The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Chuck Grassley Reveals The Real Reason He Won’t Give Merrick Garland A Hearing

Chuck Grassley Reveals The Real Reason He Won’t Give Merrick Garland A Hearing

In more transparently anti-choice posturing, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley told supporters that his opposition to abortion is the real reason he won’t consider new Supreme Court nominees before the next president is in office.

Grassley, the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman and an avowed foe of abortion rights, has stubbornly refused to give President Obama’s Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland, a full hearing to ascertain his qualifications for the role.

“I can’t overstate the importance of what’s at stake here,” he said in a conference call with the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List. “We know if another liberal is nominated to the court then even the reasonable restrictions on abortion that have been enacted into law — through the democratic process, I might say — these would be swept away.”

One case Grassley referred to on the call, Gonzales v. Carhart, upheld a Congressional ban on partial-birth abortions. John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas joined Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion, with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens, David Souter, and Stephen Breyer dissenting. David Souter retired in 2009 and Stevens in 2010; they both were nominated by Republican presidents, Souter by George H.W. Bush in 1990 and Stevens by Gerald Ford in 1975.

Contraception and access to women’s health care — including abortion — have been the subject of major political and legal debate recently, and are expected to be on the Court’s docket next year, including notably the question of whether Texas’ new laws create an “undue burden” for women seeking abortions in the state, a question that the Court’s female justices seem to have have already addressed in oral arguments.

Grassley didn’t stop there, though. He also accused the media of distorting the judicial records of Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Breyer, Kagan, and by insinuation, Garland, referring to “headlines at the time they were nominated” that depicted the judges as moderates.

“Well, we know how those four have turned out. So don’t believe what you read in the press about people’s basic philosophy, because they got it all wrong and probably intentionally all wrong.”

Photo: Chuck Grassley, anti-abortion foe, which means he won’t give Merrick Garland a fair hearing. REUTERS/Gary Cameron

Endorse This: Elite New York GOPers Ignore Ted Cruz

Endorse This: Elite New York GOPers Ignore Ted Cruz

The New York State Republican Party held a fancy gala last night (featuring chocolate elephants) and three presidential contenders showed up to make their case to the Big Apple’s big timers. With Tuesday’s primary rapidly approaching, it was an opportunity for John Kasich and Ted Cruz to try to make up ground with a state establishment that, for the most part, is loyal to Donald Trump.

Reporters at the event, however, were more amused that the crowd shunned Ted Cruz:

As NBC News embed Vaughn Hillyard showed, the crowd just didn’t care about Ted Cruz; he doesn’t embody “New York values” nearly as much as Donald Trump, who spent his speech detailing his list of deals in the city to a far more attentive audience.

Screengrab via Rosie Gray/Twitter

Endorse This: Caroline Cruz Embarrasses Dad And The World Smiles

Endorse This: Caroline Cruz Embarrasses Dad And The World Smiles

Oh Caroline Cruz. We love you. Never change.

Ted Cruz’s eldest daughter Caroline Cruz — who turned eight today — has been the most charming of all the Cruzes, squirming and blurting out little nuggets of family lore.

She’s embarrassed her father Ted Cruz more than once, too, and it’s her irrepressibility — she’s not going to behave just because her dad is running for president — that’s endeared her to millions of political watchers.

In this clip from a town hall meeting on CNN, as Ted Cruz loftily tells the audience how his daughters have changed him — “There are moments of humility that being the father of daughters instills in you” — Caroline Cruz butts in with her own story, completely derailing her father’s.

It’s an egregious violation of his “no cameras” policy.

Could someone at the Cruz’s Houston school leak the video?

Screengrab of, from left, Caroline Cruz and her sister Catherine, who is sitting on Heidi’s lap. Caroline and Catherine squirm the entire time and it’s adorable. CNN/YouTube

Endorse This: Happy Birthday, Al Green!

Endorse This: Happy Birthday, Al Green!

Today is soul singer Al Green’s 70th birthday.

And what better way to appreciate him than by having one of his own fans perform a (slight) homage?

President Obama did just that in 2012, on an apparent dare, after Green performed at a fundraising event that Obama attended. To raucous applause, the president sang a line from one of Green’s most well-known songs, “I’m Still in Love With You,” from 1972.

“Don’t worry, Rev., I cannot sing like you, but I just wanted to show my appreciation,” he said.

Obama has sung in front of crowds before – his rendition of “Amazing Grace,” in June last year after the Emanuel AME church shooting in Charleston became a symbol for the resilience of the victims in the wake of a horrific attack.

President Obama isn’t afraid to sing when he’s moved. Screengrab from the Associated Press/YouTube

Hillary Clinton And Bill de Blasio’s Racial Joke Didn’t Go Over Well

Hillary Clinton And Bill de Blasio’s Racial Joke Didn’t Go Over Well

Sometimes politicians make dumb jokes.

Sometimes politicians make dumb racist jokes.

Sometimes politicians get called out on the cover of the New York Daily News for making dumb racist jokes.

This time it was Hillary Clinton and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

It’s a quick bit — and purely scripted, as de Blasio told CNN’s Erin Burnett.

Clinton made a joke about how long it took for de Blasio to endorse her. (He endorsed her back in October, but months earlier he was noncommittal.)

De Blasio then responded with a quick line; Leslie Odom Jr., a black performer who plays Aaron Burr in the Broadway phenomenon Hamilton, was in on the joke, which plays off of an old, stupid racial stereotype.

There was an added bit of irony, too: De Blasio is married to Chirlane McCray, an African-American woman.

Screengrab of Leslie Odom, Jr., from Hamilton, Hillary Clinton and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, trying to tell a joke. tomm2thumbs via YouTube

John Oliver Fires Back At Error-Prone Credit Agencies For Ruining The Lives of Millions Of People

John Oliver Fires Back At Error-Prone Credit Agencies For Ruining The Lives of Millions Of People

It’s important to check your credit score regularly, as the summary score is used to ascertain your creditworthiness — how often you pay your bills on time and how much you pay — and can determine interest rates, credit limits, and whether or not you can rent an apartment or get a loan.

Since credit scores can contain errors, it’s even more important to check them several times a year. Some experts recommend checking each of the three major companies, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, once a year, or every four months, since you only can check each once a year for free.

John Oliver took those three to task on his show Sunday for their high error rates — as many as 1 in 5 people, or 20 percent. They have the highest number of complaints recorded at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the group Elizabeth Warren originally proposed in 2007 and help create in 2010 in the wake of the Dodd-Frank Act.

However, even an error rate of 5 percent, according to a Federal Trade Commission report, means millions of people are affected. And that means their lives could be ruined, if a faulty credit report prevents them from getting a job, home, or business loan.

Oliver rips the error-prone companies apart and then skewers them with a prank. Watch below.

Screengrab via Last Week Tonight/YouTube

Endorse This: The Donald Trump Remark That Left Trevor Noah Speechless

Endorse This: The Donald Trump Remark That Left Trevor Noah Speechless

The whole “mock outraged talk show host” shtick is in serious danger of extinction, now that Donald Trump is a mainstay of the news cycle. If everything is outrageous all the time, what stands out?

Yet Trump keeps breaking barriers — this time, with something he said 20 years ago.

In a Daily Show segment called “The Chronicles of Narcissism: Tales from the Trump Archive” we see Trump and his second wife, Marla Maples, being interviewed by Robin Leach for his show, “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.”

Leach asks the couple how their one-year-old daughter, Tiffany, resembles each of them.

Trump’s answer — only a few words and hand gestures — tells you all you need to know about him and the way he views women. It’s not just Megyn Kelly, Hillary Clinton, Heidi Cruz, Rosie O’Donnell, Carly Fiorina, Apprentice contestant Brande Roderick, Kristen Stewart, Arianna Huffington, Gail Collins, Sarah Jessica Parker, Bette Midler, Cher… it’s all women.

This is Trump’s one consistent belief.

Photo: Donald Trump and his second wife, Marla Maples, in a screen capture from a 1994 episode of The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Screenshot via The Daily Show with Trevor Noah/Comedy Central

Gallup: Hillary’s Supporters Are More Entusiastic Than Bernie’s

Gallup: Hillary’s Supporters Are More Entusiastic Than Bernie’s

Don’t believe your Facebook feed’s pro-Sanders bias.

Bernie Sanders’s fans are often portrayed as hyped-up youngsters infatuated with the Vermonter’s long record of progressive legislation, and his passion for leveling out the economic playing field. In comparison, Clinton voters support the staid “establishment” – despite Clinton’s being a trailblazer in nearly everything she’s done.

Yet according to a recent Gallup poll, 54 percent of Clinton supporters are “very” or “extremely” enthusiastic about her candidacy, while the same is only true of 44 percent of Sanders supporters. While Bernie Sanders does dominate the under-30 vote, notably in Michigan and Iowa, his voters aren’t more excited about him than Clinton’s are about her.

Amanda Marcotte, writing for Alternet, argues that media bias could be clouding the real story:

It’s not hard to see why this false narrative that Sanders inspires more enthusiasm has taken root. He is the challenger running up against the favorite, and it is known that everyone likes an underdog. That, and his surprisingly robust chances against Clinton suggest a rising tide narrative, again not unfairly.

On top of that, most journalists who echo the Sanders enthusiasm narrative spend a lot of time on social media, and if you do that, then it’s safe to say that it looks like Sanders is inspiring a lot of enthusiasm. There is an explosion of memes and chatter about the “revolution” and sharing every single story they can find that says something positive about Sanders’s chances.

It’s not that Hillary doesn’t have her own memes and pop culture moments — they just get lost in the sea of content, and are often drowned out by those who dislike her or her surrogates, whether pop confectionary Katy Perry, feminist punching bag Lena Dunham, or unexpected rabble-rouser Madeleine Albright. There’s plenty of passionate prose about Hillary and how she’s perceived, from sexism to the art of the smile.

On the Republican side, the contest isn’t nearly as close. Although Donald Trump is revolting to millions of future voters, those who love him really love him. John Kasich and Ted Cruz are far more milquetoast to the Republican and Republican-leaning voters Gallup surveyed. Despite Cruz’s reputation as an sharp-toothed constitutionalist, just 39 percent of those surveyed are enthusiastic about him, compared to Trump’s 65 and Kasich’s 33.

Democrats who are “not too” or “not at all” enthusiastic about their preference are nearly evenly split in their indifference to Sanders and Clinton, suggesting that they find the candidates similar, aren’t paying much attention to the race, or simply want some Democrat to make it to the White House in January.

Cruz and Kaisch, by contrast, have much larger groups of supporters “not too” or “not at all” enthusiastic about them — 35 and 51 percent, respectively.

The survey was conducted via cellphone and landline interviews March 21-23 with a random sample of 1,358 registered voters (635 Republicans and independents who lean Republican, and 610 Democrats and those who lean Democratic). Voters were over 18 and lived in all 50 states including the District of Columbia.

Photo: Democratic U.S. presidential candidates Senator Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrive on stage ahead of the start of the PBS NewsHour Democratic presidential candidates debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, February 11, 2016. REUTERS/Darren Hauck

Melania Trump Praises Her ‘Kind,’ ‘Smart’ Husband

Melania Trump Praises Her ‘Kind,’ ‘Smart’ Husband

After Donald Trump’s recent mea culpa — predictably recited days after posting an unflattering picture of Heidi Cruz, Ted Cruz’s wife, on Twitter — he figured it was time to go soft.

With a WSJ/NBC News poll pointing out that 47 percent of Republican female primary voters say, roughly, “hell no” to orange ogre, Trump seemingly wanted to make an effort to prove that “women love” him.

So Melania Trump, Donald’s third wife and a former model from Slovenia, came on stage at a Wisconsin rally this morning, where Trump was campaigning for this afternoon’s primary, and delivered an alternate history.

Donald Trump is “kind,” “smart,” “tough,” “a great communicator,” “a great negotiator,” and “a great leader.” The best.

Note that she didn’t say “handsome.” Perhaps that’s too far even for her.

Screenshot of Melania Trump speaking at a Wisconsin rally Entertainment News Gaming/YouTube

Women Tell Indiana Governor About Their Periods To Protest Restrictive Abortion Bill

Women Tell Indiana Governor About Their Periods To Protest Restrictive Abortion Bill

When Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed into law one of the most restrictive pieces of abortion legislation in the country, women in the state didn’t just get mad. They got viral payback.

One anonymous do-gooder created a Facebook page and then a Twitter account explicitly calling for women to contact the governor’s office to report on the status of their periods. And they’ve complied:

Just got through to Governor Pence's office. (The operator must be on break.) Me: Hi, is this the operator, or the…

Posted by Periods for Pence on Wednesday, March 30, 2016

The bill, HEA 1337, which is similar to restrictions North Dakota enacted in 2013, criminalizes any woman who has an abortion based on the disabilities, race or sex of the fetus. Under the bill, doctors — who must have admitting privileges at a hospital — are also liable for these abortions, and fetal tissue or remains must be cremated or interred. This includes miscarriages, and it doesn’t matter how far along the pregnancy is. Patients are likely to pay for the added bureaucratic cost of disposing biological tissue.

Fertilized eggs can be expelled during a woman’s period without a woman even knowing that she might have had the…

Posted by Periods for Pence on Monday, March 28, 2016

“The more I read this bill, the more vague language I found and the more loopholes, and it just seemed incredibly intrusive. So I wanted to give a voice for women who really didn’t feel like they were given any kind of input into a bill that would affect our life so much,” said the woman behind the campaign, who prefers to remain anonymous, to Indianapolis’s WRTV.

In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Indianapolis-based ob-gyn Katherine McHugh wrote that the new law isn’t just an encroachment upon women’s rights but also that it actively harms “the doctor-patient relationship at one of its most vulnerable, sensitive times” — it’s bad medicine.

“Indiana now expects women who live here to experience [pregnancy and childbirth] without trusting their doctors’ knowledge and with strict limits on how doctors may treat patients — limits driven not by science or research, but by politics,” she said, explaining that under this law, women could be forced to carry to term stillborn babies, and children who are likely to be born — and then die shortly after of — “severe and disastrous genetic abnormalities.”

Many Republicans in the state, even those who have written and supported pro-life legislation in the past, felt HEA 1337 was too draconian.

According to NPR, they said the measure, which bans abortions performed because of a fetus’s characteristics, demeans women and lacks compassion: “One lawmaker said it signals a return to the time of back room abortions. Doctors urged the governor to veto the bill, warning that patients could feel pressure to lie to their doctors.”

Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky has denounced the law, which is scheduled to go into effect in June, though they said they will “ask a court to block the measure before that can happen.”

In the meantime: push away:

Photo: Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana. Via Flickr user Gage Skidmore.

Endorse This: Watch Donald Trump Whine About ‘Unfair’ Delegate Math

Endorse This: Watch Donald Trump Whine About ‘Unfair’ Delegate Math

Poor Donald. Life is so unfair.

Donald Trump has to win 1,237 delegates on the first ballot at the Republican convention to become the GOP presidential nominee.

He’s just a little upset that John Kasich, by insisting stubbornly on the democratic process, is “taking our votes.”

But rules are rules, Donald. As you’ve said before — whether it’s women who’d attempt to get abortions if the procedure is illegal or Mexicans and Muslims who come to this country in search of a better life for their families — we’ve got to follow the rules to Make America Great Again.

Evidently Trump is happy to face Ted Cruz as his main opponent right now. But John Kasich? He shouldn’t be allowed to run. He’s siphoning votes away from…Trump! And that’s not cool.

Screenshot via The Washington Post

Warren: Voting For Trump Like Calling An Arsonist For A House Fire

Warren: Voting For Trump Like Calling An Arsonist For A House Fire

Elizabeth Warren loathes Donald Trump, and she’s made no secret of it. Last week, the Massachusetts senator went on a social media tirade against the Republican frontrunner, calling him a “loser” multiple times. And last night, on the Late Show with Steven Colbert, she followed up in person.

“We have an economy that’s in real trouble,” Warren said. “But when the economy is in this kind of trouble, calling on Donald Trump for help is like if your house is on fire calling an arsonist to come and help out.”

“Why are you getting down in the schoolyard with Donald Trump?” asked Colbert. “Isn’t this just name calling?”

“Oh, come on!” Warren said. “He’s not a business success, he is a business loser.”

Warren, who was a professor of bankruptcy law at Harvard Law School before running for the U.S. senate, began to dissect Trump’s business career: that he was born wealthy, kept his businesses afloat by “cheating and defrauding people,” is actually terrible with money, only looks out for himself, and is a complete fraud.

And we wonder why even Trump’s fellow billionaires think he’s a joke.

Screenshot via The Late Show with Stephen Colbert/Youtube. Photo via CBS.

Trump Randomly Decides Women Should Be Punished For Getting Abortions

Trump Randomly Decides Women Should Be Punished For Getting Abortions

Donald Trump said today that he would punish women for getting abortions if the procedure became illegal — but he would not punish men.

In an interview with Chris Matthews taped for broadcast this evening, the MSNBC host pressed Trump on his views on banning abortion altogether.

From the beginning of Trump’s candidacy, he has continuously backpedaled and hedged on the abortion issue. Before he began to run for president, Trump described himself as pro-choice.

After filibustering with an interrogation of Matthews on the host’s own religious beliefs, Trump paused when Matthews asked: “Do you believe in punishment for abortion? Yes or no, as a principle?”

“The answer is that… There has to be some form of punishment.”

“For the woman?

“Yeah, there has to be some form.”

But when Matthews questioned him on what that punishment should be — “10 months or 10 years?” — Trump responded that he doesn’t know.

“It’s a very complicated position,” said the Republican frontrunner.

Trump’s campaign quickly released a statement after the interview in an attempt to clarify, or obscure: “This issue is unclear and should be put back into the states for determination. Like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions, which I have outlined numerous times.”

Trump’s son Donald Jr. also responded on Twitter, emphasizing what he felt had been overlooked in the burgeoning brouhaha: the “banned” part.

Because logically, if people disobey the law, then of course they should be punished. And Trump thinks abortion should be illegal in most cases.

Of course, as political strategy, even hard-liners on abortion aim most of their punitive rhetoric at abortion providers, rather than the women who seek abortions. Dozens of organizations, journalists and politicians immediately released statements, some on Twitter, denouncing Trump’s remark.

Gov. John Kasich, who has his own anti-women and anti-abortion record in Ohio, told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd that he didn’t agree with Trump’s willingness to punish women who attempt to have abortions. “I do have exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother but of course women shouldn’t be punished,” he said.

Although Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who is also in favor of essentially erasing the effects of Roe v. Wade, has not yet responded to Trump, both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders tweeted their reactions:

Maybe this episode will prompt a much-needed discussion on the morality of limiting abortion access. What is clear is that Trump sought to advance the right’s long-standing effort to criminalize a very large portion of the American public.

Endorse This: Watch Donald Trump Whine Like A Baby That He ‘Didn’t Start It’

Endorse This: Watch Donald Trump Whine Like A Baby That He ‘Didn’t Start It’

Let’s play a game.

Use your imagination today, kids, to fill in what Anderson Cooper, CNN’s white-haired wunderkind, asked Donald Trump at last night’s town hall.

All quotes below are directly taken from Donald Trump.

Scenario: Anderson Cooper asks Donald Trump about him retweeting an “unflattering photo” of Heidi Cruz next to a glamour shot of Melania Trump.

“I thought it was a nice picture of Heidi. I thought it was fine.”

“I thought it was fine. She’s a pretty woman.”

“Excuse me, excuse me, I didn’t start it.”

“I didn’t start it.”

“I didn’t start it. No it’s not.”

“Excuse me, you would say that. That’s the problem with our country.”

“Excuse me. No, no, no. That’s the problem.  Exactly that thinking is the problem this country has. I did not start this. He sent out a picture and he knew very well – ”

“Anderson, it was a cover story of a picture taken by Antoine Verglas, one of the great photographers of the world, by the way,   my wife was a very, very successful model, like one of the most. It was a picture for the cover of GQ, which is a decent – which is a very good magazine. You don’t think he set it up?”

“They were Romney people.”

“They were Romney people. Romney is you know, very embarrassed that he did so badly four years ago. The guy choked like a dog.”

“No, everybody knows he sent it out. He knew the people in the super PAC. He knew — I would be willing to bet he wrote the phrase, would you like to have this as first lady? And a lot of people said yes, actually, if you want to know the truth.”

Got that? Now compare it with the video, courtesy of Media Matters.

Screenshot via CNN

Endorse This: Obama: Unlike Putin, I Don’t Edit Journalists

Endorse This: Obama: Unlike Putin, I Don’t Edit Journalists

President Obama gave a speech at Syracuse University yesterday at an award ceremony honoring political journalists. He shared one particular interaction with a certain Russian head of state who disagreed with some of Obama’s comments in the current Atlanticcover story on the president’s views. (Video is at 46:23).

Well, Obama dryly noted, “Unlike you, Vladimir, I don’t get to edit the piece before it’s published.”

American media has come under special scrutiny recently. They breathlessly covered the rise of Donald Trump’s loony presidential bid, though they haven’t spent much time at all on his plan to limit the freedom of the press if elected. During President Obama’s visit to Cuba last month, he prompted president Raul Castro — who rarely takes questions from journalists — to respond to a question from Andrea Mitchell.

Obama lamented the coarseness of the political culture and the financial pressures under which news organizations operate. “I spend a lot of time reflecting on how this system, how this crazy notion of self-government works; how can we make it work. And this is as important to making it work as anything — people getting information that they can trust, and that has substance and evidence and facts and truth behind it.”

The president is a well-known obsessive of America’s media culture. In a recent interview with Bill Simmons, former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau said “the media ecosystem and how people think is very interesting to him.”

Video (speech starts at 20:13), Transcript.

Screenshot: The White House/YouTube via Syracuse University

Why Do Voters Say Hillary Clinton Is Untrustworthy?

Why Do Voters Say Hillary Clinton Is Untrustworthy?

Hillary Clinton is not trustworthy.

That’s the belief of many, many Americans – and in this case, let’s exclude the right-wing orthodoxy, who have hated Hillary since she first said she’d rather not stay home baking chocolate-chip cookies in 1992.

Forty percent of Democratic primary voters, according to March CBS/New York Times poll, believe that Mrs. Clinton is politically calculating; somone they don’t trust with the presidency. She’s been asked about it in debates and on the stump, and there’s a whole genre of literature devoted to her “fabrications.”

But even journalists like Jill Abramson, who has covered Clinton for decades as the the New York Times’ Washington bureau chief, managing editor and executive editor, have defended Clinton against mostly-baseless accusations that she is “dishonest.”

Abramson, in an op-ed in The Guardian, writes that while Hillary has shown bad judgment before – she specifically refers to her use of a private email server while Secretary of State, over which Clinton will be speaking to the FBI, and her taking Wall Street money for speeches she’s given – she suffers from a level of scrutiny not given to male candidates, and her long record in politics gives her opponents ample fodder.

This type of criticism, which many use as a feminist defense, might fall on hostile ears. But as Chaz Pazienza argues in The Daily Banter, it’s Clinton’s reputation, for good or for ill, that makes it so impossible for many voters to look at her objectively:

The “personality” that’s been sold to the American electorate is largely manufactured, and not by Clinton herself (another facet of the smear: that she’s a phony). The reality is that Clinton was one of the most liberal members of the Senate during her time there, ranking within ten points of progressive messiah Bernie Sanders and her history as a crusader for progressive causes is precisely what so motivated the GOP to destroy her in the first place. As far as the right was concerned, Clinton stepped far over the line when she pushed for healthcare reform way back in 1993 and her activist past informed a future as a “difficult woman.”

Even using objective measures of trustworthiness, like Politifact’s Truth-O-Meter scale, she rates as the most honest compared to every other candidate in the 2016 race. (Let’s not even go into the GOP frontrunner, who’s entire candidacy is based upon saying the most outrageous lie he can think of in any given moment.)

But unlike other politicians, the supposed scandals stick. You might be sick of hearing about Hillary’s damn emails, but they’re still getting coverage.

Hillary has learned to become guarded through her decades in public life. When the most intimate details of your life are splayed across front pages for everyone to see – and judge and scold and criticize – it’s natural that she would carefully take pains to draw her private life around her as much as possible. And that’s made blunders about her lack of transparency – like not releasing transcripts of her private speeches to Wall Street – make her look like she’s hiding something, even if it’s just embarrassment or hypocrisy.

As Abramson points out, this doesn’t mean that Hillary is above scrutiny, and she’s not excusing her record. But Abramson isn’t alone in finding Clinton’s “liar” reputation extremely dubious.

After all, America has elected prevaricating politicians before.

Photo: Hillary Clinton: Whoever you want her to be? REUTERS/Mike Stone

Endorse This: Ted Cruz ‘Doesn’t Know What The Hell He’s Talking About’

Endorse This: Ted Cruz ‘Doesn’t Know What The Hell He’s Talking About’

Ted Cruz got flustered today when CBS’ This Morning’s anchors pointed out the logical fallacies in his argument that the U.S. needs to spy on Muslim communities to weed out radical jihadists.

Co-host Norah O’Donnell was having none of Ted Cruz’s political posturing.

“How many Muslims are in America?” she asked him.

Ted Cruz admitted he didn’t know.

“There are three million Muslims in America. Law enforcement is overwhelmed…It’s impractical what you’re suggesting. Also, it doesn’t suggest it would lead to anything. It’s more of a political point that you’re making.”

She was referring to the police surveillance program that was initiated after the 9/11 but was disbanded under New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, due to its ineffectiveness.

The CBS anchor weren’t the only one who found Cruz’s logic ridiculous. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton blasted Cruz for his ignorance on the same program earlier:

“He doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about, to be quite frank with you. I took great offense to that statement. I have almost one thousand Muslim officers in the NYPD. Ironically, when he’s running around here, we probably have a few Muslim officers guarding him.”

Cruz dismissed Bratton’s comments, calling him and his partner John Miller, the deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism,“Democratic political henchmen” under de Blasio’s command.

“It could be because he simply thinks that patrolling Muslim neighborhoods is a bad thing to do in the interest of New York?” Rose asked.

But Cruz, sticking to his political talking points, instead blamed de Blasio, Hillary Clinton and the President for sticking to “political correctness” in refusing to use the words “radical Islam” when referring to ISIS, a statement he has used repeatedly.

The hosts don’t take the bait, continuing to press the oily Texas senator. Watch as the journalists do their jobs — pointing out errors, inaccuracies, and bluster in a presidential candidate.

Screenshot via YouTube/CBS This Morning