How Cosby Sealed His Own Fate, Explaining Intl. Murder Rates, and ‘Patriots’ Rally Against Feds In OR

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December 31, 2015

Top Stories


O’care-Hating Kentucky Guv Comes Around On Medicaid Expansion

The Gist: Matt Bevin joins a long line of GOP governors who have railed against the program but eventually come around to supporting it.

How Bill Cosby Ultimately Sealed His Own Fate

The Gist: For nearly 12 years, comedian Bill Cosby dodged criminal charges for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand. Then his own words caught up with him.

Bundy Son Teams Up With Militiamen In New Showdown Over Public Lands

The Gist:  A loosely organized group of self-styled patriots is convening in rural Oregon Saturday in hopes of provoking another showdown with the federal government.

From The Reporter’s Notebook


The Adelsons are facing blowback for their involvement in the purchase of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, a purchase they apparently tried to hide initially. According to TPM’s Tierney Sneed, the company has now hired Mark Fabiani—a Clinton White House alum who was a spokesman for Al Gore during the 2000 recount and has since represented the San Diego Chargers and other high profile clients—to handle its PR crisis.

Agree or Disagree?


Josh Marshall found that the countries with the highest murder rates are “overwhelmingly” in the Americas. As he points out, these are “all in critical ways engineered societies based on various kinds of forced labor and violence.”

Say What?!


“A pretty sizable percentage” of world leaders are “just completely out of their mind.”

-President Obama joked about the stability of global political leaders during a guest spot on Jerry Seinfeld’s “Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee”

BUZZING: Today in the Hive


From a TPM Prime member: “Being poor makes life riskier than being rich does. And when those risks manifest it can be devastating. And I’m talking about things that aren’t even on a well-off person’s radar. A flat (unfixable) tire; a dead TV or computer; a sick pet. The major risks that we all face: major medical bills, a legal problem, a divorce, or even living past employability, are there too and are game changers for most people and frequently transform a non-poor person into a poor person. But even the small stuff creates major problem and tons of stress if you are poor. We tend to treat economic life as running in an equilibrium state. But the less you have, the less that is true.”

Related: TPM’s deep, deep dive into the economics of inequality.

Have something to add? Become a Prime member and join the discussion here.

What We’re Reading


The sudden but well-deserved fall of Rahm Emanuel (New Yorker)

The war over the war on crime (The Atlantic).


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