President Trump, who still refuses to concede to President-elect Joe Biden despite how his legal battles contesting the legitimacy of the election process have fallen flat, appeared to call up Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) as the governor certified the battleground state’s election results on Monday. Continue reading “AZ’s GOP Gov Appears To Get A Call From Trump As Biden’s Win Becomes Official In The State”
DOJ Makes Clear That Trump’s Pardon Of Flynn Is Breathtakingly Sweeping
In notifying Michael Flynn’s judge that the former national security adviser had been pardoned last week by President Trump, the Justice Department went out of its way to make clear that it covered any of his potentially criminal conduct that had been probed in recent years.
Continue reading “DOJ Makes Clear That Trump’s Pardon Of Flynn Is Breathtakingly Sweeping”
Trump’s NATO Ambassador Promises ‘Smooth’ Transition For Biden
President Trump’s NATO ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison, who also formerly served as a U.S. senator from Texas, on Monday assured that there would be a “smooth” and “seamless” transition to President-elect Joe Biden’s administration. Continue reading “Trump’s NATO Ambassador Promises ‘Smooth’ Transition For Biden”
What We Learned About Trump’s Census Gambit In Monday’s SCOTUS Hearing
At a Supreme Court hearing on Monday, the DOJ’s top litigator played coy on just how successful the Trump administration thinks the Census Bureau will be in fulfilling a presidential directive to exclude undocumented immigrants from the apportionment count.
It’s Not Just Trump: COVID-19 Is The Test That Conservatism Was Built To Fail
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
Nearly nine months into this COVID crisis, the virus appears to be raging completely out of control in the United States. Last week, we set new, dismal records for both hospitalizations and new cases, and daily deaths from COVID have now reached levels we haven’t suffered since the spring. Worse, there does not appear to be any plan in place to arrest the spread and bend the curve back downward, at least not from this outgoing administration. At the same time, the economic recovery from the spring’s shock has demonstrably slowed, with unemployment claims ticking back up, job creation slowing, and small business closures accelerating. The scale and degree of the failure to handle this public health and economic crisis is breathtaking.
Continue reading “It’s Not Just Trump: COVID-19 Is The Test That Conservatism Was Built To Fail”
Policy Is Always About the Next Election
It’s hard for me to think of a point in American history where an incoming President has faced a greater range of compounding crises with as little freedom of action as Joe Biden will have on January 20th of next year. There is COVID. There is economic calamity COVID created. There is the seemingly more distant but gravely important wrecked international system which portends a rising tide of foreign policy crises and disruptions in trade which has the potential to ramify out for decades into the future.
It is still just possible that Democrats will control the Senate, if they pick up both Senate seats in Georgia. But assuming Republicans hold on, basically no legislation of any significance will be possible and Mitch McConnell will have a stranglehold over staffing and presidential confirmations, not even to mention judges.
The ‘Striking’ Differences In How Biden And Trump Shared Info On Their Health
The doctor’s report is in. And after four years of President Donald Trump’s obfuscation, the information shared about President-elect Joe Biden’s foot fracture on Sunday was shockingly … thorough.
The Slapdowns To Trump’s Bid To Reverse His Defeat Are Getting More Painful
This one hurts.
Not only did the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit shut down a Trump campaign lawsuit seeking to delay certification of Joe Biden’s Pennsylvania win, it did so with a scathing opinion from a judge President Trump himself appointed to the bench. U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote this weekend that “the campaign’s claims have no merit.”
DOJ’s Squirreliness on Trump’s Census Plans Frustrates SCOTUS Conservatives
The conservative Supreme Court wants to find a way to punt on a case challenging President Trump’s anti-immigrant census apportionment policy.
Continue reading “DOJ’s Squirreliness on Trump’s Census Plans Frustrates SCOTUS Conservatives”
Where Things Stand: Even The Bare Minimum Isn’t Enough
Alas, even the bare minimum enforcement of basic elements of democracy is too much for President Trump.