Donald Trump: “Is anything I’m saying true? I don’t know! Who cares!” Ilya B. Mirman / Shutterstock.com Well, another day, another opportunity for the Republican presidential candidates to show off how much they hate foreigners. While Bernie and Hillary have made a good show of their openness to refugees, Republicans have gleefully jumped on the […]
Matt Baume
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Republicans Using Paris Attacks to Derail Obama’s Plan to Resettle Syrian Refugees
War, suffering, etc. Nebojsa Markovic / Shutterstock.com The Paris attacks, like everything that hurts beyond measure, is a Rorschach test of ideology: Which of your assumptions would you like it to confirm, and whose would you like it to refute? And if you are a particularly thoughtful person, which of your assumptions will it change? […]
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Fact Checking Last Night’s Fox Debate: Who Lied Best?
Marco Rubio said welders make more money than philosophers. Not true. Albert H. Teich / Shutterstock.com Once again, the country has been subjected to the weird reality show that for some reason we call a “debate,” in which a panel of elderly improv comedians holler fabricated claims. Last night’s was particularly important — not to […]
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Secret “Dark Money” Spending Is Ten Times Worse than What it Was in the Last Presidential Election
Oh, for the days when this was the worst Koch you had to worry about. lev radin / Shutterstock.com Senator Tammy Baldwin (she’s great; you like her) recently sent around a fundraising email telling donors that “dark money spending is 10 times what it was at the same point in the 2012 election cycle. And […]
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Jeb Bush Still Trying to Figure Out How to Get His Shit Together
Jeb Bush can fix “it.” You know. “It.” Rich Koele / Shutterstock.com Things aren’t looking so hot over at Jeb!, the ambitious startup propping up the most Floridian of all the Bush scions. Their slogan is “Jeb Can Fix It,” and although they haven’t defined what “it” is, they apparently can’t even fix their floundering […]
Posted inElection 2016
So Long, Joe: Here’s to the Kooky Presidential Campaign That Never Was
JASON AND BONNIE GROWER / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM Joe Biden: Now where the heck did I leave my keys? Well, that’s that. Joe Biden is not running for president, which means we won’t be treated to SNL skits about his tendency to lecherously gaze (and occasionally paw) at women. We won’t hear cute stories about how he […]
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Rand Paul’s Jobs Plan: Fire the Queers
Rand Paul: “Unleash the American Dream” by making it easier to fire people. Kobby Dagan / Shutterstock.com Rand Paul has a message for you icky homosexuals: keep it in the bedroom, pervs. Stop being all gay at work. Asked whether employers should be allowed to fire people for being gay, the honking twerp responded “I […]
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Who the Hell Are These Weirdos Debating Hillary and Bernie Tonight?
Don’t be nervous when this guy shows up on your TV screen. His name is Lincoln Chafee and he’s totally allowed to be there. Official Portrait/State of Rhode Island Tonight CNN airs a very special infomercial for two exciting, long-in-development products: Hillary Clinton™ and Bernie Sanders™. Both toys come with lifelike rhetoric sounds, include cutting-edge […]
Posted inPolitics
What’s the Right Way to Observe Columbus Day?
Christopher Columbus, genocidal maniac. Columbus/Shutterstock Somehow, most of the country still celebrates Columbus Day, rather than recoiling in horror. There was a Columbus Day parade in New York this weekend, another in Boston, another in <a href="http://www.providencejournal.com/article/20151011/NEWS/151019818″>Providence. They all sound like a lot of fun (grilled sausages and peppers at the Rhode Island parade!) but […]
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Trump Finally Tells Us How to Get Rid of Him
Donald Trump treats onlookers to a little song. a katz / Shutterstock.com Oh thank God: an end is in sight to TV’s most depressing reality show, the Donald Trump presidential campaign. “If I was dropping in the polls where I saw that I wasn’t going to win, why would I continue?” he told NBC. “If […]
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Who’s the Real Winner of the Kim Davis Debacle? Ugh, Mike Huckabee
I won this week’s challenge, which means I get immunity. Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com Now that L’Affaire Du Kim Davis is receding into the past, let’s try to figure out who, if anyone, came out on top. I suppose you could say that the gay couples won, though the stress of being repeatedly shunned before […]
Posted inGay Marriage
Supreme Court Wrap-Up: Did Scalia Just Accidentally Help Marriage Equality?
Orhan Cam/Shutterstock This morning, in a giant marble box perched high atop a swamp on the other side of the country, eight old people in robes chattered about who should be allowed to get married. Meanwhile, a ninth old person, a man whose name you might be able to guess, bounced in his chair and […]