Police Give Harrowing Accounts Of Downtown Nashville Bombing

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Nashville police urged nearby residents to get away as an ominous recording blared from a recreational vehicle. Suddenly the warning stopped, and Petula Clark’s 1964 hit “Downtown” started playing. Then the bomb went off.

Police officers provided harrowing details Sunday of responding to the Christmas morning explosion in downtown Nashville, at times getting choked up reliving the moments that led up to the blast and offering gratitude that they were still alive.

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Toomey: Trump Will Be Remembered For ‘Erratic Behavior’ If He Doesn’t Sign COVID Relief Bill

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) on Sunday sternly warned President Trump that his legacy is on the line after the sitting president turned on a COVID relief bill that passed Congress in the waning weeks of his presidency. Continue reading “Toomey: Trump Will Be Remembered For ‘Erratic Behavior’ If He Doesn’t Sign COVID Relief Bill”

Unemployment Benefits Run Dry For Millions As Trump Turns On COVID Deal

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Unemployment benefits for millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet lapsed overnight as President Donald Trump refused to sign an end-of-year COVID relief and spending bill that had been considered a done deal before his sudden objections. Continue reading “Unemployment Benefits Run Dry For Millions As Trump Turns On COVID Deal”

Trump Fiddles As Unemployment Benefits Are About To Expire For Millions

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Unemployment benefits for millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet were set to lapse at midnight Saturday unless President Donald Trump signed an end-of-year COVID relief and spending bill that had been considered a done deal before his sudden objections.

Trump’s refusal to sign the bipartisan package as he demands larger COVID relief checks and complains about “pork” spending could also force a federal government shutdown when money runs out at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday in the middle of a pandemic.

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Emergency Systems Still Offline After Christmas Day Explosion In Nashville

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Sweeping communications outages continued to plague large swaths of Tennessee on Saturday after a recreational vehicle exploded early Christmas morning in sleepy downtown Nashville.

Police emergency systems across Tennessee and Kentucky, as well as Nashville’s COVID-19 community hotline, remained out of service due to an AT&T central office being affected by the blast. The building contained a telephone exchange, with network equipment in it — but the company has declined to say exactly how many people have been impacted.

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Republicans Plotting New Ways To Make It Harder To Vote

ATLANTA (AP) — Changes to the way millions of Americans voted this year contributed to record turnout, but that’s no guarantee the measures making it easier to cast ballots will stick around for future elections.

Republicans in key states that voted for President-elect Joe Biden already are pushing for new restrictions, especially to absentee voting. It’s an option many states expanded amid the coronavirus outbreak that proved hugely popular and helped ensure one of the smoothest election days in recent years.

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Judge Delays Execution Of Only Woman On Federal Death Row

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge said the Justice Department unlawfully rescheduled the execution of the only woman on federal death row, potentially setting up the Trump administration to schedule the execution after President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss also vacated an order from the director of the Bureau of Prisons that had set Lisa Montgomery’s execution date for Jan. 12. Montgomery had previously been scheduled to be put to death at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, this month, but Moss delayed the execution after her attorneys contracted coronavirus visiting their client and asked him to extend the amount of time to file a clemency petition.

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Another Great Installment

One of the pleasures for me of this 20th anniversary package, as I’ve mentioned, is reading each installment fresh. I was interviewed for a few of these pieces and answered some questions. But I didn’t write them or have any role in the process other than that. It’s good to have a second set of eyes. And there are parts I’m learning about for the first time. The latest installment from Tierney Sneed looks at how our coverage of Obamacare helped shape the niche TPM’s DC office would carve out in the capital news ecosystem and within TPM. The legislative, implementation and political history of Obamacare is certainly one of the two or three stories we’ve invested most time and resources in going back 20 years. As Tierney explains, the long story of Obamacare played to two critical TPM strengths: a basic seriousness about and knowledge of the policy detail which is often just a background story in political journalism and an attention to the subterranean political world that often, cryptically, drives formal or official political narratives.

Both those strengths allowed our evolving team to see developments and land exclusives that others missed on this critical, consequential story.

Merry Christmas!

To all who celebrate, either as a Christian holiday or a secular celebration, Merry Christmas! I want to thank all of our members and readers who have been with us through this arduous year, supporting our work, reading our work, continuing to make this enterprise possible. Thank you. And have a wonderful, nurturing and revivifying day.

The Pardons are A Disgrace. But Don’t Sweat It.

Yesterday, as the news set in that President Trump had pardoned almost everyone involved in the Russia scandal, I saw an editor at one of the big political publications say that with this step President Trump had taken one more step in erasing the Mueller probe. This is wrong. And explaining why it’s wrong gives me another opportunity to reaffirm my belief that knowledge, a public accounting of what happened is far more important than punishment for individual wrongdoers.

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