They 100% asked for comment from the White House; no way in hell they didn't. This means the White House refused to comment, then Weiss used that as an excuse to kill the story.

Donald Trump is the worst human being in America, but in a way JD Vance is worse. Trump was born a monster and has always been one. Vance DECIDED to become this hateful abomination.

Trump and his administration may be bad propagandists, but they’re trying to sell us a new war. Fortunately, the last one is still pretty fresh in the public’s mind. paulwaldman.substack.com/p/trump-gets...

Bozell has the distinction of not only holding disgusting views but being personally one of the angriest assholes you'll ever encounter, despite the fact that because of his family he has lived a charmed life of endless wingnut welfare while having no appreciable talents of any sort.

As we saw with the Abrego Garcia case, once their screwup becomes public, this administration doubles down and tries to destroy the life of their victim with a campaign of slander and brutality. Just watch how they're going to go after this woman and her family.

US coffee bean prices continue to hit new highs in inflation data released today, up 19% over the last year and 47% since pre-COVID

He's said this so many times, so here are the options: 1. Nobody around him has the courage to tell him how stupid this makes him sound 2. They told him, and he said "It's OK, my people are morons, it sounds great to them" I'd go with #2. His faith in the stupidity of his supporters is boundless.

I'd love to see every Democratic state and local official start a Get Tough On Wage Theft campaign. Start doing some perp walks, distribute the mug shots, toss criminal employers who steal from their employees in the slammer. And loudly point out that Republicans are "soft on crime" if they object.

83% of Americans have a favorable view of Medicaid: www.kff.org/medicaid/7-c... Republicans simply can't believe that's true. It's government insurance, surely everyone hates it! But guess what: People don't want to be "health consumers," they just want secure coverage.

The Republican legal ranks are so full of radicals and freaks that when they need to fill a few hundred positions they can't find enough vaguely normal hard-right conservatives and need to pull up guys like this

Fucking of course there's an antisemitic conspiracy theory origin to every damn thing can't we even just hate AI in peace ffs

I predict this movie will try and fail to make Melania, the most vapid public figure in the world, into someone vaguely interesting

So Andreessen Horowitz, one of the wealthiest and most influential Silicon Valley venture capital firms, is funding nightmarish stuff like this, a company whose purpose is to evade social media platforms' terms of service and drown us in AI slop. Cool!

This is a vivid, well-reported story about poverty in McDowell County, WV, but there's a problem with the framing, and what's left out. The story talks about some of the ways the Trump administration has cut off funds to the place, but... www.wsj.com/us-news/pove...

Can somebody explain what the deal is with Dan Scavino's hair

people have often pointed out that his awfulness is part of his appeal to the hardcore base, and this is true but his support has always extended outside that base, and a lot of people have made bargain of sorts: tolerate it in exchange for his power when that bargain fails, so does he

There have always been some people who liked that Trump is an awful human being, and some who tolerated it because they thought they’d get something out of the deal. But when he’s failing, it becomes more of a liability. paulwaldman.substack.com/p/being-a-hu...

Timid Dems have totally misread public opinion on immigration. Trump has strong approval on "the border" b/c people think 1) that's where the chaos is and 2) he closed it and that's good. But they don't like what he's doing on immigration writ large. Which means there's plenty of room to attack him

The tech barons' alliance with Trump is working out great for them so far; they've gotten almost everything they want from this administration. But they may come to regret becoming part of the MAGA coalition. My latest at Public Notice: www.publicnotice.co/p/tech-indus...

Tis the season

Now let me blow your mind with the story of Masada, location of a thousand American kid bar mitzvahs. It's basically the Jewish Jonestown. [and yes, I know Adam is kidding]

If Bill Maher were one of the nation's great comic geniuses, perhaps you could argue that it's worth putting up with the fact that he's a gigantic asshole and always has been. However...

Very normal and cool

When Trump said he’d appoint RFK Jr. to be secretary of HHS, it seemed impossibly crazy. But look at him now. paulwaldman.substack.com/p/the-rfk-jr...

A few congressional Republicans could vote with Dems to rename a post office and Stephen Miller would be like "YOU TRAITORS HAVE DOOMED OUR PRECIOUS WHITE CHILDREN TO A FUTURE OF MISCEGENATED MISERY, MAY YOU ROT IN HELL WITH THE DUSKY BARBARIAN HORDE"

The next turn in American politics could be a widespread reaction against Trumpism as a political style, with its vulgarity, hatefulness, and constant threat of violence. If that happens the Republicans who remade themselves in Trump's image will be in trouble. www.cnn.com/2025/12/11/p...

Elon: "What if Theranos, but for data centers in space?" Idiot fanboy investors: "Hell yeah! You're such a visionary! Take my money!"

The United States is now doing straight up piracy on the high seas, and it's going to be a one-day story

It is intensely funny to me that tech bro CEOs on an annual salary of 15 petabillion dollars think data centres can go in space because it's very cold but actually they would get obscenely hot because heat won't radiate into the vacuum of space taranis.ie/datacenters-...

I’m but a simple country theoretical physicist, and I can say, in my professional capacity, “datacenters in space” is so colossally, monumentally stupid that it is difficult to know where to start with which laws of physics the idea is spitting in the face of the most.

Washington Post editorial board really speaking truth to power

If the Democrats ran on this platform... 1. Corruption is bad and we should stop it 2. Billionaires are bad and they shouldn't have so much power 3. The tech industry should stop abusing us ... they'd win in a landslide

Obviously New York is where it's already been road-tested to work, but I think we're going to see lots of this Mamdani-style aesthetic from Democrats: talk about how much they love the place they want to represent, appeals to neighborliness and solidarity, general happy-warrior tone.

Watch as Elon Musk struggles not to say the N-word

Farmers are welfare queens. But guess what, so are you: paulwaldman.substack.com/p/trump-to-r... [I considered titling this post "Yass, Welfare Queen!", but I restrained myself. You're welcome.]

Keep in mind that Elon Musk has pretty much given up on the car business and says that Tesla will sell so many Optimuses that the revenue from these dorkbots will equal LITERALLY THE GDP OF THE ENTIRE WORLD TODAY, which is why people should keep buying his meme stock

"The speaker that Johnson most closely resembles these days is John Boehner, who endured 4 tumultuous years leading the chamber before quitting in disgust. Johnson may be holding on to his job only because Republicans don’t think anyone else could succeed at it either." — @paulwaldman.bsky.social

What makes this even crazier is that I guarantee Altman has 3 nannies and 4 butlers and 3 personal chefs and 2 drivers and 5 personal assistants. Take them away and see what kind of help his chatbot would be in whatever version of "parenting" he's doing.

thanks to chatbots we can now do what was once unimaginable: take care of a newborn baby

Speaker of the House is a tough job. But Mike Johnson is incredibly bad at it, and things are only getting worse for him. His own members clearly have no faith in him, rebellion is brewing, and they're headed for defeat in 2026. My latest at Public Notice: www.publicnotice.co/p/mike-johns...

🧵

The DSA and a dozen other lefty groups should sue, demanding that they too be given state money to establish organizations in every school in Texas

It's just like the immunity case, when they said "My God, imagine if an ex-president could be prosecuted! It would be madness!" As if it hadn't been that way for 250 years, and it was perfectly fine.

And right now the Trump admin is killing fiber broadband investment and handing Elon Musk billions to provide the mediocre overpriced Starlink service people can already get, and which they'll still have to pay for. Taxpayers will pay Musk for "capacity."

“Mattel’s commitment to storytelling and cultural impact makes this partnership special” is my secret code phrase to let you know I’ve been kidnapped fyi

Read this NYT piece by Sam Kriss about AI's distinctive writing style - especially "It's not X - it's Y" - and then look at this horror of an AI-generated article, which uses all the tropes he identifies, over and over again. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/m...

The last time Republicans had an effective Speaker of the House was 19 years ago, and he was literally a child molester

The current Supreme Court has forfeited all legitimacy. Democrats (and everyone) need to address that reality. John Roberts > Roger Taney. Court needs to expand. And have fixed terms—like *every* other supreme court in developed world. And have ethics rules, like all normal organizations.

Democrats need to lay the groundwork for reform by attacking the villains on the Supreme Court - loudly, angrily, personally, relentlessly. And they should start now. paulwaldman.substack.com/p/democrats-...

In a country of 340 million people we could absolutely find a dozen bleached blonde ladies named Pam who killed someone, which proves that all bleached blonde Pams are vicious killers and should be expelled from the country. Someone should get on that.