2018 has been a year of trauma for the United States, which is why for my final article this year, I want to end things on a positive note - with Barack Obama appearing on the final Hamildrop, Lin-Manuel Miranda's series of Hamilton covers. I've made no secret of my love for ...read more
No other Republican has done more damage to the United States than Mitch McConnell. In 2010, before he became Senate Majority Leader, he famously said his party's "top political priority should be to deny President Obama a second term." Once he became Majority Leader, he rammed ...read more
Last night's election was a triumph for Democrats, who managed to take back the House of Representatives and a majority of the governorships across America. Yes, there was some heartbreak along the way - Andrew Gillum lost the governorship of Florida to an unabashed racist, ...read more
One of my least favorite traits about Democrats is that we tend to get dissatisfied with our leaders pretty quickly. In the year following Obama’s inaugural, major news outlets were already writing articles saying Obama was disappointing them, despite the fact that he hadn’t ...read more
Donald Trump announced this weekend that the United States will withdraw from the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (or INF for short) because Russia has "not honored" it. At his rally in Nevada, he offered up a word salad of an explanation, which may please both ...read more
This Monday, the Trump Administration began a new policy denying visas to same-sex partners of foreign diplomats and UN employees. It used to be that only spouses in traditional marriages to UN employees were allowed a G-4 visa: this policy was extended to gay couples in 2009 by ...read more
Last Friday, Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 11/9 opened in 1,719 theaters across the country – the biggest opening for any of his films – but only made $3.1 million. Although it had the highest opening for a documentary in 2018, it was a letdown compared to the famous weekend in ...read more
In 2014, before he ran for President, Donald Trump said that America had become the laughing stock of the world. It was a theme he repeated over and over throughout his campaign: the rest of the world was laughing at us, and we had lost their respect. At the beginning of 2016, ...read more
Since Doctor Christine Blasey Ford went public with her allegations that Brett Kavanaugh attempted to rape her in high school, Senate Republicans have tried to frame the debate as "he said/she said," with only two people to be questioned. Their efforts to stonewall an FBI ...read more
Finally, President Obama has come out and delivered a stinging critique of president Trump and his repellant political movement. Perhaps more tellingly, for the first time since the 2016 election, Obama called Trump out by name. "You happen to be coming of age" amid backlash to ...read more
Last week, the US House Intelligence Committee released approximately 3,517 Facebook ads purchased by the Russians between 2015-17, meant to influence the 2016 election, all of which are available to download. USA Today conducted a study of the ads and concluded that more than ...read more
Since the election of Donald Trump, Maxine Waters has become one of the most visible icons of the Resistance. Whether she's "shoving" TYT correspondent Michael Tracey, appearing on t-shirts with her catchphrase "reclaiming my time," or openly calling for impeachment following ...read more
In the year since Donald Trump's election, former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau has become an important voice for the Resistance. With his White House colleagues Dan Pfeiffer, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor, he started Crooked Media, which produces the popular podcast Pod Save ...read more
Yes, folks, you read that headline correctly. In a story broken by Axios this morning, Paul Ryan, the 54th Speaker of the House of Representatives, will retire from Congress at the end of this current session, becoming the first sitting Speaker to forgo re-election in an ...read more
One of the main reasons I became a journalist was to push back against the disinformation I saw coming from Bernie Sanders supporters when he first entered the race for President in 2015. Whenever I would post even the mildest critique of him online, an army of white, ...read more
I grew up in Los Angeles and now live in Brooklyn, so it's fair to assume that I live in "a bubble." However, I went to college at Northwestern University, right outside of Chicago, and even at a school whose political makeup was mostly center-left, we had quite a few ...read more
This morning, New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer published a summation of Christopher Steele and his investigation into Donald Trump that culminated in BuzzFeed leaking his dossier to the press shortly before Trump's inaugural last year. It is the most thorough article that I have ...read more
According to an assortment of scholars across the political spectrum, Donald Trump, after just one year in office, is one of the worst presidents to ever darken the Oval Office. When tallied together, the collective score for Trump is...dead last: Let’s say that, according to ...read more
Since the rise of Trump, it's been tempting to revise our collective memory of the 2012 election and make Mitt Romney seem like a good guy. After all, he smiles a lot, he seems like a loving grandfather, and he did invent Obamacare. I've gone easy on him too: on my second day of ...read more
When my friend invited me to see The Final Year, Greg Barker's documentary about the end of Obama's presidency, I was reluctant to see it. I had just come back from the New York Women's March, and I didn't want to watch something that would only remind me what a hole Obama has ...read more
Congressman Darrell Issa announced this morning that he will not seek re-election this fall, making him the 36th House Republican to do so. “Throughout my service, I worked hard and never lost sight of the people our government is supposed to serve," he stated today. "Yet with ...read more
When Trey Parker and Matt Stone's Team America: World Police came out in 2004, critics didn't quite know what to make of it. With its bashing of liberalism, celebrities, and puppet sex, some believed it was an act of juvenile rebellion with little more to say than "fuck the ...read more
Bill Maher shared this video of President Obama laying into the Republicans and Donald Trump to his facebook page today. The video was from the campaign trail in late 2016, and shows Obama in his element -- eloquent, impassioned, and angry about the terrifying political ...read more
The Banter Long Read: The crux of West's essay is felt in the title: "Ta-Nehisi Coates is the Neoliberal Face of the Black Freedom Struggle." For eighteen paragraphs, some consisting of only one sentence, he accuses Coates of not fully understanding white supremacy because he ...read more
Bret Stephens, the resident climate change denier at the New York Times, has a laughably dishonest warning for us: Democrats Are Walking Into a Trumpian Trap. I was curious what he was on about because, let's be honest, Trump isn't smart enough to successfully lay traps and ...read more
I woke up this morning with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, because I knew that as soon as I turned on my phone, I'd get a notification of the Republican's "accomplishment." Late last night, the Republican Party displayed their true colors by passing their tax bill ...read more
For those of you on tenterhooks concerning the disastrous new GOP tax bill, your worrying is about to get worse: John McCain, the deciding vote in killing the last two GOP attempts to destroy Obamacare, just announced he will support this bill today, saying: “I believe this ...read more
Syria finally agreed to sign the historic 2015 Paris Climate Accords, making the United States the one major nation to not participate in deal, which would ask governments to limit temperature rises as a way to combat the devastating effects of climate change. The Sierra Club ...read more
It's hard to tell whether Donald Trump's shock that the majority of Americans detest him is real, but it reveals at the very least his astonishing incompetence and total lack of awareness. Speaking at a rally for the Democratic candidate Ralph Northam in a gubernatorial election ...read more
Maybe you've noticed this. I sure have. Too many social media users never read articles beyond a few words in the headline, and then, making matters worse, they stupidly assume to know everything about the content of the piece, despite having not read it. After failing to ...read more
The Banter Long Read: Yesterday, Miramax/The Weinstein Company co-founder Harvey Weinstein was fired effective immediately following the New York Times' report documenting the multiple allegations of sexual harassment against women and the years of cover-ups... To continue ...read more
Yesterday, The New York Times ran a damning expose of film mogul Harvey Weinstein, founder of Miramax and The Weinstein Company, who is being accused of sexual harassment by multiple women. Because Weinstein has also been a Democratic donor throughout the last few election ...read more
The Young Turks never met a Democrat they couldn't find fault with, since their Republican-funded network exists to sow dissent among the left. One of the worst offenders is Jordan Chariton, the thirty-one year-old "bro-gressive" reporter with the most punchable face this side ...read more
I went to DC this week to take meetings, and in my free time, I decided to advocate against this travesty of a mockery of a sham of a healthcare bill, Cassidy-Graham. Having seen Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speak against it from the Senate Gallery this past Monday, I ...read more
Trump is moving to end DACA, Obama's law that shielded young immigrants from deportation, and Jeff Sessions made the announcement today with a grin on his face that suggests a kid sneaking a cookie out of the jar, except in this case, the cookie is legalized racism. We know the ...read more
Today Donald Trump retweeted this: There's little analysis one can do of why Trump retweeted this, because we already know why he did: 1. He's a thin-skinned bully who only wants praise. 2. He's a racist piece of shit. But how about the guy who's responsible for the tweet in the ...read more
I love the Kennedy Center Honors. I love its devotion to artists, and watching those inspired by them pay tribute. The last eight years we were blessed to have a President who took an active interest in the arts, and Melissa Ethridge’s performance of “Born to Run” for Bruce ...read more
Watching CSPAN 2 last night as Sen. John McCain joined Sens. Collins and Murkowski in voting against the GOP's deeply cruel and cynical "skinny repeal" of the Affordable Care Act was perhaps the most triumphant political moment since before the 2016 election. The rest of the ...read more
As the weeks and months of the Twitter presidency of Donald J. Trump move along, his allies are getting desperate for successes to tout to prove that their hero is truly making America great again. Trump got Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court and a healthcare bill through one ...read more
If there’s one clear example of continuation from the Obama to Trump administrations, it’s that the war in Afghanistan has no end in sight. Fifteen years in, it remains the longest military conflict the United States has been involved in. The most recent evaluations from generals ...read more
Barack Obama took office in January 2009 amidst one of the greatest economic challenges the country had faced since the Great Depression. He and what would be a short-lived Democratic majority in Congress went to work to try and get things back on track, passing a stimulus bill ...read more
The Young Turks' Michael Tracey has a...dubious history with women, at best. As a college student, he sued police for "excessive force" when they arrested him for bypassing security to get an autograph from Ann Coulter (probably the only time in history this has ever happened.) ...read more
What kind of a person likes to dangle the threat of human extinction in front of the people he has sworn to protect? That would be the current President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. This morning multiple news organizations have reported that White House officials say ...read more
For the Better part of the past decade, Americans regularly watched the affection of President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama on display for all the world to see. The hand holding, kisses, and gazing into each other’s eyes seemed to reflect a genuine love at the center of their ...read more
American conservatives have long perfected the practice of psychological projection in which they claim liberals have nefarious plans to overthrow American democracy which they, themselves, would very much like to implement... To continue reading this article, please go here. A ...read more
On Monday, former president Barack Obama finished his vacation and gave Donald Trump the best news he's heard all week: His predecessor is getting back into politics to build a movement: “I'm spending a lot of time thinking about: ‘What is the most important thing I can do for ...read more
Early Tuesday afternoon, ex congressman and deadbeat dad Joe Walsh got into a Twitter fight with CNN commentator Angela Rye and made a complete ass of himself. Rye had voiced her frustration that Trump is being protected by Republicans for something that Obama would have been ...read more
By now it is painfully clear that the Trump administration and its allies are doing everything they can to make plausible the president's unfounded claim President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. Apparently, that includes pretending to offer new information. To wit, early ...read more
Earlier this month, Donald Trump, in a blatant attempt to divert attention from a news cycle that saw his associates getting hammered over their connections to Russia, tweeted that President Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower during the presidential campaign. Reaction from both ...read more
A quick refresher on Mitch McConnell: This is the man who once said that his main goal as the leader of the Republican Senate was to make sure Obama was a one-term president. Not fix the economy. Not work on immigration reform. Not increase our standing on the world stage. None ...read more
