In the Marvel movie Avengers: Infinity War , the arch villain Thanos attempts to justify eliminating half of the world’s population this way: “While you were going to bed hungry? Scrounging for scraps? Your planet was on the brink of collapse, I'm the one who stopped that. You know what happened since then? Children born, knowing nothing but full bellies and clear sky's. It's a paradise!”  This is a superhero movie, so one can pardon it for not exploring the consequences of such an action...

“What’s ‘ pajeet ’?” asked my husband the other day, looking up from his phone. Thanks to a terminally online son, I did know the sad answer — pajeet is a racial slur aimed at Indian Americans frequently used in anonymous internet forums like 4Chan and 8Chan, and, now, increasingly in social media spaces like X. For anyone who is even moderately online, the rising rhetoric against Desis has been inescapable in the last year. It’s not just perception — research and reporting show that...

After House Speaker Mike Johnson refused to allow a vote on the bill demanding the release of the Epstein files, House Democrats - frustrated with the Speaker’s stonewalling - joined with a few Republicans to force the bill forward through a “ discharge petition ” , bypassing the Speaker’s control. What Is a Discharge Petition? In the House of Representatives, a discharge petition is a tool that lets rank-and-file members force a bill out of committee and onto the floor for a vote , even if...