A short time ago, former U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade posted this passage from a Chronicle of Higher Education interview with Lee Bollinger, First Amendment scholar, former law school dean and former president of the University of Michigan and of Columbia. I note the thumbnail biography because Bollinger, apart from subject qualities, has ascended to the the peaks of two of the foundational nodes of power in American civil society: the legal profession and the university system.
Continue reading “Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act: Notes on Preserving the American Republic”Senate Democrats Cave, Giving Up Only Real Point Of Leverage Until The Fall
Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️
Much to the base’s chagrin, a handful of Senate Democrats voted to advance the House Republican continuing resolution to passage Friday — which Republicans could not have done without Democratic support.
Continue reading “Senate Democrats Cave, Giving Up Only Real Point Of Leverage Until The Fall “A Missed Opportunity
I said like a week ago that I’m pretty confident the GOP is going to get wrecked in the 2026 midterms. You have to imagine a lot of very improbable things happening to imagine anything else. I’m hearing from many readers questioning whether Democrats will show up after this performance. I think they will, though I think there’s a good chance a number of senators will draw primary challengers, and it would be a good thing if they lose so long as they’re in solidly blue states. But we greatly overestimate the impact of enthusiasm and disappointment measured in these terms. Midterm backlashes come from responses far more organic in the population at large. And they’re often as much against their own party’s leadership as against the incumbent party. I see this not only as a misfire and failure to at least take a chance on preserving some of the machinery of the embattled republic. It was also a missed political opportunity. And here I mean politics not simply through the prism of the 2026 election.
Continue reading “A Missed Opportunity”They Know the Score
This speaks for itself. From NBC News …
WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance acknowledged Friday that Elon Musk has made “mistakes” while executing mass firings of federal employees and emphasized that he believes there are “a lot of good people who work in the government.”
“Elon himself has said that sometimes you do something, you make a mistake, and then you undo the mistake. I’m accepting of mistakes,” Vance said in an interview with NBC News.
“I also think you have to quickly correct those mistakes. But I’m also very aware of the fact that there are a lot of good people who work in the government — a lot of people who are doing a very good job. And we want to try to preserve as much of what works in government as possible, while eliminating what doesn’t work.”
Senate Passes Bipartisan Bill To Protect Washington D.C. From House GOP Budget Slash
Senators moved quickly to cobble together a standalone bill to shield Washington D.C. from a $1 billion budget cut written into the House Republican continuing resolution that 10 Senate Democrats helped pass Friday.
Continue reading “Senate Passes Bipartisan Bill To Protect Washington D.C. From House GOP Budget Slash”Senate GOP Passes CR To Avert Shutdown After 10 Dems Gave Them Votes To Advance
In a 54-46 vote Friday evening, Senate Republicans passed House Republicans’ short-term spending bill, after nearly a dozen Senate Democrats (and Independents who caucus with them) stepped in to advance the measure in order to avert a shutdown. Government funding was set to run out at midnight. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was the only Republican to vote against the measure.
Ten Senate Democrats voted to invoke cloture on the continuing resolution earlier on Friday to overcome the filibuster, meaning Senate Republicans only needed a simple majority to pass the bill. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) led the charge to help advance the bill, despite outrage from House Democrats and the majority of his conference.
Each of the Senate Dems who helped advance the measure warned that a shutdown under President Donald Trump — amid Elon Musk’s DOGE ransacking of the federal government — would “not be a normal shutdown.” Some Dems were concerned that Trump would declare a state of emergency and use the moment to further pillage the federal government.
Catch up on TPM’s live coverage below:
Raskin Pushes DOJ To Rein In DC US Attorney Ed Martin
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, is calling for a DOJ Inspector General investigation into acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, who has in his first several weeks on the job made a particular point of probing perceived enemies of President Donald Trump.
gTrump’s DOJ Takeover Complete: In Speech From DOJ Podium, Trump Declares Cases Against Him ‘Bullshit’
On Friday, another stunning sign of the complete White House takeover of the Justice Department arrived: President Donald Trump delivered a speech to DOJ’s staff, declaring his intent to go after “rogue actors and corrupt forces” from the previous administration, the press, and in American society, and to transform a Justice Department that, he contended, had been “weaponized” against him.
Continue reading “Trump’s DOJ Takeover Complete: In Speech From DOJ Podium, Trump Declares Cases Against Him ‘Bullshit’”EXCLUSIVE: Senate Dems Drop Demand For Amendment Vote On Clean, 4-Week CR
Senate Democrats dropped their push for a vote on an amendment to the GOP’s continuing resolution that would keep the government open for another four weeks without major changes, two sources confirmed to TPM.
Continue reading “EXCLUSIVE: Senate Dems Drop Demand For Amendment Vote On Clean, 4-Week CR”Looking Squarely at a Shutdown
It’s hard to write clearly when you’re being flooded with new information. But here goes. I’ve heard people arguing the “‘yes’ on cloture” argument, essentially saying, “don’t assume you can shut DOGE down, undo the damage. It’s not a silver bullet.” I can only speak for myself, but if anyone is thinking, based on the arguments I’ve made, that blocking cloture is a silver bullet and if Democrats just do this we can shut this whole thing down, I haven’t been clear. I will further say that while the things I’ve written over the last week or so make it pretty clear where I stand on this, I have several times had a hard think with myself: are you sure you’re right about this? I’m not sure I’d say this is a close call. But it’s a hard call, for me at least. Both options hold out possibilities of calamity and destruction I’ve never seriously contemplated before. That is simply where we are. I wish we weren’t here. But we are here.
As I’ve written, my ask would be, right out of the gate, “we’ll give you the keys, we’ll give you your bill, if we write down the DOGE plan for each department and agency. And we just do an up or down vote. If you can pass it through Congress, that’s all we ask.” (I’ve explained previously why I think this is a good idea.)
Continue reading “Looking Squarely at a Shutdown”