From TPM Reader AS …

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Most of us have been listening for years to Ron Fournier preach the gospel of post-partisanship and bothsidesism. In fact, he was on Meet the Press Tuesday night doing just that. But it turns out he now works for a Republican PR firm and … well, it gets weirder from there. Matt Shuham has the story.

This morning we have news that VICE is the latest digital media powerhouse to announce major layoffs: 10% of the workforce, apparently around 250 people. They of course join Buzzfeed, Huffpost (as part of Verizon), Gannett and others in recent weeks. With the digital media companies the key thing to consider is why people own media companies in the first place. Does anyone want to own these companies for longterm and consistent, if modest, profitability (or ‘synergy’ within a larger media company)? None of these companies have ever lived in that world. And none of them have those kinds of owners. Read More

President Trump just gave one of his conference table press availabilities in which he said a bunch of weird stuff. One example below: he said he thinks part of the problem with the pre-Trump border barriers (a mix of walls, fences, etc.) was that they weren’t beautiful enough. Bizarre. But for all the fireworks, what seemed clear was that President Trump has realized that he’s lost the budget stand off with Nancy Pelosi and will try to create a narrative in which the defeat is actually a victory. Read More

Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA) acknowledges and apologizes for “clearly racist and offensive” yearbook photo of him from 1984. Oddly, the statement from the governor doesn’t say whether he’s the one in KKK garb or the one in blackface.

In a press conference still underway. Virginia Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam insisted that he wasn’t in the racist photo on his med school yearbook page – then disclosed that he had “darkened my face” on another occasion around the same time, to dress up as Michael Jackson in a dance contest.

Aside from a few remarks on Twitter, I wasn’t sure there was much to add on the unexpected collapse of Ralph Northam’s governorship and political career. But I saw a note from TPM Reader AW who asked me to share my reactions, thoughts, comments. So here goes.

When I first saw this news yesterday afternoon it was such a whipsaw, unexpected development it took me a short while to make sense of it. We see pols appearing in black face or in some kind of Confederate regalia or other similar situations. Usually the identity of the public figure isn’t a huge surprise. Though I don’t know a great deal about him, I certainly didn’t expect this from Ralph Northam. And this is about as over the top as you can get. Not just blackface but a guy in Klan robe as well. Other than a jocular reenactment of a lynching, it’s basically maxed out on racist aggression. Read More

In our recent Inside briefings we’ve had a running conversation about the ins and outs of congressional oversight, how it’s properly done, its scope, what it can and can’t do. We’re going to continue this conversation next week with former Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), who is widely seen as the most accomplished and capable congressional overseer and investigator of the post-Watergate era. Read More

To the surprise of I hope absolutely no one, the bogus “evidence” of widespread non-citizen voting in Texas, pushed by state Republicans, continues to collapse.

Here’s a quietly remarkable story out of Utah, getting fairly little attention nationally because of all the fireworks in D.C. Last November Utahns voted by a clear if not overwhelming majority for Medicaid expansion in their state. That was Proposition 3. The state’s legislature is in the process of simply overruling that decision, passing a plan that actually costs more than Medicaid expansion and automatically voids itself if the federal government doesn’t issue Utah a waiver that the state seems unlikely to get. Read More