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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How Dare You Suggest The Political Party That Keeps Talking About Civil War Is Talking About Civil War
Right-wing media reacted in hysterics Monday to some remarks that Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) made on MSNBC over the weekend, expressing concern about the specter of violence Donald Trump and Republicans have spent the last four-plus years conjuring.
Continue reading “How Dare You Suggest The Political Party That Keeps Talking About Civil War Is Talking About Civil War”MAGA State Republicans Are Helping Perpetuate Trump’s Non-Citizen Voting Lie
The bad faith non-citizen voting bills being proposed by Republicans in state legislatures around the country serve to bolster the voter fraud myth Trump is poised to push if he loses in the fall — but the bills themselves may also disenfranchise actual eligible voters if passed.
Ahead of the 2024 election, Republican state lawmakers are mirroring an ongoing national campaign that’s been pushed by Donald Trump and his allies in recent weeks: proposing laws that perpetuate the false narrative that non-citizens have been and will continue to vote in federal elections.
These bills, however, not only threaten to create a general sense of distrust in the election system, — they also threaten to potentially disenfranchise voters ahead of November by creating additional bureaucratic hurdles for eligible voters or by requiring election officials to rely on outdated voter data to determine citizenship.
These state level efforts come against the backdrop of a larger national effort spearheaded by Trump, the RNC, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and other Republican representatives and election deniers to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, a redundant bill making it illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections.
The push is mostly a messaging effort: It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote and it’s something that rarely happens in U.S. elections.
“It’s all kind of driven by the same political motivation to reduce trust in elections, to cast doubt on the integrity of the process and to demonize immigrants as the kind of source of the flaws perceived or real or not in our electoral system,” director of voting advocacy and partnerships at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, Jonathan Diaz, said in an interview with TPM.
Since 2020, according to reporting from Voting Rights Lab, nine states have successfully enacted laws to prevent non citizens from voting, and similar legislation is currently active in sixteen states.
“A state level law that tries to accomplish the same things as the SAVE Act will have a very real impact on voters in that state,” added Diaz. “They have the potential to erect barriers that will make it harder, if not impossible for certain people, eligible voters in those states, to register and vote.”
Most recently, North Carolina Republicans introduced a non-citizen voting bill that, if passed, would change the wording of the state constitution to read: “Only a citizen of the United States who is 18 years of age and possessing the qualifications set out in this Article, shall be entitled to vote at any election by the people of the State.”
Nadine Gibson, political science professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, described the change as having “anti-immigrant undertones.”
“I think it’s like a dog whistle to anti-immigrant sentiments,” Gibson told the local StarNews.
In New Hampshire, GOP lawmakers are pushing for legislation requiring documentary proof of citizenship. The proposed bill would require proof of citizenship in order to register to vote in New Hampshire — it would also remove crucial exceptions to the state’s voter identification law.
“When a state like New Hampshire proposes eliminating certain options like the affidavit for voters who don’t have the right paperwork but are nevertheless eligible, that has the potential to exclude significant segments of the electorate from participating in the election,” Diaz said.
And in Indiana, a similar bill passed by the legislature this year, is also designed to prevent non citizens from voting. The legislation creates proof of residency requirements for new registrants registering in-person and requires election officials to confirm citizenship status by comparing the statewide voter registration system with DMV data. But this means any normal data entry errors or discrepancies in possibly outdated data from the DMV could result in eligible voters being wrongly disenfranchised.
It’s also a lot more paperwork for those seeking to register, Ron Hayduk, political science professor at San Francisco State University, noted in conversation with TPM.
“Folks don’t readily have such documents on hand or would not be able to obtain them in a timely manner to provide such proof, and that would therefore end up disenfranchising eligible voters,” he said.
Big picture, these types of laws send a “disenfranchising message to voters,” Andrew Garber, counsel within the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program, told TPM.
“It can create voter intimidation, especially for voters who are naturalized citizens and who are eligible to vote, but may still identify with an immigrant community and may feel that they could get in trouble when in reality they have every right to vote,” Garber said.
And, as Diaz points out, these laws give local election administrators a lot of discretion in terms of how they are enforced, which increases the risk of racial profiling.
“It really opens up the door to racial profiling, and to certain voters being subject to additional scrutiny and requirements and investigation just because of how they look or sound or what their last name is,” he said.
Republicans Can Never Grovel Enough To Satisfy Trump
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
‘Totalitarian Unanimity’
I alternate between mocking the shattered remnant of the Republican Party and soberly treating it like foreshadowing of what Trump wants to do to America. Both are true.
A proud party of self-avowed institutionalists reduced to dressing like their cult leader, excusing his crimes, minimizing his criminal conviction, and engaging in elaborate displays of abject loyalty to him.
If there was one abiding theme in the 72 hours after Trump’s first criminal conviction, it was the harshly enforced rallying around the felon by Republicans, a dynamic Chris Hayes called “totalitarian unanimity”:
I’ve written before about how the Republican Party is a useful microcosm for what Trump wants to do to America. Almost every repugnant thing that Trump has done to the country writ large followed a corresponding move he had done to the GOP. So as much as it warrants mockery and derision, the Republican Party serves as a warning, a wake-up call, an object lesson in what re-electing Trump will look like. Be warned.
Trump Don’t Care About A GOP Senate Majority
If keeping the pressure on Republicans not to waver in their support of the now-convicted Donald Trump means sacrificing the GOP’s best chance of regaining a majority in the Senate, then so be it:
Clever!
HuffPo’s Jennifer Bendery has compiled the compleat list of all the Republicans calling for Donald Trump to withdraw from the presidential race following his conviction on 34 felony counts.
What Republicans Are Defending
Roger Parloff has a very useful reminder that the scheme that Donald Trump had going with the National Enquirer during the 2016 GOP presidential primary targeted some of the same Republicans that are defending Trump so vocally now.
The Democratic Messaging Wars
- Brian Beutler: Democrats Need To Join The Fight Over The Trump Verdict Now
In the almost 48 hours since a New York jury returned its verdict against Donald Trump, many liberals who are normally sanguine about the Democratic Party’s approach to partisan combat have found themselves astonished by what they’ve seen. As their response has taken shape, Democrats have revealed fundamental disunity over how and even whether to exploit the fact that their principal opponent is a convicted felon.
- Josh Marshall: Don’t Expect Your Campaign Case to Make Itself For You
Sometimes — actually most of the time — the big obstacle to effective communication is not boiling down and simply saying what it is you mean. You try to be too clever, to pull your punches to calibrate some imagined balance. Donald Trump is a liar, a cheat and a fraud who doesn’t care a wit about you, or anyone else but himself. He’s a convicted felon. Every time he faces consequences for his own actions he claims it’s someone else’s fault. Whenever he loses, the process is rigged against him. We all know that person. And we all know we can’t trust that person.
- Dan Pfeiffer: Why Dems Shouldn’t be Shy about Trump’s Conviction
The message is that Donald Trump is a danger to democracy, and he is running for president to help himself, avoid legal accountability, and punish his enemies. The fact that he was convicted of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to interfere in an election seems more than a little relevant.
A Lifetime Without Accountability
Philip Bump: Trump insists his trial was rigged … just like everything else
Mike Johnson Tries To Walk Back His SCOTUS Remarks
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Friday called for the Supreme Court to intervene in the Trump conviction in New York and suggested he’d talked some of the justices personally about it. Here he is trying to walk that back Sunday:
Mike Johnson on Fox News Sunday tries to walk back his comments suggesting he has inside info about SCOTUS justices being "deeply concerned" about Trump's conviction, saying "of course I haven't had conversations with the justices. I just know their character, their personality" pic.twitter.com/hKOuZuDcZU
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 2, 2024
Aileen Cannon Has Only One Speed: Slooow!
After being smacked down by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon the first time, Special Counsel Jack Smith reupped a motion Friday to modify the conditions of Donald Trump’s pre-trial release in the Mar-a-Lago case by barring him from continuing to make his bogus attacks on federal law enforcement.
Cannon didn’t smack Smith around this time, but she once again drew out the case by setting a somnambulant briefing schedule: Trump has until June 14 to respond, and Smith has until June 21 to reply.
‘2,000 Mules’ Producer Apologizes
The producer of the Dinesh D’Souza 2020 election conspiracy film “2,000 Mules” will cease its distribution and remove it from its platforms apparently as part of a settlement of a defamation lawsuit brought by a Georgia man whom the film falsely depicts as illegally voting.
Rudy’s Woes
- The D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility has recommended that Rudy Giuliani be disbarred for his role in the Trump effort to overturn the 2020 election. “Friday’s recommendation is the final step before the D.C. Court of Appeals hears arguments ahead of deciding whether to disbar him,” NBC News reported.
- NYT: A 9/11 Charity Provides a Financial Safety Net to a Giuliani Firm
Good Read
NYT: Faith-Based Groups That Assist Migrants Become Targets of Extremists
The Hunter Biden Gun Trial Begins Today
The federal trial of Hunter Biden by Special Prosecutor David Weiss for lying on a form to purchase a gun when he said he wasn’t using drugs at a time when he was in the throes of addiction begins today in Delaware.
I’ll say it again for those in the back: This is a case the feds don’t usually bring as a standalone charge, the investigation originated in the darkest days of the Trump DOJ, and some weird shit happened that ended up scotching a plea agreement in this matter.
Otherwise, nothing to see here.
Political Miscellany
- Marian Robinson, the mother of Michelle Obama, died Friday at age 86.
- Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), 74, announced that she has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
- The soon-to-retire Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia has left the Democratic Party to become an independent.
Kilauea Is Erupting Again
After a few hours of increased seismicity at shallow depths, a new lava flow emerged overnight at Kilauea in a place on the volcano that, until now, hadn’t seen eruptive activity since 1974.
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Plot Twist
Washington State has a law barring convicted felons from appearing on the ballot.
Helpful Data
I’ve noted a couple times already that we shouldn’t see the Republican reaction to Trump’s conviction as some spontaneous upwelling of anger but a concerted effort to keep stragglers in line and shape press reaction to the conviction. We have at least a bit of backing for that analysis from a CBS/YouGov poll. The overall findings are unsurprising and break down largely along partisan lines. But of those who feel the verdict was wrong, the predominant reaction is disappointment rather than anger. And only barely more than half of those say they’re angry about it.
Continue reading “Helpful Data”