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It was a “perfect call.” Okay, maybe not perfect, but the bad stuff is all hearsay – nothing to indicate that he did anything wrong. Okay, the transcript he put out shows that he did something wrong, but only that one thing about asking a foreign power...

From the Washington Post: “House Democrats are prepared to support increased spending on border security, but not a wall, if President Trump agrees to reopen the government first, lawmakers and aides said Wednesday.” No.   Democrats need...

 An illegitimate President now has given us an illegitimate Supreme Court.  Yes, he had the help of a Senate majority leader for whom democracy and the rule of law are not priorities.  Yes, he had the help of the racists, the misogynists, the...

Maybe not fully, not yet, but  the differences, stark as they may be, are of magnitude, of potency, not of kind.  So much of what Trump has said and done shouts at us that, secretly, he would be Hitler.  So, never having paid any price for his...

You started out as an elite, a frat boy whose highest life’s ambition was to take medical care away from poor people.  Then, you became one of the youngest members of the House, where the news media proclaimed you a golden boy, a policy guy, the future...

In 1776, Thomas Jefferson produced, somewhat optimistically, a draft constitution for Virginia.  It in, he writes, “All persons shall have full & free liberty of religious opinion ….” In 1783, in yet another draft constitution for...

It’s not about the movies.  It’s about the inordinate hope being placed on them and about the cynical provenance of so much of that hope.  It’s about the rain of hyperbole from commentators wanting to establish diversity credentials or to assuage guilt...

There are ideas in the constitution that transcend time and place.  The principle of sovereignty of the people is an example. There are ideas in the constitution that are trapped in time and place.  The nod to the slave power is an example. ...

After yet another gun atrocity, I noted to a friend that we are the only, the only, advanced country in which this happens, thanks to Republicans.  He noted that the same was true of our refusal to provide universal healthcare coverage.  I said,...

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”    The man who wrote those words...

Our very own Very Stable Genius wants to avoid a government shut down because the “worst thing is what happens to our military,” and we “just about never needed our military more than now.”  Never.  A spokesman says that the Very Stable Genius “wants...

Some people dream of a cure for cancer.  Some dream of eliminating poverty.  Others dream of world peace.  The Republican Speaker of the House dreams of taking health care away from poor people.  That is modern conservatism. Once, conservatism had a...

A lot of lies and invective came out of Trump’s Pensacola Speech.  His endorsement of Roy Moore got most of the attention, yet only some of the media noted, and that with painful circumspection, the irony of a credibly accused, sexual molester of women...

Whatever conservatism once may have been, it is no longer.  Modern American conservatism is evil.  There is no other word for it.  The proof is the tax crime that conservatives are about to pull off and for which they have sold their souls to their...

God has shown his displeasure, Alabama.  He could not clearer: Thou Shalt Not Vote for Child Molesters.  Your sins have festered in God’s nostrils for too long.  REPENT!  Vote for Democrats from this point on, or all your first born shall be molested...

Republicans own government at both the state and federal levels because Democrats have a turnout problem.  That’s what I’m told.  If so, it’s a turnout problem in the same sense that the Grand Canyon is a hole in the ground: it’s technically accurate...

Modern conservatism barely bothers to disguise its contempt for the average man. The lethal cruelty of the Republican anti-healthcare bills were just the latest examples.  This conservative candor has been made possible by a medical development: an...

Trump’s most reviled supporters are, in one important way, one and the same as his favorite bogymen.  That is not intentional; Trump doesn’t have the wit.  But it’s not a coincidence either, ...

Renounce them and remove them: Bannon, Gorka, Miller, Sessions, and Trump.  That should be the new mantra of Democrats.  None of these pieces of wretched, human detritus belongs in a twenty-first century White House.  Demand that people choose: basic...

On July 28, 2017, Senator John McCain turned thumbs down on a conservative plan to cull the population of the weak, the sick, and the elderly.  At 1:30 AM Eastern, the Republican anti-healthcare ...

Give Americans the right cause, and they will rise above their differences.  It’s part of our legacy.  Now, the Democratic Party might have figured out how to reclaim that legacy.  Thomas Jefferson “had the strongest Anti-Federalist instincts of any...

With what conservatives consider health care looking more and more like road kill, the excuses are starting.  Kellyanne Conway has whined, “There are no Democrats that want to support health care reform.”  The President, such as he is, has complained,...

Current speculation seems to be turning against the prospect that Trump will fire Special Council Robert Mueller.  I believe he will: maybe this week or next, maybe later, as things close in.   After all, what price has he paid for unashamed,...

From Bill Gardner at The Incidental Economist: The AHCA and the ACA in Two Charts Gardner’s Chart 1 (below): Income Improvement due to the ACA by Income Distribution (net transfer effect)  Gardner’s Chart 2 (below): Same for the AHCA. 

I still see posts, here and elsewhere, telling us not to waste our breath on Trump voters.  The articles usually feature visuals of fat white people with ugly scowls waving Confederate battle flags,

The headline on the Washington Post’s home page, Sunday morning, March 19, 2017: “With Gorsuch hearings starting, Democrats face a stark dilemma” No.  We do not.  And if we buy into the Post’s line, we’ve already lost.   That is not to say...

On TPM EDBLOG, Josh Marshall writes that the health-care goalposts were moved while Republicans weren’t looking. “The problem is that over the course of seven years Republicans have essentially accepted the premise of the ACA: which is to say, the...

Stable realignments of the electorate do happen.  Political scientists recognize 5 of them in our history, some say 6.  The elections of 1980, 1994, and 2008 were hailed as realignment elections, but only by media pundits.  None had legs.  However, the...

Since the election, I’ve been trying to figure out when Democrats separated from working men and women.  This is the seventh post in a series.  Previous posts can be found at the following links. Whatever Happened to Unions? Whatever Happened...

Since the election, I’ve been trying to figure out when the Democratic Party separated itself from working men and women.  This is the fifth post in a series.  Previous posts can be found at the following links. Whatever Happened to Unions? ...

At some point, Democrats and working men and women went their separate ways.  I wanted to know when and how.  This is the third post in a series in which I try to work through that.  Previous posts can be found at the following links. Whatever...

I am old enough to know that unions once were the mainstay of the working class and the root of middle class prosperity.  I remember a Democratic Party that was the home of every man and woman who worked for a living.  But I continued to think of the...

Democrats can’t fight.  I don’t know why.  I’ve not seen any explanation that rings true.  It’s just the way it is.  Democrats get steam-rollered whenever push comes to shove or debate ...

I’ve been trying to figure out why House Republicans, in a closed meeting, on the evening of a federal holiday, against the advice of their own leadership, would gut the Office of Congressional ...

From the AP: Concern that global warming could make it more expensive to store and transport wine has caused the Wine Institute to turn to the GOP.  In a letter to the Republican National Committee,

We have a President-Elect who is an unqualified, unscrupulous, unbalanced, and unashamedly corrupt authoritarian.  News articles assigning blame for this circumstance are coming at us faster than ...

Kos says he wants us to fight .  Given some of the comments to his post, I assume that many on this site took that to mean “with each other.”  Here’s a different approach. Trump won for all ...

This is a rework of a post I put up last December.  This Sunday, 16 October, marks the 54 th anniversary of the event that was at the heart of that post.  That’s a long time ago; many will feel ...

Yesterday, before the "Access Hollywood" story broke, I heard a television “pundit” wonder aloud whether the next debate would be the charm.  Will Trump change?  Will he correct course?  Will ...

Republicans long have acted as if they were entitled to at least govern if not to rule.  That entitlement is a matter of religious fervor for some and of ideological fervo r for others.  It ...

I’m going to blow right past any fine distinction between denying science and just being breathtakingly ignorant of it.  Sometimes that difference is real and matters.  But in this case, we have ...

After watching a few interviews, today, it seems clear that Trump’s people have been told to double down on the “Hillary started the birther movement” lie.  It also seems that many of you ...

There has been a recent flurry of comments regarding the media’s malfeasance: posts here at DKos and a few articles by the print media calling out of the whole media.  Calling the media out is ...

The recovery from the Great Recession has been shamefully unequal.  For the wealthy, it’s been vigorous.  For most of us, it’s been slow.  For too many, it’s been imaginary.  Now, Republicans, as they are wont to do, are trying to turn back on us an...

As part of an effort to better understand Republican economic doctrine, I’ve been trying to figure out why conservatives hate the bank bailouts that occurred during the Great Recession.  I would have thought that not allowing your country’s banking...

Donald Trump may be, is, in fact, an openly racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, narcissistic, authoritarian, ignorant, habitual liar — but when he’s right, he’s right This election is rigged. “As of August 2016, 31 states enforced voter...

Trump has made it clear that he never will release his tax returns.  This is a man untroubled by public display of his racism, of his ignorance, of his misogyny, intolerance, and xenophobia, and of continual and blatant lying.  So, how bad must be...

During the action, tonight, by Democrats on the floor of The House of Representatives, Speaker Ryan called for behavior “that reflects positively on the dignity and the decorum of this house.” It occurs to me that Rep. John Lewis sitting on the...

The most typical Trump supporters are members of a recurrent demographic.  I refer to those who first raised him up, who were drawn to him instinctively early in the primary.  By May, Trump was pulling in other demographics, but this likely was due to...

Writing in the Washington Post, James Hohmann has given a sharply pertinent example of the importance of historical context.  He wrote about Donald Trump’s ignorance in dredging up scandals and conspiratorial fantasies from Bill Clinton’s presidency. ...