A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.
Kudos For The Honesty?
Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who baselessly claimed the 2020 election was “stolen” from Trump and who’s been appointed to lead the Wisconsin GOP’s Arizona-inspired review of the election results, is remarkably candid about his credentials.
- Election laws are “not intuitive,” and “no one can call elections laws common sense,” Gableman claimed in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel interview this week. “Once you understand them, it may be common sense but it’s not intuitive.”
- Here’s the kicker: “And so most people, myself included, do not have a comprehensive understanding or even any understanding of how elections work.”
- Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) has given Gableman $676,000 in taxpayer funds to run the so-called audit.
- Oh and Gableman went to MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s ridiculous “Cyber Symposium” last month.
Kicking The Debt Ceiling Can Down The Road
Senate leaders worked late into the night on the new tentative deal to extend the debt ceiling until December.
- The final details are still being hammered out amid vigorous debate over whether this was a McConnell cave or merely setting Democrats up for more headaches down the road.
- A vote on the tentative deal is expected this week, but the exact timing remains uncertain.
Texas Abortion Ban Is Temporarily Blocked By A Judge
U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman on Wednesday put out an order that bars state court judges, court clerks and any other state officer from enforcing Texas’ six-week abortion ban that allows a private citizen to sue anyone they believe helped provide an abortion and collect $10,000 from the defendant if the citizen wins the suit.
- Under Pitman’s order, the officers are prohibited from “accepting or docketing, maintaining, hearing, resolving, awarding damages in, enforcing judgments in, enforcing any administrative penalties in, and administering any lawsuit” under the law.
- “From the moment” the ban went into effect, “women have been unlawfully prevented from exercising control over their lives in ways that are protected by the Constitution,” the judge wrote in his decision.
- Pitman’s order isn’t the final word in the fight over the law. Anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life signaled that the case will be brought before “a higher court.”
UPDATED: Important New Details On Critical Jan. 3 White House Meeting
Last night, the New York Times obtained a copy of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s interim report on the final stages of Trump’s desperate attempt to weaponize the Justice Department to cling to the presidency several days before the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. This morning the report was released publicly.
- White House counsel Pat Cipollone joined top DOJ officials’ threat to resign en masse in Trump’s infamous meeting with them on Jan. 3, during which the then-President laid out a plan to install loyalist Jeffrey Clark as acting attorney general, according to the Times’ report on the committee’s findings.
- The interim report contains other new details on Trump’s crusade to overturn the election, per the Times, including more information on Clark and Rep. Scott Perry’s (R-PA) roles in the scheme.
- The report also firms up the sequence of events leading to the abrupt resignation of then-U.S. Attorney Byung “BJay” Pak in Atlanta, as first reported by TPM.
Sanders Refused To Condemn Protests Against Sinema Unless …
Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) office told Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-NJ) staff that the Vermont senator wouldn’t sign Democrats’ joint condemnation of the protests against Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) unless it included the language, “While we hope Senator Sinema will change her position on prescription drug reform and support a major [budget] reconciliation bill …”
- Read copies of the exchange between the senators’ staff obtained by Axios reporter Alayna Treene:
Congress Scrutinizes Cyber Ninjas/Ninja Turtles
The House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing this morning on Cyber Ninjas’ disastrous audit of Arizona’s 2020 votes that was commissioned by state Republicans (and which ultimately failed to prove Trump won Arizona).
- Doug Logan, the CEO of Cyber Ninjas who repeatedly peddled pro-Trump conspiracy theories about the election on Twitter, was invited to the hearing. It doesn’t seem like he’ll be coming, though.
- Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) gave a shout-out to the “ninja turtles” yesterday during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing:
Lewandowski Demanded Money In Exchange For His Banishment
Before he was jettisoned by Trumpworld over allegations of sexually harassing a Trump donor, Corey Lewandowski, who led the pro-Trump Make America Great Again Action superPAC, demanded hundreds of thousands of dollars for his resignation, according to the Daily Beast.
- Trump’s response was essentially “LOL no,” the Daily Beast reports.
Texas GOPers Screech About The Border Amid A School Shooting
“This is one of, if not the most, urgent matter[s] that we’re facing in the United States at this time,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) declared yesterday after at least four people were injured in a high school shooting in Arlington.
- Oh, you didn’t think he was talking about the shooting, did you? Nah, Abbott was bloviating about Biden’s immigration policies during a PR stunt at the border.
- Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) managed to spare a few words about the shooting before promptly getting back to business:
- But maybe Cruz, who may or may not be the Zodiac Killer, could’ve been too distracted by a team of private investigators’ unconfirmed claim to have discovered the identity of the killer yesterday to do a better job of reacting to the school shooting, a development that didn’t go unnoticed by the internet:
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