Kavanaugh’s defense was simple: he doesn’t remember it, so therefore in his eyes, it did not happen. DeGrasse Tyson’s case however, is far more complex and must be explored in more detail. The accusers have claimed more opaque, less definable instances of sexual impropriety, and ...read more

• By Ben Cohen
  Dec 3, 2018

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

• By Jeremy Fassler
  Nov 14, 2018

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

• By Jeremy Fassler
  Oct 24, 2018

Congratulations. You made it. And in grand style. Only a little over half the country thinks you’re a lying alcoholic rageaholic rapist prick. The important thing is exactly half the Senate was willing to look the other way. The country that let O.J. walk for murder allowed you ...read more

• By Rich Herschlag
  Nov 9, 2018

I'll confess here at the outset: my tolerance for Donald Trump and all of his accompanying cruel whimsy has reached an all new low. Chiefly, the shit flinging, without any real accountability for it, is overloading my logic circuits to the point of seizing up -- to the point ...read more

• By Bob Cesca
  Nov 9, 2018

In less than four weeks, America will go to the polls and vote. By every imaginable indicator, unless something massive happens in between now and then, Republicans are going to be annihilated by an electorate so pissed off that all the gerrymandering and voter suppression the ...read more

• By Justin Rosario
  Nov 9, 2018

A few weeks ago, Real Time host Bill Maher invited Steve Bannon onto his show, after he was disinvited from the New Yorker Festival. The interview was criticized by the left, just as Bannon's recent appearance in The Economist's festival and his documentary with Errol Morris, ...read more

• By Jeremy Fassler
  Dec 20, 2018

The disgraceful nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court reinforced a notion I have come to understand about America for some time now. Beneath the exterior presented to Americans via the news, America is not a country with two political parties. It is not a country ...read more

• By Ben Cohen
  Oct 8, 2018

Picture this: It's 2020. Donald Trump and the entire leadership of the GOP have been caught on video eating a live baby while worshipping a golden statue of Vladimir Putin. Except for the 60 million Trump voters who applaud them for their healthy nutritional habits and choice of ...read more

• By Justin Rosario
  Nov 9, 2018

Today, it appears as if the Kremlin will be installing yet another justice on the Supreme Court through its proxy in the Oval Office. This result comes as a key vote in support of Brett Kavanaugh, that of Susan Collins, was announced a short time ago. Conspicuous in its absence ...read more

• By Bob Cesca
  Nov 9, 2018

This morning, Brett Kavanaugh's nomination was passed through the Senate to advance to a final vote that will be held presumably sometime tomorrow. The margin for Kavanaugh was 51-49, one vote short of a tie.  The four Senators everyone had been watching - Susan Collins of ...read more

• By Jeremy Fassler
  Nov 9, 2018

It looks increasingly likely that the severely hamstrung FBI investigation of Brett Kavanaugh has done the trick. With moderate Republicans signaling that they believe the FBI investigation was "thorough", Kavanaugh is likely to survive the vote in the Senate that will be ...read more

• By Ben Cohen
  Nov 9, 2018

Maine Senator Susan Collins has been at the center of much of the debate surrounding the vote to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. In the past, Collins has bolted party lines to vote with the Democrats, most memorably in the summer of 2017 when she sided with ...read more

• By Jeremy Fassler
  Nov 9, 2018

With under a week to investigate serious accusations of attempted rape by potential Supreme Court judge Brett Kavanaugh, the FBI was never going to produce anything meaningful. Worse than that, we now know that the investigation was a sham, orchestrated by the GOP and the Trump ...read more

• By Ben Cohen
  Nov 9, 2018

The gaslighting of America by Donald Trump and his moronic fanboys continues to worsen. I didn't think it was possible for it to get suckier with time, but here we are. To briefly recap: gaslighting is a psychological trick, exploited by villains, that makes us feel like we're ...read more

• By Bob Cesca
  Nov 9, 2018

As Bob Cesca routinely points out in his work here at the Banter, Donald Trump always makes things worse for Donald Trump. And this week, Trump's self destructive tendencies were on full display as he took time at a rally in Mississippi to mock Christine Blasey Ford's testimony ...read more

• By Ben Cohen
  Nov 9, 2018

To Andrew Sullivan, Kavanaugh behaved like an innocent man during the Senate hearing, but to most victims of sexual assault, he behaved as any guilty person would have done. How can I say this with confidence? Because I was sexually assaulted as a teenager in boarding school in ...read more

• By Ben Cohen
  Sep 28, 2018

Ever since Brett Kavanaugh first stepped up to the microphone to publicly accept Donald Trump's offer to become the next associate justice of the Supreme Court, I've been screaming to anyone who'll listen about the obvious, observable fact that Kavanaugh is being puppeteered by ...read more

• By Bob Cesca
  Nov 9, 2018

Let's just say for a moment that Brett Kavanaugh is innocent of the sexual assault charges leveled against him by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, Julie Swetnik, and Deborah Ramirez.  We could for example, envision a scenario where all the women mistakenly identified Kavanaugh as ...read more

• By Ben Cohen
  Sep 28, 2018

If Lindsey Graham is any indication, Senate Republicans are absolutely furious after Dr. Christine Ford gave her testimony on Thursday. Hoping to have a female lawyer discredit her like she was on trial, Dr. Ford instead gave a brutally honest and credible account of what ...read more

• By Justin Rosario
  Nov 9, 2018

“I may not be as stong as I think, but I know many tricks and I have resolution.” ― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway's last and perhaps greatest story, The Old Man And The Sea keeps popping into my head as I watch Donald Trump and the congressional ...read more

• By Bob Cesca
  Nov 9, 2018

Last night on Anderson Cooper 360, panelists Jeffrey Toobin and Kirsten Powers found themselves having to calm down Michael Caputo, whose defense of Brett Kavanaugh turned into a full-on temper tantrum when they called him out on his lies.  Caputo, a Republican aide, has worked ...read more

• By Jeremy Fassler
  Nov 9, 2018

Last night, just as the country was preparing to watch Brett Kavanaugh stumble his way through his interview with Democrats and Dr. Christine Ford be grilled by a lawyer like she's a criminal, two men have "heroically" stepped forward to claim that they were the two men who ...read more

• By Justin Rosario
  Nov 9, 2018

Please excuse the caps in the headline, but this is too much. Too fucking much. If you want to understand what is at stake this November, please sit down and watch the following short clip where a Trump supporting mother from Bozeman, Montana, condones sexual assault in front of ...read more

• By Ben Cohen
  Nov 9, 2018

As the right furiously tries to justify putting a sexual predator on the Supreme Court, they've been flailing in all directions looking for something that will work. From claiming it didn't happen to the laughable claim it was someone else to flat out saying every boy in high ...read more

• By Justin Rosario
  Dec 20, 2018

Do you believe that women should have access to contraceptives to prevent unwanted pregnancies? Do you believe teens should be taught comprehensive sexual education in school to prevent unwanted pregnancies?.... To continue reading this article, please go here. As a Banter Member ...read more

• By Justin Rosario
  Nov 9, 2018

From refusing to unequivocally endorse Medicare For All to promising to find common ground with Donald Trump, the Democrats have had a very hard time convincing their base they mean business when it comes to rescuing American democracy from the grips of a madman.  This theme has ...read more

• By Ben Cohen
  Dec 20, 2018

There are only three areas of bipartisan consensus in America anymore: the sun is hot, water is wet, and Ted Cruz is a terrible person. Democrats have hated him since he was elected Senator in 2012, and Republicans haven't been much nicer - as Lindsey Graham said, "if you killed ...read more

• By Jeremy Fassler
  Nov 9, 2018

The recent sexual misconduct allegations against [insert: famous male] by [insert: female accuser to be defamed] are all too typical of a movement that has outgrown its [insert: female undergarment]. We have, unfortunately, reached the point in our society where a successful ...read more

• By Rich Herschlag
  Dec 20, 2018

It's been one of those harrowing days so far. In addition to the nonstop horror show circulating around Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation process, it appears as if Donald Trump's Mr. Wizard-like strategy in dealing with the Kavanaugh debacle is to distract the news media with a big, ...read more

• By Bob Cesca
  Nov 9, 2018

The 2018 midterms are potentially America's last chance to hold Donald Trump and his corrupt administration to account. But now, they have also become a referendum on Brett Kavanaugh and the sham hearings Republicans have foisted upon us. There were many red flags against ...read more

• By Jeremy Fassler
  Sep 24, 2018

With the nuclear blast of more allegations of sexual assault by Brett Kavanaugh chronicled by Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow, Republicans are, in a word, fucked. And they have no one but themselves to blame: The claim dates to the 1983-84 academic school year, when Kavanaugh was a ...read more

• By Justin Rosario
  Nov 9, 2018

The Trump White House and GOP is scrambling to defend Brett Kavanaugh as new sexual assault allegations emerge against their Supreme Court nominee. The latest accusations against Kavanaugh come from a devout Catholic Yale graduate, Deborah Ramirez, who alleges the judge put his ...read more

• By Ben Cohen
  Nov 9, 2018

Last Friday, Anderson Cooper 360 aired a panel discussion led by CNN correspondent Randi Kaye where she talked with five Republican women about the allegations made against Judge Brett Kavanaugh by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. She started out by asking if they believed Kavanaugh ...read more

• By Jeremy Fassler
  Dec 20, 2018

Salon's Lili LoofBourow has a particularly brutal takedown of the ongoing hysteria overtaking men during the Kavanaugh rape scandal. In it, she marvels to see men move beyond just pretending rape culture isn't real to flat out saying we should accept it as perfectly normal: We ...read more

• By Justin Rosario
  Dec 20, 2018

Over the past few days, Republicans have tied themselves in knots to defend Brett Kavanaugh from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who accused him of attempting to rape her when they were in high school.  The GOP has trotted out all kinds of excuses, from the letter signed by 65 of ...read more

• By Jeremy Fassler
  Nov 9, 2018

Dinesh D'Souza, the convicted criminal and hard right's favorite token minority, has been doing his part to smear Christine Ford ahead of the Brett Kavanaugh hearing. He is now blaming her for being sexually assaulted, because she was potentially involved in "hookups and binge ...read more

• By Ben Cohen
  Nov 9, 2018

In 2018, Republicans have come a long way when it comes to their basic sense of decency. Back in 2016, they were absolutely fine with electing a self confessed sexual predator to the highest office in the land. In 2017, they were fine with electing an alleged pedophile to the US ...read more

• By Ben Cohen
  Nov 9, 2018

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

• By Jeremy Fassler
  Nov 9, 2018

Because the Trump regime can't seem to bother doing any kind of background check on anyone it nominates, Republicans are in the middle of pushing through the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court despite a history of financial recklessness, ideological extremism ...read more

• By Justin Rosario
  Nov 9, 2018

Although the Brett Kavanaugh hearings will reopen on Monday, with Doctor Christine Blasey Ford testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the White House still refuses to ask the FBI to investigate her allegations of sexual assault and attempted rape, much to the ...read more

• By Jeremy Fassler
  Nov 9, 2018

I suppose it was inevitable that during an era in which Donald Trump is perpetually flooding the zone with madness that we'd also get a Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, who brings with him a seemingly endless syllabus of baggage. Now, after weeks of speculation as well as ...read more

• By Bob Cesca
  Nov 9, 2018

This weekend, Stanford Professor Christine Blasey Ford revealed that at 15, she was sexually assaulted by a then-17-year-old Brett Kavanaugh, who held her down and covered her mouth when she tried to scream. If there was ever a moment to end this farce of a hearing and yank his ...read more

• By Jeremy Fassler
  Sep 17, 2018

According to editor of The American Conservative, Rod Dreher, Brett Kavanaugh should not be judged for his alleged predatory behavior as a 17 year old.   "I do not understand why the loutish drunken behavior of a 17 year old high school boy has anything to tell us about the ...read more

• By Ben Cohen
  Sep 17, 2018

With the focus on Steve Bannon being disinvited from The New Yorker, there has been a flurry of hand-wringers on both the left and right asking why we can't engage the other side in debate. The answer is because people like Bannon, are so steeped in their own self-righteousness ...read more

• By Jeremy Fassler
  Nov 9, 2018

The "OK" Sign - A Hate Symbol? During yesterday’s hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanagh, a member of his transition team, Zina Bash, was seen behind him with her arms folded and the fingers of her right hand making up something that looked like the “OK” sign for ...read more

• By Jeremy Fassler
  Nov 9, 2018

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is a right-wing extremist who has a disgraceful judicial record when it comes to human, civil, worker’s and women’s rights. The White House and the Republican Party has also seen enough of his body of work to know that Kavanaugh, if ...read more

• By Robert Covington, Jr.
  Nov 9, 2018

August politics are like holiday politics. No one's really paying much attention so the "silly season" takes over. Today, for example, we're talking about Omarosa's tapes and Donald Trump's worsening dementia. About the latter, apparently during an event for Vietnam veterans in ...read more

• By Bob Cesca
  Nov 9, 2018