blog

What Do We Owe New York City’s Wild Parrots?

Lawrence Costa — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 18:32:57 GMT

Go far enough north in Manhattan, and Broadway abruptly swallows West End Avenue. But in its final 10 or 20 blocks, West End takes on an almost out-of-time quality. The buildings are all midrise, wrapped in brick and limestone, and attended by doormen uniformed much as they would have been in the 1940s. On one corner, so much ivy crawls up a façade it looks as though the city is being overrun by jungle. On another, a 1980s telephone booth is somehow maintained in pristine condition. One block east and it’s a din of delivery trucks and cabs and college students; one to the west and it’s a park thronged with bikes and runners; but the crowds on either side seem to have forgotten the little stretch of the city in between.

The Campus Sexual Assault Crisis Never Went Away

Kylie Cheung — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 21:48:33 GMT

A decade after the Stanford rape trial that saw Brock Turner sentenced to a few months in county jail, a young woman is suing Cornell University and seven fraternity members she says raped her in 2024. The most overtly vile facets of this case have sparked viral, rightful outrage: the men allegedly gang raped Jane Doe for hours after pressuring her to take debilitating drugs, then advertised “free pussy” in their fraternity group chat. Cornell responded by barring the fraternity chapter from campus, then expelling two of the students and suspending the others; Doe’s lawsuit alleges that the male students “were afforded the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays.”

Ben Shapiro’s New Movie Is Both Comically Dumb and Horrifyingly Racist

Emily Topping — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 20:29:49 GMT

Sometimes it’s helpful to separate the art from the artist—like when you’re watching Seinfeld reruns and can’t stop thinking about that time the real-life Jerry dated a teenager, or when you’re staring at the 808s & Heartbreak tattoo on your leg, placed there long before Kanye started selling swastika merch. Sometimes, though, a work of art arrives so thoroughly infused with the essence of its maker that you couldn’t separate the chicken from the egg if you tried. The latest film from Ben Shapiro’s production company, titled Run, Hide, Fight: Infidels, is one such masterpiece.

Abdul El-Sayed on Why Medicare for All is Non-Negotiable

Current Affairs — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 19:45:18 GMT

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan. In August, he won the state’s primary despite being outspent approximately 10 to 1. If elected, he will be the first Muslim senator in U.S. history. Years ago, Dr. El-Sayed contributed several articles and YouTube videos to this magazine, which means that his election would mark another milestone: the first former Current Affairs contributor to serve in the U.S. Senate. We recently caught up with Dr. El-Sayed after his remarkable victory, to discuss some of the most pressing issues in American politics.

The NFL Will Tolerate Abuse, But Not Activism

Quinn Everts — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 22:29:49 GMT

Do you think it’s a good sign when the owners of a sports franchise must release a statement saying they are “aware and empathetic to the highly personal sentiments expressed about this decision,” after they trade for a player whom they are about to pay an amount of money that would make Scrooge McDuck blush? You don’t need to answer that. That’s the situation the Cleveland Browns found themselves in—or rather, put themselves in despite zero pressure to do so—in 2022 after trading for quarterback Deshaun Watson, who at the time had 22 allegations of sexual misconduct and assault from massage therapists around the Houston area, a number that eventually climbed to 27. Over four years later, after playing almost exclusively awful football, Watson began the 2026 season still occupying the starting quarterback position for the Browns. I think “occupy” is apt because he seems to be staging a protest against playing good football, as evidenced by the Browns’ 34-10 thrashing by the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week One.

The Consultants Will Kill You

Nathan J. Robinson — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 20:56:52 GMT

The New York Times has a new article headlined “Democrats Show Strength in Michigan Senate Race but Trail in Maine, Polls Find.” It highlights the divergent electoral prospects of two Democratic Senate candidates: Michigan’s Dr. Abdul El-Sayed and Maine’s Troy Jackson. Both Michigan and Maine are swing states that have voted statewide for both Democrats and Republicans in recent years, yet polls currently show El-Sayed leading his opponent, Mike Rogers, by five percentage points, while Jackson is trailing Republican Susan Collins by three percent.

Benign Intentions Are Worthless

Nathan J. Robinson — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 20:11:26 GMT

The Trump administration is attempting to render the Endangered Species Act incapable of protecting endangered species. At the moment, you’re not allowed to harm a federally protected animal. The Trump administration has reinterpreted the law to mean that you can’t harm a federally protected animal on purpose. Fish and Wildlife Service director Brian Nesvik, in a new memo, explained that under the new interpretation, if a logging company were to fell a tree containing an endangered bat species, this wouldn’t violate the law “unless the tree is felled for the purpose of killing or capturing them.”

Thank God The FBI Is Run By Kash Patel

Alex Skopic — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 23:36:30 GMT

For much of the 20th century, there was little question who Americans considered the greatest director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation: J. Edgar Hoover. Really, nobody else was even discussed. Hoover helped to create the FBI from the ground up, and led it for an unprecedented 48 years straight. He revolutionized the field of forensic science, but his real genius was for public relations, creating the image of the heroic “G-Man.” He helped to end the golden age of organized crime in the United States, jailing or killing legendary gangsters like Al Capone and John Dillinger, while his enthusiasm for wire-tapping laid the groundwork for the terrifying systems of mass surveillance that confront Americans today. He was, by most estimates, the most effective law-enforcement agent in U.S. history. Which is why the conventional wisdom is wrong, and the best FBI director is actually Kash Patel.

Yes, The U.S. Is The World’s Biggest Terrorist

Kyle Kulinski — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 18:41:43 GMT

Outrage cycle #712 about Hasan Piker has begun. This time, it started with an interview Piker did with Alex Thompson of Axios. Plenty in the media would clearly love to manufacture a “Jeremiah Wright” moment for Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, and force him to denounce Hasan. They’re fishing for a scandal. They’re trying to get a clip they can cut out of context and pump out to create a controversy. The interview was an attempt to set a trap. And the headline they got was Hasan Piker says America is worse than al-Qaeda.

CODEPINK on 25 Years of Fighting the War Machine

Current Affairs — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 18:46:01 GMT

In the aftermath of 9/11, as the Bush administration prepared to invade Iraq, activists Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin helped found CODEPINK: a feminist anti-war organization known for its bright-pink protests, confrontations with members of Congress, and opposition to U.S. militarism around the world. Nearly 25 years later, Evans and Benjamin are joined by a younger generation of organizers, including national co-director Danaka Katovich, as the group campaigns against U.S. involvement in wars from Gaza and Iran to Yemen and challenges the growing Pentagon budget. They spoke with Current Affairs editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson about the lessons of the post-9/11 anti-war movement, the politics of fear and propaganda, what it takes to dissent when doing so is unpopular, and why community and collective action remain their antidote to despair.