For today’s purposes, the Benghazi story, and the extent to which it constitutes a scandal, boil down to the subjective question of how unseemly it is for a cabinet department to defensively edit public communications in the wake of a national tragedy. Maybe you can stretch that out to implicate President Obama for wanting to downplay the implications of that tragedy ahead of the election.
But to spin that into a fatal liability for either Obama or Hillary Clinton requires pretending that the territoriality and defensiveness of government agencies is unprecedented, which doesn’t really pass the laugh test. So why’s the GOP training all of its artillery on this piece of the story? Read More
Let me bring you up to date on the fast-moving new developments in that horrific fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas. Overnight, police arrested one of the first paramedics on the scene, Bryce Reed, on charges of possessing a ‘destructive device’, which in this case turned out to be the materials to make a pipe bomb.
A short time after, Texas officials announced they were opening a criminal investigation into the explosion itself.
Our team has spent the afternoon looking at the case and we’ve just published this new report on the apparent turmoil in Reed’s life since the blast.
Sen. Carl Levin pledges investigation into IRS targeting of right-leaning groups.
The folks at Fox love Fridays, so here’s a quick look at what made them “number one all week long”.
11 year old New Jersey boy shoots 12 year old in the face.
TPM Reader JH says my idea of citizenship is archaic and may be in conflict with the modern principles of human rights …
I write as a practicing academic sociologist, specializing in urban studies, globalization, urban planning and politics, and migration. I have been an avid, daily reader of TPM for years, but never before commented. Re: your post this morning about the NYC proposal to expand voting rights in local elections to non-citizens, I’d just like to make three quick points.
We’ve gotten a number of well-reasoned and thoughtful responses to my post yesterday on non-citizen voting and the concept of citizenship itself. First from TPM Readers AK and JC, US expats living in Toronto …
As long time readers, my partner and I were surprised and disappointed in your response to the New York proposal. It seems to be based more on a gut response than any evidence around civic engagement (one of us is currently working on a PhD centering on civic engagement and community development, so this isn’t exactly uninformed opinion). We are US citizens living in Toronto for the next several years (see aforementioned PhD program), so perhaps we offer a useful perspective on a similar situation. Not to conflate the two cities, but there are enough similarities that comparisons are in several ways apt. Sitting here on the other side of the border, unable to contribute to the governance of a city we’ll call our home for enough years that we’ll be materially affected by the decisions of local policymakers, it’s a little easier to see some of the merits to New York’s proposal.
A first responder at the West, Texas plant explosion, who was appeared in multiple media interviews after the explosion, has been arrested for possessing a ‘destructive device.’
IRS apologizes for targeting conservative groups during 2012 election.
I’m really curious to hear more about this. When I first saw this, I wondered whether it was maybe a politic but unmerited apology in response to mau-mauing from conservative groups. But the article says that “low-level workers” in the Cincinnati office of the IRS were flagging organizations with the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their names for additional review. If it’s as simple as that, that’s pretty bad.