Eric Alterman

“Get in the groove and let the good times roll “

YouTube video by Glenn Curry Don Rickles interviews an uncooperative Lee Marvin on the Tonight Show, early 70s.

1970s Late Night Talk Shows were shockingly unmediated. A celebrity could be drunk or truculent on camera and the host would have to roll with it. Nothing like this would be allowed to happen today.
youtu.be/mzsI8RApPLg

Now they tell us..

Israel closes 88% of cases of alleged war crimes or abuse without charges – report Conflict monitoring group Action on Armed Violence says Israel is seeking to create a ‘pattern of impunity’

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Scathing but, unfortunately, accurate.
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The Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner's biggest mistake? Not going on Joe Rogan.

This sucks, but it's the least terrible thing he;s done in decades

What Does the ADL Stand for Today? The far right is the source of the vast majority of antisemitism in the U.S. today—and of direct threats to the republic. The Anti-Defamation League should be saying so more insistently.

The @nymag.com article on the ADL except by me two years ago in The New Repubic
newrepublic.com/article/1750...

Quick, someone needs to invent a WAZE for radioactive wasps and set it for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

How John Durham and Chuck Grassley Covered Up Getting Ass-Handed by Russia - emptywheel John Durham (with Chuck Grassley's help) tried to obscure that on the same day as the Russian spy report that drove his entire investigation, Russian spooks discussed seeding conspiracies about "dark ...

I've long believed 2016 Russian operation in US was most successful intelligence operation in recent history.

With disclosure that Durham investigation all predicated on disinformation, I double down on that opinion. Russia completely destroyed the United States.

www.emptywheel.net/2025/08/01/h...

I wonder if Alex Jones has been called as many times as Jeffrey Epstein called Donald Trump inviting him over to have sex with underage girls.

Breaking: Ghislaine Maxwell given the opportunity to choose in which state she will soon "commit suicide."

ADL web gone

Shortly after Trump’s election in November, the Internet Archive registered major changes to ADL’s website. Sections devoted to voting rights, racial justice, and other civil-rights issues were all gone. (3/x)

Update from Patricia Cohen

Link:
www.nytimes.com/live/2025/07...

A farmers market on deep blue Martha’s Vineyard might seem like a strange place to meet a Trump supporter. But over the screams of an 85-year-old disgraced professor, you can hear whispers that DEI is the reason the pierogi cost $8.

The entire republican party is currently involved in a cover up involving the worlds most notorious underage sex trafficking ring. Here's why that's bad news for Democrats.

And it's important to note that these are conservative estimates because they only take into account the direct effects of tariffs on input costs/spending.

The more difficult issue to model is whether the US economy ends up isolated from global supply chains. Are we reducing our competitiveness?

Why is it that MAGA dudes keep talking about the importance of masculinity, but are afraid of basically all our cities at a time when they're safer than ever (if you ignore ICE kidnapping people off the street, that is).

Leading Israeli author David Grossman calls Gaza war a 'genocide' ***

"I want to speak as a person who has done everything he could to avoid having to call Israel a genocidal state. And now, with immense pain and a broken heart, I have to say that it is happening before my eyes. Genocide.”

www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

Douglas Holtz-Eakin is a conservative former Congressional Budget Office director, chief economist for McCain 2008, and president of the American Action Forum, a conservative advocacy group. William Beach was Trump's former Commissioner of Labor Statistics in the first term. They're furious about Trump firing the BLS commissioner.

Operating the U.S. economy without reliable statistics is like flying a plane without any control panels.
Even conservative economists are terrified of this.

Whether it's Barack Obama opting for Dijon mustard on his burger or Donald Trump sending an innocent man to be raped in an El Salvador torture prison, both presidents made some questionable decisions.

After binging "Your Friends and Neighbors," "The Studio," "Hunting Wives," and "Sirens," and others I cannot remember, I've come to the conclusion that the "resistance" to Trump and the takeover of America by billionaire plutocrats is for us to watch prestige TV about rich assholes

American Jews’ Support for Israel Is Near Its Breaking Point The big legacy groups remain mostly silent. But nearly everyone else now agrees: Netanyahu’s Gaza war is one of the great catastrophes in Jewish history.

I wrote this:
newrepublic.com/article/1986...

“If I can’t trade stocks ahead of the release of market-moving information that I have access to as part of my public service, what’s even the point of being in Congress?”

"He kept insisting on pierogis made only with baby potatoes."

Bess Wohl’s ‘Liberation’ Is Heading to Broadway This Fall

Go see this
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/t...

Analysis | Democrats preach tolerance. But their opposition to Stephen Miller and Emil Bove shows a pattern of prejudice against morally vacuous ghouls.

Let me highlight a couple of trends I've seen in my feeds today:

1. Global civil society organizations have placed the U.S. on a watchlist and ranked us alongside Turkey, Kenya, and El Salvador. Is this making America "great"?