TPM reporter Matt Shuham has been on the story surrounding the “We Build The Wall” project for months. At one point during the bluster of breaking news this morning he likened covering the story of former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s arrest, and all the absurd developments surrounding it, to “hitting a TPM piñata” — every time you smack it with a bat, something better falls out.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

It somewhat defies commentary when something you’ve thought and said for years is suddenly confirmed by an unexpected new bundle of evidence. I should note the “I” isn’t relevant here. I’m one of legions who’ve thought and said this. The fact that Bannon was even involved with this crowdfund-the-wall “charity” wasn’t clear to me let alone that he was about to be indicted for perpetrating a massive fraud against the MAGAfied donors. But while it is entirely unexpected in the particular it’s entirely predictable, perhaps inevitable in general.

I know you came for our ongoing coverage of today’s remarkable convergence of Stephen Bannon and Brian Kolfage’s border wall bamboozlement in federal criminal purgatory. You can find all of it right here.

Bannon indicted!

You might not have noticed because we are good at hiding it, but some of the TPM staff is a bit sleep deprived this week.

I’m concerned and frustrated by this – and no it’s not a Susan Collins impersonation. The executive branch under Trump needs to be audited. We need a full report on everything that happened – something that is distinct and separate from any kind of criminal investigations and more important than criminal probes. I’ve laid out why this is important and how it should work here and here. But it’s simply not going to happen unless Democrats secure clear commitments from Joe Biden and congressional leaders in advance.

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There are so many more important events unfolding before us and questions to be answered. But I wanted to share a few thoughts on aesthetics and communications. From the beginning of the pandemic, if you’re a TV watcher, you’ve been watching people interviewed in their homes. The hosts have mainly set up mini-studios so the fact that they’re recording from home is almost hidden. But with guests it’s all pretty clear. They’re in their den or at their computer. They may put some thought into the background. But basically it’s their home.

And really, it’s much better. Certainly it’s more congenial for the guests who don’t have to trek to studios and sit in green rooms for hours for six minutes on air (this is the main reason I seldom do TV). But it’s also better viewing. It’s more relaxed. You see the creature in its natural environment as opposed to through the homogenized medium of TV studios.

An approaching full week in the spotlight is not enough to satiate President Trump’s attention appetite.

There must be countless examples of this. Here’s a report from a local CBS affiliate in Houston about an 82 year man who’s gone a week without his heart medication because the package containing his medication has been sitting in a Houston mail processing facility for 10 days.

According to the report the man actually went without the medication altogether for one week before his daughter got a supply at a local pharmacy. The package with the medication is now more than 10 days late.

On the eve of the Democratic convention, a Danish newspaper asked me whether I thought the “emerging Democratic majority,” which Ruy Teixeira and I wrote about, was still intact. Here is a revised version of what I wrote them.

In 2001, Ruy and I did predict that by the decade’s end, there would be a Democratic majority, although not on the scale of the New Deal majority. We felt vindicated by the 2006 and 2008 Democratic results, which more or less followed our script of a majority based on professionals, women, minorities, and about 40 percent of the white working class. The one thing we didn’t anticipate was the support of young people as a distinct group for the Democrats, which has carried over. Read More