america

Maybe This Is Bad?

Jordan Sargent · 07/29/16 02:18PM

During the final few nights of the Democratic National Convention, the politically-minded users of Twitter dot com noticed a phenomenon: Republican commentators openly lamenting that their party’s convention had been surpassed in the category of “patriotic fuckfest” by the Democratic party they had at one point successfully branded as only for anti-war pants-pissers.

I'm Lovin' These Pics of Two Friends! 

Allie Jones · 03/10/16 11:39AM

Newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is currently visiting President Barack Obama at the White House. Below please find a gallery of photos from the leaders’ joint statement on climate change this morning. As The New York Times notes, this is the first time a Canadian leader has visited Washington in 19 years—how lucky! We are truly living in North America’s Belle Époque.

If This Terrible Primary Season Goes On Like This, People Might Actually Have to Vote

Tom Scocca · 01/19/16 06:34PM

This morning’s New York Times had two front-page stories about politics that were really one story. One was about the fact that Republicans who identify as evangelical Christians are rallying behind the aggressively impious figure of Donald Trump. The other was about how Hillary Clinton’s campaign is desperately trying to get ready for a prolonged state-by-state nominating contest against Bernie Sanders.

Boy Scouts Aren't Allowed to Have Water Gun Fights Now

Tom Scocca · 05/19/15 08:34AM

The Boy Scouts of America, a paramilitary children’s organization inspired in part by the exploits of the young Mafeking Cadet Corps during the Second Boer War, has forbidden its present-day members to shoot squirt guns at one another. A blog post for adult Scout leaders on the Scouting Magazine website reports that under the rules in the 2015 Boy Scouts of America National Shooting Sports Manual, “Water guns and rubber band guns must only be used to shoot at targets, and eye protection must be worn.”

Why Teachers Pay for Students' Supplies Out of Their Own Pockets

Dayna Evans · 12/11/14 02:00PM

In the second volume in our series on American teachers, we're exploring the reality that many of our public schools are greatly underfunded, short on supplies, and are financially supported by teachers themselves. Take P.S. 132 in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City where the children's toilets are decrepit, old, and overflowing with waste. Or, even worse, a Philadelphia elementary school with a yearly budget of $160. Yes, $160 to support a school of 400 students for the entire year.

Tom Scocca · 11/04/14 04:24PM

Does America intentionally make nonwhite voters wait in longer lines to cast their ballots, to deliberately disenfranchise them? Or have centuries of white supremacy simply produced persistent across-the-board inequality of resources, which happens to include unequal access to voting machines?

Another Mississippi Murder

Charlie R. Braxton · 10/11/14 10:05AM

(For Mike Brown, Lennon Lacy, Eric Garner, Renisha McBride, and so on, and so on ...)