Bits & Pieces
Articles with unfiltered opinions
Latest Politics
Asshole of the Month: Donald Trump
The mop-haired, B-movie monster from Mar-a-Lago is back, terrorizing the nation with the very real prospect of another gut-wrenching four years in the White House. WTF?! In a 2024 survey of scholars and social science experts, the American Political Science Association rated all U.S. Presidents with a 0–100 score, and Donald Trump came in dead...
Asshole of the Month: J.D. Vance
Trump’s pick for running mate, J.D. Vance, has been called the “voice of the Rust Belt” after his 2016 bestseller Hillbilly Elegy was published. The memoir recounted the travails of his dysfunctional family, originating in Kentucky coal mining country. Vance does have a true hillbilly pedigree: His paternal grandfather’s cousin, also named Jim, married into...
Assholes of the Month: The Supreme Court Conservative Justices
Usually, the damage a bad President does can be reversed once he’s gone, except for one crucial factor: The lifetime appointments made to the Supreme Court guarantee an active legacy outliving a President’s term(s) in office—by decades if the appointees live long enough. We knew there was going be a shitstorm after Trump was elected...
Asshole of the Month: Ronna McDaniel
Both the Republican and Democratic parties are governed, at least officially, by a chairperson. And party primaries can be as bruising as the general election, so the party chairperson is supposed to remain neutral, like a courtroom judge, favoring no candidates over others for the various nominations. But that’s not the way it worked with...
Asshole of the Month: Erin Hawley
According to a Gallup poll conducted in May 2023, 85% of Americans believe abortion should be legal to some degree, with 34% favoring no restrictions at all and 51% in favor of abortion with some restrictions. Only 13% believe that abortion should be illegal under any circumstances, mainly Catholics and evangelical Christians. Yet this shrill...
Asshole of the Month: Mitch McConnell
In the heated buildup to November, there has been a lot of chatter about the age of our Presidential candidates: How old is too old? Republicans allege, and even many Democrats worry, that Joe Biden may be coasting along past his expiration date. Donald Trump is certainly no spring chicken, and regardless of his alleged...
Asshole of the Month: Greg Abbott
After its successful war of independence from Mexico in 1836, Texas existed as an independent republic for nine years, until joining the United States in 1845. Then, in 1861, it seceded with the rest of the Confederate states to wage our bloody Civil War in defense of slavery. Ever since, there’s been a virulent suspicion...
Asshole of the Month: Harlan Crow
“Money is the root of all evil,” goes the old saying repeated by theologians and moralists. That might not be the whole story, but in the world of American politics, we can definitely say “dark money” has become the root of evil ever since our conservative-leaning Supreme Court green-lighted unlimited campaign spending with the 2010...
Democracy’s Last(?) Stand
Even at road’s end, if the “problem” is the First Amendment, so too is the solution. After interviewing various MAGA types involved in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol for her documentary The Insurrectionist Next Door, Alexandra Pelosi—yes, Nancy’s daughter—asserted, “They’re not bad people, but they have a different social media feed...
Asshole of the Month: Robert Mercer
In this century, a radical watershed moment in American government occurred in 2010 with the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, allowing unlimited spending on political campaigns. This deplorable decision equated money with free speech, accelerating the transition from democracy to plutocracy (rule by the rich). Trevor Potter, former chairman of the...
I Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore
Conventional wisdom about Donald Trump and elections is always right—except when it isn’t. As we go to press, it seems an all-but-foregone conclusion to most that Donald Trump will become the Republican Party’s 2024 Presidential nominee for a rematch against President Joe Biden. Short of an illness—or worse—befalling Biden, there is little question that he...
Asshole of the Month: Mike Johnson
Choosing the speaker of the House of Representatives in Washington has usually been a routine, undramatic affair: The leadership of the party holding the majority selects a candidate, and the troops normally fall in line, voting almost unanimously to approve the new speaker. But the Republicans have turned this process into a dysfunctional clown circus....
Asshole of the Month: Lauren Boebert
Colorado, a formerly purple state, has been shifting to the left in recent years, even beating California and other blue states to the punch in legalizing recreational marijuana in 2012. But head westward from the green Rocky Mountain highs around Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins, and you’ll find the legal pot dispensaries drying up, like...
91 Criminal Felonies
Because the “character” of the President of the United States counts! Dear President Clinton: Character and family values count! (Impeach!) Dear Vice President Gore: You tried to steal a Presidential election! (Sore-Loserman!) Dear Secretary of State Clinton: Mishandling classified documents is treasonous! (Lock her up!) Love, the Republicans P.S. Just kidding! Suckers! I’m old enough...
Democracy vs. Hypocrisy
Republicans learn the hard way (again) that voters like freedom, rights and, yes, democracy… “These unnecessary off-cycle elections aren’t good for taxpayers, election officials or the civic health of our state,” Ohio’s chief elections official advised in late 2022. Secretary of State Frank LaRose was leading the fight to convince state lawmakers to ban August...
Asshole of the Month: Tommy Tuberville
In the American South, aka the Bible Belt, two institutions reign supreme, with legions of fanatical devotees congregating on weekends to celebrate together. On Sundays they meet in Christian chapels, and on the preceding Saturdays, they convene in stadiums to worship college football teams with the same fervor. According to a Pew Research Center Religious...
The Chief’s “Moderation” Trick
Don’t be fooled. There is nothing “centrist” about John Roberts or his radicalized, far-right Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court made headlines for some stunning opinions as it neared the end of its term in June. It wasn’t for its radical, out-of-control ideological rulings—as expected from the corrupted, right-wing majority—but for those that media outlets...
Asshole of the Month: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Challengers to an incumbent President from his own party or third parties have never been successful in America. Eugene McCarthy failed to unseat LBJ in 1968, Reagan lost his first Presidential bid against Gerald Ford in 1976, Edward Kennedy fell short against Jimmy Carter in 1980, and Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot both fizzled in...
Lifestyles of the Rich and Thomas
The Supreme Court’s most corrupt Justice is still sitting there—still corrupt and still corrupting. This may become an annual thing. Last year, almost precisely at this time, I documented “the stain left on American jurisprudence and democracy by the corrupt, right-wing, activist jurist and his corrupt, right-wing, activist wife.” I was writing about U.S. Supreme...
Asshole of the Month: Jesse Watters
While the air we breathe grows hotter and more foul by the year, at least we can be thankful for a reduction in airwave pollution lately: Bill O’Reilly was canned by Fox in April 2017 after The New York Times reported that the company had shelled out $13 million in sexual-harassment suit settlements to five...
