Opinion

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blocked me on Twitter this week. And I’m not sorry.

Supernatural is widely regarded as the longest-running horror show in television history, with 327 episodes over 15 seasons.

The entire Trump presidency, from his first term through now, has been a horror show, blowing past 327 episodes in his first year back in office. Each episode seemingly has its own iteration; however, the plots sometimes repeat themselves.

Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in Michigan, declared Thursday morning, seems to have broken the brains of Republicans and the chattering class.

Donald Trump’s pathetic bleats notwithstanding, people voting for progressive Democrats and “democratic socialists” aren’t voting for communism or even socialism; they’re trying to get America to the same sort of economy and form of government that works for everybody — a system somewhat like the one a majority of us had before Reaganism, and that most other developed countries enjoy right now. That includes:

Obviously, this is not our first warning; indeed, Donald Trump's response to the Michigan Democratic primary fits a pattern that goes back years and will certainly progress through the general election this Fall. But hearing him rail away in theory doesn't shake the spine like seeing it in practice. And for real, it appears as though Trump is putting in serious practice time in Michigan and elsewhere, ready for gameday this fall.

As has been noted here for months, voters are furious over the state of the nation, and that goes for both Left and Right, though most on the Right can't bring themselves to lay their anger at the feet of the man almost solely responsible for the inflation, wars, and healthcare cuts fertilizing that anger. The Reds are most certainly willing to oust incumbents, witness Cornyn, Massie, among others.

As a veteran, I will go to my grave believing that covering each other's six doesn't end at the grave.

I learned the military mantra, meaning to “protect each other from danger coming from behind,” when I enlisted in the Vietnam War as an armorer after two of my childhood friends were killed in action.

It seems like only yesterday that Pam Bondi was confirmed as Attorney General and every political type in Washington assured us she was qualified because, after all, she'd once held the job in Florida.

I’m cynical in the most extreme way when it comes to anything involving the Trump administration, so I had zero faith that Bondi would be a guardrail. Instead, she was a drop-off, teetering on the ledge alongside Donald Trump throughout her tenure before eventually being pushed off.

It seemed so trivial. Trump ordered the Interior Department to post signs along the walkways leading up to several of the museums that make up the Smithsonian system in Washington, D.C., warning people that they’d find “inaccurate information” therein. It was based on a bizarre “report” written by the White House’s Domestic Policy Council and released without fanfare on the 4th of July.

The council itself was packed by Trump with leftovers from right-wing think tanks and activist groups like American Compass, Heritage, the Manhattan Institute, and Stephen Miller’s America First Policy Institute.

As I write these words, Todd Blanche is cruising toward being confirmed as Attorney General for the United States. What looked improbable just a few days before quickly became, essentially, a done deal after Blanche did the bare minimum to assuage the concerns of lame-duck Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Thom Tillis (R-NC).

We pretend that Blanche’s approval was ever really in doubt. It wasn’t. Sufficient smoke and mirrors were always going to be employed to satisfy the senators.

Hey, here's a thing. Donald Trump, the United States President, aged 80, managed yet again to go full North Korea "Glorious Leader" and win his golf club's championship for the 43rd straight time. Our full-time golf pro and part-time president tweeted: "The Winning Shot in the Bedminster Club Championship! ... so honored... I’m given very little time to practice, because I’m focused on many other things. It’s called TALENT, and I have it, and they don’t!”

An adult tweeted that. Really.

I'll admit for a few days last week, I started to believe it too.

Today is Aug. 3, the deadline for Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear to call a special election to fill Mitch McConnell's Senate seat if it becomes vacant. And for weeks, a theory has been metastasizing across social media, gossip sites, and even political discourse.

When history looks back on the unraveling of 60 Minutes, one question will loom larger than all the others: What do you do when the institution you love is no longer the institution you joined?

Scott Pelley answered that question with clarity. Others who resigned — or were shown the door after refusing to compromise the editorial independence that made 60 Minutes the gold standard of television journalism — answered it with courage. They understood that there comes a point when staying no longer preserves an institution. It merely legitimizes its decline.

Let me start this off with the understanding that I’m a very big fan of vaccines and have no patience for, or understanding of, anyone who isn’t — in particular our clueless Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr.

Just as a quick refresher, diseases like polio and smallpox used to kill and badly cripple people by the millions. The vaccines effectively eliminated them from the list of maladies plaguing humankind. This is not opinion, it is fact. Hundreds of millions of lives — maybe billions — have collectively been saved by vaccines. Period. Full stop.