There’s a side conversation occurring among Democrats today about whether protests are fueling momentum and organizing for a Democratic electoral comeback or diverting energy from it. For me, it’s all of the above. I do not believe they’re in opposition to each other at all. But for everyone who is worried, determined, angry or anything else to save the country from Trumpism, please focus on this. If all Donald Trump’s nominees are confirmed by the Senate, which is quite likely, we will have in the next few months at least four House special elections for seats now held by Republicans. These contests are each critical for stemming the tide of Trumpism.
There are two elections I want to focus on today.
Godwin’s law notwithstanding, this is Goebbels-level stuff.
From White House policy chief Stephen Miller earlier this morning on Fox …
The United States of America has a terrorism problem. We’ve had hundreds cases of foreign national[s] entering our country from other countries and plotting, attempting, or even carrying out terrorist attacks. We’ve spent countless dollars a year, and we have thousands of federal officers and investigators who do nothing but run around the country trying to stop terrorist attacks for no other reason because we make the mistake of letting people in who harbor hatred for this country.
Our immigration system should not be a vehicle for admitting people who have anything but love in their hearts for this nation and this Constitution.
There is no evidence for this whatsoever.
Last Updated February 14th, 2017, 9:39 AM …
As the allegations surrounding National Security Advisor Michael Flynn escalate, I wanted to put together for my own use a timeline of key events in this story. The story, as I see it, is the pervasive evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election and widespread, though murky, evidence of ties between the Russian government the Trump campaign.
I’ve always been partial to timelines because … well, we live in time. Chronology is the basic organizing principle of our existence. It allows us to get our heads around scatterings of facts in much the way a good chart allows us to synthesize numerical data. Of course, a timeline can create the impression of causation where none exists. It’s important to keep that in mind. Still, it’s helpful to get a lot of information in one place organized in time. It helps us bound what events can possibly be causally related as well as how they may or may not be related.
Writing to you as readers, I’ve told you that we here at TPM plan to dramatically expand our original reporting capacity – particularly our investigative reporting capacity – as we move into this addled and antic new era in which corruption appears pervasive and the public trust is abused at seemingly every turn. Today I wanted to write again to fellow journalists.
We’re looking to immediately hire three experienced investigative reporters to start filling out our expanded team. We plan to hire two to work from our Washington office and one to work from our New York headquarters. (The precise mix of where the three are stationed might shift depending on where we find the best people available.) For specifics on what we’re looking for and how to apply, here’s the listing. If you think you fit the bill, please apply. If you have questions, drop me a line directly at the site comments address linked just below the TPM logo at the upper left ( talk at talkingpointsmemo dot com ). I’d love to chat.
In Episode #13 of The Josh Marshall Show I talk to South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who is a candidate to be the next Chair of the DNC. Buttigieg is less known to Democrats nationwide or in Washington than some of the other candidates, but I strongly recommend giving him a listen. Check out our talk here.
As with our episodes with Keith Ellison and Tom Perez, we’re making this episode available to the public in its entirety because of the special importance of the DNC Chair race.
Here’s a good run-down of China-watcher opinion on President Trump’s seemingly rapid about-face on “one China.”
There’s always something new in the never-ending, hyperventilating Trump drama. Over the last day or so, however, we’re seeing something a bit new: Trump caving or getting rolled on numerous fronts all at once. Just in the last 24 hours he appears to have been rolled so many times that one imagines his rough edges might start to be worn down until he becomes something more like a clumpy and perhaps oblong ball.
Here are just three examples.
The New York Times reports that Gen. Mike Flynn had a back channel line of communication to the Russian Ambassador to the United States during the 2016 campaign. Did President Trump know this at the time? If so, did he discuss the conversations with Flynn? Authorize them? Use them as a conduit for passing his own messages? If he did not know about them at the time, when did he learn of them?