John Oliver

Early into the pandemic-- with Trump endangering peoples' lives daily with his lies and misinformation-- I asked a few of the legal scholars I know if he could be sued by the the families of people who followed his false information and died. The answer was the same from each: nope. Fox News, on the other hand, is another story.There has been a great deal of chatter online about class action law suits against Fox for broadcasting a steady stream of coronavirus misinformation-- and not all of it from Trump.

Fake Magic by Nancy OhanianYou may only know Michael Gerson as a Washington Post columnist who leans right. But he's much worse than that. A member of the neolib warmonger Council on Foreign Relations and a top George W. Bush speechwriter from 2001 'til 2006 he can proudly take a great deal of credit for the catastrophic invasion of Iraq.As you can probably imagine, he has a very different vision of the presidency than I do.

CoronavirusCzar Mike Pence by Nancy OhanianOne in 10 members of the Iranian parliament (the Majlis) has tested positive for coronavirus.

Yesterday, in his often excoriating music business newsletter, Bob Lefsetz set his sites on... oligarchs in politics. "You’ve got to be rich," he wrote. "And it always comes down to who you know." That could've easily been the opening lines about a music business post.

Today is Presidents' Day... but we'll forgo taking about that until we have a legitimate president in the White House again and, instead, say a few words about the legislative branch of government that was created with the power to check a possible tyrant in the White House.

There's an infamous still photo at the 40 second mark in the video above. The photo is of the 7 CEOs of the 7 big tobacco companies-- collectively known as the "7 dwarves"-- swearing in front of Congress that tobacco was neither addictive nor harmful to anyone's health. Although the 7 absolutely knew otherwise and although the 7 were absolutely responsible for millions of deaths, none were ever charged with a crime, let alone incarcerated for a single day in prison. Zero accountability.The tobacco companies have kept bribing members of Congress.

Ohio reactionary, Gym Jordan (R-OH) is a leading Republican on two committees: Oversight and Government Reform ,where he is the ranking member, and Judiciary. That's it. He's not on any committees that deal with passing actual laws, just committees that most deal with bad behavior. So when he goes on Fox every other day to warn about how Democrats don't deal with anything substantive, he's referring to his own committees-- and he's lying.

John Gehring is author of The Francis Effect: A Radical Pope’s Challenge to the American Catholic Church. He seems hopeful that the white Catholics in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan who gave Trump is first term are poised to make sure there is no second term.

The first test of Boris Johnson's premiership came yesterday. First, remember that Johnson wasn't elected to head the U.K. government by British voters, just by a small number of Conservative Party activists. The zany Trumpist who now heads the U.K. is far to the right of the general electorate and after his party's loss of a seat in Wales yesterday, has a working plurality in Parliament of exactly one vote.

Shit-eating grinsEarly yesterday, the NY Times published a piece Trump's Choice Of A Partisan For Top Intelligence Post Rattles Critics. Zzzzzzzzz. Wake me up if any Republicans other than Susan Collins votes NO. In fact, wake me if she does.