Elections officials in two Georgia counties sued by former President Donald Trump after the 2020 election have recovered legal fees, which they say came from the plaintiffs in the case: Trump, his campaign and Georgia’s Republican Party chair.
Continue reading “Georgia Elections Officials Recover Legal Fees In Trump Suit Over 2020 Results”
The New York mayoral Democratic primary quickly turned acrimonious with a bruising few last days before polls opened on Tuesday.
Today is the day for voting rights legislation, or H1/S1. But we remain in a kind of play-acting drama. Kirsten Sinema remains steadfast in her opposition to ending the filibuster, a position she reaffirmed last night. But she’s a preening clown. More interesting, befuddling, bizarre is the stance of Joe Manchin.
As you’ll remember, a couple weeks ago, Manchin announced he was opposed to the For the People Act (H1/S1). This didn’t turn the tables too dramatically since that really only meant that the bill went from being ten votes short of 60 to eleven votes short of 60. But then a few days ago Manchin came forward with a revised version of the bill which he said he did support.
A lot of things happened. Here are some of them.
The long-awaited moment is here: The Senate will vote on whether to proceed with Democrats’ sweeping voting rights bill, the For The People Act/S. 1, this evening. While Republicans have vowed to block it, and they will, today’s vote will test whether all 50 Senate Democrats are unified in taking this preliminary step. Without 50 Democrats now, there’s no chance of blowing up the filibuster later.
Another top executive at the Trump Organization has gotten roped into Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s criminal investigation, according to the Wall Street Journal.
A federal judge threw out most of the claims in the ACLU, Black Lives Matters, and other activist groups’ lawsuit against the federal government and some Trump administration officials for brutally clearing peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square in D.C. last summer.
The FBI acknowledged in a court filing last week that there was chatter online pre-Capitol insurrection in which people made plans to start a “revolution” on Jan. 6.
Today is the NYC mayoral election (well technically a Democratic primary, but the city’s heavily blue makeup effectively guarantees that whoever wins the primary is headed to City Hall)!
Oh look, here’s a highly normal response from Eric Adams https://t.co/hmiOXAKEr7 pic.twitter.com/sKFj4T1uvf
— mattie kahn (@mattiekahn) June 21, 2021
There’s another crucial primary today that’s somehow flown under the radar: The Democratic primary race for Manhattan district attorney, aka the top prosecutor who’ll potentially take over outgoing Manhattan D.A. Cy Vance’s investigation into the Trump Organization.
Analysis: “When It Comes to Big City Elections, Republicans Are in the Wilderness” – The New York Times
Yesterday was a big day for LGBTQ+ representation in sports.
You never know who will run into you in DC. @YVindman was promoted to Colonel today and all the Vindmans are incredibly proud ?????? It was an honor to meet @DouglasEmhoff who was out for a jog and @timkaine who administered the oath @AVindman @CindySueSci pic.twitter.com/A090g3QQKP
— Rachel Vindman (@natsechobbyist) June 21, 2021
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is preparing to bring the For the People Act to the floor Tuesday, the first push of the legislation that will almost certainly run straight into the filibuster buzzsaw.
Within weeks of ItalyGate’s birth as a conspiracy theory, it had made it into the highest levels of government.
The speed with which the theory went from creation into an email from former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to senior DOJ officials raises the question: how did the bonkers idea that Italy changed the results of the 2020 election via military satellites make the leap from right-wing fever swamps into the White House?
Continue reading “So, How Did ItalyGate Get Into The White House?”
The story of Michele Ballarin, the Virginia realtor and Somali pirate hostage negotiator with ties to MAGAland’s bonkers “ItalyGate” conspiracy theory, just got even more bizarre somehow.
Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) yesterday called for the removal of three of his colleagues — Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) — from Congress over their promotion of the far-right’s latest wild conspiracy theory surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Moulton told CNN Sunday the trio were “traitors” who are attempting to “whitewash history” by hyping the theory, which makes the case that the FBI was actually the entity responsible for the Jan. 6 attack.
Then-President Donald Trump offered a horrifying solution to the burgeoning COVID-19 infections among American tourists returning to the country in February last year, according to the Washington Post.
As you may know we’re in the midst of an burgeoning era of email newsletters. We have two new or upgraded ones ourselves: The Franchise (on voting rights and democracy) and The Weekender. (You can sign up for both here.) There’s also Substack, a newsletter platform which now hosts a substantial number of established journalists (and newcomers) who are striking out on their own as one-man/-woman shops with revenue from recurring subscriptions. There’s even been some controversy in the case of Substack because they have basically fronted a year of guaranteed revenue to a number of journalists with established followings. Substack thinks it will make money on those advances and does so because it wants as many proofs of concept on the platform as possible. Nothing surprising or controversial there, though some think otherwise.
A key part of the newsletter revival is the subscription model, one which I’ve discussed at great length as a key to TPM’s survival and current vitality. That is a key part of their attractiveness. The greatest financial challenge to journalism today is the dominating role occupied by platform monopolies which take from publications their longstanding role as gatekeepers and profit centers for commercial speech. Direct relationships with readers via subscriptions cuts right through that existential challenge.
But it’s not the business model of newsletters that brings me to write about them today. It’s the more intangible or elusive qualities that makes them attractive to readers. The apparently viable business model makes them attractive to independent journalists and publications. But none of it would work if there wasn’t demonstrable demand. And that demand very clearly exists.
