Benjamin Zuskin couldn't sleep. The year was 1952, and as a former member of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in Moscow, he knew that Stalin could come for him at any moment... To continue reading this article, please go here. A Banter Membership gets you access to the magazine ...read more

Note: the following is the second in an ongoing series about the sexism problem on the left. To read the first of these pieces, click here.  I’ve been dissatisfied with Bernie Sanders’ supporters since he announced his campaign back in June of 2015, not because I was angry that ...read more

Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan’s magnificent new film that opened this weekend, is both the best World War Two film in years and a moment for the Democrats and 'The Resistance'.. To continue reading this article, please go here. A Banter Membership gets you access to the magazine ...read more

You can't walk 10 feet in D.C. without running into a high-minded centrist extolling the virtues of moderation and reaching across the aisle. This way of thinking casts itself as above partisan nonsense and cloaks itself in intellectual rigor -- real, in the case of The New ...read more

Every January, the President of the United States delivers the constitutionally-mandated State of the Union address, in which we are told -- surprise -- the state of the union is "strong." (However, Gerald Ford had the temerity to buck this convention in 1975, declaring that ...read more

Under President Obama, the rich have gotten richer, income inequality has gotten worse and there are more people in poverty than ever before. Under this president, his policies have not worked. Their liberal policies are good every four years for a campaign, but they don’t get ...read more

This is how real reporters talk to politicians (h/t The Dish): Farage is gaining popularity in Britain on a platform of thinly veiled racism and outright stupidity. Thankfully, the British media isn't having any of it. US journalist - please take note. ...read more

So much failure, so little time.... Groundhog Day Washington, DC Style The federal government has reopened and that is a good thing but as Congress has found a way to fund it for a mere 90 days, the champagne shouldn’t be broken out just yet.  With Heritage Action, Sean ...read more

I have been thinking about what counsel I would give Anthony Weiner about what would be his best move, politically (Other than stop sending pictures of yourself to women you don't know.  I mean you practically have to be brain damaged to believe them when they say they will ...read more

Washington, DC is not a popular place.  That's not really new.  For years I have been told that people "inside the beltway" are disconnected from the ordinary, hard working Americans that live outside of it.  New polling data released this week shows Congress' approval rating ...read more

While the American people support marriage equality, these members of the GOP have not gotten the memo.  Here's a roundup of some of the more ridiculous responses to the Supreme Court's decisions on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California's prop 8. Congressman Paul ...read more

An interesting study from Denmark has shown that upper body strength in men is a pretty good indicator of their political leanings. Stronger men are apparently more likely to be right wing, while weaker men tend to lean left. From the Daily Mail: Men who are strong are more ...read more

If you haven't already read it, check out Kojo Koram's excellent piece on the mythology behind collective debt. In it, Kojo argues that the concept of debt is ruthlessly used by those in power to maintain and solidify a massively stratified social structure based on ever widening ...read more

Continuing in the longheld GOP tradition of making shit up, Karl Rove has come out swinging to defend George W. Bush's legacy as President. In a wide ranging interview, he made the following claims on an ABC interview: 1. “He kept us safe after 9/11," 2. "He moved to ...read more

There's a big hullabaloo going on in Britain about Margaret Thatcher's death and the subsequent celebrations in pockets around the nation. In Glasgow's George Square (where protest about Thatcher's poll tax took place in 1989), hundreds of people gathered wearing hats, opened ...read more

Numerous high profile sites have given Ann Coulter's latest offensive remarks about the President some serious press attention. Coulter referred to the President as a 'retard', inciting a huge backlash from the press, discerning liberals and disabled rights campaigners. The ...read more

As much as Glenn Greenwald irritates me, his scathing break down of the US Presidential elections is right on the money: The reason I write so little about the presidential election is that it's the ultimate expression of the CNN-ization of American politics: a tawdry, ...read more

By Chez Pazienza: Hungover from all that celebrating in the wake of yesterday's Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act? Well, with the cold light of a new day, hopefully, comes the realization that this little victory doesn't in any way mean that the overall battle ...read more

By Chez Pazienza: So over the past week this site has turned into the "Let's Take a Few Shots at Glenn Greenwald" show, with two of its highest-profile columnists -- Banter founder Ben Cohen and blogging machine Bob Cesca -- penning pieces that take issue with Greenwald's ...read more

By Chez Pazienza: You know, at some point I want this little debate over "Marijuana the Amazing Wonder Drug®" to be over, I really do; the thing's been going on in one form or another for about two months now. But I guess I can't complain that I cross-posted the original Daily ...read more

The Atlantic has a great piece on the very lucrative side industry of Presidential politics where candidates turn failure into a media career. The best (and worst) examples: Pat Robertson (1988): His Christian Broadcasting Network and its flagship show, The 700 Club, had been on ...read more

By Ben Cohen: I went on the RT network yesterday to discuss the insidious effects of Super PACs on the Democratic process with Elizabeth Wahl. It's a very troubling topic and one that deserves a lot of attention. The decision made by the Supreme court to allow PACs (Political ...read more

By Ben Cohen: The HBO movie detailing the rise and fall of Sarah Palin, 'Game Change', should be required watching for anyone with a passing interest in politics. The script was apparently vetted extremely thoroughly and is very accurate. Knowing that, it should strike the fear ...read more

Chez Pazienza outlines why the never ending fight against Republicanism is tiring, thankless task: How do you even begin to call out a movement which has made itself nearly bulletproof by virtue of its unwillingness to subscribe to facts -- facts that anybody not currently ...read more

The extraordinarily gracious Elizabeth Warren on the heckler who called her a 'socialist whore' at a campaign event: "I actually felt sorry for the guy. I really genuinely did. He’s been out of work now for a year and a half. And bless his heart, I mean, he thought somehow it ...read more

A stunning chart that maps the financial wealth distribution in the US as a percentage of Congress and the Senate (via Andrew Sullivan): The notion that the US is a representative democracy is now something of a sick joke - it is a country run by millionaires for millionaires. ...read more

Image by emilydickinsonridesabmx via Flickr Matt Taibbi on why the 'Occupy Wall St' movement should transcend traditional political labels: This is an issue for the traditional "left" because it's a classic instance of overweening corporate power -- but it's an issue for the ...read more

The massive protests going on around the country and now the world are a sign that people have well and truly had enough of the deeply corrupt monetary system that benefits an extremely small minority of the population. The protesters refer to themselves as 'The 99%' - an ...read more

Bob Cesca on the alternate universe created by the Republican Party: Their ability to shape their own reality -- to blame the president for the entire recession while simultaneously rigging the game against the recovery is unprecedented in American political history. It's ...read more

James Fallows on the President's job speech: On both politics and substance, the President positioned himself in the only tenable way for the next months' deliberations with the Congress and next year's election campaign. Instead of asking vaguely for "consensus" or seeming ...read more

A Tea Party member left the following rant on one of Chez Pazienza's pieces about the lunacy of GOP economics (a piece well worth reading by way): One common thread seen in liberal blogs is confusion and rage. I felt that way too in my twenties when I had no idea how the ...read more

Juan Cole rips into Rick Perry and the alternate universe he resides in: It used to be that political divisions were about the different methods proposed to deal with social problems by persons with different political philosophies. Nowadays, politics is about which ...read more

More proof that the Republican Party should not be allowed anywhere near the country's finances. From the Guardian: The US debt crisis has escalated after Republicans were forced to rewrite their proposal to lift the debt ceiling, because they miscalculated how much the ...read more

Martin Lewis on Rupert Murdoch's motivation to build a reactionary Right Wing press: Murdoch's smarts told him that he could profit mightily if only there was a permanent Conservative government in power in the UK. But how to do that when working class people selfishly ...read more

Image via Wikipedia Check out this sparring session between Bernie Sanders, Al Franken and Rand Paul on healthcare for seniors. Sanders and Franken lay out a progressive vision for the country, articulating a government run approach to ensuring access to health care for seniors ...read more

Image via Wikipedia Sarah Palin has been largely written off in intellectual circles mainly because of her inability to string a sentence together. But as Andrew Sullivan points out, she has other attributes that still present a serious political danger: Pundits speak of her ...read more