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 election ...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
Full disclosure: I can be a vitriolic writer. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Thanks to a potent cocktail of bearing witness to insane levels of stupidity coupled with my own laziness, I'm often a profane, sarcastic asshole making futile attempts to hammer home the central ...read more
“I don’t fucking care if you like it.”Amy Poehler uttered those words to Jimmy Fallon when, new to the SNL writers’ room, she pitched a character who was, in the words of Tina Fey, “dirty, loud, and ‘unladylike.’” Fallon said to her, “Stop that! It’s not cute! I don’t like it,” ...read more
In-person voter fraud is something that rarely happens in American elections. But Republican legislatures and governors all across the country have successfully instituted strict voter ID laws. The purpose, they say, is to stop people from voting illegally. But the real reason, ...read more
I never understood the idea of a man looking down on a woman. Maybe that's because I grew up with an incredibly strong, capable woman for a mother and because from the very early days of my career, a good number of my managers were women -- the kind whose abilities you wouldn't ...read more
On Friday afternoon, a bombshell shook the political world in the form of a leaked 2005 audio recording of Donald Trump telling former Access Hollywood host Billy Bush that he sexually assaults women. In the audio, Trump can be heard saying that he tried to "fuck" Entertainment ...read more
Shortly after President Obama's inauguration, a vile prankster named James O'Keefe released a series of fraudulent videos alleging to show how the community organizing group ACORN was engaged in voter fraud. The videos were aired practically around the clock on Fox News and ...read more
In the age of social media and cable news, everything is up for debate. No matter how incontrovertible the topic, they always manage to find two sides. If Donald Trump suddenly blurted about the Earth being flat and that we shouldn't trade with Japan because ships would fall off ...read more
If you mention Trump's total lack of qualifications for the presidency and especially the existential threat Trump poses to American democracy, a typical rank-and-file derangement suffering Trump supporter will pivot to Hillary Clinton's various mistakes and alleged lies. There's ...read more
Like all bullies and egomaniacs, Donald Trump does well when no one questions his authority. But under pressure from a force equal or greater than themselves, bullies and egomaniacs tend to fall apart -- and dramatically so. This it what is happening to Donald Trump as the media ...read more
It's called voting. So register your ass right now. ...read more
by Matt Casper Watching last week's Republican National Convention from Cleveland was truly a moment of clarity and confirmation for me, along with being a moment of deep sadness and grief. A bit of personal history is necessary in order to help explain. The truth is that I grew ...read more
Well that was an interesting weekend. More to come on the DNC email leak, Putin's involvement and what this could mean for the future of America's relationship with Russia. Hillary Clinton has chosen a running mate for her bid to become president, and despite it being an ...read more
The only way to survive if you're a modern day member of the Republican establishment is to have a very short memory. That's the only possible explanation for how the kind of cognitive dissonance is avoided that would shut down the entire central nervous system of a normal, ...read more
It makes perfect sense that a clown-haired reality-show diva will be officially nominated at a convention that'll likely resemble a circus. A circus with guns. The New York Times on Friday made it perfectly clear that if Donald Trump has his way, it'll be more like a circus ...read more
Donald Trump almost makes it too easy. Like George W. Bush before him, he's not merely a functional idiot. On the contrary, his level of success, like Bush's, indicates that he's not a complete dolt. The problem with Trump is that he's neither book smart nor intellectually ...read more
Despite the caustic nature of the 2016 Democratic primary process, I still distinctly remember how much worse it was in 2008. Sure, Twitter and Facebook were still in their relative infancy, but the political blogosphere was running strong at that point, and the in-fighting was ...read more
So that's it. With the exception of DC, every part of the United States has voted and those votes have either been counted or are in the process of being. We now know unequivocally who's going to be the Democratic nominee for president. We've actually known for some time, but as ...read more
Want a decent laugh? Google "Bernie Sanders accuses."What you get when you type these words into your search field is a magical portal into an online treasure trove of conspiracy theories, persecution complexes, and a seeming obsession by the Sanders campaign with near-comical ...read more
So yesterday at a rally in San Jose for angry scarecrow Donald Trump, his supporters were violently attacked by anti-Trump protesters. It would've been nice to never have to write a sentence like that, but being that this is an election season out of a Hieronymus Bosch fever ...read more
Update (Friday, 5.27): Well, so much for that. As I alluded to toward the end of this piece, Trump could always just back out of a debate with Sanders because, well, aside from hurting Clinton there's nothing personally for him to gain by taking on someone he doesn't absolutely ...read more
It's an affirmation so well-known that it's been a kind of cultural trope for decades: the image of the loving parent or supportive schoolteacher telling a child that with hard work, a positive attitude, and a strong sense of responsibility and humanity, he or she can become ...read more
When you reach a certain age it's difficult to imagine wanting to see time actually speed up. And yet there hasn't yet been a word or phrase coined in the English language that would allow me to properly express to you just how badly I want it to be July 29th already. That's ...read more
At the end of Amadeus, after Salieri finishes his lengthy, dramatic "confession" of all he did to destroy the career and life of his rival, Mozart, the movie cuts away to the reaction of the priest he's speaking to. The man's head comes up slowly from his hands and the expression ...read more
It's difficult to overstate just how much damage would be done to the United States were Donald Trump to become president. Even as a mere candidate, his recent electoral successes have given voice and rise to what was once only an ugly undercurrent of racism and xenophobia in our ...read more
Believe it or not it actually does get exhausting repeating the same facts over and over again, if only because facts shouldn't have to be repeated. In a sane world, facts would be bulletproof, adhered to by any and all and denied only by the those wretched, unbalanced souls who ...read more
Just as President Obama used the "black card" to win the White House in 2008, according to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton is apparently now using the "women's card" to take it in 2016. “I think the only card she has is the women’s card. She has got nothing else going,” said Trump. ...read more
Bernie Sanders isn't going to win the Democratic nomination and he isn't going to win the presidency. Short of a bolt of lightning coming out of the sky and striking her dead, Hillary Clinton is going to get the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. ...read more
So last night during the big Bernie Sanders rally-slash-NYU mixer in Washington Square Park, a surrogate for Sanders said something predictably stupid and offensive. Dr. Paul Song, a healthcare activist and Sanders warm-up act, slammed Hillary Clinton for her dismissal of ...read more
Donald Trump, the human equivalent of that cum towel you keep forgetting to throw in the wash, performed predictably in yesterday's mini-Super Tuesday races. That is to say, he proved that he's just about unstoppable on the way to the Republican nomination. At this point, the ...read more
Keeping up with the revolting things Donald Trump says on the campaign trail is like monitoring a new born baby's excretion habits: it never, ever stops. And just when you thought the Donald couldn't offend [insert minority group here] anymore than he already has, he upped the ...read more
According to the New York Times, Jeb Bush is having such a hard time connecting with Republican activists that his campaign has "Begun exploring whether to bring in the person it thinks may be best equipped to give him a boost with skeptical conservatives: his brother George W. ...read more
Here's a couple of questions for all you Democratic voters: what was the difference between John Kerry's health care platform and John Edward's in 2004? Also, how did President Obama's views on social security differ from Hillary Clinton's in the 2008 presidential election? If ...read more
The rest of the 2016 Republican hopefuls have a lot of catching up to do in order to compete with Mike Huckabee's obvious head-start on race-baiting and gay-bashing. We've barely heard from the other clown-car passengers and already Huckabee has navigated his way through at least ...read more
Since 2007, give or take, Republicans have manufactured all sorts of new standards for the presidency, chiefly as a way to hector and out-flank Barack Obama, making him appear inexperienced, stupid or arrogant ("uppity" also works). Do the list: Obama's not allowed to use ...read more
Mike Huckabee wants to run for president again for some reason, and he has his sights set on one crowd that he's had some trouble reaching as a white, middle-aged Republican man: The Youths. For his new book, God, Guns, Grits and Gravy -- which sounds like a rejected recipe from ...read more
Now that former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has been yanked out of political circulation with his two-year prison sentence, Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) can officially ascend to the post of the Most Corrupt Governor In America. Seriously, mark your calendars because Sunday's ...read more
One of the more frustrating topics we cover here is the National Rifle Association's remarkable ability to convince Republican lawmakers to routinely vote against the will of their own supporters. Most recently, the NRA has financially coerced Republicans to vote against expanded ...read more
It's difficult to know when Bill Maher is serious or when he's merely being an instigator, but in an interview with The Hill, he dropped a stupid bomb that was, frankly, surprising to read, mainly because I thought he was smarter than this. While discussing the 2016 presidential ...read more
On this week's Bob & Chez Show, we talk about the 9-year-old who accidentally shot her shooting instructor with an Uzi, plus Romney's poll numbers for 2016 and new rules for Twitter and Facebook.The Cricket: 9 year old Girl Shoots Man in Face with an Uzi; The NRA and Marketing ...read more
Yesterday on his MSNBC telecast, Ronan Farrow, like too many other seemingly naive members of his generation, confessed to being a fan of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) in spite of the fact that Farrow, seconds earlier, aired a clip of the senator vocally endorsing the idea of ...read more
There must be an election on the way because quadrennial troll Ralph Nader has emerged from his underground cryochamber with his usual brand of "both parties are the same" nonsense. Appearing on Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher, Ralph Nader made a case for liberals to support ...read more
Former Montana Governor and potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Brian Schweitzer has clearly been wearing his trademark bolo tie a little too tightly. In a profile in the National Journal, Schweitzer said the following about Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA):“If you were just ...read more
Oh, Drudge, you magnificent bastard. There are very few right-wing trolls who are better than Matt Drudge at manufacturing an odious whisper campaign, and he didn't disappoint today. Drudge posted the new People Magazine cover featuring Hillary Clinton, then wondered whether she ...read more
As predicted, Karl Rove's recent remarks about Hillary Clinton's blood clot episode back in December, 2012, has officially become a topic of intense Truther-style speculation on Fox News Channel. You might recall how Rove cleverly speculated that Clinton might've suffered some ...read more
Yesterday afternoon, a meme began circulating among far-right trolls on Twitter. Evidently, someone with way too much free time on his hands read my article about Erick Erickson's criticism of Hillary Clinton's age and, consequently, her alleged "stretched back" face, and then ...read more
UPDATE: Erick Erickson has responded to this post. My reaction and counterpoints here. But that's not the worst of it. Erickson, who's guest-hosting for Rush Limbaugh this week, remarked out loud, "I don't know how far back they can pull her face." Do I even need to bring up how ...read more
"This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog!" That's what a journalist named Muntadhar al-Zaidi shouted when he hurled his shoes at President Bush's head during a press conference back in 2008. You don't have to dig very deeply into my archives to discover that I was ...read more
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has decided to inexplicably invoke Monica Lewinsky as a serious problem for the would-be Hillary Clinton campaign. On a recent Meet the Press appearance Rand Paul said the following about Bill Clinton:“He took advantage of a girl that was 20 years old and an ...read more