Senate Republicans blocked the consideration of a bill that would’ve put senators on record on contraceptives during an election year when reproductive rights have taken center stage as a mobilizing issue among all voters.
Continue reading “Senate Republicans Annoyed By Their Own Inconsistency On Contraceptives”Trump Once Warned About A Felon In The White House. Now, Republicans Should Do The Same
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
In the aftermath of last week’s jury verdict convicting Donald Trump on 34 felony counts, some commentators and reporters have been overthinking things, asking whether the guilty verdict might somehow help Trump in this November’s election. Let’s stop dancing around what is obvious. It would be stark, raving madness to elect a convicted felon as president.
It’s true that Trump could be elected — despite the guilty verdict and despite the pending criminal charges against him in three other jurisdictions. None of these legal stains on Trump’s record bar him from running for president. But it’s also true that people can run for president if they’ve been adjudged mentally incompetent and institutionalized. There’s no bar against electing someone who slips into a coma during the campaign. Voters are allowed to elect a candidate who pledges, once in office, to order the military to execute every inhabitant east of the Mississippi River. None of these scenarios would legally prevent a candidate from running — but I hope we can all see why it would be absurd to vote for any of these hypothetical candidates. It would be similarly preposterous to elect Trump.
Trump’s new status as a convicted felon should, by itself, disqualify him from consideration as a serious candidate. It’s essential, normal and eminently reasonable to hold presidential aspirants to very high standards. Refusing to elect a convicted felon isn’t a high standard — it’s the barest of minimums.
During the 2016 campaign, Hillary Clinton was under investigation for using a personal email system during her time as Secretary of State. She was never charged with any crime, much less convicted. Nevertheless, that investigation persisted as a central issue throughout the campaign. When then-FBI Director James Comey publicly announced that he was re-opening an investigation into Clinton’s emails just days before the 2016 election, a front-page New York Times story quoted Trump’s claim that this news “changes everything” and is “the biggest story since Watergate.” Critics were understandably outraged that Comey’s last-minute announcement may very well have delivered Trump the win in 2016, but Trump was right (putting Comey’s bumbling aside) that it was a big deal for a presidential candidate to be under investigation by the FBI. Trump then took things further. “If she wins, it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis,” he speculated days before Election Day. “We could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and, ultimately, a criminal trial. It would grind government to a halt.” If we hold Trump to the same standard he applied in 2016, his situation is far worse — unlike Clinton, he has actually been charged and then convicted of felonies. Trump should — as a practical matter — be disqualified as a serious candidate even though he is not legally barred from remaining in the campaign.
The problem, of course, is that voters can still choose Trump and it is certainly conceivable that he could win the election. The challenge for those of us who don’t want to see someone with a rap sheet take the highest office in the nation is how to prevent this from happening. It’s time to think creatively and make clear this is a matter that transcends ordinary partisan divisions. One way to drive this point home would be for prominent Republicans and conservatives — George W. Bush, Liz Cheney, John Kelly, and others — to publicly endorse President Biden while explaining that we cannot elect a convicted felon as president.
Former Congresswoman Cheney has made clear that she fully understands why Trump is a clear and present danger to democracy. John Kelly, who served as Chief of Staff during the Trump administration, has similarly warned about the threat Trump poses. Former President Bush has been quieter, but there is some indication that he recognizes Trump is not fit to serve. However, none of these well known Republicans has actually endorsed Biden. They all can and should. Other Trump critics — including officials who served in the Trump administration, witnessing firsthand his dangerous unfitness for office — should also endorse Biden. So far, former Georgia Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan is among the only high-profile Republicans to have publicly declared his support for Biden. Many more should follow his lead.
There is no guarantee that any of this would help keep Trump out of the White House, but it’s well worth trying. If prominent Republicans and conservatives endorse Biden, it will be harder for Trump — as well as media commentators — to paint Biden as an extremist, or as equally prone to abusing the rule of law as Trump. Biden would be presented as a reasonable, trusted choice — someone voters can confidently vote for in place of a convicted felon. In ordinary times, it wouldn’t be necessary to make this clear. But in today’s United States, where the Republican party has become a cult of personality built around one man, it is essential for sane Republicans and conservatives to speak up and do all they can to make sure a convicted felon does not occupy the same office once held by Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt.
Breaking from the Journal: Kev McCarthy and Mike Johnson Say Biden’s WAY Old
When I was mulling the WaPo news last night, I noticed a link to an article in the Journal on President Biden’s purported cognitive decline. I glanced at it with a mix of emotions and in a moment I had a flash of clarity about the larger question of newspapers, Britishization and oligarchdom. I realized that in spite of myself I’ve stuck with an unmerited inertia to the idea that the Journal still maintains a high firewall between its news and editorial pages, even though I know, partly from inside accounts, how radically that changed after Murdoch purchased the Journal going on 20 years ago.
Continue reading “Breaking from the Journal: Kev McCarthy and Mike Johnson Say Biden’s WAY Old”The WaPo Blow-Up And the Ongoing Riddle of Newspaper Decline
A number of you have asked me to share my thoughts on abrupt shake-up at The Washington Post in which Executive Editor Sally Buzbee was abruptly forced out by turnaround CEO Will Lewis. I don’t know enough about the situation at the Post to add more than you’re hearing from other commentary. There are a lot of things that look bad and I’m fairly confident they are bad. But I don’t know the backstory or details well enough to do more than repeat widely shared impressions. But I have a few ancillary observations.
The first is a simple pattern, not terribly surprising, but still worth absorbing. We’ve seen a series of billionaires get into the news business by purchasing for-profit news entities with what seems like the implicit promise that their vast resources will allow them to focus on journalistic excellence even if that means running losses which the new owner can cover without much difficulty. This seemed like the Bezos concept. He bought the Post when it was seriously on the ropes and when its longtime family owners (the Graham family) simply didn’t have the resources to get the paper back to profitability or to secure its place as one of the 3-to-4 national U.S. newspapers.
Continue reading “The WaPo Blow-Up And the Ongoing Riddle of Newspaper Decline”How Much More Warning About Trump II Do You Still Need?
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
The Threat Is Very Real
We have a trio of stories this morning from mainstream news outlets warning of Donald Trump weaponizing the justice system in a second term to go after his perceived political enemies.
The promised retribution of a Trump II reign of revenge is so open, obvious, and direct that you begin to wonder who still needs to heed the warnings.
Is it low-info swing voters who missed the weaponization of the Trump DOJ the first time, haven’t paid attention to the new warnings yet, and are unlikely to see future ones?
Is it mainstream media editors and reporters who also missed the politicization of the DOJ in Trump I and keep falling into the same old lazy campaign and election coverage?
Is it that unicorn, the movable Trump voter who might be finally persuaded that things have gone too far?
Maybe at the margins the drumbeat of warnings will nudge elected officials, lawyers and judges, editors and reporters, bureaucrats and other gatekeepers toward greater vigilance and prepare them for the break-the-glass moments that may lie ahead.
Or are the warnings really just a way of acknowledging amongst ourselves that the threat is quite real, a way of keeping our sanity while Republicans lose theirs? I suspect there’s real and ongoing value in confirming for each other that we’re seeing the same thing, interpreting it the same way, and continuing to prepare for what a Trump victory would bring.
On the downside, the warnings themselves contain and reiterate the underlying threat, they rally and inspire the MAGA urge to intimidate and cause pain, and they give Trump and all the would-be Trumps a chance to preen. It’s not a sufficient downside to dispense with the warnings altogether, but it needs to be factored into the cost-benefit analysis.
The latest batch of stories are not perfect (lacking enough self-awareness to escape the grip of the horserace coverage paradigm), but taken together they are a remarkable portrait of where things stand a week after Trump was convicted and five months before the election is concluded:
- WaPo: GOP plans aggressive ‘weaponization’ investigations in wake of Trump conviction
- NYT: The G.O.P. Push for Post-Verdict Payback: ‘Fight Fire With Fire’
- Axios: MAGA’s jail plan
Meanwhile …
The WSJ is leading today with a story titled “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping” that cites as leading evidence accounts of meetings with the president from notoriously reliable House Republicans Kevin McCarthy (CA) and Mike Johnson (LA).
Unbelievable How Little Attention This Is Getting
A former colleague and I were lamenting the other day that Trump’s cooptation of Russia’s illegal detention of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich for his own electoral ends is a travesty that in another era would be the lead story for weeks and cripple any major party candidate. Instead, it was mostly crickets, and Trump has now re-upped his craven plea to vote for him because Putin will do him – and no one else – the favor of releasing Gershkovich:
Charges Filed In Wisconsin Fake Electors Scheme
TPM’s Josh Kovensky was, I believe, the first to obtain the charging documents filed yesterday in the Wisconsin fake electors probe, where Attorney Ken Chesebro, former state judge Jim Troupis, and GOP operative Mike Roman were each charged with one count of entering into a conspiracy to commit forgery.
It’s Coming From Inside The House
TPM’s Emine Yücel: Uptick In Far-Right Ideology In Congress Contributed To Record Number Of Anti-Gov’t Extremist Groups In 2023
Election Year Politics
President Biden announced harsh new restrictions on asylum seekers.
2024 Ephemera
- NJ-Sen: As expected, Rep. Andy Kim (D) won the Democratic primary to fill the seat of indicted Sen. Bob Menendez (D), who is planning to run as an independent.
- NJ-10: The late Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D), who died in April won the Democratic primary yesterday. A special primary is set for July 16, with a special general election Sept. 18, to fill the seat.
- MD-Sen: GOP senators are urging the RNC to back off former Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD), an anti-Trumper who gives Republicans an unexpected pickup opportunity in the super close race to take back the Senate.
Hunter Biden Trial
On a day Hunter Biden’s wife was overheard at the courthouse calling a Trump ally a “Nazi piece of shit,” prosecutors began laying out their gun case against him.
Good Read
WaPo: “Far-right conservatives are sowing misinformation that inaccurately characterizes IUDs, emergency contraception, even birth-control pills as causing abortions.”
Barb Of The Day
Schiff: "That's the problem of all my Republican colleagues right now — they're about to nominate a convicted felon. And they don't know how to cope with that. They don't know how to cope with a justice system that in fact treats Donald Trump the same it would any other citizen" pic.twitter.com/ritb4VT0n4
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 4, 2024
I have to say I am pleased and a bit surprised to see the flag in this committee is still flying right side up …
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), during Attorney General Merrick Garland’s testimony to the House Judiciary Committee
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Mike Johnson Again Offers Up The House As Trump’s Mouthpiece
Fox News Digital was first to report on yet another effort by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to use his gavel to show Donald Trump that House Republicans are fighting his battles — regardless of whether or not Johnson’s razor-thin House majority is able to actually fight those battles.
Continue reading “Mike Johnson Again Offers Up The House As Trump’s Mouthpiece”Uptick In Far-Right Ideology In Congress Contributed To Record Number Of Anti-Gov’t Extremist Groups In 2023
Last year, there were more hate and anti-government extremist groups in the United States than ever before, according to Southern Poverty Law Center’s new report, “The Year In Hate and Extremism 2023.”
In 2023, SPLC documented a total of 1,430 hate and anti-government extremist groups in the U.S., according to the report. 835 of these were anti-government groups. That’s an increase of 133 or 19% from 2022.
The record numbers of active hate and extremist groups is undoubtedly associated with the rise and popularity of hard-right ideologies, the report’s authors said.
Continue reading “Uptick In Far-Right Ideology In Congress Contributed To Record Number Of Anti-Gov’t Extremist Groups In 2023”Trumpers’ Crocodile Curiosity
Trump supporters are trotting out any number of responses to Trump’s string of felony convictions last week. One of the most perverse and malign is the demand or “request” for jurors to come forward and explain their reasoning. Part of the idea is to suggest that the logic of the verdict is obscure or hard to justify and thus requires explanation. “Can you explain how you came to this very hard to understand verdict?” Neither is the case. The logic of the verdict is very straightforward. There may be some room for debate about how the judge interpreted the relevant law. But within those interpretations the jury verdict is elementary. The other part is to suggest something odd or suspicious in the fact that none of the jurors have yet gone public in the press.
Continue reading “Trumpers’ Crocodile Curiosity”3 Organizers Of Trump Fake Elex Plot—Including Chesebro—Charged In Wisconsin
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul unveiled charges on Tuesday against three people who helped devise and implement the 2020 fake electors scheme, a complaint first obtained by TPM shows.
Continue reading “3 Organizers Of Trump Fake Elex Plot—Including Chesebro—Charged In Wisconsin”Biden Issues New Warnings On The Impending Threat Of Trump II
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Pulling No Punches
While a debate continues about Democratic messaging strategies, Joe Biden is out there swinging.
The president laid into post-conviction Donald Trump in a more direct way than he has previously during a campaign fundraising event Monday, calling him a greater threat to the country now than he was before. “This isn’t the same Trump that got elected in 2016,” Biden said. “He’s worse.”
“For the first time in American history, a former president that is a convicted felon is now seeking the office of the presidency,” Biden said. “But as disturbing as that is, more damaging is the all-out assault Donald Trump is making on the American system of justice.”
As for Trump’s ongoing attacks on the judicial system and elections as “rigged,” Biden said: “Nothing could be more dangerous for the country, more dangerous for American democracy.”
Separately in an interview with Time magazine focused on international affairs, Biden similarly laid into Trump over Jan. 6, his refusal to concede the 2020 election, and the effect it is having on allies abroad:
And it made me realize just how fundamentally what he allowed to happen sitting in this room, looking at that television for three hours and didn’t do a damn thing, said about America, and how much confidence people lost in America. There’s not a, there’s not a…I’m gonna, say, be careful what I say…There’s not a major international meeting I attend that before it’s over—and I’ve attended many, more than most presidents have in three and a half years—that a world leader doesn’t pull me aside as I’m leaving and say, “He can’t win. You can’t let him win.”
I should note that presidential candidates attacking each other is par for the course in an election year, but we’re going to make an effort not to reduce this to pissing-match politics. We’re in an unprecedented place. The coverage needs to reflect that.
Garland To Rebuke Attacks On DOJ
Attorney General Merrick Garland goes before the House Judiciary Committee today, which is making an election-year circus of holding him in contempt, where he will rebuke them for their attacks on federal law enforcement and unhinged conspiracy theories that are feeding threats against individual agents and prosecutors, according to his prepared remarks via the NYT.
Quote Of The Day
Joe Biden or anyone from his Justice Department has absolutely zero to do with the Manhattan District Attorney office, they have no jurisdiction over him, they have no contact with him, they have no control certainly over him. So to say that Joe Biden brought this case is one of the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard. We know that’s not the case and even Trump’s lawyers know that’s not the case.”
Former Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina
Around And Around We Go
Important
Aaron Blake: “The former president’s post-conviction comment about a ‘breaking point’ follows a long line of suggestive comments. The thrust is unmistakable.”
This Is How I Feel About Trump’s Defenders, Too
Rep. John Rose (R-TN) was on the House floor in the midst of a mindless defense of Donald Trump and a predictable attack on the criminal justice system when his six-year-old son Guy got in on the action:
So sorry I was slow responding to your email, I was tied up watching this over and over again pic.twitter.com/1MT81CS440
— Aaron Fritschner (@Fritschner) June 3, 2024
Jury Selected In Hunter Biden Gun Trial
Opening arguments begin today at Hunter Biden’s federal criminal trial on gun charges in Delaware.
Bob Menendez Will Run As Independent
Indicted Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), currently in the midst of his second public corruption trial, filed paperwork to run for re-election this year as independent.
Innovative New Biz Model For News Media
D’oh! Why didn’t we think of this?
Take a propagandistic news outlet and pump it full of cash from overseas criminal scams that you laundered yourself and bingo you have a supposedly growing media property. Allegedly.
The one glitch, as Epoch Times CFO Bill Guan found out, is that the law may eventually catch up to you.
Guan was indicted in the Southern District of New York on one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and two counts of bank fraud for allegedly laundering $67 million in illicit criminal proceeds for the benefit of the Falun Gong-affiliated Epoch Times.
Among the sources of the so-called “revenue” laundered into Epoch Times were fraudulently procured unemployment insurance benefits obtained using stolen identities that were then loaded onto prepaid debit cards and sold at 70-80 cents on the dollar, according to the indictment.
“The company intends to and will fully cooperate with any investigation dealing with the allegations against Mr. Guan. In the interim, although Mr. Guan is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the company has suspended him until this matter is resolved,” Epoch Times said in a statement to TPM’s Josh Kovensky.
Sign Of The Times
House Democrats are expected to announce today a plan to use a discharge petition to force Republicans to go on the record about whether they support a nationwide right to contraception. If you had told me in 1994 that 30 years hence we’d be seeing messaging votes on birth control …
New Fissure On Kilauea
The resumption of active lava flows on Kilauea may be short-lived. The eruption that began overnight Sunday had mostly ebbed by midday Monday. The last eruption in this area of the volcano, back in 1974, lasted only about six hours. Yesterday’s flareup was beautiful while it lasted:
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