My epiphany wasn’t the baseball practice shooting in Alexandria, Virginia. Two weeks ago I had an epiphany of my own. When you have to brake that fast on the Garden State Parkway during evening rush hour, you know it's not going to be good. My Subaru Impreza missed hitting the ...read more
In a perfect world, we shouldn't need to be "inspired" in order to vote. But no matter how zealous we are about political revolutions or sticking it to the establishment during presidential election years -- presidential election years like this one, for example -- our enthusiasm ...read more
It didn't take long for the hordes of outraged activists, social justice warriors and haughty journalists to descend upon Ricky Gervais's performance at the Golden Globe Awards on Monday, accusing the legendary comedian of "transphobia" and, wait for it, not being funny. Yes, ...read more
I'd like to be very upfront about this: I am a big advocate of cultural appropriation in virtually all its forms. The more humans experiment with cultures outside of their own, the more we can learn to understand and appreciate each other. Sure, there's misinformed, poorly ...read more
Well, this doesn't look good for Marissa Janae Johnson, the activist who disrupted a Bernie Sanders rally over the weekend in order to call his supporters racist and white supremacists. In a post on facebook page, the "Radical Christian Mullatinist" (whatever that is) revealed ...read more
The Daily Banter can exclusively reveal that the liberal website Salon.com is actually a fraudulent entity run by an extremist right wing hate group in Iowa with links to the Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch. After an extensive investigation and an in-depth look into their ...read more
A matter of hours after we published a follow-up on reporter James Risen and the Obama administration's record on press freedom, Attorney General Eric Holder appeared at the Washington Ideas Forum on Wednesday and was asked by moderator Jonathan Capehart whether the U.S. ...read more
Conservative S.E. Cupp of CNN makes for one terrible atheist. In 2009, she gave an interview on C-SPAN that would befuddle the finest team of doctors the field of psychoanalysis could offer. During one exchange, she claimed she'd never want an atheist president because such a ...read more
It's abundantly clear that Bill O'Reilly embraces his status as the elder derp of Fox News' prime time lineup. Many of his rants aren't really political missives, but more like paternalistic scoldings from a 1960s Catholic headmaster battening down the moral hatches as the ...read more
For any conservatives out there curious as to what life is like for their political counterparts , there's no need to postulate or wonder: a Harvard study on happiness shows that aging liberals in fact have more robust sex lives compared to conservatives. I know, high-fives all ...read more
I've said this sort of thing before many times. Matt Taibbi's said it. David Cross does an entire bit about it. But no matter how often it's repeated, there are still those out there on the left who live in their own little epistemic bubble and don't seem to get something: ...read more
Last week on our podcast, Bob Cesca threw out the question of whether it was a good idea for liberals to take on football and demand changes when it comes to the safety of players. He made a great point about how doping may be part of what's creating monsters on the field so ...read more
A couple of days ago it dawned on me how many columns and assorted quickie pieces of mine have been pegged off of Salon.com articles. For years I've had a love/hate relationship with Salon: On the one hand it's been a home to people like Steve Kornacki, Joan Walsh, Alex Pareene ...read more
For the first part of New Year's Day, I thought the far-left "Obama caved" crowd would take the prize for the most insane political faction of the day considering how, as soon as a deal was reached, they accused the president of capitulating to the Republicans, even though the ...read more
By Ted Lieverman: I get uneasy when I see liberals and progressives complaining so vigorously about President Barack Obama’s lack of accomplishments. Sure, the last four years have seen many mistakes and disappointments by the White House. But when I think about the realistic ...read more
Welcome to this week's edition of The Daily Banter Mailbag! Today, Bob, Ben and Chez discuss the impact of far-left anti-Obama voters on the president's chances in November; the potential of a Romney electoral bump from Paul Ryan's P90X good looks; and the threats of violent ...read more
One of the problems - and they are multifold - with Air America is that so much of it has always been set up as a more partisan version of NPR. If people want an NPR experience, they're going to turn on NPR. NPR will do a better job. Now apparently Air America plans to ask its ...read more
You might remember that before inauguration I had a hell of a time bitching at people on the left who were ready to whine and moan about Obama's position and initiatives on certain issues before he was even sworn in. Three months in, I think that was the right call. It seems to ...read more
Patrick Ruffini writes another one of those "the left is screwing everything up, the right can capitalize on this with our silly nonsensical slogans and policy proposals" blog entries and winds up: The right will be galvanized to action by the theft of the free enterprise system. ...read more
It's totally impossible for the U.S. government to run a large organization without it being a colossal failure. Big programs under government control always fail. ...read more
Love your work, but nobody takes you seriously if you use Comic Sans in your ads. ...read more
This is the logo to Fox News Channel's "Hannity": The logo is instantly recognizable because it mimics the logo of the Interstate Highway system. As most students of American history know, the Interstate Highway system was a product of Republican president Dwight D. ...read more
Oh noes teh librul media! The Observer has learned that MSNBC president Phil Griffin is in discussions with syndicated talk radio host Ed Schultz about possibly joining the network on a full-time basis. It is unclear what exactly the job would entail should Mr. Schultz and MSNBC ...read more
"Air America signs Montel Williams for daily radio show" I'm really glad we liberals hitched our wagon to these bloggy things over putting all our eggs in the talk radio basket. ...read more
I got 297/400 on this quiz from Center For American Progress. ...read more
Michael Moore must have had a fun time writing this piece about how Republican demonization of him led to even more success. It helps that Moore isn't making jokes about Senators dying. ...read more
Do yourself a favor and check out the coverage of the last day of CPAC from Think Progress and Media Matters. I've gone to several of the Take Back America (now called America's Future Now) events (and was a panelist at one), the progressive version of the CPAC conference, and ...read more
Awesome. [flv:/files/maddow-jindal.flv 320 240] ...read more
Nate Silver writes a post calling for cooler heads to prevail and for experts to be consulted. That seems like a pretty rational thing. But David Sirota is so tied into his image of the fire-breathing outsider speaking truth to the elites in Washington, he writes a silly post ...read more
When the Congressional Black Caucus isn't working the corner for big business, protecting crooks like William Jefferson, or working against reformers like Donna Edwards, they're bitching that Barack Obama doesn't have enough blacks in his cabinet. Seriously. Obama has nominated ...read more
My prediction - and I made the same prediction for John Kerry if he had won - for President-elect Obama is that for the first year when it comes to domestic squabbles the biggest pain in his butt will be from the left of his own party rather than the right. The current GOP is a ...read more
"OMG Harry Reid and the Senate Dems didn't listen to us on Lieberman. It's OVER!!!!" I certainly don't have the view that conservative Patrick Ruffini does of this issue as any sort of serious infighting, but I am bored with it already. The senate is dumb, you knew they were ...read more
* 1950s-80s: Right feels put out by the "liberal consensus" and communicate via direct mail and media connected to the church, this becomes a considerable tool in fighting for Reagan and Bush I. * 1990s: In opposition, con talk radio comes into its own led by Rush. Drudge joins ...read more
Last night, sick Republican Rep. Michele Bachman called everyone to the left of Atilla The Hun un-American. In response, 35,000 have called for her censure by the House while almost $500,000 has been donated to her opponent this fall, Elwyn Tinklenberg. Not only are these not ...read more
The Republican party is just trying out the latest version of the Southern Strategy. First of all, even if Fannie and Freddie were the most awful companies in the history of the planet, its books chock-a-block with non-performing loans, none of the financial contagion—none of ...read more
On the liberal side of the aisles, every election cycle there are various efforts from the Democratic party and other liberal groups to register new voters. This year the effort varies from the Obama campaign itself to the labor unions, to independent groups like ACORN, NAACP, ...read more
Joe Biden, 2008 “Catholic social doctrine as I was taught it is, you take care of people who need the help the most,” he said. “Now it'd be different if you could make the case to me that by giving this tax cut to the very wealthy, everybody else was going to be better off. We ...read more
From last night's Larry King Live. This is how you do it. More here. ...read more
Jeralyn Merritt at Talkleft writes: As for the speculation that Obama would convince Hillary's supporters to vote for him if he picks another female VP candidate like Napolitano or McCaskill, I highly doubt it. There is only one Hillary Clinton. Women are not interchangeable. In ...read more
In case you were wondering that in the midst of all the drama on the Democratic side of the aisle it was possible for the Republican party to remain brain dead on the seminal issues of our time... wonder no more. Sen. John McCain on Tuesday rejected calls by his Democratic ...read more
A few months ago I wrote about how I really really want the president of the United States to be someone who is the national leader of the country and not just a party chairman. I feel the need to point this out again in the middle of some of the typical blogosphere whining ...read more
Dear progressives and those ubiquitous "Democratic consultants" and "Democratic strategists" in the media.... LEARN. (via) ...read more
The more I read about the rich donors who told Nancy Pelosi to shut up, the more angry I get. I may not agree with her on quite a few issues, but Speaker Pelosi is second in line to the Presidency, the first woman to hold her position and a figure demanding of respect - ...read more
Wall Street and the right want to eat their cake and have it too. They want vital financial institutions to be left alone, given free reign to do as they wish - but when they screw up and cause a ripple effect throughout the economy they come running to the government for a ...read more
In 1964 the Goldwater campaign announced the take over of the Republican party by the far-right John Birchers, racists, and conservatives. For better or worse over the next 40+ years they grabbed power like never before and tried their damnedest to turn America to the right. I ...read more
I don't agree with most of the conclusions and accusations in this Matt Taibbi rant about the left in the regularly loopy AdBusters magazine (it's the slick looking magazine that screams that something is wrong but never says what you should do about it), but I thought this ...read more
Apparently I'm evil somehow because I post pictures of Kim Kardashian's booty. Somehow. Anyhow I responded as I'm sure most of you would understand in the comments there. Shorter Oliver: I like politics, football, Superman, and yes, booty (I have a degree in this, for Christ's ...read more
Can somebody tell me again why Democrats and progressives continue to speak about the Supreme Court only within the framework of Roe vs. Wade? The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it harder for many workers to sue their employers for discrimination in pay, insisting in a 5-to-4 ...read more
