“Media is a word that has come to mean bad journalism,” wrote Graham Greene a generation ago.

“Democratic politicians and business & technocratic elites should be shamed and humiliated by how normal people have met this moment while most Democrats pretended it was business as usual and many elites openly curried favor with the regime instead of resisting.” www.thebulwark.com/p/how-the-me...

“Trump’s only concern with polling is rooted in vanity.” In his satirical tale “Zadig,” Voltaire describes a redeemable fictitious ruler as “corrupted by vanity and voluptuousness [who] breathed in nothing but false glory and false pleasures.” Alas, there is no redeeming the irredeemable Trump.

Bored of peace

I like Rachel Maddow but I don’t recall Walter Cronkite ever giggling or trying to stifle laughter during his Watergate reports.

Dear MS NOW: Less is more. Having numerous hosts compete tonight for bon mots is unserious and a disservice to political analysis.

“American politics needs regular, visible reminders of how thoroughly a majority of the country rejects fascism. We need incumbent Democrats to fight harder, and we need readiness to engage in the kind of civil disobedience that might bring this regime (or its worst abuses) to an early end.”

Republicans questioning Jack Smith today

Jack Smith: “We followed the facts and we followed the law. Where that led us was to an indictment of an unprecedented criminal scheme to block the peaceful transfer of power.”

Eff Scott Fitzgerald of Wisconsin.

The bill that Mike Lawler and other Republicans voted against.

As JD Vance goes to Minneapolis today to cheer on Homeland Security's terror campaign, I'm re-upping this recent thread about Vance's unfitness for office. Share it with family and friends if they ever say anything positive about this sociopath.

Is Gym Jordan serious? As his first defense of Trump he zeroes in on one statement made by Cassidy Hutchinson to discredit Jack Smith?

What a mismatch: the unctuous hypocrite Jim Jordan vs. the rule of law.

History is made by people who do things, not people who deliberate interminably over the risks of doing things, and that’s why Trump is making terrible history while every prominent Dem of our era will soon be forgotten as irrelevant trivia.

“[Jim Jordan] was not born to shame: Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit.”

“Were shame enough to shame thee [Jim Jordan], wert thou not shameless.”

Former DOJ special counsel Jack Smith takes the hot seat in front Congress this morning. He's expected to stand behind his decision to prosecute Trump, and say doing otherwise would have been “shirk[ing] my duties as a prosecutor and a public servant," according to prepared remarks we obtained.

The House Ethics Committee found that Matt Gaetz did all of the horrible things previously claimed—sex trafficking minors, prostitution (including of minors), drugs, drunk driving, obstruction, the works. The Florida Bulldog has secured and published the House report this evening.

“There is simply nothing for the Nobel Committee to award or recognize. For Trump, this is unacceptable. His response, as befitting his thuggish and gangster-like sensibilities, is to try to extort Norway, and by extension Denmark, Europe and the rest of the world, into giving him what he wants.”

Take note, timorous mainstream media: "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations," wrote the peerless journalist George Orwell, who died on this day in 1950.

"Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and...to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind," wrote the incomparable journalist George Orwell, who died on this day in 1950; 67 years later, Trump's Ministry of Truth took office.

“What’s striking here is that Trump believes the [Insurrection] act provides him license to circumvent the judiciary— to impose military rule. So this is really a window into Trump’s fantasies about presiding over martial law, or over a military dictatorship.”

Linguistics expert Trump this morning, in his speech at Davos in Switzerland, told the assembled, "Without us you'd all be speaking German,” which is the most common language in Switzerland.

Is it Trump or Lear? “I am a very foolish fond old man, [nearly] fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less; and, to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind. Methinks I should know you, and know this man; yet I am doubtful; for I am mainly ignorant.”

Who can ever forget that the stable history genius also said, “The United States and Italy are bound together by a shared cultural and political heritage dating back thousands of years to Ancient Rome.” Yes, back to when the GOP president asked Caesar for dirt on his Dem opponent.

“Trump is acting like an international gangster” Ed Davey

“You shall mark many a duteous and knee-crooking knave that (doting on his own obsequious bondage) wears out his time much like his master’s ass for naught but provender, and when he’s old, cashiered.” “Othello”

Gov Tim Walz's office has now received a subpoena from DOJ, his office just confirmed. Absolutely vile. The only people facing federal investigation of any kind right now for the killing of Renee Good are Minnesota officials who drew attention to it.

“Mainstream media gives authoritarians a platform to lie, often unchallenged, based on a misguided principle: They think the marketplace of ideas will sort things out and it’s their job to present ‘both sides.’ They believe that makes them fair; I think it makes them stenographers.”

“If people accept the idea that there’s this vast radical leftist conspiracy that’s going to kill people just because they are MAGA or support Trump, it softens the field for them to do other things in the way that they’re trying to handle immigration and deportation of people.”

“Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares, and think, perchance, they'll sell…” “Troilus and Cressida”

“The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is to let him show himself what he is…” “Much Ado About Nothing”

“The mind growing once corrupt they turn to vicious forms.” “Henry VIII”

“Striving to make an ugly deed look fair.”
“Timon of Athens”

“Take heed, my lord; the welfare of us all hangs on the cutting short that fraudful man.” “Henry VI, Part 2”

“Slaves and fools, pluck the grave wrinkled senate from the bench, and minister in their steads!” “Timon of Athens”

“A most devout coward, religious in it.” “Twelfth Night”

Hi Humans, God here. Regarding Greenland, God has a question for thee. WHERE THE FUCK IS CONGRESS?!?

There is no strategy www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

To those defending our country from the vile, cruel Trump, consider: “It cannot be this weak and writhled shrimp should strike such terror to his enemies.” “Henry VI, Part 1” And this: “You fight in justice: then, in God’s name, lords, be valiant.” “Henry VI, Part 3”

For the media: “Never allowing a lie to go out on their platforms without challenging it, even if that means taking Trump on a tape delay. Ending interviews with newsmakers if they won’t stop lying & banning them from future appearances. Calling out rival news outlets that engage in disinformation.”

“And winds of all the comers kiss'd [Trump’s] sails…” “Cymbeline”

“There should be far less emphasis on ‘we don’t want to look biased,’ and far more on ‘how well are we doing our jobs of getting across the truth?’ Language would be less defensive. Both-sides ‘neutrality,’ which treats lies and truth as roughly equal, would give way to fearless truth-telling.”

Is this The New York Times or @nytpitchbot.bsky.social?

Greenland told Trump, “No,” but he’s trying to force his way into the dressing room.

“Trump now genuinely lives in a different reality, one in which neither grammar nor history nor the normal rules of human interaction affect him.” His cowardly party is fine with this.

“Contempt will kill the speaker’s heart, and quite divorce his memory from his part.” “Love’s Labour’s Lost”