Wes Clark, Todd Palin and other minor celebs to star in new NBC reality show.
Call me crazy. But I’m a little surprised that Scott Brown hasn’t been hit with an avalanche of ridicule for his demand that Vicki Kennedy, Ted Kennedy’s widow, not endorse his opponent as a condition of his debating Elizabeth Warren. Read More
George Zimmerman has mainly been out of the news of late. And it’s true that evidence of unrelated bad acts in most circumstances aren’t allowed as testimony when you’re on trial for someone else. But you can’t close people’s ears to the abundant news coverage that now shows in painfully — sometimes comically — that Zimmerman and his wife repeatedly lied through their teeth to the judge in his case. (This is their lying about how much money they had access to during his bail hearing.) Zimmerman’s entire defense will have to rest on his own testimony about events no one else alive witnessed. So his credibility is central to his defense.
I’d be curious to hear from litigators how much or whether they think this will be relevant to the jury’s deliberations.
The TPM Electoral College Scoreboard just moved to Obama 269, Romney 224.
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Following up on my ask below, TPM Reader GR reports in on the latest on the Massachusetts senate race and Brown’s demand that Ted Kennedy’s widow stay neutral in the race …
You asked what the response here in Massachusetts has been about Scott Brown’s refusal to take part in the exact same Kennedy Institute debate that he participated in back in 2010. First, full disclosure, I am low level Democratic Party official, a Warren volunteer and convention delegate, as well as a working class guy who actually drives a pick-up truck for work rather than campaign ads. That said, I am also a relatively objective guy whose nose is glued to the political goings-on in our area (except when I screw up the early life-details of a certain Arizona sheriff. I’m still really embarrassed about that. [cringe] Seriously.)
Unless there’s a last minute clamber from the ledge, the House oversight committee seems set to vote later this morning on holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress over what Darrell Issa says is DOJ’s refusal to fully cooperate with his investigation into the botched gunrunning operation Fast & Furious.
Get up to speed on what is largely a political ploy here.
Recent high-profile whistleblowers say the DOJ’s new leak probe has no credibility.
The big news today is the imminent House committee vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. Substantively, there doesn’t seem to be that much Congress has asked for that the Justice Department hasn’t given on the “Fast and Furious” scandal (though certainly there’s disagreement on that front, especially from Congressional Republicans). The real driver here seems more like base Republicans’ desire for a confrontation with Holder — with a lot of the heat over gun control conspiracy theories wrapped up into what is in itself a legitimate scandal. It’s a push the higher ups in the Congressional leadership have at key points resisted. But the momentum from GOP backbenchers is simply too great. And now it’s happening. Read More
Coming off Scott Brown’s refusal to debate at the Kennedy Institute unless Kennedy’s widow agrees not to endorse a candidate, the Warren campaign is asking “What’s he afraid of?”