Photo : Alex Brandon ( AP )

The Atlantic’s upcoming festival is a veritable who’s who of all of the last people who should ever be invited to leave their houses. Topping that list for this month’s exciting event is former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who has largely been keeping to herself since she resigned in April.


Last year, protesters rightly shamed Nielsen out of her meal at a D.C. Mexican restaurant, chanting “end family separation” and “If kids don’t eat in peace, you don’t eat in peace.” Part of the Atlantic festival will be held at the “Facebook Exchange Stage” at Mexican restaurant Rosa Mexicano. Their table-side guac is to die for but it would be too bad if Nielsen hasn’t learned her lesson yet about trying to eat Mexican food in public when you’re a fascist carrying out Trump’s cruel immigration policies!

Another very exciting speaker is Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, known for such hits as not impeaching President Donald Trump even though she has exactly one trillion reasons to. Other speakers include former U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn, and Facebook Vice President of Global Affairs Nicholas Clegg.


Bob Iger, Disney CEO—whose workers often can’t make ends meet—will be speaking with Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs, who inherited billions of stock in Disney and Apple. For a time, she was Disney’s largest shareholder. Jobs also happens to be the founder and president of the Emerson Collective, which co- owns the Atlantic. Pretty weird.

Big pharma will be represented as well. Garth Graham, the president of the Aetna Foundation and vice president of community health and impact at CVS Health, and Mike Gladstone, the global president of internal medicine at Pfizer, and Anne McDonald Pritchett, senior vice president of policy & research at Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), D.C.’s top drug lobby, will also be speaking to audiences.

So if you want to have a fun time, learn some new ideas, and maybe find a nice girl to set your son up with, an all-access pass is only $975. If you want to be a pleb and pay for general admission, it will only set you back $350.

The Atlantic’s high-minded journalistic ethics reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere will appear with other Atlantic writers on a panel entitled: “Food for Thought: The Race for the White House.” The panel, underwritten by defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, will be held on the “Booz Allen Hamilton Innovation Stage.” Yum, some food for thought! Who’s hungry?


The festival is funded by Bayer, Pfizer, Booz Allen Hamilton, Facebook, PhRMA, and of course, our favorite planet destroyers and patrons of news ExxonMobil.

There’s even an event about “cyber threats” that’s being put on not by the Atlantic at all, but rather, by the U.S. Bank. Check out the double asterisk:


I *almost* wish I still had my shitty old expensive DC apartment right up the street from Chinatown on 5th Street and New York Ave. so I could walk out in my pajamas and see this spectacle unfold right before my eyes. It was a 2 bedroom with an extra wall built through the living room so 3 people could live there... and my rent only cost about $100 more than a pass to the Atlantic Festival! What a town!

