Nicole Lafond

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Nicole Lafond is TPM’s deputy editor, based in New York. She has also worked as the special projects editor and as a senior newswriter for TPM. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and previously covered education in central Illinois.

Where Things Stand: In Shock Of The Century, Trump’s Nunes-Run Social App Doesn’t Really Work
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Ex-President Trump’s long-awaited, much-heralded (in some circles) social media app Truth Social has debuted. And it is, in short, a large glitch fest.

The new social network, which essentially looks like an off-brand version of Twitter, was supposed to launch on Monday, available for download in the Apple Store. Now the Trump Media & Technology Group’s CEO (and former U.S. representative from California) Devin Nunes is suggesting it could be another month before the website is ready for primetime.

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Where Things Stand: New Report Reveals More Details Of Ginni Thomas’ Involvement In Election-Subverting Schemes
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The New York Times Magazine published a piece this afternoon that reveals new information about Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and the extent to which she was involved in Big Lie-related events leading up to, surrounding and following Jan. 6.

Ginni Thomas’ conservative activism has been eyebrow-raising for years, but in recent months we’ve seen several new in-depth reports that delve deeply into her work and the conflicts of interest they could present for Justice Thomas’ role on the high Court, especially in cases related to the Jan. 6 insurrection and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

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Where Things Stand: House Panel Urges Fed Agency To End Trump DC Hotel Lease Before He Can Sell It
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If we’ve learned anything about the former president, we know that accountability for his various wrongdoings are often a far-off pipe dream. He tends to find various loopholes to endlessly delay legal proceedings or politically squirm his way out of repercussions.

But today there were two bits of news that suggest he might soon have to answer for at least a fraction of his alleged financial misconduct over the years.

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Where Things Stand: Lindell Tried To Bring ‘Pillows And Bibles’ To Canadian Truckers And Was Predictably Denied Entry
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The MyPillow Guy was def just trying to tend to the weary and spiritually malnourished. It was def not a stunt, and how dare you insinuate such a thing.

The details: The MyPillow CEO and Big Lie Guy Mike Lindell, a videographer, an American truck driver and a truck full of “10,000 pillows” were reportedly stopped and denied entry to Canada last night after attempting to cross the Port Huron-Sarnia border into Ottawa. According to the conservative Canadian news outlet The National Post, Lindell was attempting to deliver a bunch of “pillows and Bibles” to anti-vax trucker protesters in Ottawa, but was turned away because he himself is not fully vaccinated and he didn’t have proof of a negative PCR COVID-19 test with him at the time.

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Where Things Stand: Majority Of Anti-Vax Trucker Protest Funds Were Donated By Americans
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It’s hardly a surprise: More than half of the funds donated on at least one crowd-funding website raising money for protesters involved in the Canadian anti-vax trucker demonstrations came from U.S. donors.

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Where Things Stand: ‘Hoser-Extremism’ And The Rob Ford –> Canadian Anti-Vax Trucker Protest Trajectory
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TIL what a “hoser” is.

In Canadian pop-culture, it’s a term used to describe the type of personality that former president Trump tends to embody — the brand of bombastic extremism that makes up the personality of people who currently occupy the center of the Canadian populism movement: think loud, uncouth and skeptical of facts, precedent and the government in general.

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Where Things Stand: New Report Shows Expansive Role Christian Nationalism Played In Jan 6
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There’s a comprehensive new report out from religious scholars and prominent Christian faith groups in the U.S. that dissects the role Christian nationalism played in inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and also previews ways in which Christian nationalism could be harnessed to embolden future acts of political violence.

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Where Things Stand: At Least Get Your Nazi Comparisons Right
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) stepped in it/spilled it/has soup on her face/etc.

The QAnon congresswoman is known for her various unhinged diatribes, usually packed with some layer of confusing racism or anti-Semitism or Nazism.

Today during an interview with the far-right Real America News outlet, Greene was attempting to comment on Rep. Troy Nehls’ (R-TX) recent bizarre claims that Capitol Hill police took unauthorized photos of his office last fall and that Capitol law enforcement is engaged in some deep state plot to “destroy” him. The Capitol Police pushed back on the allegations saying an officer merely locked the congressman’s office door when it was left wide open during Thanksgiving break. TPM’s Josh Kovensky got a copy of a Capitol Police report and he explains the whole faux-outrage incident in depth here, but essentially Nehls and other far-right lawmakers are seizing on Nehls’ accusations as fodder for their campaign to blame the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Police as they flail to divert blame for the attack away from Trump and his supporters.

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Where Things Stand: Wendy Rogers Inserts Herself Into Canadian Trucker Protests, With A Racist Twist
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Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers (R) has made quite the name for herself in the far-right, Big Lie corners of the Republican Party in the last year. As a key figure in the state’s phony election “audit,” Rogers knows how to aggressively captivate her audience.

She’s injected herself into several election-overturning causes in recent months. In the waning days of the sketch audit of 2020 election results in Arizona’s Maricopa County, Rogers suggested imprisoning members of the Republican-majority board of supervisors when the county rejected the state Senate’s subpoena for additional election-related materials. The Trumpian state lawmaker has since proposed legislation that would make it easier for the governor’s office to investigate so-called instances of election “fraud,” setting state Republicans up to try to Big Lie their way out of any 2022 disappointments for the party.

Now, she’s getting involved in the Canadian anti-vax trucker protests in Ottawa that have devolved into a reckless display of Big Rig power over the course of the last 12 days with thousands of protesters flooding the area surrounding Ottawa’s Parliament building.

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Where Things Stand: The Evolution Of The GOP’s New Electoral Count Act Talking Point
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What started as a messaging effort by activists and good government lobbyists pushing Congress to reform the Electoral Count Act has turned into a fairly common talking point for Republicans in a matter of months. It’s been a little surprising to witness.

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