Today, the New York Times and a German publication named Die Zeit each published articles about last year’s Nord Stream pipeline bombing which pointed to the same conclusion: Russia didn’t do it.
Continue reading “Russia Didn’t Blow Up Nord Stream, US Intel Says”Tucker Carlson Convinces At Least One Guy With His Jan. 6 Nonsense: Elon Musk
Monday night Fox News host Tucker Carlson took to his conspiracy theory swamp show to lay out his latest cherry-picked take on the violent insurrection of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Continue reading “Tucker Carlson Convinces At Least One Guy With His Jan. 6 Nonsense: Elon Musk”Tucker Carlson and No Crying in Baseball
I understand that people are outraged by the Tucker Carlson/Kevin McCarthy video stunt. It’s natural and understandable to react negatively and angrily to liars and traitors. But this is not at all the best or most effective response. The first response is simply mockery. That’s the most logical response and also the most effective. Watch these videos. They’re moments when the insurrectionists weren’t breaking down doors or hitting Capitol Police over the head with flag poles. This is like showing a Zapruder film containing just the part where JFK is happily waving to the crowd in Dealey Plaza. He’s having a great time. Why does Oswald get such a bad rap? Similarly, it’s been shown that probably 99% of the time Osama bin Laden wasn’t blowing up anything. And yet, look at what’s gotten all the focus.
This is more Saturday Night Live skit than outrage.
Continue reading “Tucker Carlson and No Crying in Baseball”House Oversight Chair Calls It A ‘Mistake’ That US Didn’t Bomb Mexico During Trump Administration
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) said Tuesday morning that it was a “mistake” that the administration didn’t go through with bombing drug labs in Mexico after then-President Donald Trump suggested it in 2020.
Continue reading “House Oversight Chair Calls It A ‘Mistake’ That US Didn’t Bomb Mexico During Trump Administration”New York GOPers Double Down With New Bill That’ll Ensure Santos Can’t Profit Off His Lies
While New York Republicans can’t force Rep. George Santos (R-NY) to resign on his own – or get the rest of the House GOP’s thin majority to push him out – they are trying to ensure that Santos at least can’t profit off his lies.
Continue reading “New York GOPers Double Down With New Bill That’ll Ensure Santos Can’t Profit Off His Lies”Election Deniers Have A New Target In Big Lie Crusade: A Non-Profit That Does Voter Roll Maintenance
This week, three states caved to election deniers’ newest conspiracy theory and withdrew from a multistate voter-registration program—even though officials in at least one of the states recently admitted that it actually helped them root out double-voting issues.
Continue reading “Election Deniers Have A New Target In Big Lie Crusade: A Non-Profit That Does Voter Roll Maintenance”Abbott Has Spent Nearly $1 Billion To Complete Trump’s Wall. He’s Just Getting Started.
With nearly $1 billion spent, Texas officials are gearing up to dish out far more cash for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Continue reading “Abbott Has Spent Nearly $1 Billion To Complete Trump’s Wall. He’s Just Getting Started.”Biden Proposes Tax Hikes On Rich To Extend Life Of Medicare
President Joe Biden previewed a plan to extend the solvency of Medicare “at least into the 2050s” without cutting benefits Tuesday, an opening salvo as he prepares to release his full budget proposal later this week.
Continue reading “Biden Proposes Tax Hikes On Rich To Extend Life Of Medicare”How The ‘Holman Rule’ Allows The House To Fast-Track Proposals To Gut Government Programs Without Debate Or Much Thought At All
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.
The slim Republican majority in the House of Representatives has just voted to give itself a streamlined way to fire civil servants and shut down federal programs it doesn’t like — outside the standard process of review and debate.
Continue reading “How The ‘Holman Rule’ Allows The House To Fast-Track Proposals To Gut Government Programs Without Debate Or Much Thought At All”Kevin McCarthy’s Dirty Deal With Tucker Carlson Plays Out Exactly As Planned
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
We All Saw This Coming
The challenge this morning is how to alert you to a big dump of new misinformation without amplifying and validating it. The good news: This is an easier task when Kevin McCarthy and Tucker Carlson are involved because it is so transparent.
The speaker of the House gives special exclusive access to the security footage of the Jan. 6 attack on Congress to the leading propagandist minimizing, dismissing, and counter-programming the failed coup. What did you think was going to happen?
Monday night, Carlson began using the footage (much of which was already turned over to defense attorneys for the Jan. 6 rioters) to reinforce and continue to promulgate his made-up narrative that the attack consisted of peaceful “sightseers” touring the Capitol under escort:
More than 44,000 hours of surveillance footage from in and around the Capitol have been withheld from the public, and once you see the video, you’ll understand why. Taken as a whole, the video does not support the claim that Jan. 6 was an insurrection. In fact, it demolishes that claim.
Reporters who have covered the Jan. 6 attack and the criminal justice aftermath spent Monday evening debunking the Carlson segment in various ways: the footage isn’t actually new or unseen, it was selectively presented by Carlson, things he claimed were new or unknown were old and known, etc.
But of course the game plan here isn’t for McCarthy to simply provide Carlson with new fodder for predictable if outrageous segments on his show. In a pattern we all know too well, the Carlson segment takes the raw material and transmogrifies into even better, more useful fodder for all manner of elected Republicans, Jan. 6 deniers, other right-wing news outlets, and MAGA world.
Like clockwork, Republican House members seized on the Carlson segment:
My favorite response though was this tweet from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene:
The punchline, in case you missed it: Jacob Chansley, the easily recognized QAnon Shaman, didn’t go to trial; he pleaded guilty.
The easily mocked Carlson segment was, well, easily mocked:
Pence Resists Grand Jury Subpoena
Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday filed a motion to quash a federal grand jury subpoena of him in the Jan. 6 investigation on the grounds that it violates the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause, CNN reported.
As previously reported, former President Trump’s legal team on the same day raised executive privilege arguments to block Pence’s testimony.
The filings are sealed and the arguments will play out in secret because this remains in the confines of a grand jury proceeding.
Trump Tries To Get Toothpaste Back In The Tube
This is a weird one. Apparently Trump is now asserting executive and attorney-client privileges to try to block Special Counsel Jack Smith from using the grand jury testimony of former White House lawyers Pat Cipollone, Patrick Philbin and Eric Herschmann, ABC reported.
The ABC report is a little hard to parse, but it suggests that Smith has taken this argument to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to resolve and oral arguments may happen in secret this week.
Passantino Faces The Music
Stefan Passantino, the one-time lawyer for former Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson, is facing a bar complaint for his alleged misconduct in representing her.
Hope Hicks On The Spot In Hush Money Case
Former Trump aide Hope Hicks was at the Manhattan district attorney’s office yesterday as part of its investigation into the Stormy Daniels hush money scheme. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Hicks met with prosecutors or testified to the grand jury or both.
Fox Loses Its Top Lobbyist
As the fallout from the Dominion defamation suits continues, Fox Corp. is losing its top lobbyist. Danny O’Brien, who hails from Democratic circles and used to work for Joe Biden, is stepping down as EVP and head of government relations.
Why The SCOTUS Leak Investigation Failed
Former DOJ and DoD Inspector General Glenn Fine on why the Supreme Court’s investigation of the Dobbs draft leak was doomed from the start.
Biden Pushes Hard On Medicare
Biden is putting the social safety net at the center of his re-election campaign. With a NYT op-ed and a planned rollout today of a new plan for Medicare, Biden is drawing on the same tensions for the Republicans – they want to eliminate programs that are deeply popular among their aging political base – that he poked on Social Security in his State of the Union address.
Biden Considering Resuming Detaining Families At The Border
NYT:
The Biden administration is considering reviving the practice of detaining migrant families who cross the border illegally — the same policy the president shut down over the past two years because he wanted a more humane immigration system, officials familiar with the discussions said Monday.
Although no final decision has been made, the move would be a stark reversal for President Biden, who came into office promising to adopt a more compassionate approach to the border after the harsh policies of his predecessor, former President Donald J. Trump.
Moody’s Warns Of Crippling Effect Of Debt Limit Default
Moody’s Analytics chief economist of Mark Zandi is set to warn a Senate Banking subcommittee today that a debt limit default would crater the U.S. economy.
Elon Musk’s Latest Embarrassment
Platformer: How a single engineer brought down Twitter on Monday
America’s Great Home Heating Divide
What A Day That Was
Michelle Obama describes sobbing uncontrollably for 30 minutes aboard Air Force One after Trump’s inauguration.
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