In the early minutes of Wednesday's Republican debate, while everyone on stage was studiously ignoring the fact that their AWOL rival is a serial criminal defendant, ...

In a red Ohio referendum this week, forced-birth reactionaries got blown out by a whopping margin of 430,000 votes. No word yet on whether Roe v. Wade killer Donald Trump has aspirationally asked Republican election officials to find 430,001 votes.

When George Washington was a schoolboy teenager, he composed more than 100 “Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior,” borrowing heavily from French Jesuits. Rules 21 and 22 go like this: “Reproach none for the infirmities of nature…Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another.”

What a perfect holiday-week news story, the equivalent of a brainless summer movie.

I get why the Republicans are so obsessed with Hunter Biden. They don’t much of anything else.

There have been so many Chris Christies that I need to number them.

Put your hands together for sane mature bipartisan centrist adulthood. It’s a whole lot better than apocalyptic bluster.

If my math is correct, the 2024 Republican presidential contest is starting to look like the Marx brothers’ stateroom scene.

If we conjure the spirit of Pollyanna, if we look on the bright side of life, we can probably convince ourselves that Fox News has suffered a guilty verdict in the court of public opinion.

Put your hands together for gun reform activist Ashbey Beasley, an anguished mom who showed up uninvited on Fox News the other day. She stormed within camera range and raged common sense to the viewers who’d probably tuned in for the usual brain-dead propaganda.

As we await word of a seemingly imminent Trump indictment, it has been highly entertaining to hear his defenders twist themselves into pretzels in order to excuse the fact he paid a porn star $130,000 on the eve of the 2016 election to hide an extramarital tryst.

Nobody these days is happier with Ron DeSantis than Vladimir Putin, who now has two horses in the 2024 Republican race: Trump (naturally) and a coward who talks tough to Disney but quakes at the prospect of confronting a genocidal thug.

Put your hands together Dominion Voting Systems, the balloting firm that’s doggedly suing Fox News for defamation, seeking $1.6 billion in damages as recompense for the network’s relentless lies that Dominion’s 2020 machines were somehow rigged for Joe Biden.

Shortly before the deadly MAGA insurrection on Capitol Hill, 2020 election loser Donald Trump infamously ordered Georgia election overseer Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes,” just enough votes to propel him to statewide victory over Joe Biden.

The State of the Union is usually a useless stale slog that turns healthy brain cells to mush.

The good news is many Republicans want to leave Donald Trump in the dust. The bad news is so many of them are just as odious.

When news broke the other day that President Biden’s lawyers had found a few documents with classified markings in a think-tank office he once used, we all knew that MAGA’s false equivalence cops would spring into action.

Decades ago, Holocaust scholar Hannah Arendt warned: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, i.e. the reality of experience and the distinction between true and false, i.e., the standards of thought, no longer exist.”

As I watched President Biden sign the historic marriage equality law, his latest of many legislative achievements, I couldn’t help but marvel at how much American culture has changed during the past quarter century.

Fresh from their failures in the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans have created an “advisory council” to help craft their “2024 vision and beyond.”

Those of us who love America for its traditional democratic values are exhaling sighs of relief, because - lo and behold - it turns out that the midterm elections’ purported “red wave” turned out to be somewhere between a ripple and a trickle.

My general policy is to ignore Donald Trump’s rallies, in part because his narcissistic freak shows are merely a cry for help. But mostly because his lies mount up with such rapidity that it’s impossible to knock them all down.

We all know that MAGA 2.0 Ayatollah Ron DeSantis takes a strong interest in what gets taught in Florida schools.

As a special House election loomed in an upstate New York swing district, conventional wisdom decreed that Democrat Pat Ryan would surely lose.

I can’t help but notice that the six Supreme Court justices who criminalized abortion were all raised Catholic.

To millions of oblivious Americans, “democracy” is just an abstraction conjured by dead men in powdered wigs, and “fascism” is just something with swastikas on the History Channel.

The fascist threat at the top, so well documented by the Jan. 6 Committee, is rightfully seizing our attention. But it’s also happening from the bottom up.

It’s blasphemy in certain circles to state the obvious, which is that America is not exceptional in every way and that Americans are not the peerless masters of the universe.

So here we go again.

The writer Alan Furst has shrewdly observed, “Fascism famously stomps around in jackboots, but it sometimes wears carpet slippers, padding about softly on the edges of one’s life, and in a way that is worse.”

The writer Alan Furst has shrewdly observed, “Fascism famously stomps around in jackboots, but it sometimes wears carpet slippers, padding about softly on the edges of one’s life, and in a way that is worse.”

It’s shocking that someone within the Supreme Court enclave would take the extraordinary step to leak the draft opinion that kills Roe v. Wade and propels women back to the coat-hanger era.

Just as it’s a waste of time for Republicans to refight the results of the 2020 election, it certainly does no good for anti-MAGAs to refight what happened in the previous race.

I’m guessing that the French presidential election isn’t high on your current list of interests.

If or when Merrick Garland bestirs himself to action, he’d do well to ponder the new federal court ruling that drops the hammer on coup conspirator John Eastman.

When I hear Republicans blaming President Biden for high gas prices, I’m reminded of what scribe Mary McCarthy once said of her rival Lillian Hellman: “Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the.”

During World War II, Americans put up with rationed gas and car tires, rationed coal and fuel oil, rationed silk and nylon, rationed meat and daily products, rationed jams and jellies, even rationed coffee.

I’m old enough to remember when rabid rightist Republicans proclaimed “Better Dead Than Red” and insisted that anyone who was “soft” on Russia should leave this country and go live over there.

We who abhor gun violence and loathe gun merchants have been dreaming of the day when a few aggrieved parties pull off a miracle and gain a small measure of justice.

At this point in our sick national saga, is there any law that Trump hasn’t broken?

When word spread last week about an imminent Supreme Court retirement, I hoped against hope that it would be Clarence Thomas.

Seventy years ago, in response to a fantastical-but-true event on the ball field, sportswriter Red Smith wrote: “The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention.”

In conversation this week with the White House press corps, on the eve of his one-year presidential anniversary, Joe Biden said: “One thing I haven’t been able to do so far is get my Republican friends to get in the game of making things better in this country.

Journalists have been debating how to most effectively cover a defeated ex-president who lies as he breathes and aspires to restore his reign by any means necessary.

Has this been a great year or what? Don’t answer.

Rand Paul has long been a laughable lightweight – at Senate hearings, Dr. Fauci beats him up on a regular basis – but now he has outperformed even himself.

So it looks like Roe v. Wade is perched at the precipice. Gee, I wonder how that happened. Let me count the ways.

If only I had a magic wand, I would henceforth consign all conspiracy freaks and vaccine refuseniks (78 million in number) to some distant desert isle where they could breathe free upon each other until God sorts them out.

If Bill Murray were to star in a sequel to Groundhog Day, he’d wake up to the Sonny and Cher alarm clock, take the cold shower, step in the puddle, parry the insurance agent, trudge to the gazebo…and see Chris Christie doing his same old song and dance.

Mark Twain, in an unpublished manuscript, once wrote: “It is not worthwhile to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man’s character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible.”

Democrats can certainly try to convince themselves that the Virginia gubernatorial defeat is no big deal. All kinds of rationales are available.

Don’t you feel a wee bit bad for Merrick Garland?

We’ve long known about Colin Powell’s worst public sin. He finally acknowledged it nine years ago when he wrote, “I was mad at myself for not having smelled the problem. My instincts failed me.”

Back when my kids were little and I was always schlepping them hither and yon, they’d squabble in the back seat at ever-increasing decibels until I would inevitably unleash my most fervent Dad-ism: “I don’t care who started it, just knock it off!”

What a shame that so many prominent figures summon the moxie to speak the truth when it’s too late to do anything about it.

We interrupt our regular programming of the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan to bring you this bulletin about the Taliban takeover in Texas.

The Shakespeare character in Henry IV who said “Let’s kill all the lawyers” was clearly a tad over the top.

Anyone who professes to be shocked by the Taliban victory in Afghanistan has not been paying attention.

I’m literally old enough to remember when Republicans proudly branded themselves as the cop-loving guardians of “law and order.”

Kudos to grieving widow Julia Letlow, a Louisiana Republican congresswoman, for setting the record straight. Better late than never.

President Biden’s delivered a very nice speech this week about the MAGA Republican plot to destroy democracy. But there was one big problem.

This is for real: Rupert Murdoch will soon launch a new platform, Fox Weather.

With apologies to the poet E. E. Cummings: It’s Indictment Day, and the world is mud-luscious…

John Warner, a Republican who served in the U.S. Senate for 30 years and died Wednesday at 94 in his home state of Virginia, said this about his Democratic colleagues: “We had political disagreements and fought on the Senate floor. But at day’s end we shared a drink, talked as friends, and we found common cause, solving problems and serving the American public.”

The Republican Party has devolved into a motley mix of goose stepping fanatics like Marjorie Taylor Greene and sniveling cowards like Kevin McCarthy.

Kudos to Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney. Her House GOP leadership post hangs by a thread because she refuses to mouth Trump’s Big Lie about a stolen election, and Wednesday she boldly framed the stakes: “The Republican Party is at a turning point, and Republicans must decide whether we are going to choose truth…”

It’s hard these days to keep track of all the decrepitude in public life, so forgive me if I highlight some new sleaze that has likely escaped your notice.

Pollster Frank Luntz met last weekend with 17 vaccine-resisting people to better understand why they won’t take the simple step of protecting themselves and their fellow citizens.

I don’t want to malign anyone’s religious faith. I really don’t. But it’s a tad disturbing that 45% of the nation’s 41 million white evangelical Christians are vowing not to get vaccinated.

Republicans and corporate America have been conjoined for so long that any breach in the bond is almost impossible to imagine.

If only we had a vaccine that would cure our sick obsession with the Royal Family, I’d be the first to sign up.

We know — or think we know — why so many people stormed the U.S. Capitol. Most notably, a defeated leader pumped his Kool-Aid down their throats. But that’s not the whole story...

It’s so lamentably easy to stew with the ongoing gush of bad news. Punxsutawney Phil has fled to his hidey hole after glimpsing six more weeks of vaccine chaos.

I’ll readily admit that the face gracing the $20 bill is not our most urgent issue – not with 420,000 people needlessly dead and 45 Republican senators saying that their insurrectionist in exile should get a pass.

Wednesday, the adults finally got back the car keys. What a relief. You’re probably more exhausted than elated, but I bet you’ve salvaged a smidgen of that residual optimism that has always powered Americans forward.

Mike Pence has long believed that his ascent to the vice presidency was the result of divine intervention, that it was all part of God’s plan.

The domestic terrorism that we witnessed Wednesday was always bound to happen. The feral creature who nurtured it had long signaled us that it was coming.

Nobody deserves to die in a pandemic.

Some Democrats freaked out the other night when Joe Biden said that we should slowly transition from oil to renewable energy.

In case you feared that the looming Supreme Court fight would distract everyone from Donald Trump’s culpability in the deaths of 200,000 Americans, fear not. Trump can’t resist making a fool of himself.

In American law, criminal negligence is conduct in which a person ignores a known or obvious risk, or disregards the lives and safety of others.

First of all, those maskless South Lawn cultists who soaked up Donald Trump’s serial lies with a dearth of social distancing should be required to wear badges identifying themselves as MAGA Super-Spreaders. That way, innocents on the street can flee their presence with all deliberate speed.

Given how dangerous Donald Trump truly is, how cavalier he is about torching the Constitution and tallying American casualties, it’s probably a darn good thing he’s stone-cold stupid.

Even in the darkness of Donald Trump’s dystopia, the enduring promise of America has still flickered. Despite all his cult’s efforts to turn back the clock to the good old days of white hegemony, the pluralistic multiracial melting-pot America has still been percolating, yearning to breathe free. It’s been there all along, waiting for a breakout moment.

Here’s the 2020 presidential race in a nutshell: On Tuesday, Joe Biden unveiled the “third pillar” of his substantive plan to defeat our health and economic crises.

Can we finally nix the myth that what this nation needs is a businessman who will “run America like a business”? If mining magnate Herbert Hoover wasn’t sufficient evidence, bankrupt casino hack Donald Trump should be the clincher.

John Bolton is telling us damning stuff about Trump that we already knew – and he’s doing it five months too late. Timing is everything in life and politics, and this guy’s could not be worse.

The good news for America is that Donald Trump is crashing his presidency the same way he bankrupted casinos, with recent polls showing him significantly trailing Joe Biden. His own advisers reportedly say that his internal numbers are “brutal.”

I get why everyone has been so focused on Trump’s recent insanity spasm about injecting bleach. But we need to remember these riffs and fulminations are ultimately distractions from the substantive havoc he continues to wreak. At a time when we need good government most – with over 61,000 dead and counting – the Trump virus is claiming its own body count.

Democrats have entered the hand-wringing phase of the election season, fretting about Joe Biden and poised to leap from their windows. I’ve been around this game long enough to tell you that this happens every time with every nominee. Everyone needs to chill. We’re all stuck at home anyway, so there’s no reason not to.

I’ve been reading Erik Larson’s new book, “The Splendid and the Vile,” which chronicles the first year of Winston Churchill’s wartime stint as prime minister.

Joe Biden, seemingly DOA, has staged one of the greatest political comebacks in history.

Yogi Berra has a timely warning for the fractured Democratic party. The baseball legend and accidental oracle is reputed to have said, “It gets late early out here.”

What a dire scenario: A corrupt Republican president soaked in scandal wins re-election in part because dimwitted Democrats decide to nominate a small-state senator who’s way too left-wing for the American mainstream.

In a column on the eve of the 2016 election, I warned that if Donald Trump were to inexplicably occupy the White House, he would wreak havoc on American values, and his “authoritarian sensibility” would precipitate “a systematic breakdown of our democratic institutions.” I was merely stating the obvious. Any two-bit seer could foresee how his destructive reign would play out.

I know it’s very uncool – at least in the precincts of snarky lefty Twitter – to defend Joe Biden, but I’ll give it a try.

The lesson of the 2019 state elections confirmed the lesson of the 2018 congressional midterms: Donald Trump can stage all the demagogic rallies he wants, but he’s powerless to reverse the GOP’s hemorrhaging in the populous suburbs.

If only the Democrats could fight like the Washington Nationals. The new National League champs won four straight on the way to the World Series, with great pitching and clutch hitting. End of story. Or as Joe Biden would say, “Period!”

The constitutional crisis has officially arrived. To the surprise of nobody with a cognitive intellect, Donald Trump has hauled us to this treacherous precipice.

The impeachable president whined last week that he missed the good days when the Fourth Estate covered him exactly the way he wanted. In his inimitable words, “I used to be the king of getting good press.”

We dare not contemplate what the Washington Republicans would say if Donald Trump were to actually shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue.

Joe Biden has long been adept at talking with a foot in his mouth, so perhaps it’s no surprise late-ly he has overdosed on whoppers. Nevertheless, it has unnerved many Democrats to hear their 2020 front-runner oscillate so frequently between fact and fiction.

Pop quiz: What did Lyndon Johnson in 1968, Gerald Ford in 1976, Jimmy Carter in 1980, and George H. W. Bush in 1992 have in common?

Winston Churchill understood that in times of national emergency, it was imperative to forge alliances with anyone willing to help - no matter how odious those allies might be.

The word in Colorado is that John Hickenlooper is being pressured to quit his futile presidential quest and run for the Senate in 2020. Good.

Deep into last week’s Democratic debate, exasperated Republican strategist John Weaver tweeted: “When the topic is criminal justice, how are they not talking about the criminal in the White House? Huh?”

The quintessential Ugly American arrived in England on Monday, where it didn’t take long for him to hurl insults at London’s mayor. But presumably his mood will be lightened by the absence of any American vessels bearing the name John McCain.

If you happen to watch “Veep,” the HBO show that satirizes politics, you’re surely familiar with Jonah, the notorious foot-in-mouth presidential candidate.

Donald Trump is celebrating his fake “complete exoneration” by pledging anew to throw 20 million people off their Obamacare coverage. Is this guy politically stupid, or what?

Sunday is traditionally a day of rest, but not for habitual liars.

As I soldiered through Chris Christie’s spin-memoir “Let Me Finish,” I found myself flashing back to September 2011, when he was being widely touted as the GOP’s “Next Big Thing.” One particular ego-stroking incident at the Reagan Presidential Library must surely be one of his personal favorites.

Are we capable of connecting two dots? The fake border crisis distracts us from the true national emergency: A suspected Russian asset sits in the White House.

True news: Donald Trump storms out of a White House meeting after he doesn’t get what he wants (billions of dollars for a fake crisis), and tells off congressional Democratic leaders by tweeting, “bye bye.”

Did my ears deceive me? Did I actually hear Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republicans and one of Trump’s infamous abetters, actually warn us that the president is a clear and present danger to our national security?

There’s an old saying, attributed to nobody in particular, that Democrats never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Charles Dickens wrote this about the French Revolution: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair ... “

Shortly after the arrest of the DNA-linked domestic bomber - turns out, big shock, that he’s a “Make America Great Again” fan who took Trump’s incendiary words as permission to terrorize - an amazing moment transpired at the White House.

Let’s begin with a biographical sketch, a very 21st-century American dream.

The lies rain down on us so relentlessly that we’re often benumbed.

The pollsters at Pew recently reported that 68 percent of Americans are suffering from news exhaustion, and that jibes with what I witness on an anecdotal basis.

It’s surely the dream of every red-blooded American kid to grow up and be sued by a porn star.

It’s an old story, freshened anew by Hurricane Harvey: Republicans profess to hate “Big Guvmint” as a matter of principle — until catastrophe hits a red state.