Joel Mathis

My take: The Trump White House is just a high-level version of a sleazy pawn shop where the owner traffics in stolen goods. Everybody knows the owner is profiting from crime — including the owner — but as long as as he keeps his fingerprints off the precise moment the goods are stolen, he's allowed to keep making his living off the fruits of other people's wrongdoing.  It may not be technically illegal. But it sure isn't right. Please read the whole thing!

Man, this is some speechwriting from John Bolton, announcing new sanctions on Cuba. I have expected him to continue: "Who knows what evil lurks within? ONLY THE SHADOW KNOWS!"

There’s a reason so many people think Donald Trump is corrupt: He keeps giving them reason. On Thursday, a redacted version of the Mueller report will be released to the public. Perhaps the president is right: Maybe the document will exonerate him of accusations of colluding with Russia to win the 2016 election, and maybe it will further offer reason to believe that Attorney General William Barr was correct when he decided not to pursue allegations the president obstructed justice by firing then-FBI Director James Comey. It could happen. But if that is the case, Trump and Barr have done the worst possible job laying the ground for the president’s innocence. Instead, they’ve seemingly done everything possible to make the release of the report look like a cover-up. For example: The principles of transparency would usually suggest that the public — or, at least, the media — have a chance to look at the report and begin to digest its findings before Barr holds his press conference. But th

Three thoughts about Netflix's The Highwaymen coming up after the trailer...    • This is a Bonnie and Clyde movie that, for the most part, is lacking in Bonnie and Clyde: The filmmakers figure you've already seen the classic movie and there's no reason to compete with that. So it's the case that we literally don't see fully the faces of our fugitives until the very last seconds before they're ambushed by Texas lawmen in a hail of bullets. The story concentrates, in this case, on the hunters, played by a laconic Kevin Costner and his sidekick Woody Harrelson, playing Woody Harrelson.  • Structurally, it plays out as a cross between the fantastic Hell or High Water and Unforgiven , but without having quite as much on its mind as either of those movies. Maybe the most potent theme is about how thrall to celebrity can turn regular people into monsters. After Bonnie and Clyde are killed, local townspeople are shown in a near-riot situation, plucking souveni

Criterion Channel finally launched today, a replacement for the late lamented FilmStruck . I've already watched my first movie. A few thoughts after the trailer...    • Since FilmStruck's demise, I've made a concerted effort to build up my DVD collection with classic movies. I'm glad that Criterion is here, but I don't trust streaming services to have many of the movies I want when I want them. Big corporations that own the rights to those movies have already demonstrated that letting the public have access is a lesser concern, profit-wise, than promoting their more recent catalog. So I'm glad to have Criterion to expand and deepen my movie education. But I'm still buying DVDs.  • My first movie on Criterion? Drive a Crooked Road , a tight little movie from the noir collection. It reminded me of Drive , only with Mickey Rooney (!?) in the Ryan Gosling role, and if everybody spent Drive talking about how short Ryan Gosling is. Also fun: It was written

My motto is: "Journalism will never love you back." But I can't remember a time when I didn't love news and newspapers. Still do. I love my hometown paper, the Lawrence Journal-World. The journalists of the LJW will be moving out of their beautiful downtown space by the end of the month, opting for smaller digs in North Lawrence at an old outlet mall. I was on staff in 2001 when we moved into this office - which had previously been the city's post office. So I'm kind of sad about the move. I worked at LJW from 2000-2007, got to be a reporter, an editor, and the paper's first blogger. We shared the digs with 6News, a local cable TV outlet. I learned how to be a TV reporter, too. I had so much fun. I think part of it was being the right age - late 20s and early 30s - but some of it was that it was the last possible moment to be optimistic and hopeful about working for a newspaper, as opposed to grimly determined. The Great Recession set in sho

"Believing women" doesn't mean we have to accept accusations as evidence. So what might it mean in real life?  • When a woman makes an accusation, it would mean pursuing all available lines of evidence to weigh the truth of her claims. In the matter of Brett Kavanaugh's SCOTUS nomination, it would mean calling Mark Judge, Kavanaugh's buddy, to testify under penalty of perjury. So far that's not happening. That the Senate Judiciary Committee is not taking such a step suggests they don't have much interest in trying, as best as we poor humans are capable, of making a genuine attempt to determine the truth of the matter.  • When a woman's accusation is proven, the person convicted of abusing or assaulting her will be given more than a slap-on-the-wrist punishment.   • And women a woman says she has been traumatized by sexual assault, we don't wave our hands and t ell her to toughen up instead of being such a victim.  None of this m

At AmGreatness , Chris Buskirk shreds all the conservatives who think maybe a proven rapist shouldn't have a seat on the Supreme Court. I'll let him speak for himself: National Review’s Jim Geraghty not only thinks that Ford’s claims should bar Kavanaugh from the Supreme Court, but he told Caitlin Flanagan of The Atlantic, who wrote she believes Ford despite the lack of evidence, that “it’s hard to see how he could remain a federal judge.” David French agreed that the allegations, if proven, should “ mar him for life .” National Review OnlineEditor Charles C. W. Cooke agreed, adding that he doesn’t think that makes him “irrational or a Stalinist.”  What's interesting is that Geraghty and French have both made their condemnation of Kavanaugh conditional: He doesn't get the seat if the rape allegations are proven . But both Geraghty and French have made clear they don't think the allegations have been proven.  Geraghty : But we’re still a long, long way from

This is awful: Brett Kavanaugh’s page in his high school yearbook offers a glimpse of the teenage years of the man who is now President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee: lots of football, plenty of drinking, parties at the beach. Among the reminiscences about sports and booze is a mysterious entry: “Renate Alumnius.”  The word “Renate” appears at least 14 times in Georgetown Preparatory School’s 1983 yearbook, on individuals’ pages and in a group photo of nine football players, including Judge Kavanaugh, who were described as the “Renate Alumni.” It is a reference to Renate Schroeder, then a student at a nearby Catholic girls’ school.  Two of Judge Kavanaugh’s classmates say the mentions of Renate were part of the football players’ unsubstantiated boasting about their conquests.  (Snip) “I learned about these yearbook pages only a few days ago,” Ms. Dolphin said in a statement to The New York Times. “I don’t know what ‘Renate Alumnus’ actually means. I can’t begin to comprehend

I wish Kavanaugh had chosen a less nakedly political outlet to do this interview . By choosing Fox News, it signals that partisanship will still be core to his identity as a judge. And it really only reaches the people inclined to support him. Our jurisprudence is screwed if federal judges, like our current president, decide they need only play to the GOP base in order to succeed.

Three thoughts about Black Panther after a family viewing: * This was my second viewing - I first saw it when it was in the theaters. It was a better experience this time: I think when I originally saw it I was so primed by all the hype that it was difficult for me to enjoy the movie on its own terms. This time I just watched, and it was fun. * The highlight of both viewings: Michael B. Jordan as Killmonger. There's something about Jordan's acting that confuses me. Often, it seems to me, his affect is sort of flat. And yet, when his characters meet their biggest challenge -- I'm thinking Creed, but also The Wire - I find myself immensely moved. I can't figure out what kind of alchemy is going on there, but maybe I don't have to. * That said, I'm tiring out of Marvel movies. Even with Ryan Coogler in charge, the look of this movie was so much like others. Wakanda's capital city looks a lot like Asgard to me, and maybe that's just a function of C

Dear Trump-resisting friends: Don't let President Trump's overall awfulness bait you into silly conspiracy-mongering absent any proof. You needn't furnish your opponents with easy ways to take swipes at your credibility. Tread carefully. Sincerely, Joel

Remember " The Flight 93 Election? " It was the "intellectual" case for voting Trump, and one of its central conceits is that immigration is bad because brown people don't know how to do democracy. The ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners with no tradition of, taste for, or experience in liberty means that the electorate grows more left, more Democratic, less Republican, less republican, and less traditionally American with every cycle. As does, of course, the U.S. population, which only serves to reinforce the two other causes outlined above. This is the core reason why the Left, the Democrats, and the bipartisan junta (categories distinct but very much overlapping) think they are on the cusp of a permanent victory that will forever obviate the need to pretend to respect democratic and constitutional niceties. Because they are. There's a lot to unpack there, much of it scurrilous, but you get the idea. Anyway, Cato's David Bier ran i

They're trying to get into college instead. A recent analysis by economists at the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that an increased emphasis on education — and getting scholarships — had contributed to the decline in working teenagers, reflecting both the rising costs of education and the low wages most people that age can earn. When I was 16, my dad told me it was time to get an after-school job. The days of my extracurricular activities were pretty much over — no more debate, no more football for me after my sophomore year, but I did spend about 20 hours a week carrying out groceries. My dad was operating under the assumption he'd grown up under, that getting a job as a teen is a way to learn responsibility and, not incidentally, start paying for the fact that your life is becoming real expensive. (It's not just running-around money: Have you ever paid a teen boy's car insurance?) These days, though, such a decision might've reduced my competitivene

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

There've been debates in recent days about The Atlantic's decision to hire National Review's Kevin Williamson. Conservatives think (not without merit, I think) that every time a mainstream publication hires a conservative, liberals try to get that conservative fired. On the other hand: Williamson is a dick. He's been a little bit racist ,  a little bit snooty , and you'll forgive women for thinking his proposal to execute women who've had an abortion is-a non-starter. He's a talented provocateur, too smart and self-aware to let himself go Full-Blown Milo, but he also delights sticking a thumb in the eye of people who disagree with him. I'm not going to say The Atlantic shouldn't hire Williamson. I will say there's a National Review voice they should've hired instead: David A. French. There would still be complaints. Critics have long eyed his marriage with suspicion . He's r eligiously conservative on sexual matters . He's

I've heard about this before, but it still astonishes me: Border Patrol officers are working without permission on private property and setting up checkpoints up to 100 miles away from the border under a little-known federal law that is being used more widely in the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on illegal immigration.  Trump administration officials defend the government’s decades-old authority to search people and property, even without a warrant, far from the border. They call it a vital part of preventing weapons, terrorists and other people from illegally entering the United States.  An estimated 200 million Americans live within 100 miles of the border, according to the A.C.L.U. At least 11 states — mostly in the Northeast and Florida — are either entirely or almost entirely in the 100-mile radius. Conservatives talk about liberty and rule of law a lot, but what they're doing is giving police virtually unfettered power over much of the country. At th

I've suggested before that Trumpist immigration enforcement might be an act of injustice far worse than the offense of illegal immigration. We have two more examples this week of why it might be so. First, we have the story of Jorge Garcia , a Detroit man being deported after 30 years in the United States. He was brought to the United States when he was 10; his deportation separates him from his wife and two children, all of them U.S. citizens. Please, read his story.  Second, we have this atrocity: US border patrol agents are routinely sabotaging water supplies left for migrants in the Arizona desert, condemning them to death, humanitarian groups have said. Travellers attempting to cross into the US from Mexico regularly die of dehydration, as well as exposure to extreme heat or cold, so aid groups leave water bottles and emergency stocks such as blankets at points throughout the Sonoran desert. A video released by the groups showed border patrol agents kicking over wat

I've made little secret of my disdain for the Trump-loving website American Greatness . Part of this, I guess, is personal: I know a couple of the people who run the site and, until about a year ago, thought that though they were conservative, they'd still avoid Trumpian nonsense. That was wrong. I'm still working that out. But it's also the case that I think 99 percent of what happens at AmGreatness is mean-spirited and unreflective, so sure of itself and its own rightness, yet small in soul and generosity. "Greatness" seems to be defined almost as its inverse. I'm not a conservative, but I don't think that has to define conservatism or my friends. Yet, for the moment, it does. One other problem: The central conceit of American Greatness, to my mind, is that "saving America" means an end to politics. Progressives are always plotting to destroy the country — as are NeverTrump conservatives and Mitch McConnell, apparently. And in a way, this

Jesse Singal at NYMag says the murder rate is going up, for whites and blacks, for different reasons. And the researcher he talks to endorses a "Ferguson effect," but different from how it's usually defined. There's a crisis of police legitimacy that is enabling the bad guys. The Ferguson effect is a thoroughly politicized concept at this point, because it contains an implicit rebuke of the protests that exploded in the wakes of the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, and other young black boys and men who have been unjustly killed by police. The thinking goes that all those angry, loud protesters are making it harder for police to do their jobs.  But there’s another way of looking at this: It could be the case that yes, deteriorating relationships between communities and the police are helping drive the increased homicide rate, but that things go in the other direction. That is, some communities have come to view the police with such p