Jim Newell

So this story about Chris Christie and the George Washington Bridge is pretty funny, hmm? Oh, it’s delicious. But what does it mean? Everyone wants to know! To recap: In early September, the New Jersey side of the Port Authority shut down a few lanes of the George ...

Frank Luntz is depressed. The infamous GOP “word guru” is fed up with life. What’s wrong with America’s beloved focus group maven? Luntz is typically described as a “wordsmith,” as his most well-known function involves giving Republicans the ...

From its rostra, media news in 2014 is off to a gangbusters start! To wit: the guy who posts boring charts on a newspaper website may leave that newspaper and post boring charts elsewhere. “Ezra Klein Is Said to Plan to Leave Washington Post,” the Times reports, ...

On September 16th, hours after a man had killed a dozen or more people a couple of miles away at the Washington Navy Yard, a middle-aged fellow in shorts and a t-shirt lit a couple of firecrackers and threw them over the White House fence. An eyewitness likened his action, and ...

How different can Massachusetts and New Hampshire possibly be? They’re both dinky little states in New England that vote for Barack Obama and root for Satan’s baseball team and talk weird. The GOPs in both states aren’t rich with True Conservatives who hunt ...

This week, we celebrate a hero. Sam Youngman was a reporter in Washington, D.C., covering the White House and basking in all the perks of his high profile gig for several years. Then, after years of partying and a stint in rehab, he decided he was living an out-of-touch, morally ...

The future of American politics now rests on the ability of healthy people in their twenties to purchase health insurance. If not enough of the “invincibles,” as they’re now being called, enroll in the health insurance exchanges, the risk pools required to make ...

In the wake of the Aurora movie theater shooting last summer, Colorado was able to pass certain gun restrictions, including mandatory background checks for private sales or transfers of magazines with more than fifteen rounds of ammunition. Gun control activists across the ...