of that power as we can.
People Don't Like Israel Because Israel Is Committing Genocide
Keir Starmer’s Failure Is Nearly Complete The wildly unpopular UK prime minister is likely doomed in the wake of an Epstein-related scandal entirely of his own making. He deserves every bit of the hell he’s in. Evan Robins
We’re Being Ruled Over by the World’s Biggest Losers They effectively control our fates, but deep down, they know they’re sniveling, pathetic, and inadequate, and it eats them up. Katherine Krueger
She still finds herself in the market, reaching for the same snacks Ahmad and Rasha used to love. “Sometimes I whisper, ‘If they were here, I’d buy this for them.’” She gestured around her unfinished room. “I feel like a queen,” she said, “because I have walls. Many people don’t even have that.” Then she looked straight at me. “My message to the world: ‘Don’t let my children become numbers. Remember their names. Gaza has always stood for the world; now the world must stand for Gaza.’”
See the pattern here? Don’t fund “this version of ICE.” Don’t fund “without serious reform.” “Rein in” ICE and DHS. These are deliberately slippery terms. They suggest that there is some version of ICE that could be supportable. “Beef up training” and maybe that’ll do the trick, right? Wrong. There’s no good ICE waiting out there if only some sober legislators put their heads together. We have seen far more than enough to know that. There isn’t some way around the truth: you’re either for the complete and utter abolition of these storm troopers, or you’re part of the problem.
“Congress should not fund this version of ICE,” wrote Sen. Chris Murphy, one of our thirstiest and most annoying posters. He later added, “We should not fund DHS without serious reform. We could return CBP to border. We could require warrants for immigration arrests. We could beef up training and require identification.” “Democrats sought common sense reforms in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, but because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE,” wrote Sen. Chuck Schumer. “I will vote no.” See the pattern here? Don’t fund “this version of ICE.” Don’t fund “without serious reform.” “Rein in” ICE and DHS. These are deliberately slippery terms. They suggest that there is some version of ICE that could be supportable. “Beef up training” and maybe that’ll do the trick, right? Wrong. There’s no good ICE waiting out there if only some sober legislators put their heads together. We have seen far more than enough to know that. There isn’t some way around the truth: you’re either for the complete and utter abolition of these storm troopers, or you’re part of the problem.
Hamas and ICE also share one very visible trait that I never thought I’d see in the United States: Almost all of their foot soldiers wear masks. My experience as a reporter in the Middle East taught me that people wear masks because they are up to something bad and don’t want their faces captured on camera. I saw it often in Beirut and in Gaza; I never expected to see it in Minneapolis. Since when have America’s domestic policing forces, charged with defending the Constitution and the rule of law, felt the need to hide their identities?
Opinion Abbie Parr/Associated Press Thomas L. Friedman Thomas L. Friedman I Never Thought the Middle East Would Come to Minneapolis 5 min read
The Blue-Collar Democrat Who Wants to Fix the Party’s Other Big Problem Marie Gluesenkamp Perez flipped a rural red district to get to Congress. Now she wants to help her party do more of the same.
Good was reportedly a “legal observer” and was killed for it. There’s no clearer message about where this country is at than that. It is already normalized in America that cops can kill kidnap, assault, and kill people, and can do so for any reason. We cannot accept the story that an ICE agent was “fearing for his life.” We know who these people are and what they’re capable of, and it’s imperative to say it. Anything else is irresponsible and shameful. Anything else is picking the side of the oppressor. Abolish ICE. Now and forever.
DHS: Shooting involving ICE agents leaves woman dead in Minneapolis • Live Updates AP/Reuters The immigration officers were conducting targeted operations in Minneapolis, officials say
Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, said in a statement that an agent had opened fire after a woman “weaponized her vehicle” in an attempt to kill federal officers. Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis called her account “bullshit” in a news conference, describing the shooting instead as “an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed.” Neither description of the encounter could be immediately verified independently. Representative Ilhan Omar, a Democrat whose congressional district includes the shooting scene, described the person who was killed as a “legal observer.”
Politics / June 18, 2025 Abolishing ICE Is the Bare Minimum ICE agents aren’t out of control. They are performing their designed role as fascism’s storm troopers.
Rubio Helped Oust Maduro. Running Venezuela May Prove Trickier. Secretary of State Marco Rubio helped steer President Trump to attack Venezuela and now aims to force the country to give U.S. companies access to its oil.
Responding to skeptical messages on social media, Dokoupil told one critic who unfavorably compared the network’s current iteration with the days of legendary CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite: “I can promise you we’ll be more accountable and more transparent than Cronkite or anyone else of his era.”
Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer The Danger of the President’s Flamboyant Violence in Venezuela 5 min read
trump looking super out of it staring vacantly into space
trump barely able to keep his eyes open and with his mouth hanging open
This is a major victory for American interests. Just hours before, supportive Chinese officials held a chummy meeting with Maduro, who had also been propped up by Russia, Cuba and Iran. No doubt millions of Venezuelans will remember who backed their oppressor and who effected his removal. The end of Maduro will be a failure if it doesn’t also corrode the influence of American adversaries in this hemisphere. Maduro’s removal also sends an important message to tinpot dictators in Latin America and the world: Trump follows through. President Joe Biden offered sanctions relief to Venezuela, and Maduro responded to that show of weakness by stealing an election. Follow Trump’s second term Trump had telegraphed for months that Maduro could not remain in power, yet Venezuela’s arrogantly illegitimate leader clung on. What are Iranian leaders thinking now as they consider how to respond to widespread anti-government protests? Are the communists in Cuba sleeping well?
With yesterday's resignation of President Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator. Mr. Chávez, a ruinous demagogue, stepped down after the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader, Pedro Carmona. But democracy has not yet been restored, and won't be until a new president is elected. That vote has been scheduled for next spring, with new Congressional elections to be held by this December. The prompt announcement of a timetable is welcome, but a year seems rather long to wait for a legitimately elected president.
US CAPTURES MADURO, TRUMP SAYS
kathy hochul looking real queasy and tish james looking happy
These olive trees have endured drought, pollution, and toxic mines, in addition to uprooting, bulldozing, and being burned alive—much like what has been inflicted upon the people of Gaza. Yet we are fortunate that our trees fought to survive. They withstood the harrowing air strikes that struck the homes in our neighborhood. Flames reached our trees and scorched our space, but they stood tall. They lost some of their charred branches, yet sprouted new ones in defiance.
THE DAILY T • PODCAST 'Our children are trans. We blame the BBC' Camilla and Tim are joined by parents who accuse the BBC of one-sided coverage of sex and gender Che Daily 00:00 • 46:34
"And what do you want to be when you grow up?" was my next question. Ziad said, "A programmer." Yazan: "A policeman." Rosa: "A dentist." Before we could finish the answers, the sound of an explosion shook the area —an air strike on a displaced family's tent nearby. My student Abood panicked, saying it was close to his home and he needed to check on his family. As his teacher, it was my role to calm him and keep him from leaving until we knew it was safe. He, like the others, could not focus for the rest of the lesson. Then Muhammad, another student, suggested we change the question from "What do you want to be in the future?" to "What is your wish right now?" When I asked, every single child gave the same answer: "We wish for the war to end."
Samantha, I am the other instructor for this course, and I have also taken the time to read your paper. I concur with on the grade you received. This paper should not be considered as a completion of the assignment.
Politics / October 29, 2025 We Have to Talk About Donald Trump’s Brain Are we just going to sit around and pretend that the president isn’t having a lot of… questionable moments these days? Rafi Schwartz
During the Biden presidency, it was shorthanded the "hug Bibi" strategy — the idea that smothering Mr. Netanyahu with unconditional support would give the U.S. leverage to influence his actions. Over the final 15 months of the Biden presidency, this approach led the White House to provide a flood of weapons for Israel's bombardment of Palestinians, veto United Nations Security Council resolutions calling for a cease-fire, attack the International Criminal Court for pursuing charges against Mr. Netanyahu, ignore its own policies about supporting military units credibly accused of war crimes and blame Hamas for not accepting cease-fire terms that the Israeli government was also rejecting.
She writes that the first few times Kennedy said he loved her, she did not say it back. Yet she knew she felt the same. "I love him, I thought. Oh no. I love him so much."
Keith Olbermann • † Follow @olbermann.bsky.social Btw about this from Lizza's reply: Olivia and I lived together for 4+ years (4 b'days, 4 Xmases, 4 anniversaries). That's like $1250 of jewelry per celebration. And her apartment was a writing studio. And I made an f-ton then. What was I supposed to do? Get her a lot of Gift Certificates from Kmart? paid for her to attend college, outfitted her in Tom Ford and Hervé Léger dresses and some $15,000 worth of Cartier jewelry. Later, he covered her rent and furnished her apartment in a doorman building in the West Village. While Keith, who was 34 years older, was generous, there were strings attached. Olivia
I would take a bullet for you," the Politician said. He always said that. "Please don't say that," I said. I always said that. From his mouth the bullet theoretical launched the bullet possible. I did not like to think about it. About the armed man at his speech. Or the armed man who broke into his home. Or the armed men he paid to guard him from armed men who sought to harm him while the federal government denied his pleas for protection from the security agency whose modern protocols were carved by the same bullets that cut boughs from his family tree and cut the track of the American experiment.
image of the infamous four pinocchios graphic
The Israeli forces brought us to Ktzi’ot Prison. B’tselem, Israel’s most prominent human rights organization, has described it as one of Israel’s most notorious “torture camps,” with prisoners dubbing it “Israel’s Abu Ghraib.” There, they stripped us naked, deprived us of sleep, food, and sanitary facilities, arbitrarily threatened us with guns, and physically attacked us. The treatment was more violent for my Muslim, Arab, North African, and Israeli colleagues than for me.
Whether they stay or get priced out, these tenants are also linked to a multinational conglomerate that profits from the displacement of people on the other side of the world. That's because American Landmark is almost entirely owned by Elco, one of Israel's largest corporations. For years, Elco, via its Electra Super Brand, has done extensive business in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israeli settlements drive many thousands of Palestinians from their homes and are considered illegal under international law. Elco has also maintained deep ties to the Israeli military, including during the genocide in Gaza. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has cited Electra Ltd. in its database of over 150 companies doing business in the settlements. In 2024, the American Friends Service Committee put Electra on its list of companies that "directly facilitate and enable human rights violations and violations of international law as part of Israel's prolonged military occupations, apartheid, and genocide." Meanwhile, in a podcast appearance that same year, an Electra executive described American Landmark as a "big winning card" for the company. (Elco and Electra Real Estate, the subsidiary that owns American Landmark, did not respond to requests for comment.)