The organizers of the rally on the Ellipse where Donald Trump exhorted his supporters to take their “fight” to block the election result to the Capitol building secretly worked with the White House to plan a march towards Capitol Hill, a federal inspector general said on Monday.
Continue reading “Jan. 6 Rally Organizers Planned March From White House To SCOTUS, IG Finds”How Trump Is Laying The Groundwork For A Coopted Military, Now And In 2025
It received little attention, but back in March 2023, Donald Trump had a promise to make about what he would do with the military in a potential second term.
Continue reading “How Trump Is Laying The Groundwork For A Coopted Military, Now And In 2025”Appeals Court Spanks Mark Meadows In A Way That Could Hurt Trump, Too
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
What’s Good For The Goose …
In rapid order, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments Friday on whether Mark Meadows can remove the Georgia RICO case to federal court and then cranked out a ruling on Monday that handed Meadows a significant defeat.
The ruling against Meadows on removal all but eliminated the chances of any other defendant in the Georgia case to succeed in removing their prosecutions to federal court.
And on top of all that, it may have signaled trouble for Trump’s claims of immunity. More on that in a moment.
Adding to the weight of the 11th Circuit opinion, it was authored by Chief Judge William Pryor, a former GOP elected official and reliable conservative. The court ruled against Meadows’ removal gambit on two alternate grounds: The removal statute doesn’t apply to former federal officials and, more importantly, that even if it did, Meadows’ alleged participation in the RICO conspiracy was not part of his duties as Trump White House chief of staff.
The Supreme Court may yet hear this case, so it may not be the last word. But the 11th Circuit ruling was definitive and even if the Supreme Court takes issue with the ruling on the status of former federal officials, it still has the too-tenuous connection between Meadows’ official duties and the criminal conduct to fall back on.
But in finding that Meadows was engaging in conduct that fell outside his official duties, the appeals court by implication suggested Donald Trump was, too, and that has implications for the immunity claims Trump is pressing, as law professor Ryan Goodman notes.
In another sign of the federal courts rallying to defend the rule of law from Trump’s attacks, the Pryor opinion favorably cites U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling on immunity for Trump in the civil context, specifically this line: [T]he Office of the President has no preference for who occupies it.”
Appeals Court Sets Oral Argument On Trump Immunity
Here’s the latest schedule of the appeals courts (BOLD is Supreme Court) considering Trump’s claim of absolute presidential immunity against criminal prosecution:
Dec. 20, 2023: Trump response due on whether SCOTUS should take the case
Dec. 23, 2023: Trump brief due
Dec. 30, 2023: Smith brief due
Jan. 2, 2024: Trump reply brief due
Jan. 9, 2024: Oral arguments
Rudy G Gonna Get Walloped Again
Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moore have sued Rudy Giuliani again, on the first business day since the $148 million damages award against him and in their favor. This time, they want the court to bar Giuliani permanently from repeating the same falsehoods for which they won the defamation judgment against him.
Trump Miscellany
- Trump filed a new motion to dismiss the Georgia RICO case against him because the charges intrude on his core First Amendment right to engage in political speech.
- Trump asked the full DC Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider the three-judge panel ruling that mostly upheld the gag order imposed on him in the Jan. 6 case.
- The group seeking to use the Disqualification Clause to keep Trump off the ballot in Michigan has appealed to the state Supreme Court.
A Little Gamesmanship
PUNCH: Like a schoolboy bringing an apple to the teacher, Special Counsel Jack Smith is meeting the deadlines set by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan even though everyone agrees that the case is on hold while Trump’s immunity claim works its way through appeals.
COUNTERPUNCH: Put off by Smith’s showboating, Trump’s legal team refused to accept Smith’s latest filing in the case.
More Reading On the Current Moment
- Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance:
Trump told the crowd: “We’re going to win four more years in the White House, then after that we’ll negotiate. Based on the way I was treated; we’re probably entitled to another four after that.” That’s not a joking matter. That’s the leading GOP candidate saying he intends to stay in office for longer than the Constitution allows.
- Law professor Kate Shaw:
For a Supreme Court that holds itself out as hewing closely to text, history and tradition, immunity should present an easy case, and Mr. Trump should lose. … If the court nevertheless distorts precedent and principle to endorse some version of Mr. Trump’s logic — or if it facilitates a delay that has functionally the same result — it will have revealed the hollowness at the core of its professed method and expose itself as willing to act in the most craven ways to advance the electoral prospects of the leading Republican contender.
- Bulwark editor Jonathan V. Last:
[T]he New York Times illustrates precisely how unprepared our liberal institutions are for dealing with the expressly illiberal threat of Trump 2024 … The Times has no idea how to handle this threat except to present two sides: One which warns about the danger and one which prevaricates and misdirects in an attempt to hide it.
Great Read
TPM’s Josh Kovensky and Kate Riga: Inside The Russian Propaganda Mill Beaming Out Of A Florida Strip Mall
Judge Halts Removal Of Confederate Memorial
Groups who oppose the removal of a Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery obtained a temporary restraining order blocking the Army from continuing the work. But the federal judge who issued the order warned that he did so based on representations by the plaintiffs that the work was disturbing nearby graves and that he “takes very seriously the representations of officers of the Court and should the representations in this case be untrue or exaggerated the Court may take appropriate sanctions.”
Who Will Rid Me Of This Meddlesome Debt?
Saddled with debt, Justice Clarence Thomas was complaining loudly about his meager government paycheck and suggesting he might resign from the Supreme Court right around the time wealthy benefactors began to shower him with gifts, according to new reporting from ProPublica.
Justices Honor Sandra Day O’Connor
Pope Francis Allows Blessings Of Same-Sex Couples
The Pope stopped short of conferring the sacramental rite of marriage on same-sex couples, but the Vatican made clear that priests could bless same-sex couples without running afoul of church doctrine on marriage.
Behold
Perhaps you remember the Icelandic town of Grindavík being evacuated last month in anticipation of an imminent volcanic eruption in an area that until quite recently had been relatively calm, at least for Iceland.
As magma pushed toward the surface, Grindavík was rocked by a flurry of earthquakes that did extensive damage to infrastructure. But in recent weeks, the seismic activity abated somewhat, which given the pattern of Icelandic magmatic intrusions meant either that there would be no eruption or that this was the calm before the storm.
Yesterday, the calm broke as a new fissure unzipped with very little warning and lava spewed forth in the precise area scientists had thought most likely to be the focal point of an eruption, nearby but not in the town. Here’s a time lapse of the first 20 minutes of the new eruption:
Some of the lava fountains reached 300-feet high in the initial moments of the eruption, although later reports suggest a less vigorous flow as the fissure elongated:
One Of Those Kinds Of Days
In case you need a little inspiration, too:
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Republicans Who Aren’t On Board With Biden Impeachment Have Been Warned
Over the weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) made the MAGA-defying mistake of acknowledging reality as it relates to House Republicans’ made-for-TV impeachment inquiry into supposed Biden Family Corruption.
Continue reading “Republicans Who Aren’t On Board With Biden Impeachment Have Been Warned”Keith Richards at 80
Today Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones turns 80.
For years it’s been impossible to venture onto social media without seeing memes about Richards’ death-cheating immortality: the often gaunt hollowed visage, the legendary drug use, urban legends about recurrent full blood transfusions. Richards’ legendary junkiedom has been decades longer in the myth-making than the reality. As best as the various histories and memoirs inform us, Richards spent about a decade addicted to heroin, from around the age of 25 to roughly 35. There were recurrent clean-ups for tours, relapses, or just decisions to start shooting heroin again. He eventually kicked the habit in stages after a notorious drug bust in Toronto in 1977, which could have sent him to prison for years. In other words, that supposedly central thing about the man actually ended going on half a century ago. Of course, there are drugs and drugs. Richards continued to drink, smoke grass, snort cocaine for years while seemingly weening himself of the vices over time. He even quit smoking at some point during the COVID pandemic.
Continue reading “Keith Richards at 80”Four Deaths, One Story—Examining the Deaths of Three Israeli Hostages
You’ve likely heard about the incident on Friday in which Israeli soldiers shot and killed three Israeli hostages who had either escaped from their captors or been abandoned by them during fighting in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City. The three were two Israeli Jews and one Israeli Bedouin, each of whom had been captured on October 7th. At the most basic level this is a version of “friendly fire” in which soldiers inadvertently kill fellow soldiers from their own army during wartime. In this case, it’s hostages not fellow soldiers. But the nature of the case is comparable.
The incident has produced a firestorm within Israel, both for the inherently tragic nature of the hostages’ deaths but also because of the particular details of how they died. Their deaths have added renewed intensity to arguments and protests about how the government is balancing the imperatives of destroying Hamas and bringing the country’s hostages home safely. Recent weeks have seen various protests in Israel, often led by or featuring families of hostages, demanding the government focus more on making a deal with Hamas to return all the hostages. The controversy has been fueled in part by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s almost total refusal to visit and meet with residents of communities attacked on October 7th or the families of the hostages.
Continue reading “Four Deaths, One Story—Examining the Deaths of Three Israeli Hostages”A ‘Delicate Matter’: Clarence Thomas’ Private Complaints About Money Sparked Fears He Would Resign
This story first appeared at ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ decadeslong friendship with real estate tycoon Harlan Crow and Samuel Alito’s luxury travel with billionaire Paul Singer have raised questions about influence and ethics at the nation’s highest court.
In early January 2000, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was at a five-star beach resort in Sea Island, Georgia, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
After almost a decade on the court, Thomas had grown frustrated with his financial situation, according to friends. He had recently started raising his young grandnephew, and Thomas’ wife was soliciting advice on how to handle the new expenses. The month before, the justice had borrowed $267,000 from a friend to buy a high-end RV.
At the resort, Thomas gave a speech at an off-the-record conservative conference. He found himself seated next to a Republican member of Congress on the flight home. The two men talked, and the lawmaker left the conversation worried that Thomas might resign.
Congress should give Supreme Court justices a pay raise, Thomas told him. If lawmakers didn’t act, “one or more justices will leave soon” — maybe in the next year.
At the time, Thomas’ salary was $173,600, equivalent to over $300,000 today. But he was one of the least wealthy members of the court, and on multiple occasions in that period, he pushed for ways to make more money. In other private conversations, Thomas repeatedly talked about removing a ban on justices giving paid speeches.
Thomas’ efforts were described in records from the time obtained by ProPublica, including a confidential memo to Chief Justice William Rehnquist from a top judiciary official seeking guidance on what he termed a “delicate matter.”
The documents, as well as interviews, offer insight into how Thomas was talking about his finances in a crucial period in his tenure, just as he was developing his relationships with a set of wealthy benefactors.
Congress never lifted the ban on speaking fees or gave the justices a major raise. But in the years that followed, as ProPublica has reported, Thomas accepted a stream of gifts from friends and acquaintances that appears to be unparalleled in the modern history of the Supreme Court. Some defrayed living expenses large and small — private school tuition, vehicle batteries, tires. Other gifts from a coterie of ultrarich men supplemented his lifestyle, such as free international vacations on the private jet and superyacht of Dallas real estate billionaire Harlan Crow.
Precisely what led so many people to offer Thomas money and other gifts remains an open question. There’s no evidence the justice ever raised the specter of resigning with Crow or his other wealthy benefactors.
George Priest, a Yale Law School professor who has vacationed with Thomas and Crow, told ProPublica he believes Crow’s generosity was not intended to influence Thomas’ views but rather to make his life more comfortable. “He views Thomas as a Supreme Court justice as having a limited salary,” Priest said. “So he provides benefits for him.”
Thomas and Crow didn’t respond to questions for this story. Crow, a major Republican donor, has not had cases at the Supreme Court since Thomas joined it and has previously said Thomas is a dear friend. David Sokol, a conservative financier who has taken Thomas on vacation on a private jet, said in a statement that he and Thomas had never discussed the justice’s finances or when he might retire.
Thomas’ comments in 2000 were to Florida Rep. Cliff Stearns, a vocal conservative who’d been in Congress for 11 years and occasionally socialized with the justice. They set off a flurry of activity across the judiciary and Capitol Hill. “His importance as a conservative was paramount,” Stearns said in a recent interview. “We wanted to make sure he felt comfortable in his job and he was being paid properly.”
There’s an often-criticized dynamic surrounding most important jobs in the federal government: The posts pay far less than comparable jobs in the private sector, but officials can cash in once they leave. Ex-regulators sell advice to the regulated. Generals retire to join military contractors. Former senators get jobs lobbying Congress.
But there is no revolving-door payday waiting on the other side of a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. Justices generally stay on the bench past their 80th birthday, if not until death. In 2000, justices were paid more than cabinet secretaries or members of Congress, and far more than the average American. Still, judges’ salaries were not keeping pace with inflation, a source of ire throughout the federal judiciary. Young associates at top law firms made more than Supreme Court justices, while partners at the firms could earn millions a year.
Some of Thomas’ colleagues were extremely wealthy — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was married to a high-paid tax lawyer and Justice Stephen Breyer to the daughter of a wealthy British lord. Thomas did not come from money. When he was appointed to the court in 1991, he was 43 years old and had spent almost all his adult life working for the government. At the time, he still had student loans from law school, Thomas has said.
The full details of Thomas’ finances over the years remain unclear. He made at least two big purchases around the early ’90s: a Corvette and a house in the Virginia suburbs on 5 acres of land. When Thomas and his wife, Ginni, bought the home for $522,000 a year after he joined the court, they borrowed all but $8,000, less than 2% of the purchase price, property records show.
Public records suggest a degree of financial strain. Throughout the first decade of his tenure, the couple regularly borrowed more money, including a $100,000 credit line on their house and a consumer loan of up to $50,000. Around January 1998, Thomas’ life changed when he took in his 6-year-old grandnephew, becoming his legal guardian and raising him as a son. The Thomases sent the child to a series of private schools.
In early January 2000, Thomas took the trip to the Georgia beach resort. Thomas was there to deliver a keynote speech at Awakening, a “conservative thought weekend” featuring golf, shooting lessons and aromatherapy along with panel discussions with businessmen and elected officials. (A founder and organizer of the annual event, Ernest Taylor, told ProPublica that Thomas’ trip was paid for by the organization. Thomas reported 11 free trips that year on his annual financial disclosure, mostly to colleges and universities, but did not disclose attending the conservative conference, an apparent violation of federal disclosure law.)
On a commercial flight back from Awakening, Thomas brought up the prospect of justices resigning to Stearns, the Republican lawmaker. Worried, Stearns wrote a letter to Thomas after the flight promising “to look into a bill to raise the salaries of members of The Supreme Court.”
“As we agreed, it is worth a lot to Americans to have the constitution properly interpreted,” Stearns wrote. “We must have the proper incentives here, too.”
Stearns’ office soon sought help from a lobbying firm working on the issue, and he delivered a speech on the House floor about judges’ salaries getting eroded by inflation. Thomas’ warning about resignations was relayed at a meeting of the heads of several judges’ associations. L. Ralph Mecham, then the judiciary’s top administrative official, fired off the memo describing Thomas’ complaints to Rehnquist, his boss.
“I understand that Justice Thomas clearly told him that in his view departures would occur within the next year or so,” Mecham wrote of Thomas’ conversation with Stearns. Mecham worried that “from a tactical point of view,” congressional Democrats might oppose a raise if they sensed “the apparent purpose is to keep Justices [Antonin] Scalia and Thomas on the Court.” (Scalia had nine children and was also one of the less wealthy justices. Scalia, Mecham and Rehnquist have since died.)
It’s not clear if Rehnquist ever responded. Several months later, Rehnquist focused his annual year-end report on what he called “the most pressing issue facing the Judiciary: the need to increase judicial salaries.”
Several people close to Thomas told ProPublica they believed that it was implausible the justice would ever retire early, and that he may have exaggerated his concerns to bolster the case for a raise. But around 2000, chatter that Thomas was dissatisfied about money circulated through conservative legal circles and on Capitol Hill, according to interviews with prominent attorneys, former members of Congress and Thomas’ friends. “It was clear he was unhappy with his financial situation and his salary,” one friend said.
Former Sen. Trent Lott, then the Republican Senate majority leader, recalled in a recent interview that there were serious concerns at the time that Thomas or other justices would leave.
The public received hardly a hint that such conversations about Thomas were unfolding in Washington. Thomas did once allude to government salaries, in a 2001 speech praising the value of public service. “The job is not worth doing for what they pay. It’s not worth doing for the grief,” he said. “But it is worth doing for the principle.”
Around that time, Thomas was also pushing to allow justices to make paid speeches — a source of income that had been banned in the 1980s. On several occasions, Thomas discussed lifting the ban with appellate Judge David Hansen, who chaired the judiciary’s committee responsible for lobbying Congress on issues like pay, according to Mecham’s memo.
At Sen. Mitch McConnell’s request, a provision removing the ban for judges was quietly inserted into a spending bill in mid-2000. Why McConnell made the proposal became a subject of scrutiny in the legal press. After the Legal Times reported the measure had been dubbed the “Keep Scalia on the Court” bill, Scalia responded that the “honorarium ban makes no difference to me” and denied that he would ever leave the court for financial reasons. (The ban was never lifted. McConnell did not respond to a request for comment.)
During his second decade on the court, Thomas’ financial situation appears to have markedly improved. In 2003, he received the first payments of a $1.5 million advance for his memoir, a record-breaking sum for justices at the time. Ginni Thomas, who had been a congressional staffer, was by then working at the Heritage Foundation and was paid a salary in the low six figures.
Thomas also received dozens of expensive gifts throughout the 2000s, sometimes coming from people he’d met only shortly before. Thomas met Earl Dixon, the owner of a Florida pest control company, while getting his RV serviced outside Tampa in 2001, according to the Thomas biography “Supreme Discomfort.” The next year, Dixon gave Thomas $5,000 to put toward his grandnephew’s tuition. Thomas reported the payment in his annual disclosure filing.
Larger gifts went undisclosed. Crow paid for two years of private high school, which tuition rates indicate would’ve cost roughly $100,000. In 2008, another wealthy friend forgave “a substantial amount, or even all” of the principal on the loan Thomas had used to buy the quarter-million dollar RV, according to a recent Senate inquiry prompted by The New York Times’ reporting. Much of the Thomases’ leisure time was also paid for by a small set of billionaire businessmen, who brought the justice and his family on free vacations around the world. (Thomas has said he did not need to disclose the gifts of travel and his lawyer has disputed the Senate findings about the RV.)
By 2019, the justices’ pay hadn’t changed beyond keeping up with inflation. But Thomas’ views had apparently transformed from two decades before. That June, during a public appearance, Thomas was asked about salaries at the court. “Oh goodness, I think it’s plenty,” Thomas responded. “My wife and I are doing fine. We don’t live extravagantly, but we are fine.”
A few weeks later, Thomas boarded Crow’s private jet to head to Indonesia. He and his wife were off on vacation, an island cruise on Crow’s 162-foot yacht.
Donald Trump Is Telling You Every Day Exactly Who He Is
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Straight Up Fascism
Donald Trump went on a weekend tear, sounding like an unrepentant fascist in attacks on immigrants and the rule of law.
Trump went so far that the Biden White House called it out for what it was: “Echoing the grotesque rhetoric of fascists and violent white supremacists and threatening to oppress those who disagree with the government are dangerous attacks on the dignity and rights of all Americans, on our democracy, and on public safety. …”
When was the last time a White House denounced fascism within America? Ever?
Pure Poison
The most scurrilous of the Trump attacks was against immigrants during New Hampshire rally Saturday:
“Christian nationalists believe that the secular values of democracy are destroying Christianity and traditional values,” Heather Cox Richardson noted about Trump’s speech. “They want to get rid of LGBTQ+ rights, feminism, immigration, and the public schools they believe teach such values. And if that means handing power to a dictator who promises to restore their vision of a traditional society, they’re in.”
Trump Backs The Jan. 6 Rioters Again
In the same New Hampshire speech, Trump shifted from touting the jailed Jan. 6 rioters as “political prisoners” to “hostages“:
At an event Sunday in Reno, Nevada, Trump expressed sympathy for the six GOP fake electors of his who have been charged criminally in that state, saying they, too, were victims of political persecution.
$148 Million Buys A Lot Of Hair Dye
Just an astonishing damages award against Rudy Giuliani in the defamation case brought by Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
Not undeserved. Not out of bounds. Not crazy.
But still an extraordinary vindication for the two Black women who were targeted by Giuliani and much of MAGA world after the 2020 campaign. Keep in mind that the attacks on them figure into the indictments of Trump for the election subversion in both DC and Georgia.
Beyond the underlying conduct that gave rise to their claims, Giuliani engaged in ongoing, persistent self-destructive behavior throughout the case, which created pristine conditions for a devastating jury decision like this one. Not only did he disregard his pre-trial discovery obligations and toy with the court enough to have a default judgment entered against him, he continued to make the same false assertions in public at the courthouse while the jury heard the damages portion of the case. Giuliani was so out of control that comments he made to the press during the proceedings ended up figuring prominently in the closing argument by plaintiffs’ counsel.
If you’re going to attack Black women who work for the government, DC is probably the last place you want to have to defend yourself. The eight-member jury was composed of three white women, two Black women, two white men, and a Black man. The $75 million punitive damages award was the gut punch that signaled the jury’s disgust with Giuliani’s conduct.
If you add the $148 million in this case to the $700 million in the Fox settlement with Dominion Voting System, the total so far in Big Lie defamation damages is close to $1 billion, with Smartmatic’s big defamation case against Fox still pending.
Mark Meadows May Be Stuck In Georgia
Mark Meadows’ bid to remove the Georgia RICO case to federal court did not go well Friday in front of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Round 2 For Jenna Ellis?
Two watchdogs groups are taking another stab at getting former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, who pleaded guilty in the Georgia RICO case, disbarred in Colorado.
Stefanik Stunt Targets Judge Howell
Citing historian Heather Cox Richardson, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell warned last month of creeping authoritarianism in America in a speech to lawyers. Now in her latest stunt, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has filed a complaint against Howell with the DC Circuit Court of Appeals for what she claims was a political speech.
Crossfire Hurricane Will Never Die
Following on the heels of CNN, the NYT has its own version of the story of the binder of sensitive Russian intel that went missing from the White House in the waning hours of the Trump presidency.
Ukraine Aid Still Bottled Up
A sampling of how Senate negotiations on a border package to pair with imperiled Ukraine side fared over the weekend:
- Semafor: “The Senate’s chances of reaching a bipartisan deal on Ukraine aid and the border by Christmas seemed to dim over the weekend.”
- Politico: Congress unlikely to finish work on Ukraine, border deal this year
- WSJ: Senate Negotiators Fail to Reach Agreement on Border Framework
Abortion Rights Watch
- Politico: Conservatives move to keep abortion off the 2024 ballot
- The NYT’s The Daily interviews Kate Cox, the woman who fought the Texas abortion ban
Step By Step
Arlington National Cemetery, built on the site of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s antebellum plantation, will begin this week removing its Confederate Memorial, which was funded by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and erected in 1914.
Respect
The late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will lie in repose at the Supreme Court today from 10:30 a.m. ET until 8 p.m. ET.
Quote Of The Day
They got drunk, painted themselves like Indians and pushed tea bags into the Boston Harbor, which we in Rhode Island think is pretty weak tea compared to blowing up the goddamn boat and shooting its captain. But you know, all those Massachusetts people went on to become president and run Harvard … so they told their story, and their story, and their story.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), grumping about 1773’s Boston Tea Party seizing the historic imagination instead of Rhode Island’s daring 1772 attack on the HMS Gaspee
‘You Can’t Morally Lead The Republican Party Forward’
Florida Republican Party moves to oust Chairman Christian Ziegler over rape allegation.
Sex In The Senate
An aide to Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) is out of a job after he was linked to a sex tape recorded in a hearing room in the Hart Senate Office Building. The Daily Caller, which first reported on the video, emphasized the gay sex angle – so the outrage this week is going to be a special kind of ugly.
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Inside The Russian Propaganda Mill Beaming Out Of A Florida Strip Mall
When Ben Swann delivers a news report, he looks and sounds like any other TV anchor: conventionally attractive, slick hair, clad in an unremarkable but well-tailored suit.
Continue reading “Inside The Russian Propaganda Mill Beaming Out Of A Florida Strip Mall”Meanwhile
Jeff Roe, the chief strategist for Ron DeSantis’s official super PAC and top cheese of the DeSantis campaign, has resigned. As usual, there’s lots of talk about cronies getting lavish sums of money. But really it’s never a good situation when your billionaire backers have given you massive amounts of money and your campaign is flat-lining.