Slate Magazine69%
Republicans Have a New Supervillain in the Works 63%
By Jim Newell66%
6/27/2026, 9:45:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 38 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Availability Heuristic, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 64.7% saturation with 1,233 hits. Analysis detected 4,488 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,906 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 57.8% and a BS Rank of 63% (7,972 of 21,172 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 62.30% of the article peer group.
Sign up for the Surge, the newsletter that covers the most important political nonsense of the week, delivered to your inbox every Saturday.
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Surge, a newsletter that could have chosen to do a fun “ranking the World Cup teams by their fans”–type deal but instead has chosen, once again, to torture you with information about American politics.
This week, Congress slopped it up once more before heading into a long recess.
We examine the quietest of the big Senate races, check in on the poisonous green slime dump on the National Mall, pull out our wallets to pay for the Iran war, and question which powerful and connected figure who was 79 years old in April—Donald Trump’s age at the time, weirdly—could have received the latest miracle weight-loss drug.
But first, New York has gone red.
(Not Republican red—the other one.)
1.
Zohran Mamdani
The socialist kingmaker.
It was a big night for the left and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday, as three leftists the mayor had endorsed in congressional primaries won—two of them defeating incumbents.
The most notable of these was Darializa Avila Chevalier, who won the Democratic primary in New York’s 13th District, which covers Upper Manhattan and a smidge of the Bronx, against Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat.
Meanwhile, Brad Lander, a former NYC comptroller, defeated incumbent Rep.
Dan Goldman, while democratic socialist Assembly member Claire Valdez won the primary for an open seat representing parts of Brooklyn and Queens.
Let’s put it this way: Avila Chevalier’s win, especially, doesn’t make national Democrats’ lives any easier.
We’d say that Fox News is going to make her into a cartoon character, but she already is a Fox News cartoon character.
The Ph.D. student and activist, who has worked in a public defender’s office, is a prison abolitionist who opposes any and all deportations.
She also has a much longer and more provocative posting history that was uncovered during the course of the campaign, though she has said she’s “grown considerably” since posting those tweets.
But there’s more than enough for Fox News and the broader Republican apparatus to make her a celebrity.
That’s not the end of the world for national Democrats, as candidates in difficult races should have no problem stating they don’t support her when asked.
Besides, Republicans have a bit of a cry-wolf problem here, in which they’ve been calling any and all Democrats “communists” for so long that the public may yawn once someone approximating the real thing comes around.
What could be a problem is if Democrats nationally get in their heads that this sort of candidate is a replicable winner across the board, when she essentially could have won only in this specific city with its well-organized Democratic Socialists of America.
Indeed, with Mamdani as mayor and New York’s old political machines broken down, DSA is becoming New York City’s new establishment.
2.
The Slime Pool
Why do funny things always have to take an authoritarian turn?
A week ago, Trump’s failure to fix the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was good for a hearty national laugh.
After limited quality control and a no-bid contract to a Trump donor, the administration, at the president’s behest, worked quickly to gussy up and repaint the Reflecting Pool to the tune of $14 million.
“American Flag Blue” paint would fill inbound passengers to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport with patriotic palpitations as they looked outside their windows through the clean, crystal-clear water.
Within a matter of days, though, the pool had become an algae-infested green trash pool, and the blue paint began to crack and float to the surface.
Hydrogen peroxide—no friend to the local duck population—couldn’t clear the blooms, nor could the “advanced nanobubbler technology” that Trump’s buddies installed.
The pool is a free, major tourist destination on public land in the nation’s capital, and the administration couldn’t hide it.
It left Trump exposed to mass mockery.
This is where we are as we approach the nation’s 250th anniversary on July 4: It’s becoming dangerous—criminal!—to have a laugh at the president’s expense, and members of the military will be used to conceal his folly.
The more exposed he is to the laughter, and the more cornered he feels, the more ridiculously he will have to respond—because he can’t admit to an error.
It all would have been too rich even for King George III’s blood.
3.
Senate Republicans
The sabotage is no longer coincidental.
Here’s a fresh one: The president is sabotaging his party in Congress ahead of the midterms, and to the naked eye, it appears to be intentional.
Incensed by a Senate War Powers Resolution vote to end the Iran war, as well as its continued inability to pass the SAVE America Act, the president called off a planned signing ceremony for the big, bipartisan housing bill that had recently passed Congress.
It’s legislation addressing home affordability that GOP members and senators could be selling back at home right now, in a terrible political environment.
It’s legislation that Trump could be taking full credit for to lift his own lousy approval ratings and thereby help the party going into November.
And it’s legislation that he’s refusing to sign, because he’d prefer to throw a tantrum.
Trump attended Senate Republicans’ lunch on Wednesday to blow off some steam, and it did produce some results: Senate Republicans blocked another war powers vote later that day to give the president more space in negotiations.
But if Trump continues to insist that he won’t give lawmakers any wins until they pass the SAVE America Act, and if Senate Republicans can’t pass the SAVE America Act, will we be watching months more of this rug-pulling routine?
That would be highly entertaining, so let’s hope so.
4.
Pete Hegseth
Here comes the Iran war invoice.
The defense secretary has been preparing his invoice to Congress and the American people over the Iran war.
Months ago, the word was that the Pentagon would request $200 billion dollars.
But good news: We’re going to get it on the cheap.
The Defense Department will ask Congress for a mere $80 billion–plus after blowing the nation’s already-depleted arsenal on its war of choice, which it didn’t consult Congress or the American people about, for which 13 American service members died while driving up prices across the world, and which Iran won.
So how, exactly, could Congress try to get this through?
Republicans could attempt to pass it through reconciliation—which isn’t subject to the 60-vote filibuster—but the party won’t want to own this unpopular vote (or be subject to another open-amendment process that reconciliation allows for).
We expect to see a two-pronged approach from GOP leadership.
The first is that the party’s messaging will emphasize that restocking munitions was already necessary before the Iran war, so this addresses a lingering shortfall.
That’s not wrong—but there also wouldn’t be an emergency funding request outside normal processes if not for the Iran war.
The second is that Republicans will have to give Democrats something, or some things.
And so they may tie relief money for wildfires in California, or other blue state–centric emergency funds, to the Pentagon money.
Enough Democrats will at first find that offer insulting: Why does typical disaster relief have to be conditional on anything else?
But a price could still be found.
Besides, there are a lot of Democrats who want the military arsenal restocked too, even if they didn’t approve of the manner in which it was depleted.
5.
Susan Collins
Her Kavanaugh defense needs some fact-checking.
On a couple of recent occasions, the Maine senator has defended herself against one of her biggest vulnerabilities in this latest reelection: her critical 2018 vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who went on to overturn Roe v.
Wade a few years later.
Earlier this month, she told Maine reporters that she does not “regret” her Kavanaugh vote and that although she was “disappointed” in his Dobbs vote, she had also voted to confirm Democrat-appointed justices who voted the other way.
Further, she said, Maine had voted to expand its abortion access since the decision.
It’s an argument you can take or leave.
This week’s answer, though, featured a factual error.
Speaking on Fox News, Collins said, “The fact is that whether Justice Kavanaugh were confirmed or not, Roe v.
Wade would have been overturned, given the 6–3 vote.”
Wrong.
Although the court upheld Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban by a 6–3 vote, it then overturned Roe on a 5–4 vote, with Kavanaugh joining the majority.
Collins’ team later clarified that she “misspoke” and asserted that even if Kavanaugh hadn’t been confirmed, Trump’s team likely would’ve nominated another justice who could have overturned Roe.
True!
And how would Collins have voted on that candidate?
In short: Her arguments could use a little tightening.
6.
Roy Cooper
Checking in on the oh-so-quiet race to flip North Carolina blue.
Have you noticed that the Surge, like all other national political media, spends so much more time talking about the Senate races in Texas and Maine than it does North Carolina’s critical Senate race?
It’s one of Democrats’ top opportunities to flip a seat!
There are a couple of straightforward reasons why it’s not getting attention, and they’re related.
The first is that Democrats’ candidate, Gov.
Roy Cooper, is well vetted, well liked, and boring.
You’re not going to see his ex-girlfriends go to the press with pillow talk about his Nazi tattoo.
(We think??)
The second is that because of that, this race doesn’t look particularly competitive.
A poll this week showed Cooper leading his Republican opponent, former NCGOP and Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Whatley, by 14 points.
Election ratings outlets have moved the contest from the “toss-up” to “lean Democrat” column.
It wouldn’t surprise us if this is the last time we include this race before the election.
7.
Mysterious 79-Year-Old Man Getting the Good Drugs
Who are you??
Eli Lilly is putting the finishing touches on its hottest new weight-loss drug, retatrutide, which is going to make old-fashioned Ozempic and Mounjaro look like diet and exercise.
And it turns out someone has already tried it!
STAT reported this week that the Food and Drug Administration approved a lone application of the drug this spring under its “compassionate use” program.
The April applicant was a 79-year-old man, and STAT’s sources “said it drew the interest of top health officials, suggesting the person receiving this drug was well connected.”
Prior to publication, the White House, the FDA, and the Department of Health and Human Services all wouldn’t answer directly whether this applicant with “refractory obesity with obstructive sleep apnea and pulmonary hypertension” was Trump.
After the story published, though, a White House spokesperson posted that “this application was not for the President.”
There will be two ways to tell whether the White House is lying.
The first is that the mystery man will come forward and tell us how it works.
(If this person has grown horns or has three eyes but is skinny, we’d call that a net win.)
The second is that Trump will suddenly be slim, because our man’s not about to get on the Peloton.
A quick programming note: The Surge, in a show of extreme patriotism, will be off next week for the July Fourth holiday.
Speakers
4speakers6.1%attributed speech1,790writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Selected voice
85%flagged-word coverageSusan Collins
110 attributed words95% of attributed speech93% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.