What a long strange trip it’s been.

2011 started with tragedy with the Gabby Giffords shooting, then shifted to high drama with the roiled politics of Wisconsin and the killing of Osama bin Laden and finally settled into a ever-deepening farce as the White House and Congress battled over the debt ceiling and then jousted over whether jobs were a bigger priority that budget cutting.

Which TPM posts did you like the best?

Judged by your readership (i.e., page views), here are the Top Ten TPM Posts of 2011 … Read More

One of the major effects of the 2010 Republican wave election was the subsequent passage of a raft of voter ID laws and other legislation aimed at curtailing voting rights across the country. The aim, often little disguised, is to reduce voting among racial minorities, students and poorer voters generally, all of whom tend to vote disproportionately for Democrats. The voter suppression lobby has gained a number of key court decisions over recent years. So it has been a looming question just how big an effect the clampdown on voting will have on the 2012 election. Read More

Justice Department will block South Carolina’s new voter ID law, saying it disproportionately impacts minority voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act, according to a letter sent to the state by DOJ and obtained by TPM.

You can read the letter here.

A sampling of the most virulent excerpts from Ron Paul’s now-notorious newsletters.