Ed. Note: Nicole Lafond will be back to helming Where Things Stand soon.
Next week, the 2024 presidential campaign will hit one of its predictable low points. The two major party nominees will meet in a nationally televised debate — and everything we know from watching these two men in public life for the last 40-50 years and our lived experience of their presidencies for the past nearly eight years will be thrown out window.
We talk a lot, rightly, about how Democrats are often instinctively cautious about going on the political attack. I just got a mass-email press release from the Biden campaign that is part of their “felon” push and the jousting in the lead up to the debate. I don’t have anything particular to add beside, jeez, this is intense stuff, by which I mean not “intense” in the slangish mean of “good” but intense. Like totally going off. One needs to do this with a full spectrum approach, in press conferences, ads, surrogates etc. But if this press release is any measure, they’re not holding back.
Text after the jump … (links are the ones that came embedded in the email).
I’ve been reading through your emails about your favorite Editors’ Blog posts, and among the maybe dozen that are most often mentioned, there are three themes I wanted to highlight, because they each relate to a central dimension of our politics today.
The first is the post on “bitch-slap politics” which I wrote in 2004; I later began referring to the concept I described in it as “dominance politics”.
The second is the post I wrote the day after the 2016 presidential election about optimism as an ethic, a posture toward life rather than a set of predictions about the future. It was actually a post with a series of bullet-pointed observations. But that one bullet point — about optimism — resonated with people. A lot of you wrote in about it. And in recent years it’s probably the thing I hear about from people most.
I’ll return to those two topics in a moment.
The third theme is not really any individual post but a stream of posts and tweets over several years about “dignity loss” and “dignity wraiths” and like things, a whole bespoke vocabulary or a running gag about this pattern we’re all aware of in which Trump demands of people an ever escalating series of humiliations, dignity losses and more. Trump requires it — that part alone isn’t hard to understand. It’s that people give it … lavishly and fulsomely. Soon you’ve got some guy you may not have agreed with but seemed like a reasonably self-possessed adult, and they’re saying “thank you, sir, may I have another” each time Trump comes up with a new insult name for them, praising his far-reaching intellect and encyclopedic knowledge of history, clapping obediently on his approach. Trump somehow casts a spell over these people and soon they’re like a desiccated dignity husk. It’s like he’s a dignity black hole that no one can re-emerge from.
This article first appeared at ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
Last fall, out of public view, the North Carolina Supreme Court squashed disciplinary action against two Republican judges who had admitted that they had violated the state’s judicial code of conduct, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the decisions.
One of the judges had ordered, without legal justification, that a witness be jailed. The other had escalated a courtroom argument with a defendant, which led to a police officer shooting the defendant to death. The Judicial Standards Commission, the arm of the state Supreme Court that investigates judicial misconduct by judges, had recommended that the court publicly reprimand both women. The majority-Republican court gave no public explanation for rejecting the recommendations — indeed, state law mandates that such decisions remain confidential.
The sources spoke to ProPublica on the condition of anonymity because many of the actions and decisions of both institutions are confidential and because the sources said they feared retaliation.
When it comes to disciplining judges, North Carolina is one of the most secretive states in America, according to data from the National Center for State Courts’ Center for Judicial Ethics. Over half of states make disciplinary proceedings against judges public once charges are filed with their judicial ethics commission. Another dozen make them public if they reach the state’s supreme court. North Carolina is one of only three states, in addition to the District of Columbia, to release information only at the last possible stage of the process — after the Supreme Court orders discipline.
Stephen Gillers, a professor emeritus at New York University’s law school who specializes in legal and judicial ethics, said that making some parts of disciplinary cases against judges confidential can be necessary to protect private or personal information. But North Carolina goes too far, he added. “While secrecy has a place in judicial discipline, it can be used to conceal wrongdoing,” Gillers said. “Once there is a finding of wrongdoing by a disciplinary commission, the case should become public.”
The North Carolina Supreme Court’s decisions not to publicly discipline the two judges, which have not previously been reported, appear to be the only instances in more than a decade in which the Supreme Court did not follow the commission’s recommendation to issue punishment. Those decisions come at a time of accusations and recriminations about politics influencing North Carolina’s high court. Last year, Justice Anita Earls, a Democrat, sued the commission after it launched an investigation into comments she made suggesting that Republican justices were influenced by conservative ideology, remarks that she defended as free speech. And a Republican justice personally attacked Earls in a Supreme Court order in September. In addition, the year before, outside groups sought recusals of more than half of the court’s justices over various conflict-of-interest accusations.
Spokespeople for the North Carolina Supreme Court and the Judicial Standards Commission declined to comment or respond to a detailed list of questions.
Asher Hildebrand, a professor of public policy at Duke University, explained that in the 2010s, North Carolina had policies designed to keep the judiciary above the political fray, such as nonpartisan judicial elections. However, the gradual dismantling of these policies by the Republican-controlled legislature has driven the court’s polarization, according to Hildebrand.
“While we might long for the days when courts were perceived as being above politics, courts are very much a partisan battleground,” he said.
Bob Orr, a former Republican justice, said partisan disputes over the judicial standards process have intensified in recent years.
“The judicial standards process needs a major overhaul in that I don’t think it was set up to deal with the current political atmosphere that judges have been embroiled in,” said Orr, who back in the early 2000s was investigated and received a private warning from the then-Democratic-controlled commission over comments that it deemed to be an impermissible political endorsement. He left the Republican Party in 2021 after being a vocal critic of former President Donald Trump.
Orr added, “It’s important for all the decision-makers in the judicial standards process — the commission, its staff and the Supreme Court — to act in a nonpartisan way to increase trust in the judicial system.”
Since 2011, North Carolina’s Judicial Standards Commission has referred 19 cases to the Supreme Court for judicial discipline, according to the court’s annual reports. In that time, the court has issued 17 public disciplinary orders, ranging from reprimands to suspensions without pay.
Had the Supreme Court followed the commission’s recommendations in the cases of the two Republican judges, it would have meant publicly reprimanding them ahead of elections for both in 2024. Judge Lori Hamilton, a longtime Republican, had campaigned with the slogan, “the ideal conservative.” Judge Caroline Burnette had previously been a Democrat — but she switched her registration before her case got to the Supreme Court, according to public records.
In September 2021, Burnette was conducting a trial when she got into a shouting match with the defendant, Christopher Vaughan, who was facing charges of false imprisonment. Court recordings later published by WRAL News captured a three-minute argument, which escalated after Burnette told Vaughan to “shut up.” When Burnette ordered the bailiff to “take him,” Vaughan rushed Burnette. The bailiff blocked him, the two grappled, and the bailiff shouted that Vaughan had his gun. A police officer who was in the courtroom to testify shot Vaughan in the head, killing him, an incident that was widely reported.
The commission’s work is confidential, but sources say that it soon began investigating Burnette, who had potentially violated multiple parts of the judicial code, including the requirements that a “judge should maintain order and decorum in proceedings” and a “judge should be patient, dignified and courteous.” Burnette declined to comment. A spokesperson for the state court system said Burnette would not respond to ProPublica’s detailed list of questions.
Not long after, in November 2021, Hamilton was overseeing the trial of a man charged with sex crimes against minors. According to court transcripts, Hamilton accused the victims’ mother of bringing them to court late and previously being uncooperative with the state’s lawyers. “I’m going to take you into protective custody to ensure your appearance here at trial,” Hamilton told the mother, ordering that she be handcuffed, detained throughout the trial and denied an attorney. Hamilton also said that the victims should be turned over to Child Protective Services. Court staff were so unsure of how to execute their orders that the bailiff explained to Hamilton that they “don’t know how to book” the mother.
The mother of the victims, whose name is being withheld to protect the identities of her children, said she spent her four days of incarceration worrying about her daughters, crying and asking court staff, “How can you hold me if I’m not charged with nothing?”
The commission soon launched an investigation into Hamilton, sources say. She had potentially violated multiple canons, including that “a judge should uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary” and that a “judge should be faithful to the law and maintain professional competence in it.” In response to a detailed list of questions from ProPublica, Hamilton answered only one, which asked if she thought that her political affiliation had anything to do with the conservative majority of the Supreme Court going against the commission’s recommendation. “No, I do not,” she replied.
During the commission’s investigations and hearings process, both Hamilton and Burnette stipulated that they had violated the judicial code, according to sources. Those sources said that the commission sent the cases to the Supreme Court to determine final discipline and that the commission recommended that the court give them public reprimands. When the commission determines there to be minor violations, it issues a letter of caution or a verbal warning, which remains private. The vast majority of disciplinary action falls into these categories. But all judicial discipline serious enough to be issued by the Supreme Court becomes public, according to the rules of the commission.
Months after the Supreme Court decided in the fall of 2023 to let Hamilton and Burnette off without public consequences, it issued its most recent disciplinary order. In March 2024, the court concurred with the commission’s recommendation for punishment of Angela Foster, a Black Democratic judge who had pressured a court official to reduce a bond for her son and had taken over a courtroom reserved for other court officials, thereby delaying over 100 cases. The Supreme Court suspended her without pay for 120 days.
At the same time as the court was considering how to handle the two white Republican judges, the commission was weighing another fraught matter.
In March 2023, Earls, the Supreme Court’s lone Black justice and a Democrat, received a letter from the commission informing her that she was under investigation. The letter stated that Earls had been accused of disclosing “confidential information concerning matters being currently deliberated in conference by the Supreme Court.” If the commission found evidence of a serious violation, it could send the case to the Supreme Court, which would make a final determination and could go as far as to expel her.
At the center of the anonymous complaint was the allegation that Earls had told lawmakers and state bar members at two different meetings about proposed rule changes that would give more power to the Republican justices. The complaint, which was made after WRAL News published an article describing the meetings, also alleged that she’d provided confidential information to a reporter.
In her response to the letter, which later was filed in court, her lawyer argued that it had been standard practice for justices to discuss the court’s rule changes with affected parties and that no information had been leaked. Earls’ lawyer also wrote that if the matter proceeded to a hearing, Earls planned to make the investigation public and subpoena “current and former Justices” about their “actions.” In May, the commission dismissed the complaint, providing Earls with verbal and written warnings “to be mindful of your public comments,” according to court documents.
In June, Earls, the only person of color on the court, gave an interview to Law360 in which she criticized Chief Justice Paul Newby and other conservative justices for refusing to address the lack of diversity in the state’s court system. She revealed that Newby had effectively killed its Commission on Fairness and Equity by not reappointing its members and that he had ended implicit bias trainings for judges, which Earls had helped set up. Much of the interview was framed around a Law360 analysis and an outside study that found that the vast majority of state appellate court judges, and the attorneys arguing before them, were white and male. In reference to the findings, Earls said that “our court system, like any other court system, is made up of human beings and I believe the research that shows that we all have implicit biases.” She said that her five Republican colleagues “very much see themselves as a conservative bloc” and that “their allegiance is to their ideology, not to the institution.”
In August, Earls received another letter from the commission alerting her that it had “reopened” the former investigation. The letter warned: “Publicly alleging that another judge makes decisions based on a motivation not allowed under” the code, such as racial or political biases, without “definitive proof runs contrary to a judge’s duty to promote public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary.”
Rather than letting the investigation proceed in secret again, Earls sued the commission in federal court, seeking an injunction to stop “an on-going campaign” by the commission to “stifle the First Amendment free-speech rights of Justice Earls and expose her to punishment.”
Two weeks after the lawsuit was filed, Democratic state lawmakers held a press conference to call the investigation into Earls “a political hit job” — and one state representative accused Newby of pushing it, though he said he could not reveal his sources. Four sources knowledgeable about Newby’s or the commission’s actions told ProPublica that the chief justice encouraged the investigation. The sources requested anonymity because the inner workings of the commission are confidential and because they feared retaliation.
Newby and Earls declined to comment through a North Carolina Supreme Court spokesperson. Neither responded to questions submitted to the North Carolina Judicial Branch.
The lawsuit led to public outcry, which was fiercely critical of the investigation and which was partially fueled by the fact that Newby had himself made remarkably similar statements alleging that his Democratic colleagues were biased. In the summer of 2019, when Newby was a justice campaigning to become chief justice, he made a speech, first reported by WRAL News, in which he called Earls an “AOC” — referencing progressive U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He also accused Earls of wanting “to cause social change through our judicial branch,” suggested that she was part of a Democratic strategy to “sue till you’re blue” and warned, “See what kind of judicial activism occurs on your North Carolina court.”
After the speech, the commission, which at the time was under a Democratic court, fielded complaints about Newby. The existence of those complaints has not been previously reported. According to multiple sources, the commission issued Newby a confidential verbal warning, emphasizing he should not so overtly criticize his fellow justices again.
At the time, experts told news outlets that Newby’s statements about Earls were probably protected by the fact that he was campaigning, as the code allows justices greater leeway when seeking reelection. However, in 2023, Earls was also technically in campaign mode and subject to the same protections as Newby. According to Earls’ lawsuit, she had declared her candidacy for her next election many years in advance, as had become standard practice among justices.
Two sources with direct knowledge of the investigations into both Newby and Earls said that Earls faced more scrutiny in terms of both the length and depth of the investigative process. One of those sources, however, said that “there was no bias” in the treatment of Earls. The source chalked up the difference between the two investigations to the fact that in the intervening years, the commission had intensified efforts to rein in the justices as they became more openly contentious about their differing political views.
In January 2024, as Earls’ lawsuit barreled toward a trial, the commission abruptly dropped its investigation. It did not recommend the Supreme Court take any disciplinary action against her.
A new Biden campaign ad titled “Character Matters” focuses on Donald Trump’s felony conviction (and his losses in his civil fraud and E. Jean Carroll cases):
What Are We Doing Here?
The NYT write-up of the new Biden ad takes on the kind of weird distancing that political reporting sometimes offers up as objectivity.
The headline — “Biden Campaign Ad Paints Trump as a Felon” — suggests maybe it’s an open question whether Trump is a felon. Sure, the Biden campaign is painting him that way, but who is to say, really?
The story’s lede continues with that weird posture:
President Biden’s campaign on Monday began its most aggressive effort to brand former President Donald J. Trump a felon, with the introduction of a new television advertisement that focuses on the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s criminal conviction.
It mentions the criminal conviction explicitly, but what is up with the ascribing the branding of Trump as a felon to the Biden campaign? Why does that have to be hedged as a Biden campaign effort rather than an established fact?
It’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. Fail to highlight Trump’s criminal conviction and you’re rightly treated like a damn fool. But highlight it, and suddenly it becomes a he said-he said contest.
Late update: The NYT changed its headline since Morning Memo was published. It now reads: “Biden Campaign Ad Calls Attention to Trump’s Felon Status”
Trump getting to appoint a predicted two more justices is “one of the scariest parts” of Trump II presidency.
“He’s going to appoint two more [justices] flying flags upside down.”
“This has never been a court that’s so far out of step.”
About The Decline Of Local News
The laments about the hollowing out of local news across the country over the past two decades are totally well-founded but are often focused on the shuttering, consolidating, and weakening of existing news outlets — but that’s just one side of the problem. The other important related issue is simply how bad — by design — the outlets that are left often are.
Take this story out this morning from Judd Legum on the propaganda campaign being run by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which is notorious for piping disinformation and right-wing partisan talking points through its network of “185 television stations in 86 markets affiliated with all the major broadcast networks.”
This month, Sinclair Broadcast Group has flooded a vast network of local news websites with misleading articles suggesting that President Biden is mentally unfit for office. The articles are based on specious social media posts by the Republican National Committee (RNC), which are then repackaged to resemble news reports. The thinly disguised political attacks are then syndicated to dozens of local news websites owned by Sinclair, where they are given the imprimatur of mainstream media brands, including NBC, ABC, and CBS.
Sounds bad, right? It’s quite a bit worse than that. As Judd points out, the kinds of material Sinclair has been pumping through it local stations are the most rancid of the attacks on Biden’s age and mental fitness. I’m talking about things like Biden “pooping” on stage during the D-Day commemoration, supposedly “freezing” during other public appearances (according to deceptively edited videos), and his slurring or stuttering of words.
This flood of disinformation is nonstop, it’s still often under the radar, and it’s saturating millions of American homes.
The Resistance Girds For Trump II
NYT: “A sprawling network of Democratic officials, progressive activists, watchdog groups and ex-Republicans has been taking extraordinary steps to prepare for a potential second Trump presidency, drawn together by the fear that Mr. Trump’s return to power would pose a grave threat not just to their agenda but to American democracy itself.”
The expiration of the Trump tax cuts at the end of 2025 would normally be a campaign-defining issue, but it has taken a back seat to that piddling little concern about whether democracy will survive a Trump II.
Still, it’s happening regardless of who wins the White House and will be a major issue throughout 2025.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), probably keenly aware that tax debates often get framed in one-sided and unhelpful ways, is taking an early stab at setting the terms of the debate with a speech today in Washington.
Things Going Great At The WaPo!
New WaPo publisher Will Lewis and his incoming executive editor Robert Winnett faced two more major news stories over the weekend about the baggage they bring to the jobs from their long careers working in the British press — including an exposé of Winnett’s past work by the very same WaPo newsroom he will lead after the November election:
NYT: Washington Post Publisher and Incoming Editor Are Said to Have Used Stolen Records in Britain
WaPo: Incoming Post editor tied to self-described ‘thief’ who claimed role in his reporting
A quick update on our weekend site upgrade (see posts below). We’ve got the new system up and running. Thank you so much for your indulgence over the weekend. We really appreciate it. We’re still working to get the comments widget on the story pages back up and running. That should be up soon. Otherwise, on the reader end, everything should be back to the way it was and, under the hood, much better than it was.
Just a reminder that we are currently doing a major site upgrade, specifically tied to our membership system, and no one can currently log in to the site. If you’re a member there’s an email about this in your inbox that you should have received yesterday. And you can see the post two posts down in the Editors’ Blog. This is a weekend long project. As noted below, we apologize for the inconvenience. But I assure you it’s both necessary and worthwhile. You don’t need to change your password. There’s no technical issue with the log in. It’s just not available through most of this weekend.
In politics and in our personal lives we are often spinning ourselves in circles searching for explanations of the inexplicable when a bit of comparative analysis would do us wonders. For Democrats an abiding question of the Biden presidency, especially in 2024, is this: why hasn’t Joe Biden gotten more credit for the roaring 20s economy? Growth is steady, unemployment is at historic lows, inflation has fallen dramatically, wages are rising. Each rosy data point purports to have a context which shows it isn’t all its cracked up to be. And some of those contexts bear consideration. But the G-7 summit in Italy this last week is perhaps the most clarifying context.
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Does Donald Trump actually need any human help?
The once and potentially future president went on Logan Paul’s podcast and mused about AI, including its potential to replace his speechwriters.
“I had a speech rewritten by AI out there, one of the top people,” Trump said, per a writeup in The Guardian. “He said, ‘Oh, you’re gonna make a speech? Yeah?’ He goes, click, click, click, and like, 15 seconds later, he shows me my speech that’s written that’s great, so beautifully. I said, ‘I’m gonna use this.’ I’ve never seen anything like it.”
We don’t know when or if Trump used that speech. But it’s hard to imagine that AI chatbots, known for their riveting “on the one hand,” “on the other hand,” “in conclusion” style of argumentation, could capture Trump’s signature style. No details about sinking boats, sharks, or electrocution, I’d guess. Nonetheless, Trump joked to Paul he is ready to fire his speechwriters.
Would such a move matter? He doesn’t lean too heavily on their speeches anyway. There is a sense in which those around Trump seem to feel, this time around, that it’s not even worth asking the question of whether they should let Trump be Trump. Trump will be Trump. There’s not really a choice, there’s not much those around him can do to intervene, and there’s not many left with the spine to try. Take this New York Times’ report on Trump’s debate prep, which doesn’t actually involve any prepping for debates, just “refreshers” from his staff on the “policies” Trump allegedly supports (as if those are not prone to change based on gut feeling, barometric pressure, or a well-placed donation from an executive).
One can imagine a Trump campaign ideas team staffed entirely by chatbots: chatbots to write speeches, chatbots to give “policy” “refreshers,” chatbots to speculate on new and innovative ways the election may be or may have already been stolen. It might not change much about how the former president moves in the world, given the low level of resistance to his worst ideas currently exhibited by those humans around him, but it might reduce the number of Trump’s codefendants after the fact.
Anyway. Here’s what’s on tap this weekend.
Kate Riga writes on the Supreme Court’s unsurprising abortion decision this week, and the damage it might do in the weeks to come.
Josh Kovensky looks for the now barely seen Proud Boys, and finds them lying in wait.
Emine Yücel was on the Hill Thursday trying to report as hoards of other reporters hounded senators for details of Trump’s visit to the Hill. She recounts the experience.
The danger of electric vehicles, according to Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Let’s dig in.
— John Light
Celebrating That The Supreme Court Meandered Its Way To The Obviously Correct Decision
(Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Court Accountability)
The Supreme Court did its job this week in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the case where anti-abortion doctors attempted to get mifepristone yanked from the market. Cue the ticker-tape parade.
Seriously though — with this Court, often so hellbent on reverse engineering its way into preferred policy outcomes, it was by no means a predetermined conclusion that the justices would find that the anti-abortion plaintiffs obviously lacked standing to bring the suit. The waters were further muddied by the justices’ own actions; they chose to hear the case rather than turning it away on spec; both Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas would have allowed the 5th Circuit’s decision (which reimposed restrictions on the drug) to stand while the Court considered the case.
But they came out with a unanimous decision, realizing, rightly, that granting standing to doctors who couldn’t prove an injury would throw wide the courthouse doors to lots of other people whose chief complaint is not liking something that someone else is doing.
The Biden campaign scrambled after the decision to remind reporters that the happy outcome of this case does not mean mifepristone is safe. Campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said on a call that “Trump’s second term agenda threatens women in all 50 states” and that Donald Trump could ban mifepristone without Congress or the courts.
They’re clearly worried that ill-informed complacency could replace the nationwide urgency to beat back abortion restrictions borne from the Dobbs decision (a boon to Democrats). She added that abortion would be a centerpiece of Biden’s debate strategy later this month.
The Biden team may not have to worry; I suspect that the joy over this non-heinous abortion decision will be short-lived. We’re still awaiting the Court’s decision in Moyle v. United States, on whether federal emergency room standards trump state abortion bans. From a legal standard, it’s another easy case: Federal laws preempt state ones. But the right-wing justices sounded determined to decide against the U.S. government at oral argument, getting frustrated as Justice Sonia Sotomayor brought in real-world anecdotes of the suffering letting Idaho’s ban govern emergency care would unleash.
It’s the same Court as ever. They just couldn’t quite stomach an argument so flawed that a 1L would know to decide against it.
— Kate Riga
Loud and Proud
(Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
I wrote this week about the Proud Boys. The group was everywhere during the Trump years, doing battle with his opponents and buttressing his supporters. But at the Trump trial — including on the day of its dramatic end — they were nowhere to be found.
That surprised me. Throughout the trial, Trump had complained that his fans were being blocked from coming to show their support. I was there every day, and saw neither blockage nor a significant number of his supporters. But the Proud Boys struck me as different. During the Trump years they proudly acted as his auxiliaries, claiming to provide “security” for him and his supporters. Why weren’t they there for him at his moment of maximum legal peril?
The answer is that they’re standing back and standing by, avoiding situations that might subject them to further scrutiny from the FBI. In other words, they’re avoiding situations that might cause mass arrests, like the courthouse as Trump’s verdict was announced. It reflects many things: the group’s relative weakness when compared to 2020, for sure, but also a certain canniness. They recognize that they are damaging for Trump; as one chapter put it, the requirement then is not to disband themselves, but to lie low and wait until November to act.
— Josh Kovensky
Words Of Wisdom
(Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
“If there was an attack on our nation’s capital, Joint Base Andrews would be responding. Are we going to have to sit around and wait for our military members at Joint Base Andrews to charge their electric vehicles to come into the nation’s capital to defend us in case of an attack?”
That’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) speaking on the House floor earlier this week.
The conspiracy theory–loving congresswoman introduced an amendment to the 2025 defense budget Wednesday, trying to withhold funds authorized to the Department of Defense that may be used for electric vehicles or electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
The MAGA hatred for everything electric vehicle is well known but this ridiculous argument is a new one for me…
MTG really seems confused about how electric cars and electronics work in general. Somebody ought to tell her you can charge things ahead of time.
Thankfully House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) shut it down quickly.
“Let me assure you that as basic readiness they’ll be charged in the same way that the gas tanks are currently full. Okay?” Smith said.
— Emine Yücel
Let Them Eat Cake
(Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
As I exited the metro station this Thursday, I ran straight into a wall of DC’s infamous humidity. That I expected. I did not expect the wall of reporters and cameras that greeted me in front of the Capitol Hill Club.
Former President Donald Trump was on the Hill meeting with Republican lawmakers, but I was not there to cover him: I was tracking Senate Republicans’ efforts to explain why they refused to support the Democrats’ bill to codify in vitro fertilization despite repeatedly claiming they are all for the procedure. I spent most of Thursday debunking one of their go to arguments: that IVF is not under threat at the state level.
After the Trump meeting was over, many of those reporters I had seen earlier swarmed the Senate basement in the hope of getting details on the closed-door meeting.
As I fought my way into the scrums to ask senators about IVF and the bill they were walking up to the Senate floor to vote on, I expected that most of the other reporters would ask instead about the topics of discussion during the Trump meeting. It’s normal, after all, that the press wants to cover what the presumptive GOP nominee said in his first meeting at the Capitol since Jan. 6.
But as senator after senator walked by, reporters were shouting over each other, tripping over the stairs and other members of the press to get their recorders close enough to the conversation to instead ask about mundane details of and how Republican lawmakers kissed the hand.
“Did you sing him happy birthday?”
“Was there cake?”
“What kind of cake did you guys get for the former president?”
Squeezing into the scrums of sometimes more than seven or eight reporters chasing a senator walking down the narrow hallways of the basement connecting the Senate to the senate office buildings, all I heard were those same questions over and over again.
What a scene I thought to myself… Here I was covering a major threat to reproductive rights and I could barely get any question in because everyone else wanted to hear what kind of cake Trump ate.
This weekend we’re going to be doing some very important site maintenance to upgrade our membership system. The site will remain online and our staff will continue to publish, so if there’s any breaking news, you can still count on TPM. However, while this work is going on, you will be unable to log into your account, comment, or access The Hive. Archived member-only content will also be inaccessible.
The work will begin early Saturday morning and may extend into Sunday. We’re sorry for the inconvenience, but this work is critical to the stability and security of the site. Suffice to say it’s extremely important and we thank you for your patience during this process.
