Raw Story⁠93%

'Egregious' Trump pardons blasted as rapper demands refund from MAGA 'lobbyist goofballs' ⁠90%

By Kathleen Culliton⁠80%

7/18/2026, 12:57:58 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 28 faulty reasoning types, including Biased Writer Voice, Appeal to Emotion, and Politically Left Leaning Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 80.2% saturation with 264 hits. Analysis detected 1,587 faulty-reasoning hits from 329 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 83% and a BS Rank of ⁠90% (2,216 of 20,557 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 89.20% of the article peer group.

'Egregious' Trump pardons blasted as rapper demands refund from MAGA 'lobbyist goofballs' 
Rapper Boosie Badazz' demand for a $600,000 refund from MAGA operatives he thought could secure him a Trump administration pardon spurred roars of laughter at Talking Points Memo Saturday morning. 
Writers Allegra Kirkland and Emine Yücel reveled in the news that two "wannabe lobbyist goofballs" — Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman — are now in arbitration over the rap artist's gun charge and the pardon President Donald Trump did not provide. 
"You can’t blame Boosie for trying." the pair wrote. 
"Under the second Trump administration, the ' pardon economy ' is booming." 
Their analysis notes that pardons have been dolled out to 1,600 individuals involved with the Jan. 6 riots and a slew of other questionable and notable power brokers convicted of crimes. 
"Trump has been handing pardons out like candy to people convicted of federal crimes who he claims were victims of retaliation by the Biden administration," they wrote. 
"Trump installed his all-purpose lout Ed Martin as U.S. pardon attorney and largely abandoned the traditional pardon process, which requires the filing of official petitions, demonstration of good conduct and remorse, and other key guardrails." 
Talking Points Memo's Derick Dirmaier told the pair that the Trump administration had effectively created "a new genre and economy type," and argued, "that’s something.” 
This was all the prompting Kirkland and Yücel needed to lambast what they described as "the most absurd pardons of Trump II. 
Among those to receive pardons were Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, Chanpeng Zhao, co-founder and former CEO of Binance, Rod Blagojevich, former governor of Illinois, and Rep. 
Henry Cuellar (D-TX), which Trump admitted to regretting. 
Why? 
According to Trump, Cuellar showed “Such a lack of LOYALTY." 
Quipped Kirkland and Yücel, "Guess you can’t bat 1,000 when you’re trying to curry favor via sweeping pardons." 
Read their full take-down here . 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 10.3%Kathleen Culliton: 7.8%Rawstory: 7.6%Confirmation Bias10.3%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.5%Rawstory: 0.8%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 18.5%Kathleen Culliton: 5.3%Rawstory: 4.4%Availability Heuristic18.5%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 1.1%Rawstory: 1.0%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 2.4%Kathleen Culliton: 0.3%Rawstory: 1.0%Hindsight Bias2.4%This article: 3.6%Kathleen Culliton: 2.5%Rawstory: 2.2%Overconfidence Bias3.6%This article: 25.8%Kathleen Culliton: 13.3%Rawstory: 13.7%Framing Effect25.8%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.2%Rawstory: 0.4%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.4%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.5%Rawstory: 0.7%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 2.4%Rawstory: 2.8%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 80.2%Kathleen Culliton: 22.2%Rawstory: 21.8%Negativity Bias80.2%This article: 5.5%Kathleen Culliton: 2.3%Rawstory: 1.1%Self-Serving Bias5.5%This article: 10.6%Kathleen Culliton: 2.9%Rawstory: 2.9%Fundamental Attribution Error10.6%This article: 3.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.1%Rawstory: 0.3%Actor-Observer Bias3.0%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.7%Rawstory: 2.5%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 12.5%Kathleen Culliton: 0.5%Rawstory: 1.6%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias12.5%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.8%Rawstory: 0.6%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 1.2%Rawstory: 0.9%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 2.1%Rawstory: 1.7%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.3%Rawstory: 0.7%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 23.1%Kathleen Culliton: 5.8%Rawstory: 6.4%Ad Hominem23.1%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.8%Rawstory: 0.7%Straw Man0.0%This article: 7.6%Kathleen Culliton: 4.0%Rawstory: 3.8%Appeal to Authority7.6%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 2.0%Rawstory: 2.9%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 10.6%Kathleen Culliton: 0.7%Rawstory: 1.2%Slippery Slope10.6%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.1%Rawstory: 0.3%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 13.1%Kathleen Culliton: 13.1%Rawstory: 11.9%Hasty Generalization13.1%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 1.1%Rawstory: 0.7%Red Herring0.0%This article: 9.1%Kathleen Culliton: 1.5%Rawstory: 0.8%Bandwagon9.1%This article: 42.6%Kathleen Culliton: 8.3%Rawstory: 9.2%Appeal to Emotion42.6%This article: 0.3%Kathleen Culliton: 1.1%Rawstory: 1.5%Begging the Question0.3%This article: 10.6%Kathleen Culliton: 4.0%Rawstory: 3.5%Post Hoc (False Cause)10.6%This article: 5.5%Kathleen Culliton: 0.5%Rawstory: 0.6%Tu Quoque5.5%This article: 9.4%Kathleen Culliton: 2.4%Rawstory: 1.5%Burden of Proof9.4%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.3%Rawstory: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.6%Rawstory: 0.4%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 3.0%Kathleen Culliton: 4.5%Rawstory: 3.9%Anecdotal3.0%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.4%Rawstory: 0.3%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 6.7%Kathleen Culliton: 1.9%Rawstory: 2.4%Ambiguity (Equivocation)6.7%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 6.7%Kathleen Culliton: 0.2%Rawstory: 0.2%Personal Incredulity6.7%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.1%Rawstory: 0.4%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 18.8%Kathleen Culliton: 5.0%Rawstory: 5.4%Unattributed Quote18.8%This article: 23.7%Kathleen Culliton: 6.0%Rawstory: 4.2%Quote-first Misdirection23.7%This article: 78.4%Kathleen Culliton: 16.7%Rawstory: 15.6%Biased Writer Voice78.4%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 0.7%Rawstory: 3.2%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 38.6%Kathleen Culliton: 5.7%Rawstory: 8.0%Politically Left Leaning Bias38.6%This article: 0.0%Kathleen Culliton: 1.4%Rawstory: 1.0%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 1.8%Kathleen Culliton: 0.5%Rawstory: 0.5%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…1.8%

329 words analyzed.

Speakers

3speakers19%attributed speech265writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 12 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 12 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 30 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 41 words • 100.0% coverageAllegra Kirkland • 9 words • 100.0% coverageEmine Yücel • 12 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 31 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 27 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 35 words • 100.0% coverageDerick Dirmaier • 25 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 22 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 30 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 8 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 1 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 10 words • 100.0% coverageEmine Yücel • 18 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 6 words • 100.0% coverage
Selected voice

Emine Yücel

100%flagged-word coverage
30 attributed words47% of attributed speech100% writer coverage
0%47.5%95.0%Biased Writer Voice-30.6 ptsWriter: 90.6%Emine Yücel: 60.0%60.0%Unattributed Quote+56.2 ptsWriter: 3.8%Emine Yücel: 60.0%60.0%Politically Left Leaning B-47.9 ptsWriter: 47.9%Emine Yücel: 0.0%0.0%Quote-first Misdirection+15.1 ptsWriter: 24.9%Emine Yücel: 40.0%40.0%Attempt to Sell a Product -2.3 ptsWriter: 2.3%Emine Yücel: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.