Joel Mathis

Vox : "Eleven House Republicans — Ron DeSantis, Andy Biggs, Dave Brat, Jeff Duncan, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Andy Harris, Jody Hice, Todd Rokita, Claudia Tenney, and Ted Yoho — have signed a joint letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions calling for the criminal prosecution of Hillary Clinton and a variety of other Obama administration appointees, career FBI officials, and even Trump appointee Dana Boente, who is currently the FBI’s general counsel." Two things: • Remember when President Obama refused to prosecute Bush-era torture suspects because he wanted the country to move forward? Republicans apparently don't, or don't care. • One nice thing about Republican administrations is that the GOP jeremiad against Hillary Clinton used to take a few months off now and again. When she ran against Obama in 2008 there were even some "strange new respect" noises from the right. Those days are over. The jeremiad is eternal now. And why not? It keeps attenti

NPR : The city of Memphis could lose a quarter-million dollars as punishment for removing statues of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and Confederate President Jefferson Davis last year.  The Tennessee House of Representatives voted Tuesday to strip the money from next year's state budget. The sum had been earmarked to go toward planning for Memphis' bicentennial celebrations next year. A key thing to understand here: Memphis is 63 percent black. Tennessee is 83 percent white. What you have here is a white state punishing a black city for not honoring the heroes of racism. Disgusting.

Two stories in the New York Times this morning highlight a problem with the Trump presidency. Actually, it's two problems, but they're related. The first is that no one but President Trump reliably speaks for President Trump. President Trump was watching television on Sunday when he saw Nikki R. Haley, his ambassador to the United Nations, announce that he would impose fresh sanctions on Russia. The president grew angry, according to an official informed about the moment. As far as he was concerned, he had decided no such thing.  The rift erupted into open conflict on Tuesday when a White House official blamed Ms. Haley’s statement about sanctions on “momentary confusion.” That prompted her to fire back, saying that she did not “get confused.” The public disagreement embarrassed Ms. Haley and reinforced questions about Mr. Trump’s foreign policy — and who speaks for his administration. The second : Not even President Trump reliably speaks for President Trump: After publ

By now, you've probably seen this video:     Deadspin explains: Earlier this month, CNN’s Brian Stelter broke the news that Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner or operator of nearly 200 television stations in the U.S., would be forcing its news anchors to record a promo about “the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country.” The script, which parrots Donald Trump’s oft-declarations of developments negative to his presidency as “fake news,” brought upheaval to newsrooms already dismayed with Sinclair’s consistent interference to bring right-wing propaganda to local television broadcasts. The problem, though, isn't Sinclair-owned stations. The problem is this: TV news, for the most part, isn't news. I spent part of my career in a combine TV-print newsroom, so I've produced my share of packages and short readers. The station I worked for was an exception to this rule — which,  I suspect, is part of why that station no longer has a