Ivanka debuts as admin spokesperson for rugged individualism: "I don't think most Americans want to be given something. People want to work for what they get." pic.twitter.com/RerMUQ7aIj

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) February 26, 2019

British PM Theresa May has announced today that if her latest Brexit proposal fails Parliament will vote on delaying Brexit or proceeding to a no-deal Brexit. The failure of her latest plan seems highly likely, if not certain. That would simply match every other plan she’s cobbled together. I have not followed the inner workings of each of these deals to have much ability to predict. The basic issue has been clear for a while. There’s no majority for any actual deal since the whole thing was sold on false pretenses, with false promises and none of the challenging obstacles in view.

But if Parliament votes for a delay, it’s hard for me to see how that doesn’t sound the death knell of Brexit altogether. It has been crystal clear that there’s no parliamentary majority for any actual Brexit plan, though perhaps the concept could get a bare majority. Without the hammer of a deadline, why will it move forward at all? Read More

In a plea for a lenient sentence Paul Manafort’s lawyers told Judge Amy Berman Jackson today that Manafort had spent “a lifetime promoting American democratic values and assisting emerging democracies to adopt reforms necessary to become a part of Western society.” Read More

Chances of Senate GOPs bucking President Trump on emergency declaration slip from unlikely to all but impossible.

Roger Stone paramilitary group continues posting on his behalf even post-gag order.

I find that as often as not I agree with Matt Bruenig on policy matters. But those points of agreement can be obscured for me by differences of temperament and politics. Here though I find myself entirely in agreement with him on something called Modern Monetary Theory. You may not even have heard this phrase before. But you should and probably will soon. If you haven’t, you should familiarize yourself with it because it bulks very large in many current debates within the Democratic Party that you have heard about. It’s a big deal. Bruenig aptly describes it as “about using word games to make people believe that the US can have Northern European levels of government spending without Northern European levels of taxation.”

It’s not easy to simply explain what MMT is because it operates at several distinct and not always closely related levels. Read More

Don Jr explains to Fox hosts the "dry run" conspiracy against his "likes" and "new follows" on Twitter. pic.twitter.com/ub00ge65H8

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) February 25, 2019

I write a lot about our membership programs and how subscriptions are now the core of our business. There is a subset of our readers who are both interested in and have the means to support our operation at a higher level than a Prime or Prime AF membership. We know because a lot of you have told us. But first, if you are a Prime or Prime AF subscriber you are 1000% good with us! Your subscription is what makes TPM possible. Literally. Prime and Prime AF memberships make up over 50% of our revenue. This message is solely for those who would like to and easily can support what we do at a higher level. If you’re in that category please click to read more and join me after the jump. Read More

The Post has an article about how the Trump National Security Council plans to set up a new committee of scientists basically to refute climate science. It will be spearheaded by an NSC senior director named William Happer. He ran a right-wing “pro-carbon” group before entering the administration and got another round of attention last week for once comparing the “demonization of carbon dioxide [to] the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.” Read More

Short time ago, Judge Jackson gave the Special Counsel the go-ahead to release the redacted version of the Manafort sentencing memo. So that should be out very soon.