House Republicans in the Freedom Caucus have been warning Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) for months that his grace period to run the show sans their ire is over — ever since the newly minted speaker first worked with Democrats to pass a two-tiered “clean” continuing resolution to keep the government open last November, just a few weeks after he was elected. As soon as Johnson announced his plan to push the two-tiered proposal that would keep funding the government at current levels, it became clear that Johnson was not the Golden Boy that his most outspoken backers had promised, equipped with some magic power to unite the conference increasingly run by extremists.
Continue reading “Hardliners Appear Reluctant To Oust Johnson — For Now”Volcanic Events In Grindavik, Iceland
Since late last year, Iceland has been experiencing volcanic events that began with the formation of large fissures in the earth that temporarily displaced inhabitants of the town of Grindavik. On January 14, 2024, residents were hurriedly evacuated once again as an eruption began at a fissure on the outskirts of town. A protective berm had been constructed to divert the lava around the town, and it worked remarkably well. But soon, another, smaller, fissure within the protected area began to erupt, damaging three residences. The country’s president, Gudni Th. Johannesson, said in a televised address Sunday that “a daunting period of upheaval has begun on the Reykjanes Peninsula,” where a long-dormant volcanic system has awakened, and that the country was battling “tremendous forces of nature.”
Cracks in the ground causing evacuations in Grindavik, Iceland
Hole in the ground caused by volcanic activity
Crack in the ground in December 21, 2023
People watching plumes of smoke rising near Grindavik on Janurary 14, 2024
Emergency crew building a protective wall as lava approaches the town of Grindavik on January 14, 2024
Diggers fill in the last hole in a protective wall on January 14, 2024
Lava and billowing smoke near Grindavik on January 14, 2024
Lava explosions near residential buildings in Grindavik on January 14, 2024
Lava after a volcanic eruption near Sundhnukagigar, about 4 kilometers northeast of Grindavik
Ariel view of lava approaching Grindavik on January 14, 2024
lava spewing from a volcano on Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula on January 14, 2024, near Grindavik
Grindavik on January 15, 2024 as the volcanic activity slowed
The protective walls near Grindavik worked to divert lava
View of lava stream engulfing several homes on January 15, 2024
A fissure in Grindavik, Iceland that had stopped erupting on Janurary 15, 2024
Texas Sets Up Showdown Over Federal Control of the Border
Texas has seized a portion of the U.S.-Mexico border in a bizarre, tragic, and high-stakes bid to claim for itself a power which has long been federal: control of the international border.
Continue reading “Texas Sets Up Showdown Over Federal Control of the Border”Now Let’s Talk About Turnout
Roughly 110,000 voters turned out for last night’s caucuses. That compares to 187,000 in 2016. (2012 and 2008 were closer to last night’s numbers 122,000 and 120,000, respectively.) But that’s still the lowest turnout in more than a decade and dramatically lower than the last contest in 2016. To me the turnout number is much less significant than the result, which I discussed here.
But it’s not insignificant.
There are a few possible explanations. One is that it was incredibly cold last night. But let’s be honest: winters in Iowa are always cold as fuck. They’re used to it. More significant, Republicans could be pretty confident that the outcome of the caucus and the overall nomination battle are both pretty much settled in Trump’s favor. That is a big disincentive to show up. Those explanations, especially the second, get you pretty close to a good explanation.
But not all the way there.
Continue reading “Now Let’s Talk About Turnout”Let’s Face It: Trump’s Iowa Result Was Pretty Weak
For something like a year I’ve been predicting that Donald Trump is absolutely positively going to be the 2024 nominee. I was predicting that back when a lot of people really thought that Ron DeSantis was going to at least give Trump a run for his money. I don’t make confident predictions unless I’m certain there’s little chance of being wrong. But I must tell you that this result simply isn’t the victory most reporting makes it out to be.
The Republican version of the Iowa caucus is simply a vote, carried out by less formal means. Each participant writes down a name and that gets counted — no real caucusing. The final result shows Trump getting 51% of that vote.
That is not just a plurality win, the metric customarily used to judge this contest. It’s actually an absolute majority. Barely. (DeSantis has 21.2% and Haley 19.1%.) But everyone now recognizes that Trump is running as the de facto incumbent. Certainly he’s running as the universally recognized leader of the GOP. And yet he has only barely managed a majority in a state which — unlike, say, New Hampshire — is pretty tailor-made for his politics. To put that characterization into context, while Iowa is today is a fairly red state, it has long had a reputation as a state which has a very liberal Democratic Party and a very conservative GOP. The Iowa GOP caucus electorate especially is made up of a high percentage of conservative evangelical voters. It’s overwhelmingly rural. By any fair measure, 51% of those voters is underwhelming.
Continue reading “Let’s Face It: Trump’s Iowa Result Was Pretty Weak”Iowa GOP Embraces Insurrectionist For POTUS
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Not An Anomaly
Donald Trump is on the verge of becoming the GOP nominee for the presidency for the third straight election. What might have seemed like a historical blip in 2016 that was remedied by Trump’s general election defeat in 2020 is now an eternal black mark on the Republican Party.
Hijacked by Trump, purged of its traditional middle-of-the-road corporate conservatives, and transformed into a cult of personality, the Republican Party is unrecognizable as the party of Lincoln. Gone are the Bushes, Cheneys, and Romneys. In are the worst group of scoundrels, hacks, hangers-on, and would-be authoritarians this nation has ever seen.
Whatever quaint and out-dated notions remained that Iowa’s Midwestern conservatism and its rural and highly educated populace would serve as an important early filter in the nominating process can be put to rest.
A majority of Iowa Republican caucus-goers went for Trump after the travesties of the Trump presidency: the failed response to the COVID pandemic, the indignity of losing to Joe Biden, and the insurrection at the Capitol, among so many others.
The Also-Rans
I’m going to steer clear of the over-analysis of the second and third place finishers, the phantom that is “momentum,” and other tea-leaf reading in the midst of the Trump storm. This is all about Trump, and no other storyline merits more than passing consideration. Semafor put it well this morning, calling it a “dream scenario” for Trump: “A dominant performance, a divided field bitterly fighting for scraps, and little sign of consolidation behind any of them.”
Good Riddance
After his poor showing in Iowa, Vivek Ramaswamy suspended his campaign and endorsed Donald Trump.
2024 Ephemera
- McKay Coppins: You Should Go to a Trump Rally
- WSJ: $6 Trillion in Taxes Are at Stake in This Year’s Elections
- The pro-Democratic group American Bridge 21st Century is planning a $140 million ad campaign using testimonials to remind women and working-class voters why they voted against Trump in 2020.
Quote Of The Day
We Were 100% Warned
- NBC News: Fears grow that Trump will use the military in ‘dictatorial ways’ if he returns to the White House
- Ummm …
- Trump supporters are asked: “Would you rather have four years of Donald Trump as a dictator or four years of President Biden re-elected?”
E. Jean Carroll Gets Another Whack At Trump
The four-times indicted frontrunner for the GOP nomination, fresh off his big win in Iowa, is expected in federal court today in New York for the (second) trial of E. Jean Carroll’s defamation claim against him for denying he raped her. Trump’s liability was already established in the first jury verdict, so this trial will be focused only on Carroll’s damages. In recent days, Carroll implored the judge not to let Trump engage in the kinds of stunts he pulled in the NY state judge-tried fraud case.
Trump made a last-ditch effort to delay the trial for a week, citing the death of his mother-in-law. The judge denied the request, noting that Trump had managed to schedule a campaign stop in New Hampshire tomorrow.
Highly Endorse
It’s time for the courts to stop giving Trump special treatment. To stop walking delicately and gingerly lest he claim foul play when he is merely subjected to procedures anyone else in his position would be held accountable to. The courts, charged with delivering justice, need to stop being afraid of Trump.
Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance
Aileen Cannon Is Still At It
In a late-night ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon denied Special Counsel Jack Smith’s motion to impose a deadline on Donald Trump to assert an advice of counsel defense in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. With trial set for May, Cannon said it was premature to force Trump to assert the defense. Smith can refile the motion later, but it’s not clear what time frame Cannon considers proper. All signs point to Cannon abandoning the May trial date and pushing the trial until after the November election. But she’s slowrolling it rather than acting transparently.
Trump Miscellany
- Oregon Supreme Court declines to rule on Disqualification Clause case against Trump, preferring to wait until the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in.
- Trump ordered to pay nearly $400,000 in attorney fees to the NYT and three of its investigative reporters over his baseless defamation lawsuit.
- Joseph Tacopina withdraws as Trump’s lawyer in the Stormy Daniels hush money case.
The Politics Of White Resentment
TPM’s Kate Riga: In Their Quest For Dominance, Republicans Break Government At All Levels
An Interesting Origin Story
Drawing from his new book – The Rebels: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the Struggle for a New American Politics – Josh Green writes for TPM about how power In America shifted in 1978 and laid the groundwork for the current political moment.
Feds Seek Death Penalty For Buffalo Shooter
The Justice Department announced it would seek the death penalty for the man accused of killing 10 Black people in a 2022 shooting spree at a Buffalo grocery story.
Big Step
A Biden administration plan to impose a fee on oil and gas companies for every excess ton of methane emitted would be the first federal price on greenhouse gas pollution.
How The EV Transition Is Going
John Voelcker, my go-to expert on electric vehicles, cuts through the noise to assess the current state of the EV market.
The Icelandic Saga
A new eruptive phase began and then seemed to end over the weekend on Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula.
A long fissure opened outside the protective berm hurriedly constructed to protect the town of Grindavík, which was evacuated in November and re-evacuated in haste over the weekend. The berm worked remarkably well at diverting a lava flow around the town. But a few hours later, a second shorter fissure opened inside the protective wall and sent lava to the edge of town, where three houses were destroyed.
You can see the main fissure in the background in the photo below, with lava diverting along a line that runs off the left of the photo. The fissure that opened up nearly in town is the dark slash in the center of the photo:
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Trump Wins Iowa By Predicted Landslide, DeSantis Projected To Win Second
About a half hour after the Iowa caucuses got underway Monday, multiple networks plus the Associated Press had called the race for Trump.
With most of the vote counted, Trump maintains an expected mammoth margin on his competitors. Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley hover within a couple points of each other, DeSantis having the slight edge.
Continue reading “Trump Wins Iowa By Predicted Landslide, DeSantis Projected To Win Second”Nota Bene
Keep an eye on how the national press covers this. The White House, as you know, has been under immense pressure to offer concessions to address the continuing large number of migrants coming to the U.S.-Mexico border. Now there’s a bipartisan compromise bill in the Senate. Last night Majority Leader Steve Scalise said that bill is DOA in the House. But Speaker Johnson said something more specific and revealing. He refused to bring up the bill and according to Jake Sherman of Punchbowl said “Congress can’t solve border until Trump is elected or a republican is back in the White House.”
Continue reading “Nota Bene”Texas in Armed Rebellion Again?
We hear a lot of fears these days about civil war or major political unrest in the United States. It’s less clear precisely how something like this would happen. There’s no lack of polarization and anger. But how precisely does it come about? Despite the blue and red maps we show on TV screens, U.S. politics is highly polarized by region even within most states. Something happened in Texas yesterday that struck me as a possible leading edge of some form of it.
Under the direction of Gov. Greg Abbott (R), Texas has made recent moves to try to take over certain aspects of patrol and enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border. This is of course primarily a political move. It’s for show. But the actions assert new rights or powers which are fraught with the potential for abuse and possible used for a sort of slow-motion insurrection. This weekend things went to a new level.
Continue reading “Texas in Armed Rebellion Again?”Remembering Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
One of the single most influential figures in the American Civil Rights Movement, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. helped organize and inspire people across the country to take non-violent action in the fight for equality.
MLK addressing a crowd in 1965
MLK at time of his trial in 1960
MLK speaking at a student rally in 1960
MLK with his family in 1960
MLK giving a sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta in 1960
MLK at the end of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956
MLK listening to the radio while leading the Alabama Civil Rights march in 1965
Headshot of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in his vestments in 1953
MLK and his speechwriter Clarence B. Jones in 1963
MLK has a mug shot taken at a police station in Montgomery, Alabama, 1956
MLK receives the Nobel Prize for Peace from Gunnar Jahn
MLK and Rev. Ralph Abernathy
MLK with a group in prayer prior to Selma, Alabama, march in 1965
