The midterm red wave that wasn’t was one thing. Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race was another. 2024 Republicans’ ongoing, awkward, obvious flailing on abortion has confirmed the severity of the dilemma for the party. And the primary elections in Virginia this week bring us the latest datapoint on how potent and energizing the unpopularity of the Dobbs ruling and the passage of increasingly restrictives bans on abortion has been and will be for 2024 voters.

Okay, we’re creeping up on 2/3rds of the way toward our very ambitious and very necessary goal in this year’s TPM Journalism Fund drive. We’re currently at $318,669. That’s very solid. But we need to keep moving it forward. If you’ve been considering contributing, please take a moment to do so today. It’s quick and easy, especially if you’re a current member. Literally takes about one minute. Just click right here. And thank you in advance.

You’ve likely seen that TPM Alum Justin Elliott and the team at ProPublica is back with another big exclusive about the Supreme Court. This time, for once, Clarence Thomas is in the clear. Now we’re talking about the intemperate and peevish Sam Alito who took an all expenses paid fishing trip to Alaska back in 2008, courtesy of hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer. In a characteristic move, Alito refused to respond to the reporters’ questions and then published his answers as an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal in a kind of prebuttal and attack. Because yes, he’s that guy.

The bulk of the story is a detailed run-down of what Alito did, what a justice needs to disclose and what kind of high-powered gifts should dictate a recusal in cases where Singer had some direct stake — there’ve been a number. But the gem in Alito’s prebuttle op-ed is the explanation of the private jet flight.

Even being a Trump appointee won’t shield you from the wrath of a House Republican majority foaming at the mouth to prove just how weaponized!!! the justice system is (but only when it serves their talking-point purposes).

United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee Henry C. Leventis today announced charges against Joshua Hensley, aka Josh Echo, 25, of Hoisington, Kansas for Facebook comments threatening a violent attack on a Nashville Pride event scheduled to take place on June 24 and June 25. In one post he threatened to “make shrapnel pressure cooker bombs for this event” and in another to “commit a mass shooting.” The threats were made on April 26, 2023.

TPM Reader EK notes that a “Joshua Hensley” was booked in Hoisington Municipal Court for domestic battery on March 18 of this year. Of course maybe the town is just lousy with a surfeit of Joshua Hensleys. Or maybe these guys follow a pattern.

As you’d expect, news that the long-running Hunter Biden investigation is ending with pleas to a few relatively low level infractions that are unlikely to result in jail time has been met with gnashing of teeth and donning of sack cloth, in “Where’s Hunter?”/”Biden Crime Family” land. But they are holding on to one faint glimmer of hope. Is the investigation really, really, really over? As in super double over?

Let’s take a look.

It probably goes without saying. But it’s worth remembering and noting this. Joe Biden took the fairly extraordinary step of leaving the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney in Delaware in place for more than two years into his own term for the sole purpose of not even appearing to interfere or change anything about the management of the investigation into his own son. (For what it’s worth, my recollection is that the man in question, David C. Weiss, has a good reputation — not just another Trump-adjacent hack.) Now it appears to have ended with Biden pleading to two relatively low level tax misdemeanors and a weapons violation which will be set aside if he completes a diversion program. There’s few better examples of the difference between the mores and standards that apply in both parties.

Here’s a really must-read article out this morning from the Post, “FBI resisted opening probe into Trump’s role in Jan. 6 for more than a year.” Unless the reporting comes under serious question, and given who the reporters are I doubt that will be the case, it should be one of the canonical articles required to understand this story. And that story is how it is we only got to the present point in the investigation more than two years after the events of January 6th, 2021.

The key mystery to me is the headline. Unless my brain isn’t working this morning there’s very little in the piece to in any way back it up. FBI Director Chris Wray definitely took a hands-off approach. But the article is quite clear that the main reason for the delay came from top-level appointees at the DOJ — specifically Garland and Monaco and those working under them.

I’ve been writing recently about the corrupt monstrosity that is the “No Labels” third party effort and the way the insider sheets in D.C. persist in labeling this an action on behalf of centrists. It is in fact a lifestyle front group run by the husband and wife team of Mark Penn and Nancy Jacobson, some of the most retrograde players from the dark side of American politics. The effort is funded by a who’s who of right-wing Republicans. But I want to step back from this story to note a feature of the 2024 presidential election that is already coming into view.

The 2016 and 2020 presidential elections were both quite close. Numerous factors distinguish one from the other and set the stage for the very different results. But one of the biggest factors was the role of third party candidates, which made it possible for Trump to slip in by pulling both major party candidates down below 50%.

We’re at 2,988 TPM Readers who’ve contributed in this year’s TPM Journalism Fund drive. A mere 12 more to get to 3,000! You could be number 3,000 by clicking here!

Also don’t miss these two Juneteenth-themed articles from the TPM archives.