Paul Waldman

@paulwaldman.bsky.social

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Columnist for MSNBC and Heatmap.news. Formerly: Washington Post, The Week, American Prospect. Co-host of the Boundary Issues podcast. Subscribe to The Cross Section: paulwaldman.substack.com

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I came to my 14 year old with a concern about social media. He literally took his glasses off, rubbed his temples, and asked: “what have the moms on the internet said now?” 😯🫤😆

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"Like the Jim Crow-era decisions, the immunity ruling ignores both the plain text of the Constitution and the historical evidence...to embolden those who believe that might makes right." My latest, on Trump v. U.S and the Reconstruction amendments, for MSNBC: www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Opinion | The Supreme Court’s immunity ruling has a chilling parallel to the Jim Crow erawww.msnbc.com The spirit and reasoning of the majority in Trump v. U.S. evokes the worst of post-Civil War jurisprudence.

Your miserable fact of the day: The last time a Democratic president got to fill the seat of a departing conservative Supreme Court justice was in 1962. (it was Byron White)

Here's a piece I wrote two years ago today, on why we need to declare our independence from the Founding Fathers.

Opinion | This July 4, let’s declare our independence from the Founding Fatherswww.washingtonpost.com Founding Father Fetishism is toxic, and it's keeping us from building the future we need.

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"boldly to the right" "nature of politics"

My latest at @heatmap.news , on how aggressive climate action is now woven into the Democratic agenda at all levels. For instance, all the Dem governors mentioned as successors - Whitmer, Newsom, Pritzker, Shapiro - are moving strongly on climate (though Shapiro a little less so).

Does Biden Himself Matter for Climate Policy?heatmap.news Whether he steps aside or not, there’ll be a climate Democrat on the ticket.

We keep talking about Trump ordering Seal Team 6 to kill his rivals. I don't that's how it'll work - too much chain of command involved. He'd rather assemble a small team of loyal military operatives assigned to the White House, who answer only to him, to take such orders. Basically a death squad.

Remember how Trump said "I have an Article II where I have a right to do whatever I want as president" and every legal scholar said "No you moron, that's not what it says," but now the Supreme Court said "Actually, wouldn't it be cool if he did? Let's do that."

So revealing that the Supreme Court decided that presidents are free to commit crimes on behalf of the president more likely to commit crimes than any other president ever.

One of the cool things about this new Supreme Court ruling is that since you take bribes in exchange for "official acts" pretty much by definition, the president is now free to take bribes! I wonder if that's something Donald Trump might take advantage of.

Pretty clear that the Federalist Society project to take over the courts for the far right is the most successful and consequential political effort in history. Only took them a few decades. Meanwhile, Dems are like "Let's not be hasty, blue slips serve an important function in preserving comity."

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The far-right National Rally leader is unconditionally opposed by French Jewish groups for her party's historic antisemitism. Israel's diaspora affairs minister, however, is 'impressed' by her positions, adding that Netanyahu is seemingly 'of the same opinion' www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

Diaspora affairs minister Chikli says Le Pen as French president 'excellent for Israel'www.haaretz.com ***

We’re all sorting through our feelings about Joe Biden right now. I’m as uncertain as anyone. This might help.

15 Points and a Question About Joe Bidenpaulwaldman.substack.com Struggling to sort out your feelings about the president? So am I.

I am interested in learning what was going on in these prep sessions. Like, was he just hitting it out of the park, and this came as a complete surprise to his team? Or did they see it coming?

“They were asking why Mr. Klain, the former White House chief of staff who ran the preparations, would in their view allow him to be overloaded with statistics…”

Maybe my favorite Trump moment from the debate. Why won't Biden acknowledge the heroism of The Certain Dog? Does The Certain Dog mean nothing to these libs???

This is one of the most consequential Supreme Court decisions in history and 95 percent of Americans will never understand it, they'll just know government can't solve problems and everything will get worse. Which of course will lead to more votes for, yes, Republicans.

Nobody is prepared for this jolt to the legal system. The Supreme Court has shifted an unfathomable amount of power from Congress and the executive brach toward unelected, unaccountable federal judges. This will fundamentally alter how government works. slate.com/news-and-pol...

Thinking about how Trump said about Biden, "He's become like a Palestinian" with disgust in his voice. Good reminder that he's just an unadorned, crude racist of the kind you don't see much in public life these days.

My debate response for @heatmap.news : There was actually a question about climate change! And what ensued was...well...it could have been worse, I guess. But not by much.

Why Our ‘Only Existential Threat’ Got Shortchanged at the Debateheatmap.news If you want to know why voters don’t consider climate change a priority, just look at how it was treated.

When Trump said "I didn't have sex with a porn star" he meant that Stormy Daniels' filmography makes her more of a porn character actor than a true "star" so that's why he wasn't lying, now shut up libs

Still rolling around in my head Trump's response to a climate question by saying that when he was president, "We had H2O"

Excellent piece from Sarah Jones on how J.D. Vance didn't really change; he's always been full of shit

Hillbilly Shapeshifternymag.com Re-reading J.D. Vance’s memoir.

Just have to say this... TELEVISED DEBATES SHOW US ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT WHICH CANDIDATE WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT

With the Olympics starting soon, it's time to start considering casting choices for a reboot of... GYMKATA!!!

Gymkata (Theatrical Trailer)youtu.be Race through swamps. Climb a burning rope. Dangle above raging rapids. Brave fierce hand-to-hand smackdowns. And always be wary of the hurled spears and plunging blades of attacking ninjas. Survive the unsurvivable: It's part of The Game. Gymnastics champion Kurt Thomas portrays Jonathan Cabot, and American who travels to remote Parmistan to take part in a deadly competition that hasn't been won by an outside in 900 years. Robert Clouse (Enter the Dragon) directs, combining martial arts with Thomas' athletic talents, including a sequence where the gymnast uses a pommel-horse routine to pummel a berserk horde. Does Cabot escape the perils of The Game? Find out in the escapist adventure that's "Gymkata". MPAA Rated R for non-stop strong martial arts violence, bloody images, and brief nudity. Produced & released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, an MGM Holdings company. Distributed for the Turner Entertainment library by Warner Bros. Pictures, an TimeWarner company.

The Supreme Court, $13,000 “gratuities,” and the right-wing project to seize control of the nation’s institutions for their own corrupt ends.

Corruption Is a Feature, Not a Bugopen.substack.com If you're itching to seize control of institutions for your own corrupt purposes, it's better if people don't trust them anymore.

Not long ago a guy came up to me at a book event where this issue didn't even come up and pulled up the quote on his phone to harangue me about how Trump had been unfairly accused of being pro-Nazi. Dude was ready to throw down over it.

Right-wingers have been trying to rewrite the truth of Trump's 2017 "very fine people remarks", oftentimes blaming a lAcK oF cOnTeXt from the left. So I decided to solve that problem. Here's a half-hour video that goes through Trump's *entire* press conference... for context: youtu.be/0-684oJSbus

A Comprehensive Guide To Trump's "Very Fine People" Remarksyoutu.be now you've got a quick link any time someone complains about cOnTeXt TikTok // tiktok.com/@katmabu Instagram // instagram.com/kabughazaleh Twitter // twitter.com/abughazalehkat Threads // threads.net/@kabughazaleh Bluesky // katmabu.bsky.social

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Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters issued this memo today requiring teachers in all schools to keep a Bible in their classroom and teach from it as a historical document. (Via KOCO 5 News)

They should remake "Heathers" but set in a retirement community. They're basically high school already, and there are so many conflicts that are just a couple steps away from turning murderous

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oh my god there's a chinese knockoff of the cybertruck and somehow the cybertruck looks like a cheap knockoff of it www.carscoops.com/2024/05/dong...

In light of the Supreme Court's latest "Corruption is cool, actually" ruling, here's a piece I wrote a year ago on their long quest to make it so unless a public official signs a notarized document saying "I am committing bribery by taking this bribe" then it doesn't count

Opinion | Welcome to the Supreme Court, where corruption has no meaningwww.washingtonpost.com How the court's distorted worldview has undermined the institutions of our democracy.

Trying to think of an issue that was 1) really important to Republican voters, 2) a Republican president made huge progress on it, and 3) those voters had no idea anything had happened. Can't come up with anything.

Biden’s Record Is Full of Climate Wins — So Why Don’t Voters Know It?www.notus.org Environmental groups are making a concerted effort to educate voters about President Joe Biden’s climate policies ahead of the election.