Election deniers have put states in a position of having to involve law enforcement more heavily in elections this fall. And while it’s a crucial step in the direction of better protecting poll workers and voters after right-wing chaos was injected into the 2020 election, the changes also have the potential to create an environment of intimidation at the polls.
Continue reading “Georgia Becomes First State To Mandate Election Intimidation Training for Law Enforcement — But At What Cost?”The Palpable Pain In Texas
On the two year anniversary of the disastrous Supreme Court Dobbs ruling, which overturned Roe v. Wade, JAMA Pediatrics, a child and adolescent health journal, published a new study on the significant uptick in infant and newborn deaths in the state of Texas.
Continue reading “The Palpable Pain In Texas”New Thing Alert: Inside TPM
If you are an Inside member, you’re familiar with the Inside Briefings we’ve done over the years. We’re launching a new kind of briefing: Inside TPM. This will be a series of monthly interviews with TPM staffers (and down the road, potentially alumni and friends-of-site) to help readers and viewers and listeners better understand TPM and the people who work here.
In the first episode, I spoke with Josh Kovensky about covering the Trump hush money trial, what he learned from his time in Ukraine, and much more. I hope you enjoy and we’ll be back next month with another video.
Jan. 6 Prisoners Recorded A Podcast From Jail With A Camera Someone ‘Accidentally’ Gave Them
Some of the people who were convicted for their actions during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol have insisted the unit where they were held before sentencing in the Washington D.C. jail is an abusive “gulag.” It’s also ground zero for a burgeoning media empire that appears to violate jail policy and features broadcasts starring people who were convicted for their role in storming the Capitol as former President Trump’s loss in the 2020 election was being certified.
Continue reading “Jan. 6 Prisoners Recorded A Podcast From Jail With A Camera Someone ‘Accidentally’ Gave Them”The Nevada Fake Electors Prosecution May Be Fatally Flawed
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Nevada Fake Electors Case Dismissed
The criminal prosecution of the 2020 fake electors scheme in Nevada was undertaken in the wrong county, a state judge ruled Friday. The criminal case was filed in Clark County (Las Vegas) but the proper venue was Douglas County (Carson City, the state capital).
Normally this is not that big of a deal: The prosecutor, in this case the state attorney general, merely refiles the case in the right county.
The problem here: The statute of limitations has already run out, meaning it can’t simply be refiled in a different county.
Attorney General Aaron Ford plans to appeal the venue decision.
Do Yourself A Favor
Ignore all the expectations-setting “journalism” ahead of Thursday’s presidential debate. It’s pablum.
2024 Ephemera
- Democrats, including the Biden campaign, are rolling out a day full of abortion-related messaging pegged to today’s two-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.
- North Carolina: Biden Is Pouring Millions Into a State Democrats Haven’t Won Since 2008
- The Trump campaign is keeping a tight leash on things in the run up to the GOP convention in Milwaukee, via NBC News:
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign moved [last] week to quash a potential disturbance at next month’s GOP convention in Milwaukee by seeking to replace six delegates to the convention who they thought were potentially going to initiate “unnecessary distractions” on the floor. …
Days later, however, the Trump campaign abandoned efforts to replace the delegates, saying it “cleared the air” with the delegates who sparked the concerns after days of deliberation.
Playing The Long Game
Politico’s Alice Ollstein reports on a new 10-year $100 million national campaign by a coalition of abortion rights groups to restore federal protections for the procedure.
Tell Me More …
New reporting from ABC News this morning about an unusual trip that Donald Trump took to Mar-a-Lago in the summer of 2022 that raised the suspicions of investigators in the classified documents case:
The previously unreported visit, which allegedly took place July 10-12 in the summer of 2022, was raised in several interviews with witnesses, sources familiar with the matter said, as investigators sought to determine whether it was part of Trump’s broader alleged effort to withhold the documents after receiving a subpoena demanding their return.
At least one witness who worked closely with the former president recalled being told at the time of the trip that Trump was there “checking on the boxes,” according to sources familiar with what the witness told investigators.
Mar-a-Lago Miscellany
- U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon spent much of Friday hearing arguments on whether Jack Smith’s appointment as special counsel was constitutionally valid.
- The hearing resumes today with separate arguments over whether the funding of Smith’s office has been proper.
- Your occasional reminder that neither of these arguments are particularly novel nor have judges in other cases found them persuasive. But here we are on Day 2 of pretending otherwise.
- Over the weekend, Special Counsel Jack Smith submitted a new filing in connection with his effort to persuade Cannon to modify the conditions of Trump’s release so he will stop his rhetorical attacks on law enforcement. He cited the attack on the FBI field office in Cincinnati in 2022 and the recent charges against a man who allegedly threatened an FBI agent in the Hunter Biden case.
Gag Order Update
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is asking the judge in Trump’s hush money case to leave the gag order against him mostly intact for the time being.
Good Read
NYT: Michael Flynn Has Turned His Trump-World Celebrity Into a Family Business
This Is Not Normal
An eloquent reaction to being targeted by MAGA from former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe:
Pelosi’s Husband’s Attacker Convicted On State Charges
Already facing a 30-year federal prison sentence for the attack on Paul Pelosi in his San Francisco home, David DePape was convicted Friday in state court of first-degree burglary, false imprisonment of an elder, threatening the family of a public official, kidnapping for ransom that resulted in bodily harm, and dissuading a witness by force or threat.
For Your Radar
Graham Allison and Michael J. Morell: The Terrorism Warning Lights Are Blinking Red Again
Historic Court-Martial Struggles To Find Jurors
Air Force Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart is being court-martialed for alleged sexual assault, conduct unbecoming an officer, and controlling an aircraft within 12 hours of consuming alcohol, but the military is struggling to find a sufficient number of jurors holding either a higher rank or the same rank for longer than the accused. Stewart is only the second Air Force general to ever face a court-martial.
Life Imitating Art
Historian Kevin Kruse recounts how the precedent Louisiana is citing for requiring the 10 Commandments to be displayed in every classroom is at least partly rooted in Hollywood’s promotional campaign for Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 epic of the same name starring Charlton Heston.
Messiah Complex Much?
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A Different Take On Jamaal Bowman, Israel & NY-16
I wanted to share a few thoughts on Tuesday’s primary in New York’s 16th congressional district, which pits Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D) against Westchester County Executive George Latimer. It is apparently going to be the most expensive congressional primary ever. The headlines are that AIPAC itself, and a number of AIPAC adjacent pro-Israel groups, are pouring money into the race and Bowman is being wildly outspent. And that’s true. Limited polling suggests Latimer is a strong favorite. But this headline version misses a lot of the story. Or, more specifically, it mistakes cause and effect.
Continue reading “A Different Take On Jamaal Bowman, Israel & NY-16”Trump Ally Gets A Taste Of MAGA’s Medicine
Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕
That’ll Do It
The attorney general in the state of Missouri, Andrew Bailey, is making a bunch of headlines for announcing on his podcast Thursday that he intends to sue the amorphous state of New York and officials there for what he describes as “their direct attack on our democratic process through unconstitutional lawfare against President Trump.”
Continue reading “Trump Ally Gets A Taste Of MAGA’s Medicine”5th Circuit Panel Accuses Right-Wing Judge Of ‘Abuse Of Discretion’ In Obamacare Case
While it upheld the crux of a right-wing district judge’s ruling on a major Affordable Care Act case Friday, a panel of judges on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals accused that district judge of abusing his discretion by letting insurers nationwide stop offering free preventative care.
Continue reading “5th Circuit Panel Accuses Right-Wing Judge Of ‘Abuse Of Discretion’ In Obamacare Case”Listen To This: Cheap Fake Takes
A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh discuss the proliferation of deceptively edited videos of Joe Biden, the finalization of rules for the first debate and the Biden campaign’s new ads.
You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.
Don’t Worry: Good Decisions Like These Don’t Make the Court Any Less Corrupt
There’s a wrongheaded tendency to think the Court isn’t quite as bad or corrupt when it hands down one of these “good” decisions as it did today in the domestic abusers gun case. Resist the urge. One of the many things I’ve learned from my podcast colleague Kate Riga in our many podcast discussions is that we get a lot of these cases lately because, in addition to taking many fewer cases in general, the Court is now basically open season for culture-war cases. Even in relative terms there are many fewer of the cases that are on some obscure dimension of the tax code or other important-but-to-most-people-obscure questions that don’t obviously line up with hot-button political issues.
This case was one of those cases on a few different levels. The fact that the plaintiff succeeded at the circuit court level is astonishing and scandalous in itself. But let’s start with some basics. The landmark Heller decision in 2008 did not uphold the kind of absolute 2nd Amendment “gun rights” advocates have long claimed. It was terrible, but it didn’t do that. What it did was for the first time find an individual right to own and possess firearms. Like all rights, any regulation of that must be justified by and balanced against some legitimate public interest or need.
Continue reading “Don’t Worry: Good Decisions Like These Don’t Make the Court Any Less Corrupt”