Editors’ Blog
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12.01.22 | 5:46 pm
BREAKING

Federal appeals court rules that the U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has no jurisdiction to hear former President Trump’s challenge of the FBI’s seizure of government documents at Mar-a-Lago and orders her to dismiss the case.

12.01.22 | 5:15 pm
Too Hot for Parler

Far right Twitter clone site Parler announces Kanye’s purchase of Parler is off.

From Parler HQ: “Parlement Technologies has confirmed that the company has mutually agreed with Ye to terminate the intent of sale of Parler. This decision was made in the interest of both parties in mid-November. Parler will continue to pursue future opportunities for growth and the evolution of the platform for our vibrant community.”

12.01.22 | 1:12 pm
The Alt Right Shows Who’s Boss Prime Badge
The on-going Twitter purge of liberal and left-wing accounts is driven as much by Musk's mass firings as his new white nationalist pals.

Like many others I’ve been watching the alt-right take over of Twitter evolve in real time. The whole operation is now chained to the manic outbursts and enthusiasms of majority owner Elon Musk and he — as I explained here — is locked in an increasingly tight embrace with a series of far right accounts who keep buttering him up into an escalating froth about how his battle for “free speech” on Twitter is a battle in which the future of humanity at stake. “This is a battle for the future of civilization. If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead,” he tweeted on Monday. (Seriously, I watch this clown so you don’t have to …) But just over the last couple days it does seem like there’s a purge of progressive accounts on the site.

At first some of the banned account were ones that can be reasonably classed as radical anti-fascist accounts. To be clear, I do not in any way equate these groups with the fascist paramilitaries they oppose. But these are groups that mobilize to confront Proud Boys type groups on the streets. Some provide armed security at LGBTQ events and other marginalized group/threatened events. It’s plausible that they might say things that could be reasonably construed as endorsing violence. They might be “doxxing” far right individuals. My point is that in a climate of unequal enforcement of Twitter’s terms of service they might actually be violating those terms of service. Again, I’m not justifying their suspensions. I’m providing context for what might be driving them.

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12.01.22 | 12:00 pm
Listen To This: Ghost of Congress Yet To Come

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss the to-be Republican House in disarray and Donald Trump getting punked on his own turf.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.

12.01.22 | 10:55 am
Gaming Out the Numbers in the Kevin McCarthy Tunnel of Doom

Let me game out a few possibilities on the speakership vote. And let me say first, these remain quite hypothetical. I think Kevin McCarthy will become Speaker. But it’s worth walking through how different scenarios could play out.

First, as we know, to be elected Speaker you have to win a majority of the chamber. In other words, 218 out of 435 votes. A majority of your own party doesn’t cut it. That’s why having such a narrow majority makes everything so difficult. Other unexpected events can become very important. The passing of Rep. Donald McEachin (D-VA), who died on Monday, could turn out to be significant in how this plays out, a point we’ll get to in a moment.

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11.30.22 | 11:20 am
Could Big Kev Be Toast? Prime Badge

I’ve written repeatedly that Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) remains highly likely to become Speaker of the House on January 3rd, despite all the sturm und drang to the contrary. But I admit I’m a bit less sure than I was. We should also remember that if McCarthy cannot muster the votes to become Speaker, that is almost certainly the end of his career in electoral politics. (It’s not like he can run statewide in California.) And if tradition holds his defeat would be followed in short order by his resignation and departure from Congress. You don’t get passed over twice for Speaker and remain in the leadership or in Congress.

Yet, to understand this drama, we must remember that it has nothing to do with Kevin McCarthy. To the extent McCarthy’s opponents have made an argument against him it largely turns on the mean things his predecessors John Boehner and Paul Ryan allegedly did to them when they were Speaker.

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11.29.22 | 6:15 pm
Where Things Stand: You Made Your Bed, Boys
This is your TPM evening briefing.

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk has been going off the deep end with the best of them the last several days, hyping various conspiracy theories oozing out of the public comment section of a Maricopa County meeting that took place before election officials certified the midterm results in Arizona’s most populous county this week.

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11.29.22 | 3:29 pm
ICYMI: Trump’s Hell Week

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! Last week, Josh and Kate discussed the many woes of Donald Trump and Kevin McCarthy.

Listen to the full episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.

11.29.22 | 1:19 pm
Remember Perla? Prime Badge

Remember Perla Huerta? She was “Perla,” the head recruiter in San Antonio, Texas for that DeSantis migrant hoodwinking operation back in September that ended with 50 migrants stranded on Martha’s Vineyard. She, along with DeSantis’s chief of staff, James Uthmeier, and his “pubic safety czar,” Larry Keefe, have had their names added to a federal class action lawsuit which alleges that they and others tricked the migrants into getting on that plane.

DeSantis himself gets top billing. You can see the amended complaint here.

For many this story seems like old news, yet another in the endless stream of outrages or scandals which hold the stage for a few days or weeks only to be replaced by another in endless rotation. It also doesn’t seem like a problem for DeSantis since his target audience is voters who want to stick it to immigrants and the triggered libs who hypocritically come to their defense. After all, he just cruised to a landslide reelection victory, right? But I don’t think either assumption is true. Never did.

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11.29.22 | 8:58 am
The Great Pearl Clutching

TPM Reader JS’s note is very much internal to the world of American Judaism, discussions of Zionism in the context of American politics. If you’re not Jewish, a few of the references may be obscure. (The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is a century-old organization once led by Louis Brandeis which for the last thirty years has been owned and controlled by one guy, Morton Klein, who basically uses it as a cudgel for right-wing politics in the U.S.) But the general points should be familiar and they’re correct. A lot of folks have suddenly found out Trump might be a bad guy just as the stink of a loser is all over him.

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