Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey opens with a shot of the bard Demodocus — played by rapper Travis Scott — hitting a staff on a table for a beat. The movie then cuts to Sinon, an Achaean soldier in front of the Trojan Horse, who is played by transgender actor Elliot Page. Later, the hero, Odysseus (a somber Matt Damon) confesses that he is a war criminal. The blood on his hands stopped him from…
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The networks of two major players who helped capture the U.S. Supreme Court — anti-abortion lawyer Leonard Leo and oil billionaire Charles Koch — have also long targeted state courts to advance their regressive agenda. One of their tactics, influencing the way that state justices are selected nationwide, is being borne out in Kansas. On August 4, voters in Kansas will decide the fate of a…
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This summer, Reform Party leader Nigel Farage’s bubble is very publicly bursting in the U.K. in the face of an extraordinary financial scandal. In April, the media reported that Farage, a member of parliament since 2024 for the east English constituency in the town of Clacton, had over the past years accepted a “gift” of 5 million pounds (roughly $7 million) from a cryptocurrency billionaire…
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South Korea is often regarded as an example of a young and vibrant democracy. Merely two years ago, mass protests thwarted a self-coup attempted by the sitting far right President Yoon Suk-yeol. But due to an array of social factors, the support of wealthy donors like retail tycoon Chung Yong-jin (the chairman of the conglomerate that owns Starbucks Korea), and growing links to the U.S. right…
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On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled against President Donald Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented people born inside the United States. In a 6-3 decision, which included Trump-picked, right-wing justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, the majority upheld that birthright citizenship was guaranteed under the Citizenship Clause of the 14th…
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The left in western democracies has been pretty much in free fall since the onset of neoliberal globalization. This is quite ironic since resistance to capitalism from civil society has actually grown during the same period. This resistance is also reflected in the U.S. political landscape, where the Democratic Socialists of America are surging in support through grassroots efforts in major urban…
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