Opinion

The ballot referendum on abortion rights in Kansas wasn't just a test of public attitudes about reproductive rights — it was a test of democracy.

The Republican organizers behind the bill were no doubt aware of the robust polling that shows that strong majorities of Americans support abortion rights, and thus did everything in their power to make sure the general public did not turn out to vote on the question of banning abortion in the state. So they scheduled the ballot initiative during an August primary election, when few Democrats turn out to vote, even though other ballot initiatives are scheduled for November's election. They made the language of the ballot initiative confusing, so pro-choice people might accidentally vote for the ban. And they blanketed the airwaves with misleading ads meant to trick pro-choice voters into voting for the ban.

I’ve had some good yuks lately – starting with quack doc Mehlmet Oz screwing up his Man of the People Act in the “Wegner’s” supermarket, and lightweight Jared Kushner getting reviewed for his new book: “Kushner looks like a mannequin, and he writes like one…Kushner’s fealty to Trump remains absolute. Reading this book reminded me of watching a cat lick a dog’s eye goo.”

But for sheer legs-in-the-air hilarity, I nominate this new Washington Post report:

There are dozens of outstanding questions about Donald Trump's bizarre decision to abscond with boxes of unauthorized and classified documents when he left the White House and we don't have any idea why he refused to return many of them when the National Archives and the FBI asked for them back. All we do know is that the FBI was forced to issue a subpoena, which Trump defied, and finally had to get a search warrant to retrieve the documents.

The speculation about his motives run from the former president just wanting to take classified material as a souvenir to show off to his friends or sell as memorabilia to possible blackmail of foreign leaders. (Apparently, presidents get highly classified intelligence on allies and adversaries alike.) The most alarming reporting suggested that the documents contained nuclear secrets. This seemed unlikely until this piece by Josh Kovensky at Talking Points Memo reminded me that Trump has a "special interest" in nuclear weapons, believing himself to be an expert because his uncle taught at MIT. Now it doesn't seem so outlandish. Trump was bragging in his final year that the U.S. had developed some secret new nuclear program at his direction which he couldn't reveal. So, who knows? He may have actually stolen something truly dangerous.

Alfred Ruf poisoned his wife as part of a scheme to get rich off her life insurance. So did Dr. Gregory “Brent” Dennis, who was looking at a $2 million payout. Joshua Hunsucker poisoned his wife for a mere $250K in life insurance money, $80,000 of which he used to buy a boat. David L. Pettis poisoned his wife for $150,000.

This piece was originally published in January.

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson -- one of former President Donald Trump’s most servile sycophants in the U.S. Senate -- has decided to distance himself from the boss now that he’s facing a tough reelection fight.

Johnson trailed Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes by seven points in a recent Marquette Law School poll on the Senate race. Progressives have rallied around Barnes since he outlasted a tough primary field, terming Johnson an “insurrectionist.”

When George W. Bush announced that the United States had begun military action in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks orchestrated by al-Qaeda, he emphasized that the mission would also focus on providing humanitarian aid to the citizens of Afghanistan. "The oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and our allies," he explained. "As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine, and supplies." The hypocrisy of a military strike framed as a humanitarian mission was on full display. For those of us who could immediately see through Bush's hubris and his malignant American exceptionalism, the global war on terror epitomized the toxic nature of America's culture of political hypocrisy.

This article first appeared in Salon.

The problem with politics is that it's a zero-sum game. There is a finite number of voters out there; every vote that you get is a vote the other side doesn't get. That's why the headlines following the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago were practically unanimous: "FBI search cements Trump's hold on GOP," screamed the Hill. "Trump's dominance in GOP comes into focus, worrying some in the party," was how the Washington Post put it.

This article first appeared in Salon.

In a recent piece for The Atlantic, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that social media platforms are destroying democracy. They allow people to sort themselves into homogenous tribes, he argues.

Haidt says that they can spread disinformation more quickly. People could be attacked more easily. “It was as if the platforms had passed out a billion little dart guns, and although most users didn’t want to shoot anyone, three kinds of people began darting others with abandon: the far right, the far left and trolls,” he writes.

Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. But the dramatic testimony and video footage at the January 6 hearings documented the obsessive campaign by Donald Trump and some of his followers to convince people that Trump had, in fact, won.

They were (and some still are, or say they are) convinced Trump won in the face of overwhelming evidence of Biden’s victory – from state boards of elections, state recounts, the actions of the electoral college, rulings in dozens of appeals and court challenges, the Attorney General, Congressional certification of the election results, the inauguration of President Biden, media reports and, now, finally, the House hearings.