Joseph Stalin

Tuesday’s New York Times led with a 2,500-word screed by science reporter William Broad. “Historians See Autocratic Playbook in Trump’s Attacks on Science” took off from that headline and became quickly even more laughable, taking us back 400 years to the Inquisition. The prominent story was even illustrated with a painting of astronomer Galileo’s 1633 church trial for heresy for…

If politics can be said to be a team sport, then MSNBC host and Thursday Morning Joe panelist Al Sharpton is the coach who puts the ball on the tee, and Rep. Jamie Raskin is the batter who takes the easy swing. Sharpton asked if a federal judge ruling President Trump illegally withheld funding from Harvard proves that his anti-DEI policies are political, and Raskin dutifully replied…

New York Times columnist David Brooks did the not-so-clever trick of insisting he wasn’t saying what he was indeed saying on Friday’s edition of PBS News Hour as he reflected back on Elon Musk’s time at DOGE by comparing him to Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, and Joseph Stalin.

As Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, CBS’s Stephen Colbert welcomed Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to the Wednesday edition of The Late Show, where he lobbed a softball her way when he asked, “Could you have been a better cheerleader for the economy?” Also on the subject of Trump’s return, Colbert hailed former First Lady Michelle Obama’s decision to skip the…

As President-elect Donald Trump celebrated being named Time magazine’s person of the year for 2024, MSNBC’s Joy Reid tried to throw cold water on the occasion by pointing out that not everyone who has won the award historically has done so because they made the world a better place. The ReidOut host claimed “we all know” which side Trump is on, and it is the one with “Adolf…

On Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough accuses Benjamin Netanyahu, in an effort to put pressure on Hamas, of intentionally starving Gazans, similar to how Stalin starved Ukrainians in the Holodomor.

The liberal President of the United States recently invited the conservative Prime Minister of Italy to the White House to discuss matters of mutual concern including the war in Ukraine. Such pairings are not exactly new or uncommon, but MSNBC’s Friday edition of The Last Word used the opportunity to compare Giorgia Meloni to Joseph Stalin for her social conservatism.

“Greed of the fossil fuel industry” is “destroying our planet,” says Sen. Bernie Sanders. Young people agree. Their solution? Socialism. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says socialism creates “an environment that provides for all people, not just the privileged few.” “Nonsense,” says Tom Palmer of the Atlas Network in my new video. Palmer, unlike Ocasio-Cortez and most of us, spent lots of time…

In theory, the Durham Report and the testimony of FBI whistle blowers was to be about the internal conduct of the FBI. But it also underlines the failure of the Pulitzer Prize folks.

MSNBC's All In host Chris Hayes lamented on Thursday that when people think of authoritarians, they tend to think of people like Stalin or Mussoulini and not “Mr. Pudding Fingers” because for Hayes, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s education, abortion, Disney, and drag show policies are all hallmarks of “authoritarianism.” However, the worst bit of so-called authoritarianism to come out…

WASHINGTON – How people understand history largely depends on who writes it and from what perspective. Calvin Coolidge, our 30th president, has received what might be called a raw deal from historians like Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Henry Steele Commager, among others. They created a caricature of Coolidge that includes blaming him for the Great Depression, which began in 1929, the year after…

As with many things, propaganda can be used for good or for ill, depending on who dispenses it. During World War II, American propaganda was considered a necessary tool in the pursuit of victory in a moral cause. Germany and Japan had their own propaganda machines to advance an evil agenda. The Nazi propaganda effort was headed by Joseph Goebbels to whom the term “The Big Lie,” meaning if one…

As Russia wages unilateral war on Ukraine, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is rightly seen by most everyone as a malign force, including the New York Times. But the Times hasn’t always aligned against history’s dictators and strongmen. While one of the Times’ most common charges against former President Donald Trump was his alleged soft spot for authoritarian leaders…

As the crisis in Ukraine escalates, threatening Europe and the world, journalists and media outlets have rightly and consistently highlighted the cruel aggression of former KGB agent Vladimir Putin. However, the same outlets that now showcase the horror of an attempted restoration of the Soviet Union gushed about its glory days as the USSR collapsed