Deflection, ducking and hasty backpedaling have been the hallmarks of many of the 2024 Republican president candidates’ approach to abortion, a sea change from the not-so-distant past when it was their party’s key electoral carrot.
Continue reading “Republican Presidential Candidates Show What A Dangerous Issue Abortion Is For Them”No, Jack Smith Isn’t Leaking All The Damning Mar-A-Lago Evidence
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Where’s It Coming From?
I’ve had quite a few questions in recents weeks from lay persons and readers about the stream of revelations coming out about the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation.
The short answer is that the sources of the flurry of stories we’ve seen are witnesses in the case or, more precisely, their lawyers. Trump World figures, in responding and reacting to some of the disclosures, have divulged some new information, too, but that’s been less revealing of the underlying facts than of potential defenses they might use and the public narrative they want to create.
None of the big reveals about the MAL evidence from the last few weeks bear much sign of having come from Smith, the FBI, or DOJ more broadly.
Kurt Eichenwald, the veteran investigative reporter, had a good thread on the dynamics:
As Eichenwald notes, the timing of these revelations is probably another sign that we’re nearing the end of the pre-indictment phase of the case.
Is This The Week?
The core investigative work of Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team has appeared from the outside at least to have been done for some time. Now we have the steady stream of leaks about the evidence, and a few other signals that indictments may be forthcoming:
- The MAL grand jury in DC is expected to reconvene this week after a month-long hiatus, NBC News reports. This is fueling speculation that Smith is bringing the grand jury back in to issue indictments. That’s not confirmed, or even the only possible reason for the grand jury work to resume. For what it’s worth, this grand jury has typically met on Thursdays and Fridays.
- CBS News’ Robert Costa had a cryptic tweet yesterday that Trump lawyers “could meet” with DOJ this week. Defense lawyers meeting with prosecutors one last time to try to stave off indictment would not be uncommon. But the vague wording of Costa’s tweet doesn’t offer much concrete to go on:
Another Recording That Is Bad For Trump In MAL Case
The drip, drip, drip of evidence in the MAL case includes new reporting from the NYT on a voice memo that Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran made about his representation of Trump that Jack Smith now has.
Oops!
Trump attorneys have not found the classified document that the former president was apparently referring to on a recording made of him in 2021 that is now in the hands of Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Smith subpoenaed the document about a potential attack on Iran and related materials in March after he came into possession of the recording.
Does Trump still have the document? Did Trump already return it to the National Archives? Does the document even exist or was Trump engaging in puffery on the recording? It’s not clear.
Not Sure What To Make Of This
The WaPo had a story Friday about Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis’ criminal investigation of election interference in the 2020 election that said it “has broadened to include activities in D.C. and several states, according to two people with knowledge of the probe.”
A thread throughout the WaPo story is that Willis is pushing the bounds, overreaching with her ambition, and stretching the state’s RICO statute in what the paper calls her “ever-widening scope.” I’m not sure what that criticism is based on at this point, since very little is known about her theory of the case.
It’s not even clear to me from the WaPo article whether Willis is really broadening the scope of her probe to other states or is merely seeking evidence in other states to tie up loose ends and firm up her narrative of the case.
DOJ Closes Pence Classified Doc Probe
The Justice Department notified former Vice President Mike Pence last week that it has closed its investigation of his improper retention of classified materials without bringing charges.
Pence, who is launching his presidential campaign Wednesday, was never expected to be charged. He had initiated a search of his own home for such materials after the Mar-a-Lago classified docs investigation blew open and President Biden’s lawyers had found classified documents at Biden’s home and DC think tank. Pence voluntary turned over the documents and otherwise cooperated with the investigation.
No More Screen Time For You!
Secret Service agents missed the intruder entering and leaving the DC home of Biden National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in part because they were distracted by their personal phones, CNN reports.
Fighter Jets Scrambled Over DC
In an incident that has many of the hallmarks of cabin depressurization, a wayward private plane flew through restricted airspace over Washington, D.C., Sunday afternoon, forcing fighter jets from Joint Base Andrews and two other military bases to scramble to intercept it. The pilot of the plane was non-responsive, and it eventually crashed in rural Virginia. President Biden was playing golf at Andrews around the time of the incident. A Florida businessman listed as owner of the plane told news outlets that his daughter and granddaughter were among those aboard. The wreckage of the plane was found late Sunday. There were no survivors.
ICYMI
Tim Alberta’s devastating profile of CNN CEO Chris Licht confirms most of the suspicions about the cable news net’s lurch to the center.
Tennessee Drag Ban Unconstitutional
A federal judge has ruled Tennessee’s drag show ban an unconstitutionally vague affront to the First Amendment.
Another Migrant Relocation Stunt?
Under circumstances that remain very murky, a group of about 16 migrants were taken from Texas to New Mexico and then flown by private chartered plane to Sacramento and left at a church there, according to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
You’ll recall last year’s stunt by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in which the state took migrants from Texas and flew them to Martha’s Vineyard and dumped them there with no support.
One potential wrinkle of note in the Sacramento case: California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the migrants were “in possession of documentation purporting to be from the government of the State of Florida.”
Quote Of The Week
Sci-fi writer Ted Chiang:
There was an exchange on Twitter a while back where someone said, “What is artificial intelligence?” And someone else said, “A poor choice of words in 1954.” And, you know, they’re right. I think that if we had chosen a different phrase for it, back in the ’50s, we might have avoided a lot of the confusion that we’re having now.
I Love This So Much
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) put out a video claiming she refused to cast a vote on the debt ceiling package last week as a “protest” – but here’s video of her racing up the steps of Capitol the night of the vote and being told by a CNN producer that the vote had already closed:
Elon Musk’s Twitter adding a fact-check to the Boebert tweet is the cherry on top.
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DeSantis Copycat?
We have another mystery on our hands. Someone bused more than a dozen migrants from El Paso into New Mexico and then put them on a private jet which flew them to Sacramento. They were then dropped off in front of a Catholic church with no pre-arrangement or warning. Like the the DeSantis/Martha’s Vineyard stunt last year the migrants were apparently lured or tricked into getting on the plane. California authorities are now trying to get to the bottom of who was behind it.
Tapas And Social Revolutions
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It first appeared on our publisher Joe Ragazzo’s newsletter, Rhapsody.
I recently had a few too many drinks and purchased all 12 seasons of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. So, I’ve been making my way through those, in no particular order. The other day I watched the episode in which he visits Spain for the first time, which mostly takes place in Granada during Holy Week. If you’ve never seen the show, first and foremost, rectify that. Second, the format is as follows: Bourdain is led around by someone who knows the area, and especially the food culture. Sometimes this is a friend, sometimes it’s not. In this case it was actually his long-time cameraman who lives in Granada with his wife, who is from there.
Bourdain learns that in Spain, customers don’t pay for tapas, which are small plates of food meant to be shared. Instead, when you buy, say, a glass of wine, you are just given a plate. At one point the host says, “if someone could figure out the math, this would really take off” in America.” Bourdain says, no never. It would be changing the entire culture. Could not happen.
Just to be clear, there is no gimmick here. The glasses of wine were a few dollars. The tapas are not just some peanuts — we’re talking clams, mussels, little lamb chops, cheese, olives, etc. If there is any scheme involved, it’s that they hope eating a small dish or two will induce patrons to order large meals, which unlike tapas are not handed out gratis. But you don’t have to do that.
Now maybe you, the reader, know of a place where you can do this here in America. I don’t. Bourdain did not. I’ve been to so-called tapas restaurants and this was not how they operated. The small plates were there, yes, but you ordered and paid for all of them.
So the question is, why? Why couldn’t this work?
One reason is simply that we have a culture of profit maximization and the restaurant business isn’t any different. But, even if you don’t want to screw everyone, it’s tough. I think back to when I’d go to a place called the Bushwick Kitchen. I got to know the owners pretty well. Once they were telling me how people were complaining that their prices were too high. This was partly because they didn’t have a liquor license yet and that’s really where you make all the money.
But the larger reason was they had to pay rent, they said. I distinctly remember the one guy saying, “Yeah, I could charge less, but then I won’t be able to live anywhere.” This is the flip side of my last essay where I bemoaned large corporations gouging everyone. This is a case where landlords who more or less contribute nothing to society have an outsized role in the prices we pay for just about everything, which of course will squeeze small business owners most of all. When I go to a diner in Manhattan and a club sandwich is twice as expensive as in Brooklyn, that isn’t because bread, roast beef and tomatoes are magically more expensive across the East River. It’s in large part because of rent.
In Spain, landlords are limited in how much they can increase rent. It’s tied to inflation. You can’t raise prices more than the consumer-price index, so if inflation was 5% and your lease was up, the most your landlord could increase the rent would be 5%. Compare that to New York City, where in April, the New York City Rent Guidelines Board suggested a 15.75% increase for rent-stabilized apartments — the ones that are supposed to be protected! If your apartment isn’t rent-stabilized, it could go up by as much as the landlord wants. Fortunately, a preliminary board vote in May signaled increases will be much lower than that.
Now from what I can tell, only seven states in the United States have any form of rent control at all. Meanwhile, 37 states pre-empt or prohibit rent control.
I don’t really have much interest here in arguing about rent policy, specifically. I merely want to draw attention to the fact these are choices we make as a society. We don’t have to allow landlords to have so much influence on pricing broadly. First and foremost, we could prioritize making sure people have affordable housing by building more housing. But building more housing and instituting more protections for renters and homeowners — these are not necessarily things powerful interests are keen on. This is why more states prohibit protections than allow them. Nor is affordable housing necessarily encouraged by the invisible hand. Perhaps most upsetting from a social perspective are the people out there in the NIMBY crowd, like New York State Senator Jack Martins, who see housing plans as “an attack on our suburban communities.” Read into that as you like.
But much, much larger cultural conventions have been toppled in human history. In the Middle Ages, what we now call feudalism was philosophically supported by a concept called the Great Chain of Being. It’s one of these ideas so thoroughly foreign to my modern ears I assumed it was more of an academic abstraction that had been projected backwards, but this is not the case. The Great Chain of Being basically held that there was a natural hierarchy of all things:
- God
- Angelic beings
- Humans
- Animals
- Plants
- Minerals
Each of these categories were then subdivided further. Seraphim were ranked higher than regular angels. Kings were above all humans, nobles were ranked higher than peasants. Men were ranked higher than women. Every facet of life was subdivided this way. This supported and gave logical coherence to a hierarchical society based on privilege and birth. Every once in a while, someone would come along and upset the order and bad things would happen. Like when Richard, 3rd Duke of York, challenged Henry VI for the English throne — leading to the infamous Wars of the Roses between the Houses of Lancaster and York. Suddenly, the lines of succession were challenged and the Great Chain of Being was weakened. Finally, when the Enlightenment took hold of Europe, the Great Chain of Being was irreparably smashed.
Of course, this Great Chain of Being didn’t exist in, say, North America, where people had been experimenting with various social arrangements and governments for thousands of years before Europeans showed up. But the point is, the Chain existed until it didn’t.
Down in Teotihuacan — near modern-day Mexico City — archaeologists and anthropologists are uncovering evidence of a more dramatic social revolution that occurred much earlier. In the Dawn of Everything, David Graeber and David Wengrow explain how around 300 AD the Teotihuacans, after smashing temples and pyramids, “embarked on a remarkable project of urban renewal, supplying high-quality apartments for nearly all the city’s population, regardless of wealth or status.”
If that is too “big” of an example of cultural change, or just too remote, consider a more practical change. My brother, who is a firefighter, was in town for Memorial Day and he was telling me about how Benjamin Franklin’s first fire department required you to have insurance — represented by a little plaque on your home — or they’d just leave and let your home burn down. A similar little scheme propelled the Roman Marcus Licinius Crassus to become one of the richest Romans to ever live. Fires were very common occurrences in Rome, in part because they used olive oil for just about everything from bathing to lighting rooms to dipping bread. So if your domicile was on fire, you had to pay Crassus to put it out.
Today, we expect our firefighters to fight fires regardless of our insurance status. We don’t think that humans are ranked hierarchically by birth (at least, most of us). We don’t have to allow landlords to exert outsize influence over the entire country or leave affordable housing to market conditions. We don’t have to do anything. We just need to remember that none of our policies, none of our customs—nothing is set in stone, however the people who benefit from the current policies will do whatever they can to ensure you think there is no other way. Don’t be fooled. Please, for the love of tapas, do not be fooled.
Former Gun Company Executive Explains Roots of America’s Gun Violence Epidemic
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.
From the movie theater to the shopping mall, inside a church and a synagogue, through the grocery aisle and into the classroom, gun violence has invaded every corner of American life. It is a social epidemic no vaccine can stem, a crisis with no apparent end. Visual evidence of the carnage spills with numbing frequency onto TV shows and floods the internet. Each new shooting brings the lists of loved ones lost, the galleries of their smiling photos and the videos of the police response. And each mass shooting brings another surge of national outrage.
Continue reading “Former Gun Company Executive Explains Roots of America’s Gun Violence Epidemic”New Anti-Trans Laws Will Hurt Indigenous Peoples’ Rights And Religious Expression
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.
Montana’s Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte became the latest to sign several new anti-transgender laws, including one that will prevent gender-affirming medical care for minors.
One thing these new laws do not take into account is that the 12 federally recognized tribes in Montana have historically recognized multiple gender identities, including transgender identities. Most Indigenous peoples recognize multiple gender identities that are believed to be the result of supernatural intervention.
Continue reading “New Anti-Trans Laws Will Hurt Indigenous Peoples’ Rights And Religious Expression”Texas Sets Off Right-Wing Bidding War With ERIC Departure
For years, voter fraud activist Alan Vera made a regular pilgrimage to the Texas state Capitol. He urged lawmakers to pass laws tightening registration requirements, and grew close enough with GOP legislators that, when his birthday came around this past April, they serenaded him with “Happy Birthday” while giving him a big cookie with a candle to blow out.
Continue reading “Texas Sets Off Right-Wing Bidding War With ERIC Departure”Iowa State Auditor Accuses Republicans Of ‘Corrupt’ Attempt To Block His Investigations
Iowa’s governor, Republican Kim Reynolds, signed a new law on Thursday evening that will significantly restrict the ability of the state auditor — Iowa’s top watchdog — to perform his duties. State Auditor Rob Sand (D) responded with a blistering statement describing the legislation as “the worst pro-corruption bill in Iowa history.”
Continue reading “Iowa State Auditor Accuses Republicans Of ‘Corrupt’ Attempt To Block His Investigations”Fox News Shows CNN How A Trump Town Hall Is Done
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Back To What Really Matters
With the GOP-driven debt ceiling debacle behind us, it’s important to remember that it was merely a symptom of the deeper, authoritarian rot. The tear-it-all-down impulse, the urge to inflict pain and suffering on perceived enemies, the opposition to democracy and democratic institutions all remain as animating forces within the Republican Party.
So it was not a surprise to see Sean Hannity reprise his role as chief lickspittle to Donald Trump in a televised “town hall” format last night. But what was amusing and a little revealing was to see Fox News take such a different tack from CNN’s own widely panned Trump “town hall” last month.
Still smarting from its landmark defamation settlement with Dominion Voting Systems and still under the gun with the pending Smartmatic lawsuit, Fox News decided not to broadcast the Trump “town hall” live. Rather than risk broadcasting more Trump lies about the 2020 election, Fox News recorded and edited the event. And it showed.
As The Guardian noted, last night’s broadcast contained no mention of the 2020 Big Lie. The Guardian suggests those references were edited out. Perhaps. Or maybe Hannity managed to steer Trump away from that minefield. It’s not clear to me.
Regardless though, Fox News gave itself the chance to exercise more editorial control over its event than CNN did over its own. One caveat: Fox News is airing more of the Trump event tonight, so we’ll see how that goes.
Trump Responds To MAL Recording
During the Iowa “town hall” broadcast, Trump was asked by Sean Hannity about the July 2021 recording of him touting a classified document in an interview after leaving office. The recording has emerged as a key bit of evidence in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago documents investigation. Trump responded: “I don’t know anything about it. All I know is this: Everything I did was right.”
More On The MAL Recording
- Harry Litman: The DOJ’s classified documents case was already dire for Trump. Now it looks even worse
- NYT: Recording of Trump Underscores Growing Evidence in Documents Case
- Philip Bump: Why a recording of Trump discussing classified documents would be important
Oh …
A retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who kept classified documents at his home and other unauthorized locations was sentenced to three years in federal prison.
Trump Attorney Takes On Wider Role
Todd Blanche, an attorney brought on to defend Trump in the criminal hush money case against in Manhattan, is now also involved with handling Trump’s defense in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago and Jan. 6 probes.
Durham Victim Looking To Write A Tell-All
It looks like Igor Danchenko is looking to shop a tell-all book about being targeted by Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation of the investigators, according to advertisement for a ghost writer obtained by TPM. Danchenko was acquitted by a federal jury in DC, one of the two big courtroom defeats for Durham.
Senate Raises Debt Ceiling In Late Night Vote
The Senate moved very quickly to protect its weekend – and also avoid a default by the federal government – by lifting the debt ceiling in a late night vote. The debt ceiling package now goes to President Biden for his signature:
The Heavy Toll Of The Big Lie
A Republican elected official in Maricopa County, Arizona who refused to go along with the Big Lie, leading to numerous threats against him and his family and forcing them to flee their home, will not run for re-election next year.
2024 Ephemera
- CA-Sen: Weird that in a race framed by retiring Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s old age a story about former major leaguer Steve Garvey considering running for the GOP nomination makes no mention that, if he won, he’d be 76 years old at the beginning of his term.
- DE-Sen: Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), the heir apparent to retiring Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) is expected to launch her Senate campaign this month.
A Dose Of Real Talk About This Town
Matt Duss: The Bad Thing Henry Kissinger Did That You Don’t Even Know About
LOL
Hundreds of thousands of Maryland license plates commemorating the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 display a url that someone forgot to renew the domain for and now redirects to an online casino in the Philippines:
My favorite take on this though comes from Walt Hickey, who questions commemorating the War of 1812 in the first place: “In 2012, Maryland inexplicably decided to release a vanity license plate design commemorating the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, best known in popular culture as the one that prompted an unplanned gut renovation of the White House.”
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The False Equivalence Between The ‘Far Right’ And The ‘Hard Left’
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
Here’s how, in its lead story Thursday, the New York Times described the House’s vote to resolve Republicans’ self-imposed debt-ceiling crisis:
Continue reading “The False Equivalence Between The ‘Far Right’ And The ‘Hard Left’”“With both far-right and hard-left lawmakers in revolt over the deal, it fell to a bipartisan coalition powered by Democrats to push the bill over the finish line, throwing their support behind the compromise in an effort to break the fiscal stalemate that had gripped Washington for weeks.”