NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s defense team called only two witnesses: one was a paralegal who appeared on the stand for just a few minutes on Monday.
Continue reading “Star Trump Defense Witness Gets Into Confrontation With Judge”Donald Trump’s Lawyers Begin Their Defense
Donald Trump’s lawyers wrapped up their days-long cross examination of Michael Cohen Monday afternoon and, soon after, the DA’s Office rested its case.
Trump’s lawyers are now beginning their defense.
Your Primal Scream Is Good Therapy, Not Good Campaign Advice
After a short bout of mea culpas and self-flagellating in response to Biden’s State of the Union speech in early March, Ezra Klein is back with a laundry list of complaints about the campaign. He starts by taking as gospel an Axios report about Biden campaign polling denial and proceeds to whine and perseverate about every possible aspect of the campaign.
This passage from the lead in to the piece offers some illustration …
Continue reading “Your Primal Scream Is Good Therapy, Not Good Campaign Advice”Rudy G Gets Served But Not Before Beclowning Himself Again
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Hate To See Rudy Roasted
Under indictment in Arizona for his alleged role in the 2020 fake electors scheme there, Rudy Giuliani had managed for the past few days to avoid being served in that new criminal case.
Feeling cocky, Rudy went on X/Twitter Friday night and began taunting Arizona prosecutors. His gloating didn’t last long. Shortly thereafter, Rudy was served in Palm Beach at his 80th birthday bash, hosted by Trumper Caroline Wren.
That prompted this retort from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes:
Rudy soon deleted his own tweet.
Meanwhile, co-defendant John Eastman pleaded not guilty to the Arizona charges in a court appearance earlier Friday.
UPDATED: No Trump Verdict Til At Least Next Week
The cross examination of Michael Cohen should end this morning, but we won’t have closing arguments until next Tuesday, the judge just said in open court.
TPM’s Josh Kovensky is liveblogging the trial here.
The wild cards that remain:
(1) How much longer will the Cohen testimony go? We could end up in a bit of a dance of redirects and re-crosses that drag today out a bit – or we could be done with Cohen by late morning. Stay tuned.
(2) Will Trump testify? He loves to promise it, but don’t expect him to deliver. It would be madness.
(3) Will Trump put on any kind of defense case? It will be spartan if he does.
Ed. note: This item was updated based on the new developments Monday morning.
… But Their Yard Signs!
Justice Samuel Alito’s “explanation” for why his wife was flying the American flag upside down at their home as a pro-insurrection protest in the days before Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration is for the ages.
The neighbor dispute that Alito describes – including accusing some of his neighbors of being “very political” natch – doesn’t actually explain anything. “My neighbors were rude in blaming me for Jan. 6 so I proceeded to retaliate by showing my support for Jan. 6” is a first-class non sequitur.
Counter-programming my neighbor’s “Fuck Trump” sign with a symbol warning that America has been taken over by enemy forces in the name of Joe Biden maybe has an internal logic to it but it remains quite insane, especially at the home of a Supreme Court justice.
Many others have imagined the fallout in a scenario where one of the liberal justices let their true flag fly. You get it.
Judge Cannon Is Not Fit For This Moment
Former CIA lawyer Brian Greer: It Is Inexcusable How Judge Cannon Is Delaying the Trump Documents Case
Pelosi’s Husband’s Assailant Must Be Resentenced
The man who broke into then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home and bludgeoned her husband with a hammer was sentenced Friday to 30 years in prison for the attack – but sentencing has been reopened because the judge in the case failed to give the defendant a chance to speak during the sentencing hearing.
The Latest Hunter Walker Special
TPM’s Hunter Walker: Lawsuit Exposes Internal Feuds And Inner Workings Of Stew Peters’ Extremist Media Empire
2024 Ephemera
- David Corn: Here Come the Russians, Again
- Politico: Trump at NRA convention floats 3-term presidency
- NYT: 2 Liberal Groups to Spend $5 Million on State Supreme Court Races
It’s Fundamentally Not An Insurance Problem
The NYT is out with its own version of the “homeowners insurance crisis” story, and it’s better than most in emphasizing that climate change is driving this issue. But it’s still mostly trapped in a framing where instead of treating the lack of insurability as a symptom of the larger problem, it focuses on it as the problem.
The story gives away the game though when it talks about state-backed high-risk pools for homeowners, like in Florida:
So many homeowners have flooded into Florida’s state-backed high-risk pool that it is now the state’s largest insurer, with rates that are too low to reflect the risk it faces in the event of a major hurricane.
It doesn’t matter how big of a pool you create to disperse the risk if the baseline risk is simply too high to insure against. And if you don’t price the risk properly on top of that, you’re just shifting the risk from insurances companies and homeowners to taxpayers with no appreciable reduction in risk or in the ultimate cost. It’s a recipe for financial disaster alongside each natural disaster.
It’s Bad Out There For EV Drivers
I have had to make a conscious effort not to turn Morning Memo into a long-running diatribe about the state of EV charging infrastructure in this country. I’m almost four years into owning my first EV. Love the car (2019 Kia Niro EV), love how EVs drive, love the low maintenance. I’d never go back to an IC car, all else being equal. But the public charging infrastructure for EVs remains spotty and often shitty.
I thought I was making the shift as the EV wave was beginning to crest in 2020, but the availability of public EV chargers has gotten only marginally better in the time I’ve owned an EV – and their reliability still stinks. Showing up at a charging station with only some of the chargers working is 100% normal. Showing up where none are working is not uncommon. That only adds to the length of the lines to get a recharge and uncertainty of longer trips.
A couple of things that may make my situation a little different from the optimum EV owner that I knew meant I’d be pushing the envelope a little: I haven’t had off-street parking so no home charger, and I wanted to use the EV for occasional trips up and down the East Coast of as long as 500 miles each way.
I have a higher tolerance than most people for turning what should be casual road trips into white-knuckle adventures. But it’s no way to live, really. I was mostly willing to endure the indignities of being a relatively early adopter, figuring it was a small contribution to nudging along the energy transition. But it’s not getting better as fast as it should, and it’s going to end up being a impediment to the wider adoption of EVs, if it isn’t already.
With a reliable charging network, I’d have been fine. But the charger situation has muted even my enthusiasm for EVs. Not enough to dissuade people from making the plunge, but when people ask how I like my EV, my response is always the same: “The car is great! But lemme tell you about the charging situation …”
For The Ages …
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The Fifth Circuit Is In For A Beatdown
Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕
Continue reading “The Fifth Circuit Is In For A Beatdown”Lawsuit Exposes Internal Feuds And Inner Workings Of Stew Peters’ Extremist Media Empire
A dispute raging inside the “Stew Peters Network” ended up in a federal court in Florida last month. The ongoing case has exposed drama between a group of far right media personalities, complete with alleged text messages and emails that show the inner workings of a company that has peddled conspiracy theories, anti-gay hate speech, racism, and antisemitism, while still maintaining connections with more mainstream Republicans.
Continue reading “Lawsuit Exposes Internal Feuds And Inner Workings Of Stew Peters’ Extremist Media Empire”Benny Gantz is a Follower, Lacks Moral Courage
Let me add a few thoughts on the issues we were discussing yesterday about Israel and Israel’s government. For several years, former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz has loomed over Israeli politics as a potential successor to Benjamin Netanyahu. This is an established dynamic in Israeli politics wherein the IDF is far and away the most respected institution. Former chiefs of staff almost always get discussed as potential prime ministers, though only two of them have actually done it, and many of them become government ministers. Gantz has run as the leader of a party he created which has existed under a few labels. He’s won more seats, then fewer seats. Through the war he’s been the public’s top choice in polls for the next prime minister.
What I say now is based on no inside information or even reporting and it may seem audacious to say about someone who’s had such a career of accomplishment. But it seems clear to me that the man is a follower and has some fundamental lack of moral courage.
Continue reading “Benny Gantz is a Follower, Lacks Moral Courage”Today In History: SCOTUS Rules On Brown v. Board Of Education
On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court delivered a unanimous ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education case. It was a landmark decision that declared the segregation of public schools to be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and therefore unconstitutional. At the heart of this case was a class action lawsuit brought by local families against the Topeka Board of Education for forcing black and white students to attend separate schools. Among the plaintiffs was the Brown family — specifically Linda Brown, who became the face of the movement to desegregate schools. This case is considered to be a watershed moment in the Civil Rights Movement, setting the stage for legislative action in the 1960s.
Linda Brown sits in the middle of other students on the bus to the racially segregated Monroe Elementary School
Attorneys who argued Brown v. Board of Education stand in front of the Supreme Court Building
Nettie Hunt explains the meaning of the ruling to her daughter Nickie outside the Supreme Court building
Portrait of the children involved in the landmark lawsuit
John Davis (left) argued for segregation and Thurgood Marshall argued against
Linda Brown outside Sumner Elementary
Nathaniel Steward recites his lesson in a desegregated classroom
Linda Brown sits with her classmates at the racially segregated Monroe Elementary School
NAACP brochure published on the first anniversary of the Brown v. Board decision
Students for whom the Brown v. Board case was brought and their parents
An adult Linda Brown answering questions from the press regarding her 1954 case against the board of Education
White protesters on the anniversary of the Brown v. Board ruling hold signs, 2004
Linda Brown as she walks past Sumner Elementary
The Monroe School historic site of Brown v. Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas
A Response to TPM Reader JB
TPM Reader JS responds to TPM Reader JB’s note from last night. As I said with JB, I don’t agree with all of the points. But the overall argument hits at what I do believe JB leaves out, which is that the U.S. is still the great power in the region. And the situation in Gaza is umbilically tied to three or four other major regional tension points. To my mind the real issue is that we cannot bring this episode to a close because of Netanyahu’s intransigence which is one part ideology and one part the need to keep his coalition intact which, in turn, keeps him out of jail. That’s a tough reason for a great power to be consumed by an issue.
Continue reading “A Response to TPM Reader JB”JB is a classic dot disconnecter. His assertion that Israel is taking too much bandwidth from Ukraine, for example, completely misses the point. I’m going to pretend the assertion that Bibi was trying to suck us into a war with Iran was hyperbole, because it’s ridiculous, bordering on the conspiratorial (Bibi approved the killing of the Iranian general knowing they would shoot 300 drones at Israel and this bank shot would bring the US in against Iran? Lol, lmao even.)
Ohio SoS Announces Expanded Effort To Deal With An Election Problem That Does Not Exist
Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose joined MAGA Republicans and Trump allies in sounding the non-citizen voting alarms ahead of 2024, announcing a new initiative to remove non-citizens from the voter rolls in Ohio — a solution to a Republican manufactured problem.
Continue reading “Ohio SoS Announces Expanded Effort To Deal With An Election Problem That Does Not Exist”