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Category: COLUMNS FROM OUR GUESTS

Eric Boehlert: The media’s reckless “no-fly zone” coverage

On the eve of Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky’s address to Congress on Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked no fewer than six times at the daily press briefing if the Biden administration would grant Zelensky’s military request of creating a “no-fly zone” over the bombarded country. Ever since Russia invaded, the administration has made […]

Charlie Pierce: Now Trump Wants to Ruin the Legacy of ‘The Dude’

El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago, the leader of the Republican Party and its presumptive presidential nominee, held another wankfest over the weekend, this one in South Carolina, the home office of American sedition. It was the usual bag of rhetorical horrors, albeit cut a bit short because the weather was lousy. However, he rang a change that […]

Eric Boehlert: Murdoch hounded by lawsuits that could cost Fox News billions

Rupert Murdoch for years has enjoyed a Trump-like ability to avoid responsibility for the avalanche of lies he promotes. That all may be changing thanks to a pair of billion-dollar defamation lawsuits surrounding Trump’s Big Lie campaign — Murdoch appears powerless to stop the looming legal reckoning. This week, Justice David Cohen of State Supreme […]

There Is No Excuse for Failure to Charge Trump for His Role on January 6

The Justice Department cannot be so afraid of losing a case—or of political blowback—it fails to do its duty. Mar 7, 2022 That filing that the lawyers for the congressional committee looking into the events of January 6 dropped in court last week, part of the committee’s continuing effort to get John Eastman to turn […]

Putin’s U.S. Stooges Must Be Called Out

I gotta admit one thought that passed through my mind after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I wondered what would happen if Putin did succeed in winning quickly, if he came in and Ukraine surrendered and it was over in a day, as he had delusionally hoped, thus affirming the […]

DeSantis bullies teenagers and the press plays dumb

Barrelling into camera view at full speed on Wednesday, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis lit into a group of assembled Tampa area students from Middleton High School who were selected to stand behind him while he announced a $20 million investment in cybersecurity workforce education. With his voice raised and his index finger pointed, he bullied and […]

Eric Boehlert: Stop whitewashing GOP’s Putin worship

American politicians cheerleading a dictator as he sends tanks into a neighboring country and bombs a sovereign nation ought to be a huge news story. The fact that portions of a major U.S. political party, and its aligned media outlets, sanction Russia’s massive invasion of Ukraine represents a stunning turning point for the Republican Party […]

Eric Boehlert: The media and Durham’s corrupt “spying” investigation

Fox News has lost its mind. Again. Looking for a partisan outrage to promote as Covid cases plummet and the U.S. economy continues to soar, Fox News, Trump and the ferocious Right Wing Noise Machine have gone all-in claiming Hillary Clinton’s campaign six years ago “spied” on the Republican candidate. The dreamt-up allegation comes courtesy of special counsel […]

Eric Boehlert: How Trump gets away with shredding everything

We just witnessed another textbook example this week of how Trump gets away with bending rules in his favor, and without having to pay a price from the press or the Beltway establishment. It’s maddening to watch and it highlights just how unprepared D.C. institutions still are in terms of dealing with an unapologetic authoritarian […]

Glenn Kirschner: Will Trump run in 2024? How the DOJ could boost his bid

In the nearly 13 months since the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, hundreds of Americans — the foot soldiers of the insurrection — have been criminally indicted. However, not a single member of the insurrection’s suspected command structure, the planners and plotters, the organizers and funders, the orchestrators and inciters, has been charged. And it’s still unclear whether […]

Eric Boehlert: Zucker’s CNN legacy — selling drama over news

News that Jeff Zucker, CNN’s longtime, larger-than-life chief, has been forced out for failing to disclose a consensual relationship he was having with a colleague, signals the end of an era for the all-news channel. One of the most celebrated TV programmers of his generation — he was “Today’s” executive producer at age 26 — Zucker leaves […]

Eric Boehlert: 3 Covid stories the press is getting wrong right now

Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal brought troubling news about Covid-19 deaths as the paper detailed how they “have reached the highest level since early last year,” emphasizing that the virus “spread wildly through the country and caused record-shattering count cases.” The Journal article painted a dismaying picture of pandemic America, depicting the Omicron variant that was ravaging a defenseless nation as […]

Eric Boehlert: Biden’s getting doomsday press — just like Obama did

It wouldn’t be surprising if President Joe Biden felt a strong sense of déjà vu as he marked his first year in office and the D.C. press eagerly writes him off as a failure buried by a mountain of crises, while at the same time erasing his accomplishments. (Record job gains, ending the Forever War.) […]

The Rude Pundit: Martin Luther King Would Still F*** Our S*** Up (2022 Edition)

It’s more frustrating than ever to hear conservatives who are opposed to legislation that would expand voter participation, supportive of gerrymandering that specifically reduces the power of non-whites, and losing they goddamned minds over teaching the hard truths about the United States’s racial history quote Martin Luther King, Jr. like they actually give a single […]

Barbara McQuade: Oath Keepers sedition indictments are just the beginning for DOJ

The most interesting aspect of the recent indictments of 11 people accused of involvement in the Jan. 6 attack on charges of seditious conspiracy isn’t who has been charged — but who might be charged next. The Justice Department unveiled a 48-page indictment Thursday accusing the 11 defendants of conspiring to oppose by force the government’s transition of presidential […]

Eric Boehlert: Inflation’s a global dilemma — the press blames Biden

News that U.S. inflation inched up 0.5 percent last month set off another round of excited media reports, as news outlets pounded one of their favorite themes in recent months. Convinced that rising prices are the defining economic issue of the day — not huge job gains, record-setting GDP predictions, or boosted wages — the press continues to portray inflation as a uniquely American problem […]

Eric Boehlert: Jan. 6 committee keeps dragging Fox News

For the second time in three weeks, Fox News has been shoved into the insurrection spotlight by the House select panel investigating Trump’s coup attempt. It probably won’t be the last time the Congressional body sets its sights on Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda network. The unprecedented glare is highlighting just how duplicitous its hosts are, as we learn […]

The Rude Pundit: Notes on the Anniversary of a Failed Coup

The riot/insurrection/coup on January 6, 2021 was violent. We know that various members of law enforcement were beaten, gassed, cut, crushed, and more. We know that a great deal of property was damaged. If you had been on the receiving end of it, it would have fucked you up. And if you had been a […]

Charlie Pierce: For Christmas, We Received a Hopeful Week

This has been a bit of a hopeful week as weeks go these days. The U.S. Army seems to be closing in on a vaccine that will work against all variants of coronavirus—not just COVID, but SARS, as well. There are now not one, but two antiviral pills aimed at treating the virus in affected individuals and moderating its […]

Eric Boehlert: How the NY Times covered white, male VP’s before Kamala Harris

For anyone not convinced that the Beltway press is using a new double standard to cover Vice President Kamala Harris, and has subjected her to an unprecedented level of scrutiny, the proof is in the print. Here are a sample of New York Times headlines from the daily’s coverage of white, male VPs, taken from their first year […]

The Rude Pundit: The Year of Unmagical Thinking

If we hung out, sometimes you might ask me why, seemingly out of nowhere, I’ve gotten angry. It’s not like there aren’t thousands of reasons all the time to be angry, but, mostly, we all keep that in check. This last two years, though, I haven’t really been able to, and I’d get morose and […]

Elie Mystal: Gavin Newsom’s Gun Stunt Is Inspired—and Doomed to Fail

California Governor Gavin Newsom has done what tons of progressives want elected Democrats to start doing: fight like Republicans. Over the weekend, he announced that his office is working on a bill modeled after Texas’s Senate Bill 8—the one that empowers private bounty hunters to take away the constitutional rights of women and pregnant people […]

Charlie Pierce: The Water Is Rising Fast Around Mark Meadows

I’m no expert at being a former White House chief of staff with a congressional committee nipping at my heels, but to the untrained eye, Mark Meadows seems to be in a world of shit. On Sunday, the January 6 committee released a 51-page report backing up its recommendation that Meadows be held in criminal contempt for […]

Eric Boehlert: New poll confirms media are burying us in bad economic news

By a staggering ratio of six-to-one, Americans say they are seeing and hearing bad economic news more often than they are positive reports. The new polling results confirm the deep disconnect the media have constructed, as news outlets stress. discouraging news regarding the Biden economy, while often ignoring or downplaying the cascading positive developments. Still […]

The Rude Pundit: They Really Thought They Could Overturn the 2020 Election

In the lunatic Powerpoint that Donald Trump’s former Chief of Staff and loyal cumrag Mark Meadows turned over to the committee investigating the January 6, 2021 coup attempt, there are two words that completely undo any assertion that there was any real fuckery in the election. Without those two words, these weak-minded, strong-arming fucktoads could have perhaps […]

The Atlantic: Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun

technically, the next attempt to overthrow a national election may not qualify as a coup. It will rely on subversion more than violence, although each will have its place. If the plot succeeds, the ballots cast by American voters will not decide the presidency in 2024. Thousands of votes will be thrown away, or millions, […]

Dana Mibank: The media treats Biden as badly as — or worse than — Trump. Here’s proof.

“Biden tries to calm nerves about 2024.” “The case for why Biden is screwed.” Even the extraordinary news that jobless claims had dropped to the lowest level in 52 years came with a qualifier: “BUT, BUT, BUT … don’t expect [the numbers] to immediately change Americans’ negative perceptions of the economy.” It isn’t just Politico. My impression […]

The Rude Pundit: The Conservatives on the Supreme Court Want to Punish Women

If things go as awfully as they very well may in 2024, we might end up with a Republican president and Congress. Surely, this will be the result of multiple levels of GOP fuckery, from gerrymandered districts to restricted voting rights to outright refusing to accept slates of electors from states that voted for the […]

Eric Boehlert: The media’s glaring new double standard for first woman VP

By any traditional measure, Vice President Kamala Harris has enjoyed a productive November: • While President Biden went under anesthesia on Friday for the routine medical procedure, she became the first woman to assume the powers of commander in chief. • She traveled to France and helped smooth over relations with a longtime U.S. ally. […]

Harry Litman: Can Jan. 6 panel corral Mark Meadows? It’s tricky.

Now that Stephen K. Bannon has surrendered, snarling and vengeful, to face charges of criminal contempt of Congress, the attention of the Jan. 6 House Select Committee turns to President Trump’s last chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who followed in Bannon’s footsteps last week in refusing even to show up for a scheduled deposition or […]

GOP violence is the most important political story in America

The New York Times recently ran an important piece about the rising specter of violence within mainstream Republican Party circles. The article was noteworthy not only because it spotlighted the frightening instances of violent rhetoric and actions the conservative movement is eagerly unleashing in America, but because the Times used clear and concise language to […]

Eric Boehlert: Good grief, CNN’s promoting feel-good special on Chris Christie

I wonder what CNN host Don Lemon thinks about the network’s inexplicable decision to schedule a Chris Christie primetime special for Monday night. Christie still holds the dishonor of being the most unpopular governor in American history while he ran New Jersey, and he famously flamed out as a presidential candidate in 2016, surviving only one primary contestwhere […]

The Rude Pundit: What We Can Learn from Germany on Teaching the Hard Past

While the first history textbooks in postwar Germany were light on the subject of the Nazis, by the early 1960s, less than two decades after the fall of the Third Reich, things changed. In textbooks that were used at different levels comparable to middle and high school in the United States, authors began confronting the […]

Charlie Pierce: Ted Cruz Picked a Fight With Big Bird and Lost

Because I am a man of Christian charity whose heart is forever bursting with concern for my fellow man, I would like to begin the week by saying that I have grown concerned about Tailgunner Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from the great state of Texas. Frankly, on its way off the rails, I think […]

Eric Boehlert: Virginia lesson for Democrats… The media are not your friend

After triumphant election cycles in 2018 and 2020, Democrats suffered stinging setbacks on Tuesday when they lost the Virginia’s governor’s race, and barely held on to win the same contest in New Jersey, a state Joe Biden won by 16 points last year. Democrats have been down this rocky road before. In November, 2009, just […]

The Rude Pundit: The F**, Joe Manchin?

Yesterday morning, Joe Manchin, Democratic senator from West Virginia and cockblocker extraordinaire, was on CNN’s New Day (which would be far more entertaining if it was a Canadian show called “Nude, Eh?”). As we all know, Manchin, along with Arizona’s most dickish dress-up doll, Kyrsten Sinema, has been the biggest asshole on the stupidly-named Build Back Better […]

There’s One Thing Missing from the Washington Post’s Massive January 6 Report

Tous les ‘Toobz were abuzz this weekend over the massive Washington Post investigation into the January 6 insurrection. It is indeed a vast and impressive performance by the newspaper. It pretty much closes down dozens of alibis and soft explanations. No, this wasn’t a spontaneous event. Yes, it was carefully orchestrated by people close to the former president*. […]

Critical race theory fight exposes massive journalism failure

Trying to pull off an upset in the Virginia governor’s race next week, Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin continues his push with an unlikely pledge at the center of his campaign: If elected he would immediately ban the teaching of critical race theory in Commonwealth classrooms. His promise to voters has produced nonstop media coverage, as the […]

The GOP Supports Death Threats Against Officials They Disagree With

At yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with Attorney General Merrick Garland, it became clear that for the Republican Party, threats of death and violence against elected officials at every level of government are not only acceptable, but that to speak out in even the mildest way deserves hysterical over-reaction calculated to cause officials to receive even more […]

Charlie Pierce: All the Chickens, Kiev and Otherwise, Are Coming Home to Roost

Oh, all the chickens, Kiev and otherwise, are coming home to roost, it seems. First, the FBI raids the home of Oleg Deripaska, Paul Manafort’s old 2016 running buddy. Then, on Friday, Rudy Giuliani’s good tovarich, Lev Parnas, gets convicted in federal court of violating a whole truckload of campaign finance laws on behalf of…well, you know. […]

Eric Boehlert: Why the media — and Republicans — owe U.S. workers an apology

When Republicans launched a frontal assault on American workers earlier this year, the press was right there to help them echo their bogus claims. Both should now apologize for smearing the U.S. workforce. Belittling would-be employees for being “lazy” and living off the government dole as generous unemployment payments swelled during the pandemic, conservatives invented […]

Elie Mystal: Democrats Are Ready to Abandon Black Voters, Again

We have come to a familiar crossroads of American politics. Democrats, who cannot win national office without the overwhelming support of Black people, are facing rejection from perpetually aggrieved, poorly educated whites. These whites are poised to vote to defeat Democrats in upcoming elections. In response, a chorus of powerful Democrats has risen up inside […]

Charlie Pierce: This Is Called ‘Contempt of Congress’

What say we begin the weekend by looking straight on at a straight-up crime? It’s a very clarifying thing. From Politico: The committee has subpoenaed documents and testimony from four Trump administration alumni: former social media czar Dan Scavino, former Defense Department official Kash Patel, former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and former White House adviser […]

Eric Boehlert: America isn’t guaranteed a happy ending

The clarion calls of democratic doom are out there, but are newsrooms listening? Trump Republicans are methodically and unapologetically out to derail American democracy, yet there remains a working media assumption that it can’t happen here. “I’m astonished that more people don’t see, or can’t face, America’s existential crisis,” Hillary Clinton warned this week. She fears “our […]

Charlie Pierce: The Pandora Papers Are a Rare Moment Where the Money Power Is Visible

The money power is rarely visible. At its strongest, it operates unseen and largely unheard. Often, we see only what it produces: an unqualified dumbass gets elected to Congress, a national economy “mysteriously” collapses, a village is destroyed by a chemical spill or a town finds out that its drinking water is a chemistry set. […]

Eric Boehlert: Trump gets a pass for historic murder surge in 2020

The United States during Trump’s final year in office posted the largest year-to-date increase in murders since the FBI first began tabulating the statistics more than six decade ago. The nation suffered a stunning 30% jump last year, the Bureau recently confirmed. There were an additional 4,901 homicides in 2020 compared with the year before. […]

The Rude Pundit: Kyrsten Sinema Is Getting Off on This

One of the most fulfilling aspects of self-pleasure done right is how deeply individual, totally personal it is. Your masturbatory preferences are completely yours, and you don’t have to tell anyone whatever you need to get off on your own. No one needs to know that what really gets your rocks rolling is, say, a […]

Eric Boehlert: Media ignore a monster story — the brainwashing of Covid zombies

National Public Radio relayed more shocking Covid news on Monday: “In 2020, for the first time in recorded history, more people died in Alabama than were born in the state.” The pandemic has shrunk the red state. Yet local Republican leaders still oppose mask and vaccine mandates, leaving the Trump outpost exposed to more fatalities. But like […]

Eric Boehlert: Has Biden’s approval rating “plummeted”? Nope

Amid breathless reports of a political “free fall” and reeling from the White House’s “summer from hell,” the Beltway press has leaned into the idea that Joe Biden’s presidency is unraveling — that his approval rating is in a state of collapse. Except it’s not true. Instead, it’s the media falling in love with their […]

The Rude Pundit: Missing the Real Story… Like Many Others, Milley Said Trump Is Nuts

I get the uproar over Bob Woodward’s latest luridly compelling book on the administration of Donald Trump. Woodward is like a filthy tabloid version of Robert Caro, and he always squeezes every anecdote for maximum salaciousness. So in his telling, Gen. Mike Milley, Trump’s (and now Biden’s) Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, was so alarmed at […]

Eric Boehlert: Sorry Chuck Todd, America is not hopelessly “divided” over Covid

Delivering this Sunday’s morning update like a disappointed dad, Meet the Press’ Chuck Todd conveyed distressing news about how America is split down the middle over Covid, causing cultural and political fissures.   “The U.S. enters this Labor Day weekend suffering from two viruses: Covid and polarization,” the host lamented. “Covid has become an MRI of America’s soul. Who […]

The Rude Pundit: 9/11 Knows America Lies to Itself

9/11 hates these years the most. Every half-decade, the annual commemoration is amped up, as if some magic exists in numbers that end in 5 or 0. Every time, the same speeches, the same images, the same patriotic fervor in some places, the same performative sense of loss in others, the same, the same. The […]

Charlie Pierce: The Phantom Revolution

I have lived through more than a few revolutions. Sometime around half past Woodstock in the 1960s, revolution became a very effective marketing tool, and suddenly we were up to our Bakunins in revolutions meant to sell us things. In no particular order, I have lived through the Civil Rights Revolution, the Sexual Revolution, the Youth […]

Charlie Pierce: Who Votes for People Who Do This Much Damage?

In the sad recent history of Wisconsin politics, Waukesha County is the heart of it. The state had a proud history of Progressive politics—hell, most of it was invented there—and Waukesha County was the nest of murder hornets that helped bring down upon the state Senator Ron Johnson, Governor Scott Walker, and a state legislative […]

The Rude Pundit: A Country on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Part 1: Mask Madness)

The first time I saw the irrationality of large groups of adults happened when I was an adolescent in Lafayette, Louisiana. My mom took me to a parish council meeting (in case you don’t know, parishes are counties but they’re called “parishes” in Louisiana because Catholicism) for a debate over allowing fluoridation of the water […]

Eric Boehlert: The media’s summer of discontent — waging war on Biden

Feigning shock that the final chapter to a 20-year lost war in Afghanistan did not go as planned for the U.S. military, the media remain in overdrive, breathlessly presenting the U.S. troop withdrawal as a presidency-defining failure for Joe Biden.  Thankfully, the dire picture that the press painted over the weekend of the widespread death and […]

Charlie Pierce: What the Hell Were We Doing There?

John F. Kennedy was very fond of the old saw that victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. What we watched unfold in Afghanistan over the weekend, as the Afghan army dissolved, the Afghan government collapsed, and the president of Afghanistan ran for the hills, turned that mossbacked shibboleth on its head. […]

Eric Boehlert: Traitorous GOP now the fifth column in America’s war on Covid

America is swimming in purposeful pandemic distortions:  •The Covid-19 vaccine doesn’t work.  •It’s dangerous and the government is lying about the pandemic.  • Public schools should be defunded if they offer virtual teaching.  • The CDC is run by “tyrants” and health experts are “exaggerating” the pandemic.  • Superintendents could have their pay withheld if they try to initiate a […]

Glenn Kirschner: DOJ officials thwarted Trump’s coup. Next step, A criminal investigation

Recent blockbuster reporting revealed that former President Donald Trump was aggressively pushing Justice Department officials to help him overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. To those of us who previously worked at the Justice Department, this is … unfathomable. The good news is that these revelations have inspired swift governmental action in at least some […]

Eric Boehlert: Chuck Todd and the myth of Liberal Media Bias

Surveying the media landscape and seeing a Beltway press corps that’s constantly on the run from Republican attacks, Meet The Press moderator Chuck Todd this week urged his colleagues to stand up to the right-wing bullies, who have spent decades demonizing journalists.  “We should have fought back better in the mainstream media. We shouldn’t [have] accepted the […]

Charlie Pierce: The FBI’s Brett Kavanaugh Probe Always Smelled Like a Sham

Anyone who sat through the extended hearings into the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court realized that the whole business was completely off at its center. Christine Blasey Ford was so believable that the blasts of outrage from the likes of Lindsey Graham, and from the nominee himself, smacked of ludicrous overkill, particularly […]

Dean Obeidallah: Fox News’ Covid vaccine denials can’t go unpunished

Typically, when Fox News spews lies or misinformation on political issues, my response is a mix of fact-checking and eye rolls. But the current misinformation campaign about the Covid-19 vaccine from some of Fox News’ most popular hosts demands more than a typical response given lives are on the line. That’s why I filed a complaint this […]

Eric Boehlert: Remember when Politico said DeSantis “won the pandemic”?

Florida has become a Covid-19 debacle, again.  Now accounting for one-in-every five new cases nationwide, the Sunshine State under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has emerged as a beacon of irresponsibility. Not that he seems to care.  Off visiting Texas recently to take part in more GOP photo-ops at the border, DeSantis often brushes off the […]

Dr. Irwin Redlener: To Save American Lives, Biden Needs to Ask Trump For His Help

“I doubt that either POTUS 45 or 46 would be anxious to admit that it was complementary efforts by both presidents that allowed the U.S. to create, manufacture, and distribute Covid-19 vaccines in record time and with startling efficiency. But it was after Operation Warp Speed that President Biden was able to focus on upping […]

Eric Boehlert: Complete failure — the media’s critical race theory debacle gets worse

Did you know the entire “country” is now “panicked” about critical race theory? That absurd claim was laundered in a New York Times headline this week, as the newspaper tried to unpack the current, manufactured outrage being fueled by conservatives in their never-ending bid to wage cultural wars.  The ginned-up moral crisis continues to rage because news outlets […]

The Rude Pundit: Republicans Loved the Covid Vaccine Before They Hated It

I have seen a lot of cynical shit when it comes to the way that conservative politicians and media whores manipulate their fucking ignorant followers, from the Cadillac-driving welfare queens to drug hysteria to birtherism and so very much more. But I cannot wrap my head around the exploitation of fear and the selfish hyping […]

Charlie Pierce: Sidney Powell Is Going Down With the Ship

I am not a lawyer, and I play one here in the shebeen only occasionally, but there is one thing about the law that I know. If you are an attorney before the bar, representing your client, it is far better to piss off the judge than to piss off the court reporter, and this […]

Eric Boehlert: Tucker Carlson’s NSA spying story gets dumber and dumber

Spinning his way through an incoherent, headline-grabbing allegation that the U.S. Intelligence Community has been “spying” on him and releasing his emails to journalists in an effort to get his show cancelled, Tucker Carlson detailed this week how “the Biden administration” had big plans to take him down. Conceding that he’s been in contact with […]

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what’s goin’ down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin’ gets done, and where if you go down in the flood, it’s going to be your fault. We begin in the state of Washington, where a state representative did his Dennis The Peasant […]

Charlie Pierce: This Is the Upside of Merrick Garland’s ‘Institutionalism’

This is the upside of Garland’s “institutionalism” that has driven so many of his progressive supporters so batty. He may believe that the ethics of his job require him to, say, fight the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit, or even defend the previous administration* against any lawsuit emanating from the January 6 insurrection. But he also knows […]

They’ve Done Some Extensive Renovations on the Conservative Puke Funnel

Within days, a conspiracy theory went from the lunatic fringe to the White House and the Department of Justice. By Charles P. Pierce Jun 21, 2021 The problem with running a successful freak show is that your customers continually ask for more, and you end up slouching toward human sacrifice or gluing horns onto the heads […]

The New York Times creates another Both Sides fiasco

Republicans want to make it harder for people to vote and easier for the GOP to invalidate election results. That’s the distressing, historic truth as the party fully embraces an anti-democratic agenda.  Hiding behind Both Sides journalism, which portrays all political skirmishes as being the product of each party, the D.C. press continues to struggle to be […]

Charlie Pierce: Mitch McConnell Just Fired on Fort Sumter and Shot the Archduke

Something interesting happened on Hugh Hewitt’s electric radio program. (I know, if you need to sit down, feel free.) Mitch McConnell fired on Fort Sumter, shot the Archduke, and bombed Pearl Harbor. In the figurative political sense, of course. From MSN: “I think it’s highly unlikely – in fact, no, I don’t think either party, if […]

Eric Boehlert: Stop calling the Arizona charade an “audit”

Now in its seventh week, the pointless review of two million ballots in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous outpost, has not only emerged as a dishonest, partisan circus, it’s also a blueprint for how right-wing conspiracists want to treat future GOP election losses. Along the way, they’re deliberately destroying faith in the democratic process. As the “fraudits” […]

The Rude Pundit: Conservatives Believe That Critical Race Theory Will Eat Our Children (Part 1)

Today, Thursday, in Florida (motto: “America’s laboratory of backwards ass fucknuttery”), the state Board of Education voted that, when it comes to American history, “Instruction on the required topics must be factual and objective, and may not suppress or distort significant historical events, such as the Holocaust, slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the civil rights movement […]

Charlie Pierce: Mike Pence Wants the Votes of His Own Hangmen

It is said that, immediately before the ax fell, Sir Thomas More told the headsman not “to fear your office, you send me to God.” I always thought that was just a tad too generous, but hey, different strokes for different martyrs. Anyway, up in New Hampshire on Thursday, former Vice President Mike Pence took […]

Eric Boehlert: How Trump became an online flop in 2021

After less than a month of postings, Trump’s blog was officially taken offline this week, after drawing an embarrassingly small audience. Loyalists will no longer be able to check on “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump” to read his latest, bitter musings.   The sudden move to unplug the aging Florida blogger comes as Trump continues […]

The Rude Pundit: A Couple of Observations on the Republican War on Democracy

Observation 1: Most religions have a great tautological scam going: Faith means believing in God, Jesus, Allah, or another invisible sky wizard even in the absence of evidence. Oh, sure, you can say that your book of faith that was written centuries ago by drunk monks proves some things, but it doesn’t, any more than […]

Charlie Pierce: Republicans Create the Doubts, Then They ‘Investigate’ Them

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what’s goin’ down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin’ gets done, and where they sing “Amazing Grace” all the way to the Swiss banks. Audit Fever Sweeps Nation! From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: [State Assembly Speaker Robin] Vos in a Wednesday interview said he […]

Dr. Irwin Redlener: Here’s How to Clear Up the CDC’s Communications Confusion

Last week’s guidance from the CDC that face masks and social distancing are no longer required for fully vaccinated people in most indoor and outdoor settings is based on multiple studies that confirm what we have long hoped for: the new vaccines offer robust protection against COVID-19. That is precisely the kind of science that Biden’s team rightly […]

Barbara McQuade: Two new reasons Trump should worry about the New York legal investigations. A lot.

The legal stakes have just skyrocketed for former President Donald Trump and his business. New York Attorney General Letitia James’s investigation into the Trump Organization has suddenly evolved in two important ways: It is no longer “purely civil” but is also being conducted in “a criminal capacity,” and she is now working along with Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.  […]

Charlie Pierce: You Mean Liz Cheney Is Still…a Republican?

Wait a minute. What’s that I see? Is it the Liz Cheney bandwagon going over the cliff? Jonathan Swan of Axios was there at the brink to wave as the bandwagon plunged toward the rocks below. “I think you have to look at the specifics of each one of those efforts. If you look at […]

Eric Boehlert: Now Politico’s just making stuff up

President Joe Biden is getting trashed by Democrats over the Middle East!  Vice President Kamala Harris isn’t acknowledging her Asian heritage!  Those were two breathless dispatches Politico posted this week, as the Beltway insider outlet did its best to gin up drama surrounding the Democratic administration. Apparently still longing from the non-stop news cycle of the Trump era and the […]

Elie Mystal: The Supreme Court May Have Just Signed Roe v. Wade’s Death Warrant

The current constitutional rule regarding abortion holds that women have the right to choose whether to continue with their pregnancy before a fetus becomes viable. Fetal viability is the point after which a fetus is thought to have a chance of surviving outside a woman’s body, thus giving the government a legitimate state interest in […]

Eric Boehlert: The media have no idea how to cover increasingly deranged GOP

Hours after Republican House members forced Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) to surrender her leadership role for the sin of denouncing Trump lies about his election loss, Republicans at a House Oversight Committee hearing addressing the Capitol Hill insurrection spent the same day spreading misinformation about Trump’s attempted coup.    Claiming that what transpired that day […]

The Rude Pundit: Liz Cheney Demonstrates the Least You Can Do to Preserve Democracy

Among the lies that Republicans tell themselves to justify their continued deranged, perhaps even traitorous behavior in refusing to back down from the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, one of the most persistent is that Democrats were always trying to “overturn” the 2016 election. You remember that one, right? […]

Eric Boehlert: If Biden were a Republican, press would tout him as the new Reagan

Viewing the world through the prism of the GOP, Politico announced President Joe Biden’s speech to Congress Wednesday night, where he presented a sweeping, optimistic view for America’s rebound from Covid-19, was a big win…for Republicans. Pushing the absurd storyline that Biden’s speech hurt him because it highlighted his agenda (he’s been trying to keep it hidden?), Politico declared […]

The Rude Pundit: An Open Letter to Tucker Carlson Regarding His Opinions on Masks

Dear Tucker, Can I call you “Tucker”? I don’t really care because I’m sure as hell not calling you “Mr. Carlson,” like you’re the dad of someone I’m fucking back when I was in high school. Anyways, I don’t watch your goddamn show because you’re an obnoxious, privileged, powdered pair of ass cheeks whose face […]

Eric Boehlert: The week Fox News craved street violence in Minneapolis

An overwhelmingly majority of Americans support the guilty verdict that was reached in the Minneapolis trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, who killed George Floyd one year ago, by kneeling on his neck for nine minutes while the Black man begged for his life. At Fox News though, the trial outcome was met with hysterical condemnations […]

Frank Figliuzzi: Why Trump loyalists should fear the first Capitol riot confession

On Friday, we learned of the first publicly entered guilty plea from among the over 400 people charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. A guilty plea in such a sweeping and high-profile investigation is significant on its own. But when sealed documents in the case accidentally became visible in the federal court’s automated records […]

Dr. Irwin Redlener: Despite July 4 timeline, the US is a long way from herd immunity

As the rate of vaccinations continues at a record pace, Americans are increasingly emerging from their long and dark winter hibernation with a sense of cautious optimism and hope for a more ‘normal’ summer.  There are in fact signs of hope. More than one-third of U.S adults have now received at least one dose of the vaccine, marking a […]

Elie Mystal: How the Supreme Court Gave Cops a License to Kill

There is nothing unique or interesting about the defense strategy employed by the lawyers for Derek Chauvin. The trial has produced no made-for-television stunts or rhetorical flourishes. There’s no bloody glove, no rhyming couplets. Chauvin’s defense is so basic that an attorney straight out of law school could pull it off. His lawyers are simply […]

Eric Boehlert: How the media botched the J&J vaccine “pause” story

Concerned about six rare and severe blood clot reactions out of nearly seven million Americans who have received the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine, the CDC and the FDA on Tuesday announced a sweeping pause of the immunization in order to investigate the handful of cases.  The J&J vaccine, with its single-dose regimen, currently represents […]

The Rude Pundit: Shut the F*** Up and Get Your F***ing Vaccine

A bunch of fanatics are fucking up the vaccination program for everyone. Polls are showing that a significant percentage of people won’t get the vaccine. In places where people don’t get vaccinated, cases have been on the rise. There are YouTube videos, filled with conspiracy theories, exhorting people to avoid the vaccine. People spread the […]

Eric Boehlert: Maggie Haberman, and when Trump access no longer matters

Nobody in journalism rode the Trump wave quite like New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman, who was toasted by the media for her dogged sleuthing.  “She’s the queen of political journalism,” Vanity Fair proclaimed. She “may be the greatest political reporter working today,” Elle announced in a 5,000-word profile. And the Times itself worked hard branding Haberman, hyping her Trump coverage as “one of the most […]

The Rude Pundit: Conservatives Finally Just Say, “F*** Your Right to Vote”

As a slew of new voter laws slime their way through the legislatures of mostly Republican states where Democrats have a chance of winning, almost all based on the lie that there was mass election fraud in 2020, conservative commentators have decided that it’s not enough to come up with bullshit new procedures that inhibit voting. Apparently, […]

Charlie Pierce: Our Capacity for Shock Is Finally Coming Back to Us

So there was another crazy event at the Capitol on Friday and two people died. Earlier in the week, we had our third mass shooting in two weeks, this one in Los Angeles, in which four people died including a nine-year-old boy. We don’t yet know if the driver who smashed into a barricade at the Capitol […]

Eric Boehlert: Fox News just went 30 hours without mentioning the Matt Gaetz scandal

In an extraordinary attempt at GOP damage control, Fox News failed to make any mention, for more than an entire day, of the exploding sex trafficking scandal that’s engulfing Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a close ally of the network. Opting instead for a total blackout, Fox News tried and failed to quell the raging […]

Dr. Irwin Redlener: Four Things Biden Can Do Right Now to Protect Children at the Border

The Biden administration is reluctant to refer to the situation on the southwestern border as a “crisis,” preferring to call it a “challenge.” But with nearly 100,000 apprehensions at the border last month alone, that may be a distinction without much difference. Whatever it’s called, this influx of asylum seekers—including a rapidly growing number of unaccompanied, unauthorized minors […]

Eric Boehlert: No more word games — it’s GOP “voter suppression,” period.

Scrambling in the wake of Joe Biden’s seven-million vote victory in November, Republicans continue to mount a powerful and unapologetic campaign to suppress voting. With so many state legislatures under GOP control, Republicans are sponsoring more than 250 bills aimed at drastically reducing ballot access in coming years. It’s being done under the phony banner […]

The Rude Pundit: The Real Culture War Is Over Vaccines

Yesterday, I was talking to a few people about COVID vaccines. Two of us were fully vaccinated, and another was scheduled to get his. One of our Zoom group, Sandy, a young woman, declared that she was not going to get the vaccine, even if required by her job. She insisted that “everything I’ve heard” […]

Reckless governors are threatening COVID-19 progress

As progress continues with the Biden-Harris administration’s vaccine effort, there’s much to be hopeful about: cases numbers have been driven down substantially from their January high, vaccination rates are among the fastest in the world and hospitalizations due to COVID-19 have plummeted. These facts alone have been enough to buoy the spirits of countless citizens […]

The Acquittal of Derek Chauvin Has Already Begun

Derek Chauvin is the Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd. I don’t have to say “allegedly” killed, because I saw it. Floyd was alive, and then, eight minutes and 46 seconds later, he was not, and the only intervening event that happened was Chauvin’s knee on his neck.Chauvin’s trial started this week, and soon […]

Good grief — New York Times credits Trump for Biden’s vaccine victory

In a wildly misguided attempt at Trump rehabilitation, the New York Times this week suggested Trump deserves credit for the extraordinary success the new Biden administration is having getting Americans vaccinated. Leaning hard into the Both Sides narrative, the Times generously headlined its piece, “Biden Got the Vaccine Rollout Humming, With Trump’s Help.” 

Random Observations on a Presidential Presidential Address

1. President Joe Biden’s speech to the nation last night could have been a giant victory lap. Having just signed the most significant anti-poverty legislation in at least two generations and leading a country that has gone from the worst rate of COVID deaths to the most vaccinations in the world since he’s been in office, no […]

Eric Boehlert: “60 Minutes” plays nice with the QAnon Shaman

Arriving for the first jailhouse interview with the Trump insurrectionist known as the “QAnon Shaman,” 60 Minutes+ this week provided a surprisingly gentle and understanding forum for someone who helped terrorize members of Congress on Jan. 6, when a murderous mob ransacked the U.S. Capitol.  Along with interviewing Jacob Chansley (aka the Shaman), CBS’s Laurie Segall interviewed Chansley’s mother who insisted her […]

The Rude Pundit: Grappling with Andrew Cuomo’s Scandals

There is absolutely no reason to feel guilty or bad because you found comfort in New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s daily press briefings during the lockdown early in the coronavirus pandemic. While President Bumblefuck Magoo was prancing around and lying about the severity of the situation while shitting on anyone who would dare ask the […]

Dr. Irwin Redlener: Vaccinating educators now is key to reopening schools

There can be no doubt that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are committed to reopening America’s schools as rapidly as possible. As early as the first week in December, then-president-elect Biden announced that he planned to at least partly reopen most of the nation’s schools within the first 100 days of his […]

Eric Boehlert: How the press keeps playing dumb about sexism, racism

The easiest way for the media to deal with the menacing role gender and race play in American politics, is to simply ignore the topics. We’re watching that dynamic play out this week as President Joe Biden’s nominee to become the director of the OMB, Neera Tanden, faces roadblocks from key U.S. senators who are […]

Charlie Pierce: Donald Trump Is Now at the Mercy of a New York District Attorney

On the matter of the former president*’s taxes, the Supreme Court of the United States on Monday decided that it pretty much doesn’t want any part of the former president* of the United States, and it delivered the former president* up to the tender mercies of a New York District Attorney. From the Washington Post: […]

Laurie Garrett: Trump Is Guilty of Pandemicide

At long last, we see glimmers of hope. The COVID-19 epidemic in the United States has fallen below the numbers of daily new cases tallied on the eve of the presidential election, the point at which this viral nightmare soared. Using the New York Times’ coronavirus data tracker, on Nov. 1, 2020, there were 74,195 […]

Eric Boehlert: Defending Cancun Cruz, GOP media suddenly claim optics don’t matter

Ted Cruz slinked home from Mexico yesterday, starring in a controversy of his own making. While millions of Texans were without power, heat, and water and facing life-threatening condition as the Lone Star state struggled with a winter storm of epic proportions — for which the state’s Republican leaders seem completely incapable of managing — […]

Charlie Pierce: Ultimately, Donald Trump Beat the System. Again.

Let me dispense right at the beginning that the verdict of history doesn’t interest me in the least. First of all, Americans have the attention span of fruit flies and, to far too many of them, history is whatever came in over their iPhones 10 minutes ago. Second, I am now of a sufficient age […]

Eric Boehlert: Media won’t tell the truth about GOP’s impeachment cowardice

Following a day of gut-wrenching surveillance videos depicting a violent, deadly mob teeming into the U.S. Capitol on January 6, some journalists covering Trump’s impeachment trial expressed bewilderment at how Republican senators serving as jurors would be able to vote to dismiss the charges.  “How will they justify acquitting the man who sent a mob […]

Eric Boehlert: Fox News flipped its 7 p.m. from news to opinion — it’s a ratings flop

Desperate to stave off its 2021 ratings slide, as disaffected Fox News viewers turn elsewhere for their right-wing misinformation following Trump’s election defeat, Rupert Murdoch’s channel made a key programming switch last month. Its 7 p.m. anchor, Martha MacCallum, who hosted what Fox identified as one of its serious “news side” programs, was demoted and […]

Eric Boehlert: Memo to media… the GOP’s Trump “reckoning” is never coming

In a move that should have surprised nobody, yet seemed to catch the D.C. press off guard, the Republican Party rallied to Trump’s defense this week, voting overwhelmingly in favor of shutting down an impeachment trial before it even begins in the U.S. Senate. Casting aside the fact that he incited a murderous mob that […]

Elie Mystal: Twitter and Facebook Just Proved That Deplatforming Works

We now have evidence that the biggest threat to American democracy was not the violent rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, but the bad-faith Republicans who work at the Capitol and spent two months fueling the Big Lie that the election was stolen in the first place. We also have evidence that ex-president […]

Eric Boehlert: Politico’s Ben Shapiro debacle — zero lessons learned from the Trump era

On the morning after Trump made history by being impeached for the second time, Politico handed over its influential Beltway morning newsletter, Playbook, to Ben Shapiro a bigoted, bomb-throwing media defender of Trump. In his Politico contribution, Shapiro lied about Democrats in an effort to suggest they’re being hypocrites about impeachment. Shapiro also stressed that […]

The Rude Pundit: We Could Have Dealt With This Sh** Years Ago If Republicans Hadn’t Been Di**s About Their Extremists

I keep thinking about Janet Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona who became Barack Obama’s first Secretary of Homeland Security. In April 2009, Republicans and conservative groups were demanding that she resign because her department had so deeply insulted right-wing Americans. See, DHS’s Extremism and Radicalization Branch (Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division) in coordination with […]

Eric Boehlert: Capitol mob — how the press spent years glorifying Trump voters

They smashed windows, hung nooses, brawled with cops, and desecrated the U.S. Capitol. The sickening images from Wednesday that ricocheted around the world announcing a pathetic new chapter in American history, featured thousands of Trump voters. The rioters were acting out on delusional claims of the November election having been stolen from Trump, even though […]

The Rude Pundit: Random Observations on an Insurrection

1. This was inevitable. Anyone even casually observing the last five years knew that the Trump reign was going to end in violence. Unless you willfully put blinders on and truly believe the bullshit fairy tale of “This is not who we are.” This is very much who we are. We have always been a […]

Charlie Pierce: Dick F*cking Cheney Signed This Thing

I admit, this unnerved me quite a bit, more for what it doesn’t say than for what it says, and what it says is bad enough. From the Washington Post: The former Pentagon chiefs issued their warning Sunday evening in an opinion piece that they co-wrote and published in The Washington Post. Its authors include […]

Eric Boehlert: 12 times the Beltway media failed us in 2020

It was a year that required the press to be at its best — a year when a vengeful, unstable president failed to deal with a national health crisis, while launching the most divisive, dishonest re-election campaign in White House history. Time and again though, the Beltway press failed to meet the crucial challenge. Here’s […]

The Rude Pundit: Haiku Review of 2020… Fetch the Bolt Cutters

This motherfucking year. I mean, we were already on the express train to Fuckedsville even before COVID reared its spiky head and turbocharged this shit, this 2020, these 12 months that felt like a generation burnt up and was gone. Think about it: Even without coronavirus and the economic collapse that accompanied it, we’d have […]

Bob Cesca: Ready for Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago shadow presidency? That’s where all this is heading

On Monday morning’s edition of “Fox & Friends,” Donald Trump’s personal Wormtongue, white supremacist Stephen Miller, announced Trump’s latest and most ludicrous attempt to remain president despite the incontrovertible results of the election. Also on Monday, the Electoral College officially affirmed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the winners of the election, 306-232. This, Miller seemed to suggest, […]

Charlie Pierce: There Is No End to the Grift

One hesitates to paraphrase the genius of Robert Earl Keen, but it seems the grift goes on forever and the thievery never ends. The folks at CREW got their hot little hands on some of the financial details describing how high Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been living on the hog belonging to the […]

Eric Boehlert: Why Fox News’ ratings are tanking

Trump isn’t the only one with the post-election hangover. Fox News is facing its most pressing ratings challenge in years, as Trump fuels a schism within the conservative media. This Monday, between 4 pm and 11 pm, just two Fox News programs scored as the top-rated in their hours. In the other six, one-hour time […]

Bob Cesca: Is Trump staging a coup or just running a con? No reason he can’t do both

It’s pretty damn obvious what’s going on with Donald Trump and the election, and it’s probably not an attempted coup. At least, that’s not necessarily Trump’s primary intention with his laughably unserious procession of 50-some failed legal challenges to the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Trump and his Republican enablers lost five cases on […]

Brian Karem: Michael Cohen on What Trump Wants Now

Donald Trump is Captain Chaos. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, pinned that label on him and it has stuck. Now, with less than seven weeks to go before he is escorted from the White House, Captain Chaos is still trampling norms and harming institutions. He is a dangerous con man and is all about the […]

Eric Boehlert: Trump’s mob takes aim at GOP, Fox News

Prowling a rally stage in Atlanta on Wednesday afternoon, and decked out in a Make America Great Again hat, lawyer and conspiracy enthusiast Lin Wood  beseeched the crowd of Trump supporters to not vote in the Georgia’s two upcoming run-off elections, which will determine control of the Senate. Pushing washed-up claims about how the Georgia […]

The Rude Pundit: Kelly Loeffler and the GOP’s Bullsh** Hyperbole

According to Republican Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler, her run-off opponent for her seat, the affable and slightly left-of-center Democrat Raphael Warnock, “is the most radical candidate for Senate our country has ever seen.” He is “dangerous” and embraces “anti-American values,” according to a website that Loeffler has put out called, no, really, radicalraphael.com. It’s filled […]

Eric Boehlert: Biden White House should give Fox News the boot

Over the last four years, the Trump White House press briefing room has welcomed the right-wing media swamp, with conspiracy outlets like Gateway Pundit and OAN granted access to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It was part of a Trump campaign to de-legitimize the press and turn the traditionally-serious briefings into partisan showdowns, where Trump’s far-right media […]

The Rude Pundit: Rudy Giuliani Is Sweating His Hair Color Off for America

Goddamn, why can’t we just be fucking done with Rudy Giuliani? At this point, his story should have ended in a fading Manhattan hotel room when the housekeeper finds his corpse hanging in a closet with a belt around his neck and no pants, his hand rigor-mortised around his dick. like he was choking a […]

Harry Litman: Why not sue the GSA to get the transition going? Wouldn’t be prudent.

Occupants of the real world recognize that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. His lead is far too large to reverse, and President’s Trump’s disingenuous defenders haven’t even offered a legal theory, much less any evidence, that would so much as dent it. But the president and his appointed administrator of the General Services […]

Eric Boehlert: Trump’s election madness… The press gives Republicans a pass

As Trump continues to thrash around, ordering his lawyers to file absurd lawsuits in an attempt to overturn free and fair election results nationwide, the press once again is giving Republicans a pass. Refusing to hold the GOP accountable for truly outrageous and destructive behavior from the head of its party, the Beltway media continue […]

Op-Ed: Adam Schiff: Biden has his work cut out for him

Under unprecedented circumstances, and amid the worst pandemic in a century, Americans voted in record numbers and delivered a clear result: On Jan. 20, 2021, Joe Biden will become the 46th president of the United States.   Biden will take office with a mandate to address a range of urgent issues. He will need to quickly […]

Eric Boehlert: Indecision 2020 — TV networks lose their nerve

For a news industry traditionally obsessed with being first to land a big story, it’s disorienting to watch TV networks look like they don’t want to be the one to call the 2020 presidential election winner. Stuck in neutral since Friday morning (“Biden on the verge of winning”), when it appeared it would be just […]

The Rude Pundit: Trump to America Today… Democracy Is for Suckers and Losers

I gotta tell you: I watched Trump’s appearance today in the White House press room with enough burning schadenfreude to power a small city. As much as I wanted to be appalled and saddened and enraged, mostly what I thought was “Suffer, motherfucker.” If Biden ends up winning, as almost everyone seems to believe he […]

Eric Boehlert: America turns on Trump — we’re not “polarized” after all

As Trump’s failed presidency limps into the final stages of its first term and he trails Joe Biden by historic margins, a key media myth is being burst right before our eyes. Instead of the deeply “polarized,” bitterly divided country the press insists we have become, where every hot-button issue divides the nation by a […]

The Rude Pundit: Donald Trump, See You Next Tuesday

Donald Trump is a cunt. He has been a cunt for his entire worthless life. He might not be the most racist president, but he is certainly the cuntiest. He is campaigning by being as cunty as any human being has ever been, buoyed by the barbaric whoops of his crowds of cunts. He surrounds […]

The Rude Pundit: Biden Wipes Trump’s Cards Off the Table

Last night’s presidential debate at Christian institution Belmont University in Nashville, TN, was notable for President Donald Trump calmly lying and being an asshole for the whole thing. Sure, he wasn’t a bellowing shit-blower like he was in the first debate, where he desperately tried and failed through sheer belligerent motherfuckery to provoke Democratic nominee […]

Bob Cesca: Let’s imagine the unimaginable… A second term for Donald Trump

With the high-water mark of the election just 14 days away, the tragedy of Nov. 8, 2016, haunts me more and more.  Four years ago, nearly everyone, including Donald Trump himself, was convinced Hillary Clinton was all but guaranteed a resounding victory. I remember articles predicting that Clinton would win the entire East Coast, including South Carolina. […]

Eric Boehlert: Enablers — NBC rewards Trump for blowing up Biden debate

One week after refusing to participate in the officially sanctioned presidential debate, an unprecedented move in modern American politics, NBC News has rewarded Trump by clearing its Thursday primetime schedule to air a last-minute town hall with the previously Covid-19-infected president. As Trump stumbles to the end of his re-election campaign and denounces the press […]

Bob Cesca: Trump’s Chernobyl moment… Phony patriotism can’t defeat this virus

There are so many scenes in Craig Mazin’s brilliant HBO miniseries “Chernobyl” that remind me of what’s happened here and now, in the United States, in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Obviously, there are myriad similarities between the Soviet Union’s deceptive response to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the White House’s deceptive response to COVID-19 — principally, Donald […]

Charlie Pierce: Trump’s Little Sunday Road Trip Is Another Failure of His Ego

This was unprecedented in the long history of the human ego. Quarantined because he has a serious case of a deadly and highly contagious disease, the president* of the United States on Sunday decided to throw himself a parade. So he arranged to be locked in an airtight vehicle with a couple of sacrificial lambs […]

Eric Boehlert: Trump has Covid-19… How Fox News infected America

News that Trump and first lady Melania have tested positive for the coronavirus means our national health emergency has taken an extraordinary turn. “If he becomes sick, it could raise questions about whether he should remain on the ballot at all,” the New York Times reported early Friday morning. After months of purposefully downplaying the […]

The Rude Pundit: Donald Trump Is Sick and I Really Wish I Could Feel Good About That

You’re gonna hear from a lot of people today imploring you to offer sympathy, thoughts, and prayers to President Donald Trump and Christmas-hating wife Melania since they have tested positive for COVID-19. You’re gonna hear how Democrats should show how above politics we are when it comes to the human pain of our opponents. And […]

Adam Schiff: Why major democracy reforms are necessary – Los Angeles Times

Having wrested hard-won independence from a monarch, the founders of our nation sought to form a new union where executive power was constrained by other branches of government. They did so knowing that men are not angels, and believing that through a system of checks and balances that set “ambition against ambition,” a fledgling democracy […]

Bob Cesca: How bad will it get if Trump wins a second term? Let me count the ways

It’s been 160 years, almost to the day, since the last time American voters faced an election with consequences as grievous as this one. The 2020 contest is a referendum on Donald Trump’s fascist idiocracy and the rise of a tyrannical Putin-style kleptocracy. Here. In our time. This harrowing assessment includes the rise of an […]

Eric Boehlert: The press is desperate for a horse race

On Sunday, The New York Times released fresh polling data from four swing states. The results were so good for Democrat Joe Biden that his campaign may have allowed itself a cautious smile or two — Biden had huge lead in Minnesota, and was ahead in Wisconsin, Nevada, and New Hampshire. Accompanying the polling article, […]

The Rude Pundit: Blaming 2016 Voters for the Supreme Court Is Worthless

Last night, right after I checked my phone after a joyful happy hour with friends on a rooftop bar, my buzz disappeared and I went immediately from chilled out to furnace-on-full-blast rage and gut-churning sadness about the death of Supreme Court Justice and genuine giant of American jurisprudence Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I thought about how […]

Charlie Pierce: Scientists at These Agencies Should Stage a Walkout

The most recent outrage against good government and common sense involves the technique most popular down at Camp Runamuck. If it’s not installing a useful tool at the U.S. Postal Service, it’s making sure a hopeless hack is in a position to barber the reports on the pandemic at the Centers for Disease Control. And […]

Fox News just proved why it shouldn’t be hosting first debate

Don’t reward awful behavior Days after the Commission on Presidential Debates announced its misguided decision to reward Fox News’ Chris Wallace with hosting duties for the first debate between Trump and Joe Biden this month, the GOP network proved once again why it has no business taking its place alongside legitimate news organizations. The debate […]

The President Is Our Mass Murderer

Sometimes, oh, my sweet, weary people of Donald Trump’s America, it feels like we’re sailing in skiffs on a sea of shit and some of us believe we can get across the shit sea to shore and some of us believe that we’re gonna sink but we all know we’re damned to keep sailing as […]

The Rude Pundit: RNC Night 4… “I Alone Can F*** It All Up”

One of President Donald Trump’s ultimate tells is the phrase “as you know.” Whenever Trump says something and follows it with “as you know,” it’s got one of two purposes. The first is flattery, as in, “I know that you are privy to this incredible insight that I have, too.” The second is conspiratorial, making […]

Charlie Pierce: ‘Trump Time’ Is the New Doomsday Clock

Prior to embarking on his new career as an alleged pirate king of the bounding main, Steve Bannon used to talk bullishly about destroying the “administrative state.” Recently, there have been two epic reported stories that went spelunking into what that actually means. First, the good people at ProPublica went deeply into the history of […]

Eric Boehlert: Trump, Putin, and the emails — Hillary deserves media apology

Confirming the disloyal ways of Trump’s 2016 campaign, the Senate Intelligence Committee released more bipartisan findings on Tuesday, reporting that the GOP election team worked closely with Russian operatives. Trump then lied about those contacts to Robert Mueller’s investigators. “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the 2016 hacking of Democratic Party accounts and the release of […]

The Rude Pundit: Biden and Harris Believe You Deserve Sanity in Your Daily Lives

Everyone is talking about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s speeches at the Democratic National Convention this past week as being a return of empathy or decency, but I’d go one further with another overarching theme: “Remember sanity?” It was truly like watching a funhouse mirror version of our reality, except it took the warped world […]

Charlie Pierce: John Kasich Should Shut His Gob About What Qualifies as ‘Extreme’

In 1996, the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention said the following about the incumbent Democratic president. “Now, think about Bill Clinton. He promises one thing and does another. He hopes we’ll forget his broken promises. But I ask you — have you forgotten that Bill Clinton promised a middle class tax cut, then […]

Eric Boehlert: Kamala Harris sparks right-wing media meltdown

Taking their cues from Trump and dropping any pretense of not being blatantly sexist and racist, the right-wing media immediately dove into a feeding trough of ugly rhetoric this week when Joe Biden announced Kamala Harris as his running mate. The conservative media machine set off allegorical bomb blasts around Harris, frantically trying to depict […]

Dr. Irwin Redlener: Reopening Schools in September Is a Dangerous Experiment

As Donald Trump keeps calling for the nation’s 124,000 public and private schools to reopen, even as he’s failed to contain COVID-19, we are about to embark on a massive, poorly controlled national experiment with the subjects being most of the nation’s 55 million school-age children, their families and their teachers. Unfortunately, this may not […]

Charlie Pierce: Nancy Pelosi Is Taking No Mess From Mark Meadows. Why Would She?

The New York Times went long on the current Republican-generated congressional stalemate regarding the next relief bill aimed at mitigating the combined effects of the pandemic and the spiraling national economy. The general tone of the piece is that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is taking no mess in her negotiations with the other side, which is true enough, […]

Eric Boehlert: Why Trump doesn’t deserve a Biden debate

Just because Trump is the Republican Party’s nominee for president, doesn’t mean he deserves to debate his Democratic opponent on national television. For now, Joe Biden has committed to participating in the three scheduled presidential debates. I wish he would take a different path and tell Trump that if he doesn’t release his tax returns […]

The Rude Pundit: Another Week, Another Batsh** Trump Interview

Everyone’s got their line that pushed them over the edge from President Donald Trump’s interview with Jonathan Swan of Axios (motto: “When USA Today is too complex, you’ve got Axios”). Mine occurred when Swan asked Trump about why he didn’t bother to ask Russian dictator Vladimir Putin about the reports that Putin had put a bounty […]

Charlie Pierce: ‘Congress’ Is Not Flailing. Republicans Are.

No, goddammit, Washington Post, Enough of this nonsense. “Congress” is not flailing. The Republican majority in the Senate is flailing, because the Republican majority is made up of Republicans, and the Republican Party is made up of hyper-ambitious lunatics. It’s not “Congress” that’s stiffing the millions of Americans who need relief in this perilous time […]

Eric Boehlert: When the press buried Obama for Ebola — and two Americans died

“The Ebola crisis in the United States has become an anchor threatening to sink the Obama presidency” — The Hill, October 16, 2014. Appearing on CNN last week, Washington Post reporter Abby Phillip expressed bewilderment that Trump was using his Twitter feed to spread wildly dangerous misinformation about the GOP’s supposed miracle cure for Covid-19. […]

The Rude Pundit: Barack Obama Reminds Us That We Are a Nation

There is a tone that Barack Obama has whenever he’s talking about something where you know he’s thinking, “This is so damn obvious that I can’t believe I have to say it out loud.” It’s a mixture of incredulity that people (generally Republicans and Fox “news” viewers) could be so fuckin’ stupid and disappointment that […]

Charlie Pierce: The President* Wants Chaos and Disunion. Don’t Give It to Him

The idea that people would resort to violence in support of Louie Gohmert, Padishah Emperor of the Crazy People, is bizarre enough to satisfy anyone’s taste for the odd. But coming as it does in the middle of a weekend in which the ongoing protests escalated into serious violence and gunfire, it stands out as […]

Eric Boehlert: Unplug the freak show — Trump’s pandemic briefings are back

Trump’s vow to return with his first pandemic press briefing in three months means the press faces a stark decision — is it in the nation’s best interest to provide nonstop, unedited coverage of his briefings knowing that Trump will lie and mislead the public about a national health emergency? Or is it time to […]

The Rude Pundit: AOC Fu**s the Patriarchy’s S**t Up

The line from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s calm evisceration of Rep. Ted Yoho yesterday on the floor of the House of Representatives that will likely be the one that is remembered is something that shouldn’t need to be said: “Having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent […]

Bob Cesca: We all know Donald Trump is preparing to rig or steal the election — but exactly how?

By now, it’s relatively easy to forecast Donald Trump’s tyrannical moves. There are no advanced Frank Underwood-style chess gambits in play here. It’s barely Candyland, despite the fascistic goals involved. Trump is, on top of it all, a simple-minded, easily predictable Golgothan who telegraphs every move of self-preservation. Sometimes it can be reassuring to have a sense of […]

Eric Boehlert: Gaslighter — Mika blames Hillary for not warning us about Trump

Astonished by a president who has deliberately made every wrong move when faced with a crippling pandemic, and who refuses to change course as the carnage mounts, media players continue to express shock at Trump’s behavior. Insisting it was impossible to tell in 2016 that Trump’s irrational and erratic behavior would create so much death […]

Charlie Pierce: This Was a Straight-Up Mob-Style Transaction

The commutation of Roger Stone’s prison sentence by the president* was sadly predictable on two levels. One of them is obvious, the other, less so. As to the first, Stone was a conduit between Russian ratfckers, WikiLeaks, and the president*’s 2016 campaign. Subsequently, he lied to law enforcement and to Congress, and he attempted to […]

Greg Palast: Roger Stone is not just an impotent trickster

Roger Stone is not just an impotent trickster. He’s a violent, evil man who had a lot to do with fixing the vote in Florida in 2000. George Bush supposedly officially won the presidency by 537 votes in Florida — just 537 votes! But 178,000 ballots were disqualified, considered unreadable. A hundred and seventy-eight thousand!!! […]

The Rude Pundit: Hey, Where the F*** Are You?

I’m taking the full week off because I’m in Louisiana visiting family. Gotta tell you: It’s weird to go into a restaurant and eat a meal like a real person. Hell, they’ve even spaced the tables a responsible distance apart.  Of course, mask-wearing isn’t mandatory here in Cajun Country.  Lafayette Mayor Josh Guillory refuses to […]

Not Even Republicans Are Buying This Latest Trump Tale

The first American frontier, which is to say everything west of Richmond, was settled partly by the practice of collecting the scalps of dead and dying Native Americans. It began in Massachusetts, quickly spread to New York and Pennsylvania, and, by the 1750s, when the revolutionary spirit was beginning to stir among the upper classes, […]

Trump’s pandemic chaos — why’s he doing this?

As America once again plunges into a pandemic crisis, with Covid-19 infections exploding across the country, and especially in red states, Trump continues to plot against America’s best interests. Refusing to provide any leadership over the last three months, he’s made the crisis actively worse by urging Americans not to wear masks,  promoting dangerous “cures,” […]

Charlie Pierce: It Seems Silly to Risk Your Lungs to Go to Cruisin’ Chubbys

Monday’s Hot Spot Spotlight falls on the vacation paradise that is Wisconsin Dells—or, as the natives call it, simply, “The Dells.” As the country comes slowly to the realization that reopening as a part of the president*’s Transition to Greatness reelection brand is not the smartest thing the United States ever did, we also realize that recreational […]