Left Jabs

       It is now a virtual certainty that Pam Bondi’s corrupt DOJ will slow-walk the release of the Epstein files as long as it can, forever if possible. We have no way of knowing how that will play out. But the excavation of Jeffrey Epstein’s entire life has become a mini-industry, and we now know a whole lot more than we did, even a few weeks ago. No, we don’t have a smoking gun — video of Trump, say, in bed with an underaged girl or two — and it’s possible there won’t be. But that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been some pretty juicy stuff jumping out of the files that have, despite Bondi’s best efforts, already been released. It will take a while for the pieces to fall into place, but there are plenty of storylines for ambitious reporters to follow. I am expecting astonishing revelations, though they won’t necessarily involve Trump. The Trump evidence will mostly remain unavailable until something, or someone, pries it loose. But in the meantim...

       Turns out, one of the hardest parts of watching my country descend deeper and deeper into darkness is the sheer embarrassment of it all. We’ve been reduced to a unique blend of stupidity and malevolence, and the rest of the civilized world doesn’t know whether to laugh at us or cry. Neither do I. My Canadian cousins and friends have real reason to fear the deranged impulses of a monster acting in the name of my country — and by extension, me — and I’m powerless to help them. I can tell them it’s ludicrous to think Trump would invade Canada, but do I really believe that? America is behaving like a playground bully with a nuclear arsenal, so I don’t know what I believe anymore. The Venezuela thing is mind-blowing on many levels, but I think it’s helpful to see it, not so much for what it is, as for what it’s not. Most of all, it’s not about oil. No matter how much bluster Trump brings to the subject, Venezuelan oil is not something the en...

        I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness... The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations...

  It was Jimmy Kimmel who nailed it, on the air, on the night after the ’24 election: It was a terrible night for women, for children, for the hundreds of thousands of hard-working immigrants who make this country go. For healthcare, for our climate, for scientists, for justice, for free speech. It was a terrible night for poor people, for the middle class, for seniors who rely on social security, for our allies in Ukraine, for NATO and democracy and decency. It was a terrible night for everyone who voted against him and guess what? It was a bad night for everyone who voted for him, too, you just don’t realize it yet. As I wrote that day — the first time I used this quote — Kimmel has thoughtfully provided us with a scorecard for tracking the depraved actions of the depraved junta now trying, cruelly but ineptly, to rule us. Let’s call it the Kimmel List, shall we? Each item on it rates its own primal scream. Going down the list, I found myself with plenty ...

  “FAFO” (Fuck-Around-And-Find-Out) is a coinage that probably hasn’t yet made it to a dictionary near you, but it has gained considerable traction of late. And among those millions of Trump voters who are currently finding out, in quite painful fashion, the malignant forces with which they fucked around, there’s the special case of Elise Stefanik, about whom I wrote this piece in January 2023. Stefanik’s star was rising then, back when Kevin McCarthy was taking control — if you can call it that — of the House. Having sold her soul completely to Trump, she might understand now what was totally obvious even then: that Trump is where political careers go to die. You’ll notice also in this piece that I failed to anticipate Trump’s second term, and got a number of other minor things wrong. All I can say is I was young and foolish.   It isn’t often that The New York Times and The Washington Post do lengthy features on the same politician in the same week. So w...

  Back in 2022, before the Dobbs decision, abortions in the United States occurred at the rate of 79,600 per month. Put a pin in that number. When Dobbs ended Roe , it triggered a cornucopia of draconian laws banning — to one degree or another — abortion in most red states. One of the worst judicial decisions in history, Dobbs led almost immediately to a raft of high-profile atrocities, making simple pregnancy a high-risk proposition for both women and doctors. The Republicans running those states are now defined — politically and morally — by their anti-woman, anti-family policies. On their watch, long-standing, globally-accepted medical standards and practices are being rejected, not on the basis of science, but of ideology and, even worse, religion. The results are stunning. While I couldn’t possibly scan the entire landscape of reproductive issues, there are others doing that full time. Jessica Valenti and her new partner Kylie Cheung do deep dives int...