Donald Trump got his start in politics by infamously pushing the "birtherism" lie about Barack Obama. Now he's pushing what might be called a "burgerism" lie about Kamala Harris -- that she somehow just made up the fact that she worked at McDonald's back when she was a student. It's all a measure of the desperation Trump finds himself now wallowing in, since to date none of his attacks against Harris have even come close to landing.

Read Complete Article »

Donald Trump (rather infamously) never admits he's wrong. Even on things that are easy to disprove with incontrovertible evidence, Trump will still insist he is right. He will construct an alternate reality inside his own head where he is proven to be right and all those who disagree are proven to be in some giant conspiracy against him, and he will go right on insisting that up is down, or that night is actually day. He never backs down and certainly never apologizes -- no matter how much harm his lies may cause.

Read Complete Article »

This week, millions of Americans tuned in to politics only to make an astonishing discovery: Donald Trump is still exactly who he always was! He opens his mouth, and lies and crazy talk pour forth. Same as it ever was... what a surprise!

Now, normal people can be excused for being surprised that Trump is still Trump. Most people have lives to lead and plenty of other things to do, so they simply don't pay much attention to politics. But tens of millions of them made the time this week to tune in to the first debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. And it was like going to a family Thanksgiving dinner and once again having to put up with your crazy uncle -- because you had somehow forgotten just how bad he truly was. And still is.

Read Complete Article »

Traditionally, Labor Day is the kickoff to the "real campaign season." This implies that none of what has gone before really made much of a difference, and that the American people will now give each of the candidates a fresh look as people slowly turn their focus to politics after the summer season is done.

Maybe that was true once, but quite obviously we've been in the midst of the general-election campaign season for most of this year already. There was no drama or mystery about who would become the major parties' nominees -- Donald Trump and President Joe Biden had the primaries wrapped up before they even began. And then the most dramatic event of the general election campaign happened midsummer, as Biden decided to end his candidacy (after a disastrous debate performance with Donald Trump). In other words, plenty has already happened this election season, and so we've got to look at the remaining two months as nothing more than the homestretch.

Read Complete Article »

This week, the mainstream media proved yet again how good they are at missing the forest for the trees, at least in the political world. The entire week, the chattering classes pushed their new Donald Trump scandal for all it was worth. Now look, we're no fans of Trump (far from it!), but it all just seemed like the attention and outrage were a wee bit misplaced.

Read Complete Article »

For the past few weeks, JD Vance has been mightily trying to paint Tim Walz as having somehow claimed some "stolen valor" for his 24 years of honorable service in the National Guard. This required him to completely ignore the fact that Donald Trump got a deferment for non-existent "bone spurs" to avoid going to Vietnam, as well as Trump's naked contempt for those who do serve in the military. But hey, all that was a long time ago, and people have mostly forgotten how Trump denigrated an authentic war hero (John McCain) in 2015, so Vance just kept trying.

Read Complete Article »

We will admit, right here up front, that we did not think up today's headline ourselves. It came from an extra-snarky press release from the Harris/Walz team. Following Donald Trump's bizarre appearance before the news cameras yesterday, the Harris camp put out a press release titled: "Donald Trump's Very Good, Very Normal Press Conference." The subtitle was: "Split Screen: Joy and Freedom vs. Whatever the Hell That Was."

Read Complete Article »

It certainly already feels like a lot longer, but we aren't even done with the second week of Kamala Harris's presidential campaign. She hit the ground running in a big way and is already doing a fine job of drawing the distinction between her and the bizarreness of the other side. Meanwhile, Republicans are out there insulting "a bunch of childless cat ladies" as well as pretty much every minority group they can think of. Two weeks in, the race is now being defined between the childless cat ladies on one side and the total weirdos on the other. In other words, Silly Season has begun in a big way.

Read Complete Article »

Last week, we wrote our third Friday Talking Points column in a row that dispensed with our usual format and was solely devoted to angst and calling on President Joe Biden to drop out of the race. This week, we are happy to say, things have changed for the better. And that's putting it mildly!

Vice President Kamala Harris is now the presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee. Joe Biden is now officially (through his own decision) a lame duck. And Democrats by the millions have been astounded that they are now feeling genuine hope and actual enthusiasm about an election that was shaping up to be pretty grim indeed.

Read Complete Article »

The political message of this week was that Republicans are unified behind their presidential nominee Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Democrats are increasingly fractured, unsure of who they even want at the top of their ticket.

The Democratic dam didn't exactly break today, but it is getting a whole lot weaker as time goes by. A third sitting Democratic senator called for President Joe Biden to step aside and make way for someone else to run, in addition to nine more Democratic House members -- the largest one-day total yet. To date, a full 35 congressional Democrats have now done so. Biden is currently quarantining at his home in Delaware (suffering from his third case of COVID-19), and so far shows no signs of heeding the call to turn the reins of the campaign over to anyone else.

Read Complete Article »