Dear Reader (including some of my snowflakier colleagues who are triggered by self-indulgent wordplay), I’m having a minor crisis. I have an indefensible fondness for double entendre, and this causes dismay among some of my Dispatch colleagues. As Anthony Weiner no doubt said to Huma in a very different context, I’m not proud of it and I try to keep it in check, but sometimes I just can’t help myself; it’s like it has a mind of its own. On some occasions, however, it’s as if the news is trying to entrap me. When I was just starting out as a blogger, the House of Representatives launched an...…Dear Reader (including some of my snowflakier colleagues who are triggered by self-indulgent wordplay), I’m having a minor crisis. I have an indefensible fondness for double entendre, and this causes dismay among some of my Dispatch colleagues. As Anthony Weiner no doubt said to Huma in a very different context, I’m not proud of it and I try to keep it in check, but sometimes I just can’t help myself; it’s like it has a mind of its own. On some occasions, however, it’s as if the news is trying to entrap me. When I was just starting out as a blogger, the House of Representatives launched an...WW…

During the filming of the 1939 movie “Jesse James,” a stuntman and his horse went over a cliff and fell 70 feet into a river. The stuntman was fine; the horse died. This incident is what gave rise to that line at the end of many movies: “No animals were harmed in the making of this film.” The American Humane Association, which trademarked that saying, worked out a deal with the Screen Actors Guild and the precursor to the Motion Picture Association of America in which filmmakers would vouch that animals were well treated in movies.Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) thinks this might be a good...…During the filming of the 1939 movie “Jesse James,” a stuntman and his horse went over a cliff and fell 70 feet into a river. The stuntman was fine; the horse died. This incident is what gave rise to that line at the end of many movies: “No animals were harmed in the making of this film.” The American Humane Association, which trademarked that saying, worked out a deal with the Screen Actors Guild and the precursor to the Motion Picture Association of America in which filmmakers would vouch that animals were well treated in movies.Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) thinks this might be a good...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement There is no Trumpism, only Trump.One of the most vexing things for both fans and foes of President Trump is that he has a gift for being neither the hero nor the villain people like to cast him as. In 2016, when Trump refused to answer a question about whether he would accept an election defeat, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said, “The words that you heard from Donald Trump are what you’d expect from a Third World dictator, what you’d expect from a military leader about to attempt a coup in a foreign country, not from an American...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement There is no Trumpism, only Trump.One of the most vexing things for both fans and foes of President Trump is that he has a gift for being neither the hero nor the villain people like to cast him as. In 2016, when Trump refused to answer a question about whether he would accept an election defeat, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said, “The words that you heard from Donald Trump are what you’d expect from a Third World dictator, what you’d expect from a military leader about to attempt a coup in a foreign country, not from an American...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement After the Senate passed the $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan,” President Biden . This measure came “not a moment too soon” . “For over a year, the American people were told they were on their own.”This is the kind of thing presidents say when partisanship defines reality.One of the hallmarks of hyper partisanship is to live entirely in the moment. The nearest weapon to hand is fair game. Precedents only matter as a way to show the other side is hypocritical for violating them. The past itself is a foreign country with no binding...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement After the Senate passed the $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan,” President Biden . This measure came “not a moment too soon” . “For over a year, the American people were told they were on their own.”This is the kind of thing presidents say when partisanship defines reality.One of the hallmarks of hyper partisanship is to live entirely in the moment. The nearest weapon to hand is fair game. Precedents only matter as a way to show the other side is hypocritical for violating them. The past itself is a foreign country with no binding...WW…

Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission.In our increasingly secular age, being on the side of science is similar to being on the side of God — a way to settle an argument by not actually making an argument. Just enlist an unassailable authority and move on.That’s how Joe Biden campaigned for president, vowing to “follow the science” on the COVID-19 pandemic wherever it led him. Only now it seems like he’s leading the science as much as the science is leading him. And that was inevitable.First, as with God, it’s sometimes difficult to know what science says. This isn’t meant...…Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission.In our increasingly secular age, being on the side of science is similar to being on the side of God — a way to settle an argument by not actually making an argument. Just enlist an unassailable authority and move on.That’s how Joe Biden campaigned for president, vowing to “follow the science” on the COVID-19 pandemic wherever it led him. Only now it seems like he’s leading the science as much as the science is leading him. And that was inevitable.First, as with God, it’s sometimes difficult to know what science says. This isn’t meant...WW…

By | A lot of stupid things are said about history.For example, there is no “right side” of history, if by that you mean events are destined to play out in some sort of preordained way.But there is such a thing as being on the stupid side of history — and there’s a mad rush to be on it.President Trump’s lawyers failed to convince a single judge, Trump-appointed or otherwise, that there was systemic fraud in the 2020 election, never mind sufficiently outrageous fraud to warrant literally disenfranchising millions of voters. So Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, sued Vice President Mike Pence to...…By | A lot of stupid things are said about history.For example, there is no “right side” of history, if by that you mean events are destined to play out in some sort of preordained way.But there is such a thing as being on the stupid side of history — and there’s a mad rush to be on it.President Trump’s lawyers failed to convince a single judge, Trump-appointed or otherwise, that there was systemic fraud in the 2020 election, never mind sufficiently outrageous fraud to warrant literally disenfranchising millions of voters. So Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, sued Vice President Mike Pence to...WW…

Throughout President Trump’s capture of the GOP, many Republicans have held fast to the hope that after he leaves office, the party can return to the sunny Reaganism of the ­Before Times. Of course, Trump’s bitter-enders have made it clear that they’d be happy to tear down not just the party, but the country itself to avoid having to .It might have seemed as if we hit rock bottom this month, when the Texas attorney general sued the swing states that decided the election for Joe Biden, demanding to have tens of millions of legal votes erased and the election effectively handed to Trump. More...…Throughout President Trump’s capture of the GOP, many Republicans have held fast to the hope that after he leaves office, the party can return to the sunny Reaganism of the ­Before Times. Of course, Trump’s bitter-enders have made it clear that they’d be happy to tear down not just the party, but the country itself to avoid having to .It might have seemed as if we hit rock bottom this month, when the Texas attorney general sued the swing states that decided the election for Joe Biden, demanding to have tens of millions of legal votes erased and the election effectively handed to Trump. More...WW…

Behold science, the sword and the shield of progressivism.Over the course of the pandemic (and before that, , stem cells, etc.), liberals have insisted that we must listen to science and heed the scientists. It was a cornerstone of President-elect Joe Biden’s campaign and a constant refrain of President Trump’s critics. Taken literally, I endorse the phrase “listen to science” wholeheartedly. Scientists have important things to say to policymakers and citizens alike — and let’s not forget that in a democracy, voters are policymakers, too. A well-informed electorate is a useful check on...…Behold science, the sword and the shield of progressivism.Over the course of the pandemic (and before that, , stem cells, etc.), liberals have insisted that we must listen to science and heed the scientists. It was a cornerstone of President-elect Joe Biden’s campaign and a constant refrain of President Trump’s critics. Taken literally, I endorse the phrase “listen to science” wholeheartedly. Scientists have important things to say to policymakers and citizens alike — and let’s not forget that in a democracy, voters are policymakers, too. A well-informed electorate is a useful check on...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement I’ll confess: There was a time when I would have considered the question facing Republicans a no-brainer. Of course they should seize this opportunity to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a conservative. Moving the courts — especially the Supreme Court — rightward has been a conservative lodestar for generations. It remains one of the last tenets of pre-Trump conservatism that still largely unites the right.In fairness, the conservatives who take these matters seriously would say the issue isn’t so much moving the courts “rightward”...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement I’ll confess: There was a time when I would have considered the question facing Republicans a no-brainer. Of course they should seize this opportunity to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a conservative. Moving the courts — especially the Supreme Court — rightward has been a conservative lodestar for generations. It remains one of the last tenets of pre-Trump conservatism that still largely unites the right.In fairness, the conservatives who take these matters seriously would say the issue isn’t so much moving the courts “rightward”...WW…