Lindsay Beyerstein

My latest for MSNOW, why Mitch McConnell is doing Democrats a favor by refusing to retire when he's too sick to vote:

Kirk wanted to denaturalize his political opponents. He bussed insurrectionists to the Capital on J6. He attacked our democracy with election conspiracy theories. He urged his millions of listeners to bail Paul Pelsosi's attacker out of jail.

The Charlie Kirk hagiography shows our society's empty worship of form. He held debates, so he was a free speech hero. Never mind that these were rigged events where he'd tempt unwary college kids to spar with him and then humiliate them with cheap rhetorical tricks and put the footage online.

Kirk was working in the same tradition as evangelical preachers like William Bell Riley in the 1930s. They were professional anti-evolution debaters who would use cheap tricks to humiliate unwary biology professors who showed up to debate them in front of stacked audiences.

The new White House Secretary implied that she passed the bar exam in China, but according to this, foreigners cannot be barred Chinese attorneys.

What a terrible loss! Condolences to her friends, family, and colleagues. Helen was brilliant.

This is to the Pentagon what civil forfeiture is to police departments. An engine of corruption.