TPM Editors’ Blog Opinions, Context & Ideas from TPM Editors
Relive the Magic
The Very Serious Person Primary
TPM Reader JA chimes in with his take. Not sure I completely agree. But it is true that if Wolf Blitzer ain’t buying then you’re going to have a hard time selling anyone:
I think your two most recent posts on the editor’s blog are related to each other in an important way.Read More →MH asks “who are the voters this will affect?” I agree that this issue alone will probably not swing many votes. But it might swing the media and their coverage of Mitt Romney.
— Advertisement —
For the Ages
A short while ago, hours before a major fundraiser he’s hosting for Mitt Romney, Donald Trump went on Wolf Blitzer’s show to triple down on birtherism and explain to Wolf how Obama was using “reverse psychology” on him on the birther issue.
Romney appears unable or unwilling to say anything negative or disassociate himself in any way from Trump’s remarks. Watch.
Point of Privilege
For no other reason other than that it’s so awesome: President Obama awarding Bob Dylan the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Video after the jump …
Read More →Ridonkulous
This just happened:
BLITZER: Donald, you’re beginning to sound a little ridiculous, I have to tell you.Watch.TRUMP: You are, Wolf. Let me tell you something, I think you sound ridiculous, and if you’d ask me a question and let me answer it.
— Advertisement —
But Why?
TPM Reader MH can’t make sense of it:
I mostly agree with WB, but I’m not convinced that it matters at all.Read More →
Obama Camp Loves Them Some Trump
Stephanie Cutter: “Mitt Romney’s continued embrace of Donald Trump and refusal to condemn his disgraceful conspiracy theories demonstrates his complete lack of moral leadership.”
Great Pic
Romney arriving in Vegas today, after Trump.
Mitt’s Walk On The Wild Side
TPM Reader WB, on Romney’s winks and nods to GOP extremists
Do you think Romney will be able to get away with just sort of walking away from Trump without rebuking him? I guess I’m wondering more generally how Mitt negotiates the whole “birther” issue as well as some of the other looney stuff out there right now. I have to believe these issues are a potential minefield for him.Read More →
— Advertisement —
Dewhurst v. Cruz
They’re voting down in Texas today, where the race to watch is the GOP primary for U.S. Senate.
Handle with Care
After the high profile handshake with Donald Trump a few months ago, everybody figured the Romney campaign would wash their hands of this 80s era clown. So why the high profile fundraiser with him as host tonight? And just as Trump is doubling down on his claims that President Obama is a Kenyan immigrant?
Read More →Memorial Day
Images from Monday’s Memorial Day parade in Washington, D.C.
Who’s ‘Flaming’ Iran?
Is ‘Flame’ the latest weapon in the cyber war against the Iranian nuclear program?
Your Morning Chortle
Donald Trump: “I’ve been known as being a very smart guy for a long time.”
Romney’s First Scandal?
Terence Flynn has resigned his position at the National Labor Relations Board after an IG report found he’d improperly leaked board information. One of the two people he leaked to is Peter Schaumber. He was co-chair of Romney’s labor advisory committee. He quit in December when the IG investigation started.
Hidden In Plain Sight
So we don’t have to pretend anymore that the existence of the U.S. drone strike program is “unconfirmed,” right?
Purity Police
Conservative watchdogs warn GOP not to buckle on ‘Obamacare’.
Rumble In The D.C. Jungle
The Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Rally rolled into Washington this weekend.
The Week In TPM Videos
Catch up on what you missed this week in the TPM video vault.
Cruel, Cruel World
John McCain, defending Mitt Romney’s Bain record: “Yes, the free enterprise system can be cruel.”
With Texas, Romney Officially Clinches GOP Nomination
Mitt Romney won the Texas primary, and with it, he officially clinched enough delegates to win the GOP nomination.
Texas GOP Senate Primary Heads To Runoff Battle
The Texas Republican Senate primary is headed to a runoff in two months—setting up another showdown.
Why Mitt Romney Keeps Donald Trump Around
Why is Romney, known for his lockstep discipline, sticking with his most half-cocked and distracting surrogate?
Rick Scott Purging Eligible Voters From Florida's Rolls
The state used an outdated driver’s license database in its initial effort to scrub non-citizens from the voting rolls.
TX Schools See Big Money In Electronic Tracking Of Students
Why is a San Antonio school district planning a program that tracks students with ID cards? The money, apparently.
Most Recent Latest news stories from TPM reporters
Why Mitt Romney Keeps Donald Trump Around
Donald Trump took over the campaign on Tuesday in trademark fashion, turning what Mitt Romney clearly hoped would be a quiet joint fundraiser that day into a cacophony of birther theories and ensuing pushback. Republican pundits reacted with the expected level of horror as Trump bounced from interviews to Twitter and back, growing more outrageous at every turn. “That was a big steaming plate of shit spaghetti Trump just deposited on CNN for his supposed friend Romney,” former Bush…
Read More →
Rick Scott Purging Eligible Voters From Florida’s Rolls
Six members of Florida’s congressional delegation are pushing Gov. Rick Scott (R) to stop purging the state’s voting rolls of eligible voters, after numerous individuals were improperly flagged as non-citizens. The state used an outdated driver’s license database in their initial effort to scrub non-citizens from the voting rolls. Officials believed that 182,000 voters on the rolls were non-citizens, and began sending out notifications that required voters to prove their citizenship …
Read More →
Texas Schools See Big Money In Electronic Tracking Of Students
Following the lead of two other school districts in the state, San Antonio, Texas’ Northside Independent School District is planning a pilot program that tracks students using transmitters inside identification cards. Why? For the money, apparently. Next year, ID cards outfitted with Radio Frequency Identification System (RFID) technology will be given to students at John Jay High School, Anson Jones Middle School, and all special education students who use district buses – totaling …
Read More →
Senate Republicans Signal Big Shift On ‘Obamacare’
Senate Republicans are echoing the House GOP’s shift in favor of some of the more popular “Obamacare” provisions, a sign that the party is uniting behind the strategy ahead of the election. With a Supreme Court decision looming next month, House Republicans are privately weighing a plan to reinstate three popular elements of the law if it’s struck down – guaranteeing coverage regardless of pre-existing conditions, allowing young adults up to 26 years old to remain on a parent’s…
Read More →
Texas GOP Senate Primary Heads To Runoff Battle
The Texas Republican Senate primary is headed to a runoff in two months – setting up another showdown between a state party establishment favorite, and a national tea party-backed insurgent. With all precincts reporting, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has 45 percent of the vote, followed by former state Solicitor General Ted Cruz with 34 percent, and former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert in third place with 13 percent, according to the Associated Press. Dewhurst came up just short of the 50…
Read More →
SpaceX Follows Up Docking Success With Commercial Satellite Deal
SpaceX isn’t wasting any time in the wake of completing the first-ever docking of a commercial spacecraft with the International Space Station on Friday. The Hawthorne, California based company on Tuesday announced it had signed a deal with Intelsat, a Luxembourg-based international company that describes itself as the “leading provider of satellite services worldwide,” managing over 50 satellites in orbit around the Earth for 1,500 customers. The precise terms of the contract –…
Read More →
What The Pushback On Obama’s Spending Claim Ignores
On the campaign trail, President Obama has touted recent data that dispels the notion that he has embarked on a spending binge – and his Republican opponents, citing various fact-checks, are aggressively pushing back. Part of the pushback, it turns out, inadvertently proves Obama’s larger point. “Federal spending since I took office has risen at the slowest pace of any president in almost 60 years,” Obama said last Thursday at a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa. Citing a…
Read More →
Texas’s 14th District Looking For Ron Paul’s Replacement Tuesday
His name will appear on the presidential ballot, but after 23 non-consecutive years in Congress, three presidential campaigns and stints in the Republican and Libertarian parties – Rep. Ron Paul will not be up for re-election to his Galveston-area 14th District. Instead, voters there will choose nominees to replace him. On the Democratic side, former Rep. Nick Lampson is the presumptive nominee, though the winner of the Republican primary will be favored to win in November. The…
Read More →
Is ‘Flame’ The Latest Weapon In A Cyber War Against Iran?
Leading global cybersecurity firms on Monday announced the detection of a sophisticated new type of malicious code on hundreds of computers throughout the Middle East, with particular concentration in Iran, where the code, nicknamed “Flame,” has been capturing sensitive user information such as screenshots, emails, documents and audio files using a computer’s microphone. Iran’s own cyber security agency on Monday released a bulletin confirming that the trojan had been detected inPC …
Read More →
Donald Trump Lets Loose With Birther Rant After Romney Reaffirms Support
Mitt Romney made clear this week he won’t cut ties with Donald Trump, who is hosting a fundraiser for the candidate in Las Vegas on Tuesday, despite the real estate mogul’s claims the president was born in Kenya. Trump returned the favor by launching into yet another screeching birther diatribe on CNBC the morning of the event. “I never really changed – nothing’s changed my mind,” Trump told CNBC, reassuring that his birtherism is as rock solid as it was last year when he briefly…
Read More →
Ex-Wife Files Complaint About Sen. Kirk’s Payments To Girlfriend
The ex-wife of Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, alleging that Kirk may have improperly hidden campaign payments to an ex-girlfriend by paying her through a company doing campaign work, The Chicago Tribune reports. “Mr. Kirk seems to have believed Ms. McCracken provided him with something valuable enough, that he acceded to, directed, or tacitly endorsed … campaign donations being surreptitiously transferred to his girlfriend,”…
Read More →
Republican Resigns From National Labor Relations Board Over Leaks To Ex-Romney Aide
Terence Flynn has resigned his position on the National Labor Relations Board following an Inspector General report which found he improperly leaked internal information to two former members of the board who are now working in the private sector, one of whom worked for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. Flynn’s case has been referred to the Justice Department and to the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates possible violations of the Hatch Act (a law banning federalNew. …
Read More →
Top Conservatives Warn GOP Not To Waver On ‘Obamacare’
Amid signs that Republicans are warming to some provisions of President Obama’s health care law, influential conservative groups are warning the GOP not to waver on their promise to repeal the measure in its entirety. Conservative advocates are displeased that Republicans are privately weighing a replacement plan that involves reinstating popular elements of the health care law – including its coverage guarantee regardless of pre-existing conditions, the ability to remain on a…
Read More →
It’s Establishment Vs. Tea Party In Texas Senate Primary
Voters in Texas are headed to the polls Tuesday, to potentially pick the Republican nominee in this deep-red state’s open Senate race. There’s also a good chance, though, that voters will split between two GOP candidates in the crowded field, who will then keep slugging it out for the next two months. And it’s already getting dirty. Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is retiring after three terms, during which she unsuccessfully challenged Gov. Rick Perry in his 2010 primary. On…
Read More →
Right Place, Right Time? Swing State Boom Still May Not Be Enough For Obama
Political observers are finally picking up on what Republican governors have been saying for months: The economy is booming. At least where it matters most. A number of key swing states are significantly outperforming the national economy, prompting a celebration from state leaders even as Mitt Romney tries to draw attention to their ongoing struggles. In Ohio, manufacturing is on the rise thanks in part to the auto rescue, and in Virginia, the unemployment rate stands at an…
Read More →
Can Google’s New ‘Human Rights’ Channel Make A Difference?
YouTube, the world’s largest and most popular video streaming website, is famed for its light, fluffy content: animal videos, comedy and movie trailers. But last week, YouTube made an unusually serious move, announcing the launch of its official “human rights” channel. The channel, which is hosted under the web address youtube.com/humanrights, currently includes a number of videos filmed by activists around the globe, showing everything from Occupy Wall Street protests in New York…
Read More →
Are Republicans Bending On ‘Obamacare’?
As the landmark Supreme Court decision looms next month, Republicans have been privately considering a plan to reinstate some popular provisions of “Obamacare” if it’s struck down. The revelation sent conservative advocates – who have demanded nothing less than total repeal – into a tizzy, which forced House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to reaffirm his commitment to “repealing Obamacare in its entirety,” declaring that “[a]nything short of that is unacceptable.” But more evidence…
Read More →
Gallup: Veterans Still Going Big For Romney And GOP
A new Gallup poll analysis released on Memorial Day shows that among veterans with a very clear preference in the presidential race, a majority supports Mitt Romney, corresponding with veterans’ Republican leanings. Romney has 58 percent support among veterans, to Obama’s 34 percent. The data was collected from daily tracking polls between April 11 and May 24. During that same time frame, the two were tied overall at 46 percent among all registered voters; among non-veterans, Obama…
Read More →
McCain On Bain Capital: ‘The Free Enterprise System Can Be Cruel’
In defending Mitt Romney’s private sector experience Sunday, top surrogate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) explained that capitalism can be “cruel.” “This is the free enterprise system. The only place in the world that I can recall where companies never failed was the old Soviet Union,” McCain said on “Fox News Sunday.” “And yes, the free enterprise system can be cruel.” The Obama campaign has run attack ads highlighting jobs lost at companies owned by Bain Capital, which Romney led. Host…
Read More →
Alan Simpson Lashes Republicans For Anti-Tax Rigidity
In remarkably colorful terms, former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) on Sunday lashed out at members of his party for their unyielding opposition to new tax revenues, whom he described as stymieing a debt reduction agreement. “I guess I’m known as a RINO now, which means a Republican in name only, because, I guess, of social views, perhaps, or common sense would be another one, which seems to escape members of our party,” said Simpson, a co-chair of President Obama’s fiscal commission, on…
Read More →