Here’s a question for you. You live in Los Angeles. You have a laptop that’s acting up; needs some work. Do you: A) Find a computer repair shop in your neighborhood via Google or whatever and take it there; B) Send it back to the manufacturer; C) Say to yourself, “Oh, I know, I think I’ll go to Wilmington, Delaware, and take it to a legally […]
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The last few months of reproductive rights in America have looked like a cheap Handmaid’s Tale rip-off: a rushed nomination of a conservative judge to the Supreme Court; the president spreading lies about “late-term” abortions; and, in a cinematic flourish, the spread of a deadly pandemic that shuttered abortion clinics in multiple states. But amid this reproductive dystopia, abortion-access organizations have quietly introduced modern solutions to […]
In this members-only episode of “The New Abnormal,” host Molly Jong-Fast sits down with award-winning journalist Soledad O’Brien to chat about the media’s role in covering elections. “So is the media doing a better job in 2020 than they did in 2016?” asks Jong-Fast. O’Brien gets straight to the point: “Obviously, they’re not.” She then suggests that the media didn’t understand they had a lesson to […]
Witnessing these last few months in America has really got me thinking about my stance on gun ownership. With civilians essentially given the OK to take their cars and run over demonstrators, a vigilante killing peaceful protesters, and the president telling a white supremacist group to “stand by” (for what, exactly?), I thought—if the racists and MAGA-fanatics are packing heat, why aren’t the rest of us? […]
Huntergate was meant to be the WikiLeaks 2.0. Trumpworld hoped the story of the contents of Hunter’s laptop would mimic the trajectory of the story about the contents of Anthony Weiner’s laptop. It was literally a reprise of October 2020. Rudy Giuliani hoped another laptop might save the self-devouring Ouroboros snake of fuckery that is the Trump campaign. Hunter Biden, of course, had a drug problem. […]
The Supreme Court retains a strong but largely undeserved reputation as a protector of the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. In fact, there is a long history of right-wing Supreme Court majorities serving as dead hands to enforce reactionary policies favored by political minorities who have lost electoral power, or even wars. Most notoriously, a right-wing court favored the South’s radical, pro-slavery positions before the Civil […]
I kept a little running tab of questions Amy Coney Barrett said she couldn’t possibly answer without compromising her future Supreme Court tenure. I’m sure I missed a lot of them, but here were six: One: Lindsey Graham asked her if there existed a constitutional right to polygamy. She couldn’t say. Two: Pat Leahy asked if a president could self-pardon. Couldn’t touch that one. Three: Amy […]
Look, I’m voting for Joe Biden. I get why white racists and millionaires—and people who stand at the intersection of those two groups—are all-in for Donald Trump, but for the rest of us, self-preservation dictates that Biden is the better choice. Thursday night’s dueling presidential town halls, which featured a belligerent Trump and a comparatively contemplative Biden, drove that all the way home. If I believed, […]
After a summer surge that devastated the state’s plans to cut back on restrictions, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has tried to put his state back on the reopening track. In late August, he hinted at new reopening plans being on the way before rolling out an executive order in September that boosted the capacity allowed in places like restaurants and shops. And last week Abbott took […]
An honest question: If Donald Trump were trying to lose the presidency, what would he have done differently? Not much, if you ask me. No, I’m not suggesting Trump wants to lose so he can be a martyr and quit having to do any real work. This theory, which I see as the triumph of hope over optimism, continues to persist (at some points, the hope […]
Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation is a done deal. Democrats don’t have the votes, and not enough Republicans have the principles. Democrats’ only recourse, many have argued, is to increase the size of the court—“Court-packing” is the derogatory term—to offset the illegitimate appointments of Justice Gorsuch (after the stonewalling of Should’ve-Been-Justice Garland) and Justice Barrett. Presuming they win the presidency and flip the Senate, of […]
As Savannah Guthrie grilled Donald Trump on QAnon at Trump’s town hall event, he did his usual lying and dodging and then whined to Guthrie about Antifa and asked her: “Why aren’t you asking Joe Biden questions about, why doesn’t he condemn Antifa?” Let’s settle this. Joe Biden does not have to denounce Antifa. He’s done so, anyway, but even if he hadn’t, he has utterly […]
Americans saw two men last night in the closing days of their respective pursuits of the highest office in the land, and their split-screen town halls clarified and catalyzed an understanding of this race in a way that their one debate so far did not. It was one more sign of a Trump campaign in total collapse; broke, broken, and unmoored. As Donald Trump was eviscerated […]
Maine Senator Susan Collins says she will vote ‘no’ to confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, since it’s too close to the election, while refusing to say anything critical about how Barrett’s originalist judicial philosophy might imperil a woman’s right to choose. Collins is a Republican who supports abortion rights, a brand that has carried her to victory four times, but with Barrett’s confirmation […]
It was another balancing act for Joe Biden tonight, and if Donald Trump hadn’t killed our outrage receptors, many of us would probably find the confusion truly alarming. Even if you’re convinced that Biden is, by far, the lesser of two evils, it’s still worth taking a minute to stop to consider what we might be getting ourselves into with Biden and the Democrats. It ain’t […]
Not this time. In 2016, many mainstream media outlets let themselves be used by Donald Trump and his henchmen (Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, etc.) to amplify nutso Hillary conspiracy stories. It helped put Trump in the White House, where he has violated the Constitution and his oath of office and common-sense decency pretty much every day of his presidency. So far this time around, […]
On a surreal day of GOP-generated alternate reality, every Senate Democrat tried to get America to awaken out of the Matrix but only one succeeded. “This is not normal,” said Senator Cory Booker, before asking a Supreme Court nominee if she would condemn white supremacy. (Good news: she did.) “This is not normal,” said Amy Klobuchar, before reminding viewers that 7 million Americans have gotten the […]
In Amy Coney Barrett’s America, the Supreme Court will take health care away from millions of people during a deadly pandemic. That is inevitable, at least, if you believe what Democrats had to say on the first day of Barrett’s confirmation hearing. Democrats had plenty of visual props to reinforce this point: Photos of people with pre-existing conditions on easels, which had the effect of making […]
Stopping Mitch McConnell from his latest SCOTUS power grab will take an act of providence even with three GOP senators sidelined by COVID-19 and Senate rules requiring an in-person vote to advance the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett and then confirm her before the election. There is nothing McConnell won’t do to get Barrett on the Supreme Court. If senators infected with COVID can’t be in […]
The president is better! Or maybe not. Who knows? Spoiler: Trump’s first on-camera interview since his abrupt return to the White House, with Tucker Carlson, did nothing to answer any of those questions, though we did get to see Trump lie and present half-truths himself. It was one week ago that President Superspreader got into a helicopter on the south lawn in front of the White […]
Candace Owens’ BLEXIT Foundation—founded to give people the false impression that Black voters are abandoning the Democratic party en masse for Republicanism—reportedly put together Saturday’s campaign event thinly disguised as an official government function, where Donald Trump spoke to a pro-police Black and Latinx audience from the Truman Balcony during what was in effect his first in-person rally since his trip to Walter Reed. Two thousand […]
Donald Trump is losing it in a big way, and the polls are widening. Still, I say don’t get overconfident. This may yet be close—close enough that Trump can challenge the results in some key states and try to steal it. And if Trump and the Republicans can get away with it, they can produce some outlandish scenarios. Maybe one in which a minority of House […]
The experimental novel coronavirus drug Donald Trump took last week is not, as the president claims, a cure for COVID-19. The monoclonal antibody cocktail, under development by New York pharma Regeneron, seems promising, experts and health officials say. But it and a similar antibody cocktail from Indiana firm Eli Lilly—also touted by the president—are still in trials. It’s too soon to say exactly what they do […]
Donald Trump is headed toward a massive defeat—at least, if any of the polls (or our eyes) are to be believed. What is more, there’s a decent chance a massive blue wave could do the unthinkable, sweeping even “safe” Republicans like South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham out to sea. If that happens, there will be a window of time, however fleeting, for sane Republicans to try […]
Donald Trump insured that the fly, not Mike Pence or that “monster,” Kamala Harris, who womansplained to the vice president, would be the story coming out of the vice presidential debate by calling into Fox News before the sun was barely up. He delivered a message to that pesky Commission on Presidential Debates to take its virtual debate scheduled for Thursday and shove it. There’s no […]
Dear Judge Barrett, Everyone who knows you says that you are a person of principle, conscience, and strong moral character. Having read much of your writing, I am inclined to agree with them. I therefore urge you to reflect on the profound moral questions that your judicial nomination process raises. I believe that if you do so, you will make the painful but necessary decision to […]
One month after regulators in the United States and United Kingdom froze trials of a British novel coronavirus vaccine candidate, U.S. testing is still on hold. That has big implications for the urgent, multi-billion-dollar effort to produce a safe, effective COVID-19 vaccine. The testing pause could slow development efforts by Astrazeneca, the U.K. pharmaceutical company, and, in turn, leave two rival pharmaceutical giants alone as leading […]
I got a tension headache from watching the vice presidential debate. I recognized the source instantly, because it felt exactly like the throbbing pain I’ve felt every time I’ve had a man shout me down, cut me off and interrupt me during what’s supposed to be a public conversation. And I honestly cannot imagine that millions of women didn’t also instantly recognize the same feeling after […]
Vice President Mike Pence lives in an America most of us have never known. It’s a fringe conservative’s dreamscape, where impulsive, half-baked decision making is met with fawning and flattery. Far from the world I grew up in, Pence’s insulated bible-scape is populated by stadiums of devoted followers, courts stacked with judicial enablers, and staff who indulge every foolish instinct. But on Wednesday evening, Pence will […]
The next time you’re in the presence of someone who tries to tell you that Donald Trump is a political genius, I’d like you to grab the nearest copy of Men’s Hairstyles magazine and whack them upside the head. Maybe not too many people are saying that these days, as he’s clearly in the early stages of a ’roid-driven meltdown. But people have remarked many times […]
If you think same-sex marriage isn’t in danger of being overturned, Justice Clarence Thomas would like you to think again. Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, today published a blistering attack on the Supreme Court’s landmark case of Obergefell v. Hodges, which struck down state bans on same-sex marriage in 2015, arguing that it should be overturned. Thomas’s opinion is not a court decision, and has […]
After months of downplaying the danger of COVID-19, President Trump and the first lady tested positive, and on Friday the president was taken to the Walter Reed Medical Center “for the next few days” as “a precautionary measure.” On Saturday, a series of confusing and conflicting updates, on and off the record, about the president’s condition landed on top of the confusion spread by the president […]
Every element of the criminal system is implicated in the failure to secure justice for Breonna Taylor. The cops, per the judge who signed off the warrant that set the events leading to Taylor’s murder in motion, likely obtained that paperwork using fabricated information. Shoddy police work saw Louisville law enforcement raid Taylor’s home despite the fact that the suspect they sought was already in their […]