THURSDAY: This is no country for serious people!

THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2026

Tarlov among the chimps: How fraudulent is much of the "cable news" discourse afflicting this failing nation? 

Thanks to Willa Pope Robbins of Mediaite, we can steer you to the latest pitiful, sad example. 

Yesterday, we watched the program known as The Five—but Robbins got busy transcribing. Here's the start of her news report. Videotape is included:

Jessica Tarlov Speechless as Fox Colleagues Scream at Her On All Sides

Fox News host Jessica Tarlov was left speechless on Wednesday as her colleagues screamed at her on all sides, in a brutal shouting match over the morality of both political parties.

The conflict on The Five began with a comment from host Greg Gutfeld about liberals’ feelings toward supporters of President Donald Trump. When host Jesse Watters asked Tarlov if she had an explanation for the phenomenon, her response triggered sharp pushback from the hosts. 

As Watters, Gutfeld, and host Paul Mauro berated her across the table, Tarlov repeatedly looked into the camera, her mouth open in shock while her colleagues shouted.   

Watters and Gutfeld and Mauro oh my! So began the Robbins report. 

We'll offer a quick observation:  

Robbins felt that she was watching a "brutal shouting match." That assessment may be accurate.

That said, to our own despondent eye, there almost seemed to be a certain "staged" quality to the inanity we were watching. 

We've often mentioned the way the program's four pro-MAGA co-hosts interrupt and overtalk Tarlov when her rebuttals are perhaps a bit too persuasive. We've also said, within the past few weeks, that we thought we'd spotted some new stage managing, with Tarlov perhaps having been instructed to start fighting back against her rude tormentors.   

For us, yesterday's shouting match almost extended that vibe. That said, the sheer stupidity of this, our most-watched "cable news" program, was put on especially vivid display right as the nonsense started.  

Robbins offers a transcript which is almost complete. In our view, the sheer stupidity brought on the set each day by Greg Gutfeld each day is rather hard as Robbins' transcript starts:  

WATTERS (5/6/26): Do you have a theory about why liberals care so much that other people like Trump?

TARLOV: Because he’s like a completely morally bankrupt person that’s imposing all of these–

GUTFELD: But why should you care that I like him? Why should you care?   

Watters had asked a somewhat puzzling question; Tarlov answered it anyway. 

President Trump is a "morally bankrupt person," she said.  This caused Gutfeld to wonder why Tarlov should care if he likes him!

For the record, there was no sign at that point that Tarlov actually does "care" about the fact that Gutfeld "likes" President Trump—or is at least prepared to pretend that he does when appearing on cable TV.

Patiently, Tarlov answered his weird question too. Just like that, it was Tarlov among the chimps!

Robbins transcribed the nonsense which followed from there. As you can see on the videotape, there was a lot of mugging for the cameras. It seemed to us that this exercise in sheer inanity exuded a certain "stage-managed" feel.

Question:

Have producers of our most-watched "cable news" show seen something on the gruesome CNN Newsnight with Abby Phillip from which they've decided to borrow?

We don't know! But at any rate this:

Trump is morally bankrupt, she said. Mugging for his $9 million, Gutfeld didn't quite seem to get why a citizen would care about that! 

(Red Corporate churns this inanity out. Blue Corporate agrees not to notice.)

To watch this segment from start to finish: To watch this segment from start to finish, you can just click here.

HITLERESQUE? Dr. Gutfeld analyzed the assailant!

THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2026

So did Dr. Maher: In yesterday's report, we showed you what the messenger children were saying on last Wednesday's edition of The Five. 

Hitler Hitler Hitler, the well-schooled children said. They were explaining the way the lunatic left—and the mainstream media—had triggered the latest attempt on the president's life.

On Monday, April 27, it had been the same darn thing. 

Fewer than 48 hours had passed since Cole Allen had made his hapless attempt at an assassination attempt—but messaging within MAGA World had changed on a dime.  

The Strait of Hormuz was still closed. The price of gas continued to rise. But all of a sudden, the obedient children of MAGA World had new agitprop to pass on.

Already, as early as Monsay, the obedient children were riding the Hitler train. As the first half hour of that' day's messaging ended, Kennedy—the former VJ with no clothes on—was still saying this: 

KENNEDY (5/27/26): The media has to get off the addictive syringe of the conspiracy theories and "Trump is bad, Trump is evil, Trump is Hitler, he's a fascist."

It was all the media's fault. The media had triggered Allen by saying that Trump = Hitler!   

So the new messaging went. Even after half an hour of messaging, she was still playing the card! 

Earlier, the most obvious nutcase of them all had taken a deeper approach. All of a sudden, The Doctor was IN.

He went inside Allen's head:   

DR. GUTFELD: This guy was not a crank. He's not deranged. Don't buy into that narrative, because it lets these pompous asses off. 

He didn't do this because, as Jesse said—

 He didn't have voices in his head. He was just following orders. He was operating on a filter that said Trump was Hitler and it would be immoral if you didn't take Hitler out.  

So his filter is actually making him logical. He's the sanest one in the group, because he took them at their word. When MS NOW says Trump is Hitler, he's the sensible one. He went out—went after Hitler.

Right there on Monday's edition of The Five, The Doctor was very much IN. 

Allen isn't mentally ill, we viewers were authoritatively told. He was simply "following orders" from the (unnamed) people at MS NOW who were saying that Trump = Hitler!

So the doctor said. Earlier, the program's resident sociologist had offered his analysis of what Allen's attempt had shown.

First, he prefigured The Doctor's analysis. After that, he told all:  

PROFESSOR WATTERS: What makes it so dangerous is these assassins are smarter. These aren't like low-IQ lunatics. If you look at the people that have targeted the president and other Republicans, it's not like they're hearing voices and are disassociated from reality. These are well-educated people who are politically involved, 

[...]

The Democratic Party has become a violent revolutionary movement...Trump keeps kicking their butt, and they can't do anything about it. He's pursuing an ambitious America First agenda. So because they're powerless, what they're doing is inspiring their base to violently overthrow the government. And they're angrier, more than ever, because Trump responded [on Saturday night] with class. 

A slight distinction could be drawn between the views of the two academics:

According to the sociologist, the violent revolutionary Democratic Party has been trying to inspire people like Allen to undertake attempts on the president's life. 

But according to the psychiatrist, it was MS NOW which was really to blame. Unnamed people at MS NOW had been saying that Trump = Hitler. Allen had responded to that in a logical way! 

So the new messaging went. Two days later, the messenger children played the Hitler card all over again.

The Hitler card was repeatedly played on each of these heavily watched "cable news" programs. But as we noted in yesterday's report, these messengers never produced a single example of anyone within "the media" or at MS NOW saying that Trump = Hitler.   

They played the card again and again—but they offered zero examples!  At this point, a quick aside:  

On Wednesday's edition of The Five, Emily Compagno seemed to say that "a lot of journalists use words like Kristallnacht in discussing Trump." She said that "a lot of journalists" had "likened his campaign rally here at MSG to a Nazi rally and Hitleresque" (see yesterday's report).   

Were such things ever true of "a lot of journalists?"  Our general impression would be no—but Compagno was going all the way back to 2024 to cite the way some observers had responded to Candidate Trump's high-profile campaign rally at Madison Square Garden. 

Had Allen been triggered by two-year-old comments?  (Is it even possible that his triggering had started with his own private reaction to events which occurred two years back?)

Like the children on the TV show, we don't have the slightest idea what set Allen's conduct in motion. In full fairness, we will mention this:

Amazingly enough, Maureen Dowd had actually used the word "Hitleresque," though only on one occasion. This (one) journalist had actually used that word (one time), in exactly one column, in the New York Times.

The column appeared a bit more than two years ago, on April 6, 2024. Here's part of what Dowd said:  

Donald Trump’s Insatiable Bloodlust

[...]

My Irish immigrant father lived through the cruel “No Irish need apply” era. I’m distraught that our mosaic may shatter.

But Trump embraces Hitleresque phrases to stir racial hatred. He has talked about immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country.” Last month he called migrants “animals,” saying, “I don’t know if you call them ‘people,’ in some cases. They’re not people, in my opinion.”

Trump’s obsession with bloodlines was instilled by his father, the son of a German immigrant. He thinks there is good blood and bad blood, superior blood and inferior blood. Fred Trump taught his son that their family’s success was genetic, reminiscent of Hitler’s creepy faith in eugenics.

So (one) journalist had said, on that (one) occasion, a bit more than two years ago. 

In all honesty, "a lot of journalists" haven't been using the word Hitleresque at any point in this profoundly unfortunate process. Nor is there any particular reason to think that any of that had actually triggered Cole Allen.   

For ourselves, we'd advise commentators to stay away from words like "Hitler," even from "Hitleresque." But in all honesty, it's been a long time since we saw mainstream journalists citing the monstrous Adolf Hitler in this particular context.

On the other hand, we see various children citing Hitler again and again on Fox News Channel programs. Last week, playing that card seemed to be part of the messaging strategy the obedient children had apparently received from their horrible corporate handlers.

First on Monday, then on Wednesday, the children played the Hitler card on The Five. Astonishing accusations were lodged—but who had actually been saying that Trump = Hitler?

Zero examples were ever given. In this way, the game is now played.

As we leave you for today, we return to what The Doctor said last Monday. Based on decades of study and clinical experience, Dr. Gutfeld had been happy to take us inside Cole Allen's head.

Allen had simply been taking orders, this strangest child now said. There was nothing psychiatrically wrong with him, the medical giant insisted. 

(Professor Watters had said the same thing.)

Saturday night, watching the Real Time re-broadcast on CNN, the analysts suddenly screamed. What have they done with the real Bill Maher, the disconsolate youngsters now said.

Tomorrow: Dr. Gutfeld's medical partner was IN

WEDNESDAY: Violent Gen Z shocks the world!

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2026

Harvard's fuzzy questions: These members of Gen Z today! 

To what extent, do such youth condone "political violence?" A Harvard entity, the Harvard Youth Poll, decided to try to find out. 

True to their nature, they conducted a survey—and the survey has attracted a fair amount of attention.

In our view, the strength of this survey's findings is perhaps a bit overrated. Before we tell you why, here's the organization's official report about that part of their sweeping survey: 

Harvard Youth Poll  

[...] 

A strong majority of young Americans reject political violence—but some see it is acceptable under certain circumstances.

Across the measures we tested, most young people do not endorse political violence. But a substantial minority tell us that they are willing to justify it in certain, situational contexts—and those attitudes reflect emotional and economic strain far more than political identity.

Sixty-one percent (61%) fall into the “no violence” category of our index, while 29% show some acceptance (1–2 items) and 10% show high acceptance (3–5 items). 

In total, 39% of young Americans say political violence is acceptable under at least one circumstance. The item-level data show where this openness comes from:

28% say political violence is acceptable when the government violates individual rights.

12% say it is acceptable when election outcomes are fraudulent.

11% say it is acceptable when someone promotes extremist beliefs.

11% say it is acceptable when someone else encourages violence.

10% say it is acceptable when peaceful protests fail to accomplish their goals. 

Respondents were asked about five different types of circumstances. The numbers are there for you to review.

So says the official report. On last week's Real Time with Bill Maher, Gillian Tett was suitably upset by the youngsters' answers:  

TETT (5/1/26): If you look at opinion polls, it's scary how much a proportion of Gen Z are now saying that they support some form of political violence to express, you know, their opposition. And that's got to change. I mean, that is simply not, as Bret [Stephens] says, the way to build a democracy.

 Maybe—but also maybe not! In our view, here's the problem:  

Some survey questions are quite straightforward. Everyone knows what's being asked, and everyone knows what's being said when a respondent answers. An example would be this:   

Who are you going to vote for—Candidate Trump or Candidate Harris?   

The question is completely straightforward. Respondents know what they're being asked.  Pollsters know what's being said when the question gets answered.

That isn't the case with the set of questions which were asked about "political violence"—with this question, for instance:  

The past year has seen an increase in political violence in America. Do you think political violence would be acceptable in America today when the government violates individual rights?

With a tiny bit of editing, that's the way the question was asked in the Harvard Youth Survey—and 28% of respondents answered in the affirmative!  

For some observers, that percentage seems to be shockingly high. But what kind of "political violence" were those respondents endorsing? Also, what type of violation of individual rights did those respondents have in mind? 

As posed, the question was strikingly fuzzy. There's no way to know what kind of "political violence" was being endorsed, in what type of circumstance.  

For ourselves, we'd be reluctant to answer a survey question of that type. The question is so vague as to be virtually meaningless. If someone asked you that question in everyday chatter, you'd ask him to be more specific

A final point:

In reactions to this survey, observers like Tett have often taken the standard "shocked, shocked" approach. They almost seem appalled to think that any political violence would ever be acceptable to these kids today.  

We're no fan of political violence, even in a democracy as imperfect as our own. But we can think of some famous Americans who may have been a bit less fastidious: 

George Washington would be one such person. Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry might be two others.  

The questions were extremely vague. The answers are hard to interpret.

THE HITLER CARD: Watters played the Hitler card!

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2026

So did Compagno and Gutfeld: Friend, we'll start today with a question:

Is the era of rational discourse over?  

As we noted in Monday's report, that's the claim which sits atop a recent essay by Adam Kirsch. Indeed, the dual headline in The Atlantic is still making that allegation:

 IDEAS
The Era of Rational Discourse Is Over
For Jürgen Habermas, who died in March, the essence of democracy was thoughtful back-and-forth argument. 

Thoughtful back-and-forth discourse? In all honesty, we don't know why Kirsch seems to think that any such era ever existed. But it has long been abundantly clear:

No such discourse exists today. The era in question is over.

No such discourse exists today? Just consider what we saw when we watched last Wednesday's edition of the Fox News Channal ratings blockbuster, The Five. While you're at it, please note the way that program's insane imitation of discourse foreshadowed the inexcusable effort by Stephens and Tett (and even Bill Maher!) on last Friday night's Real Time.   

It was Wednesday, April 29. Four nights earlier, a 31-year-old California man had rushed the ballroom at the Washington Hilton, with the apparent intention of assassinating President Trump.   

He was stopped before he could enter the hall. In the wake of this event, large segments of the national discourse underwent an instant adjustment.   

Red American orgs like the Fox News Channel now had a way to change the subject from the faltering war in Iran and from the president's ballroom. According to the new line of discourse, this third assassination attempt showed the way the irresponsible rhetoric of lefty lunatics and the Democrat [sic] Party had been putting the president's life in danger.  

As you know, The Five is our flailing nation's most-watched "cable news" show. The size of its audience dwarfs the size of the congregations which watch any of Blue America's corresponding shows:

Average audience, April 2026   
The Five, Fox News Channel: 3.8 million
Deadline: White House, MS NOW: 1.4 million

The numbers are hard to ignore. 

On Monday, April 27, the children who appear on The Five had started to explore the new line about the irresponsible rhetoric of those on the left. We'll visit that program tomorrow—but two days later, the children went there again.   

Below, we'll offer links to the videotape of last Wednesday's opening segment. You can watch the entire segment for yourself, possibly seeing why we'd say that rational discourse has ceased to exist within this failing nation.

You'll be able to make an assessment yourself. Our summary of that day's imitation of a news discussion starts like this:   

As the program started, the routinely excitable Emily Compagno was serving as moderator for the day's first segment. She offered this overview: 

COMPAGNO (4/29/26): The shooting marked the third attempted assassination plot targeting President Trump in just two years. And despite fresh calls to cool the rhetoric that puts a target on Trump's back, some on the left are digging in.  

Some on the left were digging in, despite that latest attempt! At this point, as you can see, Compagno played videotape of three "people of the left." 

One was said to be "digging in." Two were said to be in denial about the sweep of the problem with the rhetoric of the left.

Lost in denial were George Stephanopoulos (ABC News) and Jen Psaki (MS NOW), aides to former Democratic presidents. Governor Pritzker (D-IL) had been cast in the role of the one who was still "digging in." 

Eventually, we'll show what all three of these people had said.

Having played three chunks of videotape, Compagno threw to Jesse Watters. Watters proceeded to pretend to discuss what the three had supposedly said.

This is no country for rational discourse! As Watters described the nature of the problem for this program's very large audience, he quickly employed a rhetorical truck—

He played the Hitler card:

COMPAGNO: Jesse, it's incredible how lopsided [the problem with the rhetoric] is. I don't know the rose-colored glasses they're using.

WATTERS: Well, the glasses are worn by two Democrat press flacks for Democrat presidents. 

Where would they get this idea, Emily, that Trump is such a threat—that he needs to be taken out? Where would they get this idea that he's such a unique danger—that he's a genocidal dictator like Hitler who, at any day, could just kill everybody in sight? Where would they get the idea that he's mentally deranged, and that the cabinet, and perhaps the military, might have to do something about that?  

That's the way he started. (He went on at length from there.) In fact, none of the three people in question had said anything dimly resembling the summary this imitation of life now seemed to provide.   

The president "needs to be taken out?" None of the three had said anything dimly resembling that. And needless to say, none of the three had played the Hitler card, as Watters instantly did.   

Later in the same monologue, Watters played that treasured card again! As he did, he told millions of Red American viewers how widespread this problem is:

WATTERS: This isn't coming from the dark underbelly of the Internet. This is coming from the mainstream media—in the New York Times, on network TV, on network late night television. You go online and this is what they say. 

And they can't stop saying it because they can't dial it back. It's who they are. Everything they're saying defines everything about them. If you strip out the hate, they have nothing. There's no policy. There's no agenda. 

They can't have an executive say, "Hey, you know, guys? Maybe you don't book the guy who calls Trump Hitler? Maybe you don't have him on again? Do you know the rundown where you're calling him a genocidal maniac conducting illegal wars and raping and pillaging people? Maybe you don't use that tonight."

No one's telling them that, because hate is profitable. Until you break the business model, you're never gonna be able to tear this system apart. And that's what it is. It's about money. 

That's what Watters said. In that passage, he played the Hitler card two more times—and as he did, he insisted that this kind of rhetoric is all over the mainstream press!   

It's all over the mainstream media, this Fox News tool had said. And yet, how remarkably odd:

In support of this inflammatory rhetoric, producers had played videotape of exactly no one comparing President Trump to Hitler. No examples of this widespread conduct had been offered at all! 

Weird, isn't it? They call him Hitler all day and all night—but no examples were offered! 

Full disclosure! People who watch the Fox News Channel may not sample much work from the mainstream press. For that reason, they may have had no way of knowing that they were possibly being deceived this day—but as the segment continued, Compagno extended the game. 

Compagno had been at the Correspondents Dinner that fateful Saturday night. She had been forced, like everyone else, to hide beneath her table until order had been restored. 

Concerning which, here's what she soon said:

COMPAGNO: Some argue, Dana, the breaking point is three assassination attempts on the president that, by the grace of God, he survived them. The future seems really terrifying. And to your point, I was under the table with a lot of journalists that use words like Kristallnacht, and likened his campaign rally here at MSG to a Nazi rally and Hitleresque. 

I mean, these are words that are in headlines in these mainstream media journalists [sic].  

Words like those can be seen in mainstream media headlines! Oddly, though, no examples were given. 

No such excerpts were flashed on the screen! Of course, that didn't keep the Hitler card from being played one last time, as the segment ended:

COMPAGNO: Name me one Republican president that has not been called a Nazi! You can't name one. And that's an issue on the left.

GUTFELD: What did they call Republican before Hitler?

That's the way the segment ended. If anything, a similar segment, two days earlier, had been a bigger and uglier mess.

For the record, this is highly conventional gruel on this relentless imitation of a "cable news" program. Routinely, innocuous video clips are played, at which point then the crazy paraphrasing begins.

In this instance, it was said and implied, again and again, that President Trump is routinely referred to as "Hitler" in the mainstream media—even that it's routinely said that "he needs to be taken out."    

But how odd! No examples of such conduct were shown on videotape this day. No examples of such written declamations were thrown up on the screen. 

Just for the record, Compagno belongs on a major news program the way we belong in the Bolshoi Ballet. She may be the nicest person on earth, but she simply isn't equipped to be on our nation's news screens.

Watters is waste meat all the way down. At this point, Gutfeld almost seems to be more deranged by the week.  

As for two of the demons who had been shown on videotape before the garbage from Watters started, here you see the full texts of what the two "flacks" had said:   

STEPHANOPOULOS: No one is legitimizing violence in any way. I have very little patience for this. Has the president faced three threats in the last couple years? Absolutely. Is that abominable? Absolutely. The problem with political violence and extremism, it's evident on both sides.

[...]

PSAKI: The Democrats are blamed all for their rhetoric when what I hear, over and over again, is Democrats saying, "Please tone it down. Please tone down the rhetoric. That's not what we stand for." And we have seen, frankly from the other side, from Trump and others, elevated rhetoric. Now you don't want to get in a "he said/she said" place, but frankly it's infuriating.

The pair of "Democrat flacks" had dared to say that there are problems with political violence and with elevated rhetoric "on both sides!" Racing to prove the latter point, Watters, Compagno and Gutfeld jumped right in with classic examples of playing the Hitler card.

Three Democrats were aired that day—Pritzker, Stephanopoulos and Psaki. None of the three had mentioned Hitler or Kristallnacht. None of the three had said anything dimly like that—but then, up jumped the Fox News claque, shouting Hitler from morning to night.

This is no country for rational discourse. Two nights later, up stepped Maher, who we greatly admire.

As we noted yesterday, Bill kept playing the Hitler card too. This is no country for discourse!

Tomorrow: The Five on Monday, April 27. Also, what the fiendish Pritzker had said.

.

TUESDAY: Obama's a traitor all over again!

TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2026

Tyrus drops in on The Five: Is the era of rational discourse over?   

As we noted yesterday, that's what the headline says on a new essay for The Atlantic. To show how obvious that notion is, let's think about the latest thing the sitting president has said.

Headline included, here's the start of Mediaite's report:   

Trump Posts Bonkers Memes Slamming Political Foes From ‘Traitor’ Obama to Powell In a Dumpster

President Donald Trump went on a social media spree on Monday afternoon that included posting memes of “traitor” ex-President Barack Obama bowing before Iran’s Ayatollah and outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell falling into a dumpster.

The commander-in-chief posted the pictures of his political enemies on Truth Social.

His first post was a three-part meme that showed a triumphant Trump raising his fist alongside a kneeling ex-President Joe Biden donning a mask and Obama bowing.

That picture said “LEADERS LEAD” above Trump, followed by “COWARDS KNEEL” under Biden and “TRAITORS BOW” under Obama.  

And so on, insanely, from there. You can see the madness in question, including the Fed chairman's descent into a dumpster, simply by clicking here.   

The New York Times rarely reports very strange conduct of this type by the sitting president. The paper has been disappearing conduct like this for the past fifteen years

The sitting president has been messaging the world this way since 2011. Our major orgs have never had the courage to ask what this behavior might mean. 

Can an "era of rational discourse" survive this sort of messaging from the Oval Office? Then too, there was yesterday's hard-hitting report by Jesse Watters and Tyrus yesterday on The Five:

Jesse Watters Blames Biden for Spirit Airlines Collapse: ‘Let Thousands of Workers Lose Their Job’

Fox News host Jesse Watters blamed former President Joe Biden for the collapse of Spirit Airlines and letting “thousands of workers lose their job.”

Watters and his co-hosts on The Five slammed the Biden administration’s Department of Justice for blocking the $3.8 billion merger between JetBlue and Spirit Airlines in January 2024 on antitrust grounds. At the time, the DOJ argued that removing the “ultra-low-cost” airline would deprive travelers of options and increase ticket prices. 

And so on from there. We interrupt this transmission to ask an obvious question:

How many people think Jesse Watters knows anything whatsoever about the merger proposal which the Biden DOJ opposed? 

Surely, no sane person will have any confidence in Watters' competence in this area. Adding insult to injury, Watters was joined by Tyrus, the former professional "wrestler," in the task of pretending to analyze this matter.  

Mediaite offers videotape of the ruminations of Tyrus. Here's what the "bloated blowhard" had to say on our clownlike nation's most-watched "cable news" TV show:

TYRUS (5/3/26): Well, mission accomplished! Because less competition!

I’m going to miss Spirit Airlines—I'll be honest with ya. I’m going to miss the hours of sitting in the airport watching people behave the way they behave, the fights, the dragging out, you know? You always kind of feel a little better when you go to get on your Delta—love you guys, millionaire miles! 

You know, but the sad part is she [Elizabeth Warren] was right. Fewer flights, higher fares, mission accomplished! You just don’t get it. 

They get involved in things they don’t know. I think it’s funny that people who fly private are so concerned with JetBlue and Spirit merging together. And they stopped it, and they’re great, and now— What do we have? How many people were stranded? 

Why do they hate the airports? What happened? Did the airports not give them complimentary water in first class? They don’t want to pay the TSA agents, they don't want—

I mean, why does the Democratic Party continually go after airports? And in the name of the people! I don’t think any person who was flying Spirit this weekend, whose flight was canceled and you can’t transfer the ticket because it’s gone, was saying, "Wow, thanks, Warren! This is great! I'm so happy that I'm not gonna be able to go see my family at affordable ticket [sic]," although the bag stuff was ridiculous. 

But they just eliminated a place for people who can't afford airline tickets normally to go see family members and travel and go to work and stuff. So, nice job! Nice job, guys!

"Why do they hate the airports?" Tyrus wanted to know!    

Like Tyrus, we don't have the slightest idea about the wisdom, or lack of same, involved in the rejection of last year's merger proposal. We do remember a different era, when this nation's major news shows would bring a specialist or two on the air to evaluate a matter like this.   

In the case of The Five, a gang of willing messenger children are shoved out onto the set each day, armed with producers notes about the topics which will be subjected to a form of pseudo-discussion.

Agitprop follows from there. 

In fairness, we'll assume that Tyrus was doing the best he could with the topic at hand. He's normally confined to the 10 p.m. sewage flow which takes place on Gutfeld!

Following Tyrus, Watters then launched some comedy shtick, leading to his closing thought: Biden Bad Bad Bad!

Is the era of rational discourse over? Over there, in Red America, this is what now passes for news. 

Over here, in Blue America, our timorous but heralded major news orgs refuse to discuss this state of affairs. They disappear the president's troubling conduct. 

They disappear The Five.

HITLER? The president isn't Hitler, he said!

TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2026

What have they done with Bill Maher? What have they done with the real Bill Maher? Inquiring minds wanted to know.    

Before we start to address their question, let the word go forth:   

On this sprawling campus, we vastly admire Bill Maher. Over the years, he developed the ability to drive challenging discussions of serious topics—challenging discussions he was constantly able to leaven with extremely high-end humor. 

Basically, it's impossible to do what Bill learned to do. Rather, to do what he did before his recent epistemic capture—a capture which has seen him dragged, possibly by the Fox News Channel, right through the Overton Window! 

Let us attempt to explain:   

Last Friday night, on Real Time, Bill sat with an august panel for his program's weekly discussion. An interview with Governor Newsom had already occurred.

He started by introducing the panelists. Quickly, though, he gave voice to a somewhat peculiar point of concern:

MAHER (5/1/26): He is a Pulitzer Prize winning opinion columnist for the New York Times. Bret Stephens is over here. And she's the head of King's College, Cambridge, and a columnist for the Financial Times. Gillian Tett.

Okay. Well, let's get the ugly news about the political violence out of the way first, because we have to talk about it. I'm just going to vomit my take on it, and then you can argue.

I would just like to say, if you're one of these people, and there's many in this country, who watched that and was disappointed the president wasn't killed—

[AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]

See? They're laughing at that. You're not a good person. Or a smart person. But definitely not a good person. 

I was reading this in your paper, an interview with Governor Pritzker of Illinois, and they asked him, like, well, "What does the next president have to be?" And he said, good, decent, and kind. 

Which, who can disagree with that? And certainly, Trump has often not been good, decent, or kind. 

But he's not Hitler. 

President Trump isn't Hitler, he said. Borrowing from Bill himself, it's hard to see how a serious person could disagree with that!  

It's hard to fashion a simple description for the person Bill had named. Simple decency suggests that the vast sweep of that person's misconduct is often best met with a respectful silence. 

That said, how vast was the sweep of that misconduct?  The leading authority on this being makes an attempt with this:   

Adolf Hitler

[...]

The historian and biographer Ian Kershaw described Hitler as "the embodiment of modern political evil." Under Hitler's leadership and racist ideology, the Nazi regime was responsible for the genocide of an estimated six million Jews and millions of other victims, whom he and his followers deemed Untermenschen ("subhumans") or socially undesirable. 

Hitler and the Nazis were also responsible for the deliberate killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians and prisoners of war. In addition, 28.7 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the European theatre.  

We aren't familiar with all those numbers. But the basic numbers are there.

He felt his nation needed more room. He sought a final solution.  To his credit, Kershaw tried, but we'd say his formulation understates the sweep of the conduct which followed. 

("The things I saw beggar description," General Eisenhower said.)

For the record, Bill was focused, as he started, on the ugly news of the previous weekend—on the attempt at an assassination attempt produced by 31-year-old Cole Allen at the White House Correspondents Dinner. 

Allen's action was upsetting to many people, not excluding us. Bill told Stephens and Tett that they had to start by discussing that event—and he and his panelists proceeded to talk about nothing else!  

We don't always agree with Bill's views, but he's unusually sharp. That said, he was instantly walking the "President Trump isn't Hitler" beat—and he did so several more times as the panel discussion continued:

MAHER: The liberals used to always say, and they were right to say it, that a lot of this very violent rhetoric that we hear on the left, it inspires the borderline personality to then do something. And they were right. I never thought they were wrong.

But the shoe's on the other foot now. I mean, it's on both feet, but you've got to own this kind of rhetoric. And, you know, if you call Trump—

This is why I was against this "he's Hitler" bullshit. I mean, if you really believe that he's a Hitler McPedophile, then you kind of have to kill him. That's the mentality they have.

Later, also this:

MAHER: Once you start with Hitler, it's like any time you do—

We've seen it in many places in the world where they make someone into, whether it's Rwanda or, you know, the Hutus saying the Tutsi were vermin. Or the Hutu—somebody was vermin, I remember.

STEPHENS: The Tutsi were vermin.

MAHER: Whatever it was. Whenever you dehumanize someone to that degree, people are going to go, "Oh, I’m doing the—I’m a hero." 

We agree! President Trump isn't Adolf Hitler. Whatever you think about President Trump, he has never done anything that dimly compares with what Hitler did.

President Trump isn't Hitler. But except for the usual suspects on the Fox News Channel, who's been saying he is?  

Without wasting any more time, let's explain our own concern at this point:  

On the major shows of the Fox News Channel, we hear it said all the time. Members of "the lunatic left"—members of "the Democrat [sic] Party"—keep saying that Trump is Hitler!

It's said all the time on Fox! Brief bits of videotape will often be shown—bits of tape in which no one is actually saying the thing which has the Fox News personnel so upset. 

In our own view, liberal pundits and Democratic office holders often say things about President Trump which we think are unhelpful, unwise. But at this point, who is saying that Trump = Hitler? When's the last time you saw someone say that? 

When's the last time you saw someone say that? For ourselves, we can't think of an actual time.

We don't see people making that claim, but Bill returned to this point several more times. He seemed to be saying that people like Allen are triggered by these comparisons. 

But who is supposed to be making these claims? Who's saying that Trump equals Hitler?

Stephens and Tett offered standard thoughts about how inappropriate political violence is within a democracy. But who has been saying that Trump = Hitler? 

Neither Bill, nor either panelist, ever named an actual name. Bill never played videotape of one of "the liberals" making this comparison—a comparison which invokes one of history's most evil names.

Bill kept citing this comparison. But he never said who's been saying this—until eventually, continuing from above, a remarkable claim emerged, as you can see right here:

MAHER: Once you start with Hitler, it's like any time you do—

We've seen it in many places in the world where they make someone into, whether it's Rwanda or, you know, the Hutus saying the Tutsi were vermin. Or the Hutu... Somebody was vermin, I remember.

STEPHENS: The Tutsi were vermin.

MAHER: Whatever it was. Whenever you dehumanize someone to that degree, people are going to go, "Oh, I’m doing the—I’m a hero."

This guy wasn’t crazy crazy. Like, he wasn't hearing—you know, the dog wasn’t talking to him, and the moon. He just was, like, watching the—

TETT: Social media.

MAHER: Yeah, and media media.

TETT: And media media, yeah.

Really? Cole Allen was triggered by regular media comparing Trump to Hitler? That's what Maher and Tett now almost seemed to say.

Social media is one thing. Thanks to the "democratization of media," you can now hear every kind of crazy statement if you take yourself there.

But Bill and Tett now seemed to agree. When it comes to Trump = Hitler, it's regular media too! 

For today, we'll skip past the unfortunate way Bill pretended to be a medical specialist with respect to the would-be assassin. "He wasn't crazy crazy," Bill unwisely said. 

We'll skip that for now! But are regular media calling Trump Hitler? That's what Bill now seemed to say, and Tett was quick to agree.

Our youthful analysts came to us. As they did, their eyes glistened with tears.  

What have they done with the real Bill Maher, the innocent youngsters now asked. They muttered about "epistemic capture," and they muttered, perhaps unwisely, about the power of Fox.  

For ourselves, we were saddened by what we had seen. 

We humans, we thoughtfully said to ourselves. Do we ever miss a chance to miss the main point at a critical juncture like this? 

Tomorrow: Stephens tries to restore a bit of balance

MONDAY: North Carolina District 12!

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2026

No wider than I-85: Should "minority" populations be guaranteed (or afforded) something resembling "proportional representation" in the House of Representatives, our hapless lower House? 

Let's consider the example which has recently been under review:

Since the state of Louisiana is almost exactly one third black, should the state devise its congressional map in such a way that two of its six House districts will likely be represented by black congressional reps?

A person could teach it flat or round. Concerning one point, there's little doubt:  

Starting in the 1980s, the effort in various states to create "majority minority" House districts produced some districts which were extremely strangely shaped. During the 1990s, the strangest looking (and most famous) such district was almost surely North Carolina's District 12. 

The leading authority on the district recounts that part of its history here: 

North Carolina's 12th congressional district

North Carolina's 12th congressional district is [currently] a congressional district located mostly in Charlotte as well as surrounding areas in Mecklenburg County represented by Democrat Alma Adams. Prior to the 2016 elections, it was a gerrymandered district located in central North Carolina that comprised portions of Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Lexington, Salisbury, Concord, and High Point...

The district was re-established after the 1990 United States census, when North Carolina gained a [twelfth] House seat due to an increase in population. It was drawn in 1992 as one of two minority-majority districts, designed to give African-American voters (who comprised 22% of the state's population at the time) the chance to elect a representative of their choice; Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibited the dilution of voting power of minorities by distributing them among districts so that they could never elect candidates of their choice.

In its original configuration, the district had a 64 percent African-American majority in population. The district boundaries, stretching from Gastonia to Durham, were so narrow at some points that it was no wider than a highway lane. It followed Interstate 85 almost exactly. One [Democratic] state legislator famously remarked, after seeing the district map, "if you drove down the interstate with both car doors open, you'd kill most of the people in the district."   

Or something like that. We'll return to this topic, and to that alleged quotation, at a later date, perhaps tomorrow.

How strange was this district's configuration at this point in time? For some reason, the leading authority fails to display a map of the frequently lampooned district during that early era. 

That said, you can see a map of the district as it was initially drawn simply by clicking to this site. If you can defeat the New York Times paywall, this news report from May 1993 includes a map of the state—a map which shows the shapes of the two majority black districts.  

(Headline: "2 Strangely Shaped Hybrid Creatures Highlight North Carolina's Primary.")

During the 1990s, North Carolina's District 12 produced a lot of humorous commentary. It also became the star of several major court cases, a situation which obtained right up through 2016.   

Decent people were trying hard (and successfully) to increase black representation in the House of Representatives. That said, how do we the people want to proceed from here? 

Inquiring minds will want to seek the answer to that question. There's also a fair amount of partisan warfare in the air concerning this astoundingly complex topic. At times, this may produce a bit of heat in the relative absence of light 

Go ahead—click those links! People who were good and decent were in fact trying hard to deal with the painful backwash of our profoundly unfortunate racial history.

This topic has been around for decades. Where do we go from here?

HITLER: "The Era of Rational Discourse Is Over!"

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2026

What have they done with Bill Maher: In this country, in this era, the late Jürgen Haberman—he died in March, at age 96—wasn't a household name.  

Given the poverty of the times, there's no way he would have been. In truth, we can't even swear that he should have been—but here's a smattering from the very lengthy obituary which appeared in the New York Times:   

Jürgen Habermas Dies at 96; One of Postwar Germany’s Most Influential Thinkers 

Jürgen Habermas, a philosopher and public intellectual who was one of the most influential and cited thinkers in postwar Germany, died on Saturday in Starnberg, Germany, southwest of Munich. He was 96.

His publisher, Suhrkamp, confirmed the death.

For over a half-century and in dozens of books, Dr. Habermas bucked the prevailing trend of postmodern cynicism about truth and reason, offering a staunch defense of Enlightenment ideals and the possibility of individual and societal freedom.

He was best known for introducing in the early 1960s the notion of a “public sphere.” He theorized that democracy emerged and could continue to exist in a healthy form only if there was a space that was outside the control of the state, where deliberation and the exchange of ideas could freely occur. That concept has since swept through a number of academic fields, from political science and history to media studies, spawning thousands of papers and books.   

We need a space where the exchanges of ideas can freely occur! According to the Times, this notion "spawned thousands of papers and books." We offer a further smattering:

Though a disciple and eventual leader of the famed Frankfurt School of critical social theory, Dr. Habermas had more faith in the promise of modernity than mentors like Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, believing that the Enlightenment was an “unfinished project” that could be corrected through a focus on improved communication.   

Starting in the 1970s, he wrote about the “ideal speech situation,” one in which people would come together on equal footing and through a process of rational dialogue arrive at the truth—an idea he expanded on in his major work, “The Theory of Communicative Action” (1981).   

And so on, at length, from there.

For better or for worse, this is no country for such men. They may be influential in Germany, but they aren't likely to gain major purchase here.

Adam Kirsch, 50 years old, isn't a household name either. That said, Kirsch had us from hello in his new piece for The Atlantic, which appeared yesterday at the magazine's web site.

A bit of background:

In the latest stop in an impressive career, Kirsch is currently a senior editor at The Atlantic. He's a highly regarded poet and literary critic, but he's also the author of such books as On Settler Colonialism and The Revolt Against Humanity: Imagining a Future Without Us.  

For better or worse, such titles may not propel a writer to fame in this land. We'll let the leading authority on Kirsch's life and (impressive) career give you a bit of a thumbnail:   

Adam Kirsch     

[...]

Kirsch was born in Los Angeles in 1976. He is the son of lawyer, author, and biblical scholar Jonathan Kirsch. He started writing poetry around the age of 14, after encountering the work of T.S. Eliot: "Eliot showed me the possibility of finding in poetry a source of complex intellectual and moral interest." He graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in English in 1997 and began his career as assistant literary editor for The New Republic.   

[...]   

Over the course of his career, he has written reviews and feature articles on a diverse array of poets and novelists, including T.S. Eliot, Thomas Hardy, H.G. Wells, Richard Wilbur, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Dylan Thomas, John Keats, Saul Bellow, John Updike, Hart Crane, and David Foster Wallace. He has also written articles on assorted cultural issues, including rap music, America and the Roman Empire, the relationship between conservative politics in America and the writings of Ayn Rand, and the importance of literary criticism.

Kirsch has published two books of poems, The Thousand Wells and Invasions, as well as nonfiction books on Benjamin Disraeli and Lionel Trilling. The Thousand Wells won The New Criterion Poetry Prize in 2002. His poems have also appeared in many magazines, including The Paris Review, Partisan Review, The Formalist, Harvard Review, and The New Criterion.  

And so on from there. Borrowing from Yevtushenko (in translation), "And if a man lived in obscurity / making his friends in that obscurity / obscurity is not uninteresting."    

For better or worse, this is no country for people like Kirsch—but he had us from right from the jump in his portrait of Habermas for The Atlantic.  More precisely, he had us right from the principal headline which sits above his piece:

IDEAS
The Era of Rational Discourse Is Over
For Jürgen Habermas, who died in March, the essence of democracy was thoughtful back-and-forth argument.    

"The era of rational discourse is over?" We've been floating that suggestion for a very long time! "It's all anthropology now," we've sometimes prophetically said.

The era of rational discourse is over? In a realm within which that era is so plainly over, ruminations about decline aren't likely to turn many heads. Nor are they likely to affect the imitations of discourse being offered to millions of good, decent people, around the clock, on their TV screens, or possibly right on their phones.

Yesterday, when it appeared, Kirsch's essay about Habermas was the featured report at the web site of The Atlantic.  By this morning, it has already been hurled down the seven levels of the world—dropped deep down on the list of articles a visitor might want to examine. 

As for the New York Times, the paper published that long obituary when Habermas died in March. A quick attempt at a search suggests that, despite his status as one of postwar Germany’s most influential thinkers, his name had very rarely appeared in the Times before that.  

This is no country for such men! (We'll add "for better or worse.") Instead, our country has descended into the transplendently post-Enlightenment realm in which the sitting president, the head of state, still insists on promulgating such embarrassing madness as this: 

Trump Boasts About Cognitive Exam Scores: ‘ACED IT ALL THREE TIMES’   

President Donald Trump boasted about his repeat “Cognitive Examination” scores, claiming he “ACED IT ALL THREE TIMES!” in a new Truth Social post.

Trump took to social media Thursday afternoon to declare that all presidential and vice presidential candidates should be forced to take a cognitive exam, slamming former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, while also bragging about his own mental acuity.

“Anybody running for President or Vice President should be forced to take a Cognitive Examination prior to entering the Race!” he wrote. “By doing so, we wouldn’t be surprised at people like Barack ‘Hussein’ Obama, or Sleepy Joe Biden, getting ‘ELECTED.’ Our Country would be a much better place! I took the Exam three times during my (‘THREE!’) Terms as President, and ACED IT ALL THREE TIMES — An Achievement that, even on a single Exam, according to the Doctors, has rarely been done before!”   

He repeated this ludicrous claim last Thursday. This is barely a country for sane men, as we've noted in recent weeks.

For the record, we're inclined to believe that the sitting president really believes it—that he really believes that he keeps acing a difficult set of cognitive tests in a way few others have ever done. 

We say that in part because we've read the thumbnails about the technical medical diagnosis known as "Delusional disorder." That said, we have no idea if the diagnosis might actually seem to apply in this case, and high-end orgs like The Atlantic have agreed that such questions must never be posed to actual medical specialists:

So much for the existence of "a space that's outside the control of the state, where deliberation and the exchange of ideas could freely occur."

We also know that the sitting president has created a public culture in which childish nicknames are routinely handed out to former presidents or to other political rivals—in which a middle name like "Hussein" is routinely doled as a way of exciting a herd.  

No modern president has ever behaved this way. Last Friday night, on Real Time with Bill Maher, an influential British journalist offered this relatively pointless speculation about this destructive conduct:

TETT (5/1/26): But here's the thing, Bret. I mean, you know, so I'm trained as a cultural anthropologist. And anthropologists pointed out that a lot of what—

STEPHENS: That's your first mistake.

TETT: My first mistake, apparently, yeah. But there's a lot of the rhetoric and stylistic, you know, performative approach that Trump has borrowed from the wrestling ring, if you look at how he's actually presenting himself politically. And an awful lot of it is about calling each other names and stage managing this fake conflict like it's a game. And so, in a wrestling ring, it's fine. You can shout violence against each other, but then you take it to real life.

Has the silly, brain-dead behavior really been cadged from the world of professional wrestling, where it's said to be fine?  We don't have the slightest idea—and neither, we'll guess, does Gillian Tett (the Financial Times). 

But the president's stylistic performative approach is dumb enough to have come from there—though it's also strange enough to lead us back toward the always profoundly unfortunate world of mental disorder (formerly, "mental illness").

As everyone must have noticed by now, this is no country for rational discourse—for some version of "the ideal speech situation, in which people come together on equal footing and through a process of rational dialogue arrive at the truth." 

In fairness, the sitting president didn't come along and destroy some such realm all by himself. But after fifteen years of his disordered conduct, "little beside remains."

Tett joined the New York Times' Bret Stephens on last Friday's Real Time broadcast. They joined Bill Maher for the panel discussion—a discussion which started like this:

MAHER (5/1/26): He is a Pulitzer Prize winning opinion columnist for the New York Times. Bret Stephens is over here. A bearded Bret Stephens. 

And she's the head of King's College, Cambridge, and a columnist for the Financial Times. Gillian Tett.

Okay. Well, let's get the ugly news about the political violence out of the way first, because we have to talk about it. I'm just going to vomit my take on it, and then you can argue.

He wanted to get it out of the way—this talk about last weekend's attempt at an assassination attempt.  He wanted to get it out of the way, but as the panel discussion unfolded, the trio ended up speaking about nothing else.

At this site, we've long hugely admired Bill Maher, but we think he's been losing his way of late. Last Friday night, he kept insisting on a pair of basic points:

The sitting president, President Trump, isn't Adolf Hitler. Also, people should stop saying he is.

Our questions would be these:

Except around-the-clock on the Fox News Channel, where in the world, at this point, does such a claim even exist?  (Maher and his guests never said.) 

Also, what have they done with the real Bill Maher, but also with Stephens and Tett? 

We were stunned by the emptiness of the discussion. Tomorrow, we'll start to explain.

Tomorrow: As (constantly) heard on Fox

SATURDAY: AG Holder's redistricting dream!

SATURDAY, MAY 2, 2026

A very murky topic: On this campus, we have high regard for former attorney general Eric Holder. 

If we told you what we admire most about Holder, it might make you mad. That said, he was interviewed by Lawrence O'Donnell on Wednesday's edition of The Last Word—interviewed about that day's Supreme Court decision concerning the Voting Rights Act.

(Interesting factoid: It's routinely referred to as "The Voting Rights Act of 1965." In fact, the language at issue in Section 2 of the VRA—the part of Section 2 which was directly at issue this week—wasn't added to the Act until 1982!)

Back to Holder's session with O'Donnell:

It was a fairly brisk, four-question exchange; you can watch the whole thing simply by clicking here. The interview ended with Holder's answer to a somewhat vague but basically reasonable question. 

Throughout the session, O'Donnell tended to conflate the challenge of this year's pre-existing redistricting war with the longer-term challenges created by the Supreme Court's new decision. That said, this was the start, and this was the heart, of what Holder said at the end of this interview about where we should go from here:

O'DONNELL (4/29/26): Is a kind of counter-offensive of redistricting the only option here for Democrats to consider?

HOLDER: Well, I think that's what we have to consider in the short term, so we can save our democracy and then ultimately heal it. 

And I think the way we ultimately heal it is for Democrats to take control of Congress, to have a Democratic president, and then to pass federal legislation that bans partisan gerrymandering, that bans racial gerrymandering, that requires that redistricting be done in a fair way that advances fair electoral processes.  

As the former AG continued, he cited the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which was passed by the House in 2021 but was defeated by a filibuster in the Senate. But this was Holder's explicit description of the change he'd like to see:   

Democrats should "pass federal legislation that bans partisan gerrymandering, that bans racial gerrymandering, that requires that redistricting be done in a fair way that advances fair electoral processes."

In general, we agree! We ourselves would love to see federal legislation which creates sensible, uniform redistricting standards which every state would follow.  

Almost surely, it would be hard to get our two warring parties to agree on what a set of "fair" standards might be. But we wholly agree with Holder's general principle.   

Having said that, there came the confusion again! Our current confusion is this:

Holder said he wanted to see Democrats find a way to ban "racial gerrymandering." But isn't that pretty much what the Supreme Court just did, in a ruling the former AG savaged at the start of his session with O'Donnell?  

Isn't that what the Court just did? People, listen up: 

At the start of this legal fandango, Louisiana had created a map which included one district, out of six, which was majority black.  

In response to a lawsuit, the state had been ordered to create a second such district, and the state proceeded to do so. Specifically, the state proceeded to create a plainly "gerrymandered" district which was, in fact, majority black. 

It was that very district which the Supreme Court has now ruled to be constitutionally impermissible.  But if we're all still speaking English here, hadn't that very district been created, for better or worse, by a racial gerrymander?

Will the Court's ruling allow southern states to eliminate majority black districts, thereby reducing the number of black members of Congress? 

Presumably, yes! Indeed, Republican governors of some southern states are scrambling to do that right now!

But there was Holder, explicitly saying that he wants to pass a federal law which would ban "racial gerrymandering." Isn't that the very process which has often been used, in recent decades, to create the majority black districts which sent an increased number of black reps to the House?   

We admire Holder at this site. Also, though, we have no idea what he meant in that final prescription to O'Donnell. 

This is an extremely murky, highly complexified topic. Back in 1982, jumbled language was introduced into Section 2 of the Act, approved by huge margins in both the House and the Senate. From that day to this, journalistic, political and legal language about this topic has been extremely hard to parse.

We humans aren't always especially good with our words! That said, what would Holder like to see in the federal legislation he envisions?  Does he want to see compact, contiguous districts formed without regard to race? 

Some districts formed that way would be majority black. But in contrast to current procedures, wouldn't that tend to reduce the number of black members in the House? Is that the solution he actually envisions? 

Inquiring minds want to know. (O'Donnell should have asked!)

FRIDAY: As heard on Gutfeld! and The Five!

FRIDAY, MAY 1, 2026

Emily Compagno speaks: Has the Southern Poverty Law Center committed some sort of criminal act?  

We have no way of answering that question. But as you may know, the DOJ announced this indictment back on April 21, as NBC News reported:  

Southern Poverty Law Center indicted on charges that it fraudulently paid informants in extremist groups

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Tuesday announced an indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center, alleging the civil rights organization has engaged in financial crimes.    

Blanche said at a news conference that the Justice Department’s investigation found the organization had been “manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred,” and then hiding those payments.

The 11-count indictment from a federal grand jury consists of six counts of wire fraud, four counts of false statements to a federally insured bank and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

“The Southern Poverty Law Center’s ('SPLC') stated mission included the dismantling of white supremacy and confronting hate across the country. However, unbeknownst to donors, some of their donated money was being used to fund the leaders and organizers of racist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation, and the National Alliance,” the indictment alleges. 

[...]  

Bryan Fair, interim chief executive of the SPLC, said in a statement that the organization is still reviewing the charges but that after witnessing the Justice Department’s news conference they are “outraged by the false allegations.”

And so on from there. For the record, that's what the indictment alleges. 

For ourselves, we have no particular faith in indictments brought by the current DOJ, or in statements by Acting Attorney General Blanche. This is the same DOJ which has recently indicted James Comey again, on a widely ridiculed charge. 

That said, we'll wait to see what comes to light if this case really goes to trial. 

For today, we thought we'd show you what we meant with a recent reference to Emily Compagno, a frequent co-host on The Five, the nation's most watched "cable news" program.   

Reaction to this indictment—to these allegations—was swift within the MAGA realm. As Mediaite reports, the sitting president saw it as the latest way to advance the never-ending claim that the 2020 election had been stolen:   

Trump Demands 2020 Election ‘Be Wiped From the Books’ If New SPLC Case Proves ‘True’   

President Donald Trump called for the 2020 presidential election to “be permanently wiped from books and be of no further force or effect” if new fraud charges brought by the Justice Department against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) prove “true.”

The president unloaded on the prominent civil rights group in the early hours of Friday morning and described the organization as “one of the greatest political scams in American History”  

[...]  

The president then shared two memes and screengrabs of posts from Elon Musk about the SPLC allegations.   

And so on from there.

In fairness, even the president said he's willing to wait to see if the allegations are actually shown to be true. In several appearances on Gutfeld! and The Five, Compagno has shown no such reticence. 

For all we know, Compagno may be the finest person on earth among her family and friends. On cable TV, she is strongly inclined to make absurd statements like the one she made this Monday night, there on the Gutfeld! program.  

The panel was discussing the previous weekend's attempted assassination attempt at the Washington Hilton. Compagno was present at the Correspondents Dinner, like the mainstream journalists whose alleged attacks on President Trump, or so she said, had led to the assassination attempt

Near the end of a somewhat jumbled presentation, she absurdly offered this:

COMPAGNO (4/27/26): [Mainstream journalists] have the nerve to distance themselves from any culpability whatsoever [for the assassination attempt]. And then they say things like, "Well, the right extremists, that's the real danger." When we have learned that the right extremist danger was manufactured this entire time by the left-wing extremist danger, funded by SPLC. 

Based on that recent untested indictment, Compagno seemed to say that any apparent right-wing violence in recent years was really an artefact of the conduct of the Southern Poverty Law Center! A few days later, she made a similar representation when she appeared as a guest on The Five. 

This ludicrous claim is starting to spread within Fox News Channel circles.  When we the people watch these "cable news" shows, we're fed this pitiful gruel.

Compagno may be the nicest person on earth among her family and friends. She belongs on the nation's most-watched "cable news" programs in much the way—well, let's just leave it at that.

These Fox News Channel programs are undisguised imitations of life. So too with the major Blue American news orgs and journalists who refuse to report on these deeply destructive programs.

More tape: To watch that full segment from Monday evening's Gutfeld! show, you can just click here.

ORDINARY PEOPLE: "I believe it was a fake attack!"

FRIDAY, MAY 1, 2026

So said we the people: King Charles and his once unlikely queen have gone back to jolly olde. If we could rent him as a replacement head of state, we'd strongly consider the prospect. 

Despite the absence of a ballroom, a dinner was held in honor of the royal pair. In this morning's New York Times, Elisabeth Bumiller reports the current state of our breakaway nation's rapidly failing union:  

What the Royal State Dinner Guest List Says About Trump’s America

Guest lists for White House state dinners have always been political rather than social documents. Avidly chewed over in Washington, they broadcast an administration’s priorities, favored businesses, top donors and media allies. They are supposed to reflect the country being honored.

By those standards, the Trump guest list for the state dinner for King Charles III of Britain and Queen Camilla on Tuesday night was another whack at norms in an administration that likes to shatter them.

Among the more than 100 guests were at least 10 American billionaires, six Fox News hosts, one Fox News executive, six conservative Supreme Court justices, numerous Silicon Valley tech titans and assorted friends of the president’s. There were no British cultural figures and, for that matter, a meager number of British overall. The British Embassy in Washington appears to have had limited input into the guest list.

There were also no Democratic politicians, which has been the case at other Trump state dinners.  

And so on from there—and so it appears to go

The six conservative justices were present at the dinner. The three liberal justices were not. 

There were no Democratic Party politicians. Six Fox News host were numbered among the guests—and that included the 47-year-old "silly boy" who says that he did this:   

‘You Said That? To the QUEEN?!’ Fox’s Jesse Watters Admits to Making Gun Violence Joke to Queen Camilla

Fox News hosts Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld were among the attendees at a White House state dinner with King Charles III and Queen Camilla this week, and they shared some eyebrow-raising comments about the event on Wednesday’s episode of The Five.  

[...]   

According to The New York Times, the king and queen are both “avid supporters of beekeeping.” A new hive on the South Lawn was “crafted to look like the real White House,” the Times noted.

The king “had no idea who I was,” said Watters, continuing:

So I said, “I’m on Fox and I have two shows.” And he goes, “Well, they must really love you here.” And I said, “Yeah.”

So we go down, and there’s the queen. And I said, “Well, how was the beehive?” She goes, “It was very good. No one got stung.”

And then I said, “Well, you know in Washington, D.C., you know, the bees don’t get you, the guns will.”

“You said that? To the queen?!” Perino asked, shock evident in her voice as Watters covered his face with his hands. 

The silly child covered his face with his hands. This is the type of scripted inanity which helps animate the daily agitprop of The Five, this nation's most-watched "cable news" program.    

Corporate tools like Perino and Watters play these roles each day, with Gutfeld called upon to deliver one of his increasingly deranged hyper-partisan topical blasts. 

On Wednesday's edition of this astonishing "cable news" charade, Watters covered his face as he acknowledged his latest very bad conduct. This scripted inanity continues to score with us the American people, as the newest numbers make clear:  

Greg Gutfeld and Jesse Watters Dominate Cable News Ratings...

Fox News continued its cable news ratings dominance in April with hosts Greg Gutfeld and Jesse Watters pulling in the biggest numbers, while CNN and MS NOW also notched prime time gains.

In Monday through Sunday prime time total viewers, Fox averaged 2.9 million viewers...April marked Fox’s third-most-watched April in the network’s history, according to Nielsen data.

The biggest numbers came from The Five, which averaged 3.8 million viewers, and Jesse Watters Primetime, which averaged 3.6 million. Those were followed by Sean Hannity’s show at 3.2 million and Gutfeld! with 3 million. Bret Baier over on Special Report also averaged around 3 million viewers overall. 

Those five shows took the top five spots for cable news for the month. Watters and Gutfeld are both co-hosts of The Five as well as hosting their eponymous shows—easily making them the two most-watched personalities in the cable news business.  

Watters and Gutfeld continue to produce the biggest numbers in cable news—and yes, it is a (highly profitable) "business." 

On average, 3.8 million of us the people watch the imitation of life called The Five on a daily basis. The audience for Jesse Watters Primetime isn't far behind.

By way of contrast, the most watched weekly MS NOW show—The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell—averaged 1.6 million viewers for the month. MS NOW shows hosted by Nicolle Wallace, Chris Hayes and Jen Psaki averaged 1.3 or 1.4 million. Gutfeld! more than doubles that.

In fairness, Blue America's cable news is hardly a perfect product—but Red America's counterpart on the Fox News Channel is an imitation of life. The question we'd ask you is this:

Can "we the people" hope to attain "a more perfect union" when this channel continues to roll out clown cars filled with D-list comedians, former professional "wrestlers" and an endless assortment of Unrecognizables, topped by the towel-snapping apparent misogyny of Watters and Gutfeld?  

Can a more perfect union emerge despite that societal stress? Go ahead—take a good look around!

The presence of Watters and Gutfeld on these heavily watched TV shows is the braindead, poisoned fruit of the "democratization of media." 

In fairness, their braindead behavior is matched by that of the New York Times and The Atlantic and of Blue American royalty like Rachel Maddow—by the refusal of these timorous, self-dealing souls to report and discuss the ugly inanity churned by the Fox News Channel for us, the American people.

At one time, we the people split into the Blue and the Gray. Today, we flounder ahead as we're encouraged to align as the Red and the Blue. 

Can a modern nation survive the corporate conduct which hands us this braindead spectacle—this daily assault on the possibility of seeking a more perfect union?   

At this point, a word must be said about us the people—about us the "ordinary" American people:

About the Reds who may not realize the way they're played by the likes of Perino and Watters. About the Blues who may not notice the way their own corporate leaders refuse to report and discuss the terrible plight into which we've been thrown by the spread of corporate entities like Fox, along with the rise of a podcast world built on this basic bromide: 

Every flyweight a king!

"No people are uninteresting," Yevtushenko passionately said. When a person dies, "what has gone is not nothing," this poet was willing to say.

He was thinking of the millions of "ordinary" people who lost their lives in the several madnesses which swept Europe in the middle of the last century.   

For the record, Yevtushenko had his detractors too. Years later, Robert Redford directed a deeply humane film called Ordinary People, followed by a second deeply humane film which further explored the lives of a similar group of such people. 

In that second film, a suffering teenage girl was badly in need of help—and she got it from a deeply humane older person. That Montana resident had special gifts, but he was an ordinary person too. 

There's no such thing as an "ordinary" person, Yevtushenko seemed to say. That said, we the people—ordinary all—are almost always in need of some help.  

We need the help of people with gifts. We need the help of people with insight and wisdom.

We need the help of moral and intellectual leaders. In place of help from people like those, the Fox News Channel—the fruit of a poisoned "democratization"—sends us Perino, Watters and Gutfeld each day, with Kat Timpf and the former "wrestler" dragging us down every night.

Last Saturday morning, at 7 a.m., C-Span's Washinton Journal began taking phone calls from us the American people. The callers are a self-selected group. They aren't a representative sample, extent to the extent that they possibly are.

On this occasion, it largely fell to people who tilted Blue to remind us of the fact that we the people, all of us, are almost always in need of help. We need to be led away from the irrational ideas which sometimes pop into our imperfect heads. 

In the film we've mentioned above, a suffering teenage girl needed the help of an empathic whisperer. On Saturday morning, quite a few callers, apparently from Blue America, were saying the events of the previous night had been staged.

Had someone tried to race past security at the Washington Hilton and stage an assault on President Trump or perhaps on Trump officials?

"I believe it was a fake attack," a caller from South Carolina soon said. Unhelpful, irrational ideas of that type can emerge, with remarkable speed, from us the American people.  

"I believe it was a fake attack?" Quite a few callers made similar comments like that during the program's first hour. Not far into the 8 o'clock hour, a caller from Michigan asked this about the previous night's event:

"Could it be that it was a law enforcement training exercise?"

Well no, it almost certainly wasn't! But ideas like that have a way of popping into our heads!

(Late in the 7 o'clock hour, a caller from Maryland took a different approach. She ridiculed those of us who "still believe that the January 6 thing was real.")

Over at the Fox News Channel, people like Perino help Watters and Gutfeld drive the disunion along. On The Five, Emily Compagno is now telling viewers that any events which may have seemed to feature violence or hatred on the part of MAGA types were really the equivalent of false flag events. They were all produced by the SPLC, Emily Compagno has now told the world, or something dimly like that.

Can anything like a union survive in the face of assaults of that type? Can anything like a union survive in the face of Blue American silence?

Attention, C-Span callers: On Sunday morning, Washington Journal took several hours of phone calls. You can watch and listen here.

"I believe it was a fake attack?" You can hear that call at 7:14. The next caller says she agrees.

Quite a few of us the people thought the attack at the Hilton seemed to be staged or fake. Many of these are good, decent people. That said, we the people can almost always benefit from good, sound people providing good, sound leadership in the form of their badly needed wisdom and general help.

Our broadcasters and presidents have sometimes done that. Other times, not so much!