Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

This really is a full service blog.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We still have time to mess this up!

Republicans do not trust women.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

You are here: Home / Peak Halperin?

Reader Interactions

104Comments

  6. 6.

    Uncle Cosmo

    He’s strong alrighty–that’s why the press corpse tries to stay upwind of him…

  7. 7.

    Iowa Old Lady

    Donald Trump makes me laugh on a daily basis. For that alone, I treasure him.

  10. 10.

    Archon

    Sports commentators and sports analysts are held to a higher standard of professionalism then political journalists in America.

    At the very least sports people have to explain for example why they thought the Cleveland Cavaliers would beat the Warriors. When is the last time someone in politics or the media was called into account for being wrong?

  13. 13.

    Tree With Water

    In a nutshell- accent on “nut”- permit me to present today’s republican party in the words of a typical rank and file member in good standing (courtesy of Bill Curry at Salon.com):

    “..For sheer oddball color, no one beat Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler, who summed things up in these lovely words: “To remove the [Confederate] flag… and thinking it would change history would be like removing a tattoo from the corpse of a loved one and thinking it would change a loved one’s obituary.”

  16. 16.

    KG

    @Archon: two things… first, sports are obviously more important than politics. second, the careers of Colin Cowherd and Skip Bayless suggest that sports analysts aren’t held to that high of a standard.

    ETA: as for your example, those supporting Cleveland just yelled LEBRON JAMES! over and over again, which isn’t much different than a lot of what passes for political analysis.

  17. 17.

    Shakezula

    There are people who work dangerous, backbreaking jobs seven days a week and they still can’t pay for necessities. Meanwhile, this dickhead gets paid an obscene amount of money to let crap like that fall out of the hole underneath his nose.

    What a world.

    In other GOP news, am I the only one who thinks ScWalker’s campaign logo looks like it was lifted from Tommy Hilfiger?

  20. 20.

    srv

    Trump is taking America like the French took Bastille.

    He may be our last chance to roll back fevered PC inanity that has overrun this once great nation.

  25. 25.

    jl

    @Shakezula:

    “…this dickhead gets paid an obscene amount of money to let crap like that fall out of the hole underneath his nose.”

    As different-church-lady helpfully pointed out above, you really cannot argue with his reasoning, can you?

  26. 26.

    Benw

    There’s really no Peak (or more accurately Nadir) Halperin: those that live by clickbait can always sink lower and more outrageous. Those throughs aren’t going to click themselves!

  27. 27.

    Tree With Water

    Great Minds Think Alike 2015. Bill Curry at Salon.com proposes, and I endorse: “If you fear the erosion of the right to privacy or the rule of law, you might think it time to remove J. Edgar Hoover’s name from the FBI headquarters in Washington”. I’ve thought that a splendid idea for quite a while. It’s nice to see in print.

  29. 29.

    Hungry Joe

    Trump just doesn’t go away. SPY magazine was calling him a “short-fingered vulgarian” in 1990; who could have imagined he’d still be trumpeting horseshit and bloviating around the land a quarter of a century later?

    He can’t get the nomination … can he? I honestly don’t know anymore. The only scenario I can come up with that doesn’t seem surreal is Jeb! as the nominee. And I think he’s the only one who has any kind of a chance. My call right now (though it changes with each spin of the Earth) is Jeb!/Walker.

  30. 30.

    dedc79

    Let’s play this out. Trump shoots at Halperin with a handgun:
    1) If he misses, Halperin praises Trump for sparing his life.
    2) If he hits hit him, Halperin spends final, dying breaths praising Trump for his marksmanship and decisiveness.

  32. 32.

    feebog

    “Trump is strong, that’s part of his strength”

    Plus, he has very plump lips.

  33. 33.

    Renie

    Is Trump still getting death threats from Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman? I find it hysterical that Trump’s big mouth started it.

  35. 35.

    Omnes Omnibus

    That Halperin quote rivals Seal’s It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over in analytical depth.

  38. 38.

    Schlemazel

    @p.a.:
    No,
    IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
    WAR IS PEACE
    FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

    Trump may have more “strength” than any other GOP candidte & that is saying something in a field filled with really “strong” characters.

  41. 41.

    BGinCHI

    @Hungry Joe: Another WI VP who comes in second place at being second place? Didn’t the WI men’s basketball team come in second?

    And Omnes Omnibus came in second in that Mr. America pageant.

    Seeing a trend here.

  43. 43.

    SatanicPanic

    @Renie: While Trump’s words were offensive to milions of Mexicans and right-thinking people around the world… maybe El Chapo, an actual Mexican criminal, ought to sit this one out?

  44. 44.

    Roger Moore

    @Archon:

    Sports commentators and sports analysts are held to a higher standard of professionalism then political journalists in America.

    That’s a pretty low bar, but the political journalists still manage to wriggle under it. At least people are willing to complain about sports commentators being a bunch of homers, while political commentators mostly pretend to be impartial and get prickly when people point out their biases.

  48. 48.

    KG

    @Waldo: like War Games? or like a late Hogan/Flair match where they’d cut so many times that they could bleed if they just thought hard enough? I’m not saying I’d be opposed to either scenario, I’m just looking for a comparison point.

  50. 50.

    Hungry Joe

    Trump, remember, is militaristic. In Arizona he told us he was the most militaristic person in the room — a room with a lot people in it, some of whom were surely pretty militaristic. Which makes Trump very militaristic indeed. So if I were El Chapo I would be fretting about having offended someone so militaristic. Because, you know — militaristic. Or something. How did we get here? This is not my beautiful house …

  51. 51.

    Patrick

    Mark Halperin just now: “Trump is strong, that’s part of his strength”

    …which must be good news for John McCain…

  52. 52.

    jl

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    ‘ That Halperin quote rivals Seal’s It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over in analytical depth. ”

    That Halprin quote is deja vu all over again.

  57. 57.

    zmulls

    I have no idea how this GOP process is going to play out. I wouldn’t assume that Jeb! goes the distance.

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen a race with this many marquee candidates (Governors and ex-Governors who at least used to be spoken of seriously for the job).

    And we have to remember who is going to be doing to voting during the primaries — the same people who showed up in an off-year election to re-elect Walker, LePage, Rick Scott and more.

    I can easily write off Fiorina and Carson, but there is going to be a very entertaining winnowing season.

  58. 58.

    Botsplainer

    @Renie:

    I just want El Chapo to hold off on his righteous vengeance for the disrespect until AFTER Trump wins the nomination and loses the general. Only then will the broken, lifeless and bloody body of The Donald bring me glee beyond imagining, primarily as a lesson to the other billionaire blowhards.

  60. 60.

    Tenar Darell

    Where did journamalism go so terribly wrong, that it no longer can present even a facsimile of the facts? Halperin just presents low quality bafflegab now, pathetic.

    But seriously, he’s one in a long lineage of cretins who have traded access for reporting. He is, after all, a journamalist who had access to the McCain campaign that foisted Sarah Palin on us all. If that wasn’t the story to break all agreements for the sake of the real story, then Trump, who is widely known, will not cause Halperin to break character. He deserves all the mockery he gets.

  62. 62.

    gratuitous

    We had eight years of strong and lethally wrong. I’m not anxious for a reprise.

  63. 63.

    Renie

    Did anyone hear about Trump using images of Nazi soldiers in a campaign photo tweet? MotherJones has the story.

  64. 64.

    SatanicPanic

    @Baud: “Who you calling criminals!?!” sounds better coming from someone who isn’t a verified criminal. maybe that’s just me

  67. 67.

    Turgidson

    @dedc79:

    If we’re lucky, it would be one of those bullets like in Indiana Jones that cuts down multiple people. And, it just so happens, Ron “Severe Dementia” Fournier is standing right behind Halperin.

  72. 72.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Hungry Joe: How can you be militaristic if you’ve never served in the military? Yet no one calls him out on this false boast.

  74. 74.

    Just One More Canuck

    “Trump is strong, that’s part of his strength”

    Halperin is the Ralph Wiggum of punditry

  76. 76.

    Hungry Joe

    @Patricia Kayden: How can you suggest that Trump isn’t militaristic? He’s the most militaristic-est militaristic candidate ever, because of how militaristic he is, and all. And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile …

  77. 77.

    Turgidson

    @dedc79:

    Indiana Jones’ magic bullet took down three Nazis, so I don’t see why not. Lane is a good choice, as is BoBo, of course.

  78. 78.

    ThresherK

    @BGinCHI: who comes in second place at being second place

    Joe (Midnight Cab Ride) Lieberman was excoriated, rightly, for bragging that he finished in “a three-way tie for third place” in New Hampshire one year.

    How many R’s in the Clown Car would give their eye-teeth for a result like that?

  79. 79.

    trollhattan

    @Hungry Joe:
    “My military will be epic, and classy, and YOOGE! unlike the militaries of my weaker than weak opponents, who are losers. We have had a Pentagon for too long, and nobody respects things with five sides. I will make it an Octagon and challenge any nation in the world to a cage fight!” #TweetLikeTrump

  80. 80.

    beltane

    But my news headlines tell me that Lindsay Graham has rejected Donald Trump. Why does Sen. Graham dislike strong men?

  81. 81.

    Botsplainer

    Halperin looks like the guy in high school who cuts a greasy fart in the hall and picks on the retarded kid for doing it. He gets picked second to last for games but fancies himself a jock. When he plays dodgeball, he aims for the head of the smallest, weakest kid on the other team, and misses.

  87. 87.

    beltane

    @Baud: We live in a country where even Donald Trump’s large colon is guaranteed at least 40% of the vote. Even worse, Donald Trump’s colon would easily win a majority of white men.

  88. 88.

    gelfling545

    @Renie: If that actually was posted by Guzman (and tweeting when you’re on the run from a jailbreak doesn’t seem too bright) it appeared to me he only threatened to make Trump “eat his words”, using the informal register, of course.

  90. 90.

    jl

    @beltane:

    But is Donald Trump’s colon as boring and featureless as Uranus?
    Better check that out first before we make predictions.

  94. 94.

    EthylEster

    @zmulls:

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen a race with this many marquee candidates

    These are NOT marquee candidates.
    Please familiarize yourself with the meaning of the term.
    I suggest a substitution: “wannabe”.

  95. 95.

    schrodinger's cat

    Saw James Woolsey on the Snooze Hour this evening. He was muttering something about why we can’t trust Iran. Paraphrasing Woolsey, something something they can lie to infidels and that they are not like the Russians. Sounded really wingnutty.

  96. 96.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Tree With Water: I’ve always thought the name was darkly ironic, in a GenX (and X-Files) kind of way, but yeah. Not only does it need to go, it should have never been. What a message to send. So inappropriate.

  101. 101.

    NonyNony

    @beltane: I’m on record for 46% of the popular vote being the GOP floor. That’s John McCain picking Sarah Palin after the collosal fuckup second term of GWB.

    After 8 years of a Democrat in charge, even Trump could get that much. Unless he picks Sarah Palin or Josh Duggar for Veep.

  102. 102.

    maysonic

    @Archon: Paul Krugman is constantly being called out for being wrong [especially, of course, when he’s incontrovertibly right].

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