Andrew Breitbart And The Razor Blade In The Glove
It’s odd when someone like Andrew Breitbart dies. The day before, when news of the passing Davy Jones reached my desk, I knew precisely how to feel. I loved The Monkees. I was nine years old in 1986 when MTV began showing episodes of The Monkees, and I was entranced by the happy, jangling goofiness that show provided. I remember my mother telling me about how the walls of her childhood bedroom were plastered with pictures of Davy Jones, and I took pride in the thought that we shared a love for silly 60’s pop. The passing of Davy Jones is immensely sad, and he will be truly missed.
See how easy it is to write about people you like?
Dealing with the sudden death of a guy like Andrew Breitbart is infinitely more tricky. I abhorred his politics, his methods, and his complete lack of journalistic ethics. I wouldn’t even go as far as to say that I found him a worthy and admirable opponent, as he so often resorted to petty stunts and well positioned yet deliberately misleading factual distortions. Laypersons call this “lying.” I can claim neither professional respect or personal regard for Andrew Breitbart, and any attempt on my part to perpetrate otherwise would make me just as unscrupulous and dishonest as he was. I could go on, but today is not the day for that.
What do you even call Breitbart? A blogger? A journalist? A writer perhaps? It’s difficult to put your finger on. Those are several different ways to go about not describing what he was all about. I heard him called a “Firebrand” today. That’s probably closer.  Andrew Breitbart was a trouble maker. His job was to find opportunities to humiliate the Left, even if he had to fabricate them. This was his true calling, and he was spectacular at it.
This is the challenge on a day like today. It is sad when anyone dies. This is so critical to the make up of the North American Free Range Liberal that it could easily be our intellectual creed. Mr. Breitbart had a wife and four children. He had close friends and associates. There are people who are in heaving convulsive hysterics today, gasping through the first few stages of trying to process an idea as large as the death of a father, or a husband, or a dear friend.
Ultimately, this makes no difference in my life one way or another. Yesterday Andrew Breitbart was out there, trying to defile everything I stand for. Today he isn’t. Tomorrow someone else will be doing that job. The last thing his family needs is to have some snarky old queen like myself making this even harder for them. What I can say is that he was undoubtedly loved by many, despised by many, and was by all accounts a hard worker and a dedicated agent for his cause. He was good at what he did, even though what he did was despicable. It’s a little like being the Mozart of ambulance chasers. It is important to respect great skill, even if it is at a universally deplorable task.
I wish I could be as classy as Shirley Sherrod, a woman who’s life Breitbart tried to destroy. She said in a statement:
“The news of Mr. Breitbart’s death came as a surprise to me when I was informed of it this morning,” she said. “My prayers go out to Mr. Breitbart’s family as they cope through this very difficult time.”
Damn. That is so good. This man got her fired from the White House using a doctored video and some misleading reporting, and she could still find it within herself to strike a elegant and graceful tone. Her defamation lawsuit against him is likely to continue, which is fantastic, but even with all  that acrimony she kept it classy. Media Matters was good too:
“We’ve disagreed more than we’ve found common ground, but there was never any question of Andrew’s passion for and commitment to what he believed.â€
See? Isn’t that charitable? If only Andrew Breitbart could have been so dignified. I read this in the Associated Press obituary.
After Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts died in 2009, Breitbart tweeted, “Rest in Chappaquiddick” and called him “a special pile of human excrement.” When critics questioned his tone, he tweeted they “missed my best ones!”
That does a good job of summing up the life’s work of Andrew Breitbart. Politics always threatens to devolve into an ugly, brutal, bare knuckled boxing match, and Breitbart was an enthusiastic thug for the Right. His love was not of the nobility and dignity of our democratic process, but of the razor blade in the glove.
I remember when the whole Anthony Weiner thing was happening. Breitbart had been gleefully dismantling his prey for days, and the world was at that moment waiting for a statement from Representative Weiner, who was about to fess up. Weiner was beaten (yeah, I know), and though he didn’t resign for another 10 days, it was obviously the end of his political career. Breitbart had won. It was over. So what did Andrew do? He crashed Weiner’s press conference, demanded an apology from him, the Media and pretty much everyone else, kicked around Weiner a little more, then took off. It was so awful, and so arrogant, and in such bad taste that it was truly funny, even to a life long liberal like myself. That was classic Breitbart. Obnoxious to the point of being almost punk rock.
It is for this reason that I don’t mind kicking Andrew Breitbart around a little today. He was a world class asshole, and I feel like he would be a little disappointed if I didn’t. If he had a legacy, it would be that. Don’t be afraid to play dirty, and if you have to cheat to win, then by all means do. Not that I endorse that legacy. I don’t. It’s an awful, awful way to behave. It is sad when people die though, and there are people that will miss him greatly, even though I’m not one of them. Be nice to those people. They are having a rough time, and this is as bad as it gets. I have real empathy for what they are going through. I take no joy in his death, if for no other reason than that I fear what might come along to replace him.
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Benjamin Phillips is a Humor Writer, Web Developer, Civics Nerd, and all around crank that spends entirely too much time shouting with deep exasperation at the television, especially whenever cable news is on. He lives in St. Louis, MO and spends most of his time staring at various LCD screens, occasionally taking walks in the park whenever his boyfriend becomes sufficiently convinced that Benjamin is becoming a reclusive hermit person. He is available for children’s parties, provided that those children are entertained by hearing a complete windbag talk for two hours about the importance of science education, or worse yet, poorly researched anecdotes PROVING that James Buchanan was totally gay. If civilization were to collapse due to zombie hoards or nuclear holocaust, Benjamin would be among the first to die as he has no useful skills of any kind. The post-apocalyptic hellscape has no real need for homosexual computer programmers who can name all the presidents in order, as well as the actors who have played all eleven incarnations of Doctor Who.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
