Evening Roundup, December 22
Featuring Tim Dickinson, Jennifer Rubin and Pablo Torre, Cartoons of the Year, Josh Levs, Nick Anderson, The Publisher's Roundup, Talking Feds, and Coffee with the Contrarians
The 20 Most Unhinged MAGA Media Posts of 2025 (Part I)
The Trump administration’s torrent of social media in 2025 has been enough to make your eyeballs bleed.
How Many Scandals Hit Sports in 2025?
It’s the last Monday of the year with Pablo Torre! We couldn’t end 2025 without a trip down memory lane with our favorite sports journalist, who delivered a flurry of hard-hitting and unsung stories.
It's time to vote in the 2025 Media Fail Awards
What were the biggest, most disastrous media failures of this year? There are far too many to choose from.
Cartoons of the Year
The best editorial cartoons of the year from Nick Anderson, Michael de Adder, and RJ Matson
Will Trump Pardon Ghislaine Maxwell? What His 10 Worst Pardons Teach Us
No president in American history has used–and abused–the constitutional clemency power quite like Donald Trump. It’s not just that he’s used his authority to pardon people who probably shouldn’t be pardoned; other presidents have done that, although in smaller quantities. What’s unique about Trump’s abuses is the sheer number–and how
The [REDACTED] Files
![The [REDACTED] Files](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!q933!,w_280,h_280,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4412794a-7faa-43b3-b22c-1f52daca417e_1456x1048.png)
As the Department of Justice slow-walks an over-redacted release of its files on Jeffrey Epstein, Harry Litman convenes CNN’s Aaron Blake, former Senator Heidi Heitkamp, and NOTUS White House correspondent Jasmine Wright to analyze the administration’s ham-handed noncompliance. The trio also dig into Vanity Fair’s explosive revelations about the White House...
Coffee with The Contrarians
Thank you to all our amazing Contrarians for tuning into Coffee with The Contrarians! Our last Coffee of 2025 will be Monday, December 29th. After that, we are back on schedule: every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 9:15am ET. Join us!
I’ve never been more relieved to see a year end. 2025 has been one long horror story, that try as you might, you can never leave. A truly frightening version of Hotel California. But there have been millions of acts of resistance, large and small that give me hope for 2026 – we have awoken anew to the promise of this country and have been given a vivid lesson of how fragile our democracy truly is. We well know now that there are no guarantees, no inevitabilities if we don’t remain vigilant. However, I am confident that the growing wave of resistance will continue to slow down and then wash over this administration in 2026. It is surely not a given, as Project 2026 makes clear, but the will, fortitude, passion, strength, and courage to withstand this despicable episode in American history is undeniable. May 2025 come to be viewed as the nascent beginning of a new start for this country and 2026 solidify the will of the vast majority – to stop the destruction and build back a far better system of governance. One that is designed for all the people and meets everyone’s basic needs – affordable health care, education, and housing, a living wage, control over personal life choices, and a tax system that the wealthy and corporations simply cannot avoid.
Those comics are simply spectacular! And to see them all at once! Thanks for HUGE laughs! And everyone have a super holiday season, with Santa making many prolonged stops!!! 💝