Rafi Schwartz

I, personally, feel very sorry for Republican Sen. John Cornyn, of Texas. Yes, his politics put him somewhere to the right of Barry Goldwater, but even a craven ghoul like him deserves some sympathy for either being incredibly dumb, or simply being…

Police in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center shot and killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright on Sunday afternoon, in what his family claims was a traffic stop that police initiated because of air fresheners hanging from Wright’s rearview mirror.…

It's only been a couple of weeks since the end of the Jewish holiday of Passover, which celebrates the ancient Israelites' exodus from slavery under the Egyptian pharaohs. It's a holiday which, among other things, traditionally features a somber…

Florida (Congress)man Matt Gaetz hasn't been charged with a crime, but after last week's explosive New York Times report claiming the Justice Department was investigating the MAGA-megastar for underage sex trafficking, it seems increasingly likely…

On Thursday afternoon, attorneys for former Florida tax collector Joel Greenberg announced that their client would likely take a plea deal with federal prosecutors on the 33 criminal counts levied against him, including sex trafficking of a minor.…

Calling America's longstanding addiction to firearms, and the innumerable bodies left in its wake, an "epidemic," President Biden on Thursday unveiled his administration's first steps toward curbing gun violence, describing it as an "international…

This week, New York lawmakers announced they'd reached an agreement with Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on a massive state budget designed, in part, to help lift the Empire State out of the coronavirus-induced nadir of the past year. The $212 billion…

Republicans from all levels of government in this country have made little secret in recent years of the fact that their political power derives almost exclusively from a longstanding, and largely successful, effort to manipulate the electoral…

Rampant gun violence might not be a uniquely American crisis, but the U.S. certainly has the market cornered when it comes to mass shootings — not to mention a political system with a seemingly endless capacity to absorb each new instance of mass…

Hard as it may be to believe, it's already been more than five years since North Carolina Republicans rammed through the transphobic House Bill 2 — more commonly referred to as the state's "bathroom bill" — designed to legislate where and how…

In one of the most anticipated moments of an already emotionally fraught trial, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo took the stand on Monday to testify against former officer Derek Chauvin. It's a pivotal moment in the murder case against…

In basic terms, the phenomenon commonly known as the "Mandela Effect" is best understood as a mass mis-remembering of some collectively experienced event. Ordinarily, examples of the Mandela Effect are fairly harmless: people swearing that classic…

As the murder trail of former police officer Derek Chauvin slowly begins to wind down its first week of testimony, a common theme has begun to emerge from the series of heartbreaking testimonials offered by witnesses to the death of George Floyd,…

It's been a week since Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed an astonishingly brazen slate of voter suppression rules in Georgia into law, following a coordinated push from state Republicans to lock down future elections in the wake of losing both…

The march toward full cannabis legalization took a major step forward Wednesday, with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's announcement that he'd signed into law the just-passed legislation allowing recreational usage, as well as the expungement of many…

On Tuesday night, Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz clearly hoped an appearance on Tucker Carlson's ostensibly friendly Fox News broadcast would help clear his name after a New York Times report linked him to an ongoing Justice Department…

There are plenty of embarrassing ways to die: on the toilet like Elvis; at a gender reveal party; under the crushing weight of a cow that literally fell off a hill, crashed through your roof, and squished you in bed. All of these are tragic and…

It's a common refrain among those who push back against the notion that policing in the United States is a fundamentally flawed system, rife with racial prejudice and corruption: It's just a "few bad apples" who ruin things for all the good cops out…

America is, for all its bluster — or perhaps as a result of it — a nation obsessed with simplicity and repulsed by nuance. We like our history told in grand sweeping metaphors and our moralizing done in easily understood binaries. America is founded…