JACOBIN

YESTERDAY

Right-Wing Economics Courses Are Molding the US Judiciary

Nearly half of US federal judges took crash courses in economics at a conservative-leaning economics institute between 1976 and 1999. After attending the trainings, judges ruled against regulators more often and imposed harsher sentences on criminals.

New Yorkers Support Zohran Mamdani — and Palestine

Repression of Palestine activists on New York campuses like Brooklyn College is being done in the name of protecting Jewish students from antisemitism — even as polls show New Yorkers, including Jews, reject the idea that criticizing Israel is antisemitic.

Lobbyists Are Playing Both Sides of the PFAS Debate

PFAS, or “forever chemicals, ” are linked to a range of health risks. In California, some lobbyists fighting a bill that would ban PFAS in consumer products are also lobbying for another bill that would help remove the chemicals from the water supply.

How Isreal Succeeded Where South Africa Failed

Bantustans without borders, occupation without formal annexation, and a dual legal system that cements ethnic hierarchy. In Gaza and the West Bank, Israel has refined a model of entho-national control that apartheid-era South Africa struggled to sustain.

College Textbooks: Wall Street’s New Cash Cow

For years, textbook prices have burdened students already struggling with loans and sky-high tuition costs. Now Wall Street is taking over the market, tightening its grip on a staple campus institution: the college bookstore.

Gaza Flotilla Participant: “Gaza Can’t Wait”

We spoke to David Adler, a participant in the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza, about the recent alleged drone attack by Israel on the flotilla and why its participants are committed to continuing their journey despite the dangers.

SEPTEMBER 11. 2025

The Drugs Are Coming From Inside the Military Base

Seth Harp’s best-selling The Fort Bragg Cartel exposes the degree to which America’s drug trade and attendant violent crime are connected to its foreign wars. It’s a timely read as Donald Trump uses both to justify radical new expansions of military power.

Is a Trump Slump on the Way?

The American economy seems headed in the opposite direction of the “golden age” Donald Trump promised in his inaugural address.

The Chilean Communist Defending Democracy From the Far Right

More than 50 years after Augusto Pinochet’s coup, apologists for its neoliberal dictatorship are close to taking office. But Communist Jeannette Jara could block them from taking power.

Capital Is Degrading Connective Labor

Despite increasing automation, there are still occupations in which human interaction is a central component: those focused on connective labor. Yet capital’s drive to maximize control of the labor process is threatening to degrade these important jobs.

What Can We Do About Kathy Hochul?

Despite her anti-Trump posturing, New York governor Kathy Hochul is hardly a paragon of progressivism. But winning her over on at least some key issues is crucial for a socialist mayoralty’s success. Does the Left have any leverage over Hochul?

Charlie Kirk’s Murder Is a Tragedy and a Disaster

The assassination of Charlie Kirk threatens to embolden the far right and provide Donald Trump with a pretext for crushing dissent. Escalating political violence corrodes democratic norms and poses a unique threat to the Left.

SEPTEMBER 10. 2025

Trump’s Foreign Policy Is Like Biden’s but Far Worse

After bitterly attacking Joe Biden’s foreign policy as incompetent, chaotic, and likely to leave the Middle East in flames, Donald Trump has continued everything that made Biden’s final year so disastrous — only dumber and more violent.

Walden Bello on the Age After Globalization

The era of US-led capitalist globalization seems to be coming to an end. For Filipino scholar and activist Walden Bello, it’s time to build a new, more equal distribution of power and resources around the globe.