How A Maine Businessman Made The AR-15 Into America’s Best-Selling Rifle

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

This article was originally published at ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom.

Outside Healy Chapel on the campus of Saint Joseph’s College of Maine, the American flag swayed at half-staff. Inside, candles flickered, and the dying autumn light filtered softly through stained glass. A nursing student sobbed as a small group of mourners read aloud the names of the 18 people slaughtered with an assault-style rifle in late October at a bowling alley and a restaurant up the road in Lewiston. The college had shut down for two days as police sought the killer, whose body was found in the woods after he turned a gun on himself.

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Thank You from All of Us

Posted on by Josh Marshall

While we’re still in the extended Thanksgiving weekend, I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you, especially our members but all of our readers, on behalf of everyone at TPM. We literally couldn’t do it without you. It’s a member funded publication. The overwhelming percentage of our revenue comes directly from your monthly and annual membership fees.

We are, paradoxically and oddly at this point, a huge success story, in this strange relative sense of moving forward, having stable finances and getting ready for a hugely consequential election. This would be normal and unremarkable if not for the fact that almost everyone else is struggling or going under. It’s entirely because of our readers and their dedication to what we do. You’ve consistently been there for us. Which is amazing. And we thank you for it.

In addition to keeping us solvent it has also been a liberation for us inasmuch as basically our entire focus, both editorially and in terms of our business, is reader satisfaction. That should be the case for any successful publication. But when most of the revenue comes from advertising much of that focus is only indirect. You need to keep readers happy because without happy readers you can’t keep the advertisers happy. They’re the source of the money.

If you’re looking to do us another solid, let me remind you we’re trying to hire a new reporter and we’re looking to spread the word. You can see more on that here.

Thank you and have a great rest of the weekend.

Jason Aldean Song Triggered Renewed Attention On Racist Vigilante Justice And Small-Town Nationalism

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.

For better and worse, the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, has come to represent the overlooked cultural divisions between urban and small-town America.

The courthouse was the site of the lynching of a Black teenager in 1927. It also served as a rallying spot for white vigilantes who assembled there during race riots in 1946.

It is now the focus of a modern-day controversy that emerged shortly after popular country singer Jason Aldean released his music video in July 2023 for his hit single “Try That in a Small Town.”

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Trump Judges Decimate Voting Rights Act After Supreme Court Bat Signal

Posted on by Kate Riga

For right-wing litigants, the line of communication has never been clearer. Their ideologically aligned Supreme Court justices send out messages — “trial balloons,” “bat signals” — in concurrences and dissents, raising a topic that maybe, perhaps, it would behoove a motivated lawyer to bring up in a case. 

This time, a fellow judge picked up on the hint. U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky of Arkansas, a Donald Trump appointee, eagerly took up the qualms of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas that private litigants could never actually sue under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act — despite the fact that they’ve been doing so for decades. 

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Why Did Oslo Fail?

Posted on by Josh Marshall

After an email exchange TPM Reader TW flagged to my attention this Times symposium on the Oslo Process. It’s quite good, better than we usually have any business expecting from daily journalism. If you’re too young to remember the Oslo years or aren’t familiar with it, you’ll learn a lot from reading it. It’s quick and conversational, not a challenging read. If you are familiar you’ll probably learn some new nuances and details. The gist and one many of us know is that peace was genuinely sought after by both sides and I think it was really possible. History is full of contingencies, things that might have gone one way or another. Those contingencies build on each other to create what is usually the illusion of inevitability. But there were also basic structural flaws to the process and the standing participants which led to failure.

The core structural flaw was that the process was open-ended. In theory there was a five year deadline, but just what was supposed to happen over that five years or what end state it would arrive at at the end of five years was never clear. That meant that enemies of the process on both sides had plenty of time to destroy it. And they were able to do that because the players in power on the both sides were weak.

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Superficial Thanksgiving Stories Hide The Realities Of Settler Colonialism

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.

Too often, K-12 social studies classes in the U.S. teach a mostly glossed-over story of U.S. settlement. Textbooks tell the stories of adventurous European explorers founding colonies in the “New World,” and stories of the “first Thanksgiving” frequently portray happy colonists and Native Americans feasting together. Accounts of the colonies’ battle for independence frame it as a righteous victory. Native American removal might be mentioned as a sad footnote, but the triumph of the pioneer spirit takes center stage.

As a scholar of Native American and Indigenous rhetorics, I argue that this superficial story hides the realities of what many historians and activists call “settler colonialism.” Historian Lorenzo Veracini asserts that colonial activity isn’t just about a nation sending out explorers and bringing back resources, or what scholars refer to as “classical colonialism.” It’s also about what happens when a new people moves in and attempts to establish itself as the “superior” community whose culture, language and rights to resources and land supersede those of the Indigenous people who already live there.

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Santos Sees The Writing On The Wall

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

It’s not yet clear what Rep. George Santos (R-NY) will announce during his planned press conference on the Capitol steps on Nov. 30 — the spectrum of possibilities is vast and could range from denying he’s ever gotten Botox to announcing his resignation.

The calculated media moment is rare for the congressman who often makes headlines by simply walking the halls of the Capitol, sometimes toting an unidentified infant. But it’ll come at a precarious time for Santos, just a few days after the House returns from the Thanksgiving break when his colleagues are expected to vote on whether to expel him from Congress.

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One More One/Two State Discussion Before Thanksgiving!

Posted on by Josh Marshall

In a few recent posts we’ve discussed the question of whether one state or two states is the most logical or possible resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (You can see my argument here.) A few days ago TPM Reader RC sent me this April Foreign Affairs article, Israel’s One-State Reality. It was written by three scholars at GW and another at the University of Maryland. The piece was interesting to me because it illustrates a lot of what the one state argument is really about. As the title suggests, the article is not so much an argument that one state in Israel-Palestine is a solution to anything but an assertion that it is the current reality.

In other words, Israel’s not a country that functions as a democracy while controlling occupied territories whose final status will be decided at some point in the future. It’s a single country in which all Jews have political and civil rights and most Palestinians have limited civil rights and no political rights. Given that the post-67 occupation has persisted for 56 years, this argument has many merits to it. But what is the import of that assertion? In itself it’s simply a definitional claim. That part comes next. It’s an argument for the withdrawal of US support and some escalating framework of sanctions to compel Israel to come up to international standards in which one ethnic group or most of it facing systemic legal discrimination just isn’t okay.

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The Election Is Rigged All Right … FOR Trump

Posted on by David Kurtz

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Morning Memo is going to keep it light and breezy. Enjoy your holiday. Sign up for the email version.

Not Some Crazy Conspiracy Theory

A good reminder from Gerald F. Seib of the structural advantages Donald Trump and Republicans continues to enjoy heading into 2024:

The Republican advantage is so pronounced that [Charlie] Cook estimates that President Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, will have to win the national popular vote by four to seven percentage points to win in the Electoral College, much as he did in 2020 when he won the popular vote by 4.5% over Trump.

Latest From Georgia …

The judge overseeing the Georgia RICO case declined to revoke bail for Trump co-defendant Harrison Floyd but tightened up the conditions of his pre-trial release.

Aileen Cannon’s Leisurely Pace

Josh Gerstein wraps up in one place all of U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s Trump-friendly stealth effort to delay the Mar-a-Lago documents trial past the 2024 election.

Colorado Disqualification Clause Case Advances

The Colorado Supreme Court will hear oral arguments next month on the Disqualification Clause case against Donald Trump.

A Fleeting Backbone

Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI) lost his bid for re-election in the 2022 GOP primary after he was one of just 10 House GOPers who voted to impeach President Trump a second time. Now he’s running in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate to fill Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s empty seat. And he’s gone from Never Trump to “I’m going to support the Republican nominee.”

Shot And Chaser

Shot: Public support for abortion is at one of the highest levels ever.

Chaser: “Center-right lawmakers representing swing districts from New York to California are sounding the alarm that their party’s strategy on abortion rights has backfired.”

2024 Ephemera

  • UT-2: Republican Celeste Maloy won a special election to the seat resigned by Rep. Chris Stewart. Maloy was Stewart’s chief congressional counsel
  • CA-16: Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) announced she won’t run again in 2024 after three decades in Congress.
  • OH-6: Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH) will step down from his seat early next year to become the new president of Youngstown State University.

Danger Sign

As part of its bogus impeachment inquiry into President Biden, the GOP-controlled House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed a prosecutor in the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office who has been involved in the Hunter Biden case.

Put another way: The House GOP is using its made-up claims of political interference in the Hunter Biden investigation as a pretext for engaging in political interference in the Hunter Biden investigation.

Not Just Canada?

Financial Times:

US authorities thwarted a conspiracy to assassinate a Sikh separatist on American soil and issued a warning to India’s government over concerns it was involved in the plot, according to multiple people familiar with the case. …

The US informed some allies about the plot following the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian Sikh separatist killed in Vancouver in June. In September, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there were “credible allegations” linking New Delhi to Nijjar’s fatal shooting.

The Rare MM Product Recommendation

With Mint going the way of the dinosaur, now is a good time for me to recommend one of my absolutely favorites products (I have no affiliation of any kind other than as a user). If you’re looking for a replacement for Mint, or are determined to get your personal finances on solid footing in the new year, or just want a fresh start with a new and different way of managing your money, I can’t recommend YNAB (You Need A Budget) enough.

YNAB has been around for a while. I’ve been using it for almost eight years. I’ve recommended it to friends and family. I’ve used it for joint budgeting with my partner. I’ve used it (with some success) to teach my kids about their own finances.

The only caveat I would offer is that when I started using it, YNAB was very stripped down, remarkably simple, and deeply intuitive (but in ways that are very different from most other budgeting apps or approaches). Since then, it’s added a lot of bells and whistles, so I don’t know how your own introductory experience with the current version will differ from mine with the older version. But I took to it like a fish to water. I suspect you will, too.

It was a life-changing discovery because beyond the mechanics of the app itself, there is an entire mindset around money that YNAB shares via webinars, podcasts, and myriad other forms of outreach. It’s not a harsh or unforgiving approach. It’s full of grace and flexibility. It’s all about aligning your money and your priorities and keeping them in sync.

If you lean toward the frugal and anal retentive (hi, my name is David), you will love the precision and clarity YNAB provides. If money and everything around money has always been a black hole of stress, anxiety, and self-recrimination for you, YNAB can offer reassurance, clarity, and freedom from guilt. If your intimate relationships are plagued by discord around money, YNAB can be an effective mediator: YNAB don’t judge and don’t care. The math is the math, and YNAB can’t change that. But by making the math so obvious, it tees up clear choices for you to make decisions about.

The YNAB testimonials I’ve heard over the years are so cool because there’s no magic, no promise of getting rich quick, no special sauce – and yet the results for people who use it consistently can be off-the-charts in a relatively short time. People come in with finances that are a mess and turn things around in a way that fundamentally changes their relationship with money. People whose finances are solid can turbocharge their savings in ways that open up new possibilities and give them more options. Your mileage may vary, of course.

Good luck in your personal finance journey!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I started doing Morning Memo a year ago this month, and I am supremely thankful for your support, encouragement and feedback, especially in the aftermath of the fatal sailing accident I was involved in last month. The past year of MM has been a lot of fun and very rewarding for me personally.

Thanksgiving is hands down my favorite holiday: cooking and eating with minimal commercialism. I hope you’re able to spend yours with people who mean something to you.

The kids have been trickling in since the weekend, so I’m going to fry up a mess of bacon and eggs before the work day starts. I’ll see you again Monday.

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!

Hijacking Government For Personal Vendettas Not Going Over Well Back Home

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

Turns out grinding the government to a halt during a time of global crisis to flex power over your colleagues doesn’t go over super well with the viewers back home.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is experiencing some political repercussions for dumping gasoline on his fractured party’s descent into dysfunction when he ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for the sin of keeping the government open. While the congressman is still popular in his Panhandle home district, his standing in Florida overall is in a state of disrepair.

Continue reading “Hijacking Government For Personal Vendettas Not Going Over Well Back Home” →