D.R. Tucker

When will the madness of gun violence stop? Oh, I forgot. The answer is never. Not in this country. A 60-year-old Orthodox rabbi from Brooklyn, N.Y., on his way to a local synagogue was gunned down in broad daylight Saturday morning after two young men opened fire on him on Northeast 175th Street, according to […]

Here’s a good way to measure someone’s IQ: ask them if they think Rick Perlstein is really a plagiarist. The idiot right is waging a no-holds-barred campaign to smear Perlstein, the author of The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan, as a thief. It’s a transparent attempt to destroy a […]

We shouldn’t have been there in 2003. We shouldn’t be there in 2014. Daniel Larison nails it: Obama has justified the decision to attack ISIS partly as a defense of American personnel in Iraq and partly as a defense of the Iraqis being targeted for annihilation by the group. As reasons for military action go, […]

The most anticipated book of the fall is undoubtedly Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, in part because Klein apparently calls out certain environmental organizations for playing pattycake with the fossil-fuel industry instead of taking a firm, principled stand against carbon pollution. One such organization turns out to be the Nature Conservancy, […]

Over at Republican Party headquarters, they’re desperately trying to figure out how they can get both racists and the victims of racism to vote Republican. Good luck with that one. The current crisis of Central American children flowing across the border has empowered conservatives, whose more restrictionist views on the issue have taken precedence in […]

40 years ago today, the 37th President of the United States, Richard Milhous Nixon, left office in disgrace. A former friend of mine once declared Nixon “the last liberal,” citing his establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as his involvement in school-desegregation, affirmative-action and women’s rights […]

Lord knows I’ve had my criticisms of MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry in the past–her decision to bring on notorious climate disinformer Bjorn Lomborg to discuss the climate crisis in April 2014, her unnecessary apology to Mitt Romney in December 2013, etc.–but I wish I had the chance to thank her in person for her segments today […]

Maybe the fundamentalists who insist that we are in the Last Days are on to something. After all, if George Will is saying something logical, that must mean Armageddon is near! Will pushed back against the nakedly racist rhetorical assault on those who want to kick out underage children fleeing the horrors of Central America. […]

Ten years ago today, at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Illinois State Senator and US Senate candidate Barack Obama delivered the speech heard ’round the world. There was plenty to admire about the speech: Obama effectively made the case for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, pointed to his background as a testament to America’s […]

Tell me, what did Neil DeGrasse Tyson do to be targeted by the wingnuts at National Review? Last night on HBO’s Real Time, host Bill Maher discussed the acidic attack launched upon Tyson by Charles Cooke in the magazine’s latest issue. Maher suggested that part of National Review‘s resentment towards Tyson stems from the fact […]