Good Friday to you. Since Trump’s visit to Helsinki, concern has grown over the security of our voting process from hacking. We will get into some of the politicized arguments about whom such hacking would favor but before we do we want to note that there is one sure way to not have your vote count: That is not to cast it. 

Happy Thursday. Well, even by Trump's standards, his tweet storm this morning was a doozy. After denying for months that he knew anything about the hush payments made by his lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels, Trump admitted that he not only knew about it, but that he reimbursed Cohen through monthly retainer payments. This confession was, of course, previewed during last night’s interview between Sean Hannity and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. It seems to be a new legal strategy on the part of the president. His team argues that because Trump used his own money, it is not a campaign violation.

Good Thursday to you. We’ve been thinking a lot about the upcoming Women’s March and how it feels different one year later. A year ago, we -- and many among our families and friends -- took to the streets in droves. Back then, the march felt like an all-inclusive protest against Trump. It was both unifying and cathartic. This year, we don’t feel the urgency of public demonstration. The shock of Trump is over and to us it seems that the time to protest is over and the time to roll up our sleeves has come.

Good Thursday to you. Wednesday felt as if it might be a watershed moment to us. The passing of the tax bill may have been President Trump’s first legislative victory -- arguably a modest achievement for an administration whose party also controls Congress -- but across the conservative press it heralded a new acceptance of the president.

Good Thursday to you. Over the weekend, The Washington Post and The New York Times ran stories revealing that Special Counsel Robert Mueller demoted one of his investigators, Peter Strzok, last summer after he learned Strzok had sent anti-Trump texts to a colleague on his team. The Mainstream Media then largely left the story there -- a staffer misbehaved and then was reassigned. Done. In the alternative conservative media universe, however, it was as if a bomb went off.

CORRECTION: In the original version of the newsletter, we made an error in the first item. Party of winner Va. Gov. election.

Happy Thursday to you. So Democrats are feeling a bit giddy after Tuesday night. Tons of ink are being spilled to analyze the results of the election...

Good Thursday. For all their complaints about the bias of the Mainstream Media, we couldn’t help but notice that for most of October the conservative press has been dining out on the hard-earned reporting of their so-called “fake news” cousins. The three stories that have dominated their pages all broke in traditional newspapers. 

Good Thursday. Before we get into the news, we have some scheduling changes to discuss. We launched this newsletter in February. For us, it has been a labor of love, and we have been gratified to have earned so many devoted readers.

Good Thursday to you. We hope the solar eclipse gave you a brief respite in our ongoing national melee. Here, in New York, the eclipse barely made it to three-quarters full. Still, we enjoyed every minute. But as soon as it ended, we returned to the madness:

Good Thursday to you. All week we struggled with our decision to take time off and publish once weekly in August. Like everyone else, we watched the violence in Charlottesville in horror. Despite all the ink spilled on this topic, we still have our two cents to add. We’ve skipped the worst from the Right, like the attacks on Heather Heyer, the young woman mowed down by the car, and the conspiracy theories that the Nazi marchers were actually liberals who wanted to embarrass the Right. We’ve focused on how Trump’s arguments and reasoning actually reflected thinking we’ve seen for awhile in the Right media.