This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.
Los Angeles had oil wells pumping in its neighborhoods when Hollywood was in its infancy, and thousands of active wells still dot the city.
Continue reading “LA’s Long, Troubled History With Urban Oil Drilling Is Nearing An End After Years Of Health Concerns”A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
The first and only president to launch a coup attempt from inside the Oval Office has yet to face criminal charges for that travesty, and now there’s a chance the first thing he’ll be criminally charged with will be a hush money scheme with a porn actress that helped get him elected in the first place.
American politics is weird.
The newly reinvigorated probe of the Stormy Daniels scheme by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who initially shelved the probe when he took office last year, is now full steam head.
Trump Org controller Jeffrey McConney is expected to testify today to a New York grand jury investigating the matter, CNN reports.
Prosecutors have circled back to Michael Cohen, the former Trump fixer and lawyer, who is a key figure in the hush money scheme. Cohen says he was interviewed for about 2 1/2 hours by investigators, who want access to his phone.
“Most recently, they asked for my cell phones because they want to be able to extract from it the voice recordings that I had had with Keith Davidson, former attorney to Stormy Daniels before Michael Avenatti, as well as a bunch of emails, text messages and so on, that way it could be used as evidence if in fact they proceed forward, which I suspect they are,” Cohen said on CNN.
New York Times Magazine goes deep on the Atlanta district attorney investigating Donald Trump’s 2020 election subversion efforts in Georgia:
Late on the first Sunday of 2021, news broke of President Donald J. Trump’s call with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of Georgia, asking him to “find 11,780 votes” to help contest the 2020 election. The next morning — Monday, Jan. 4 — was Fani Willis’s first day in the office as the district attorney for Fulton County, which encompasses most of Atlanta, as well as suburbs like Sandy Springs, East Point and Alpharetta. “Not the second day,” she told me when I met with her in November. “My very first day in this office — in that conference room, it’s all over the TV.” She found herself hoping that the secretary of state might have been “in another county when it happened,” she said, laughing darkly. He was not. And so, Willis said, “I’m stuck with it.”
NYT: Bias and Human Error Played Parts in F.B.I.’s Jan. 6 Failure, Documents Suggest
Not a good look for the College Board. It watered down the AP African American Studies curriculum after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) complained loudly and publicly about it.
Gone from the revised curriculum:
Added to the revised curriculum:
President Biden consented to a FBI search of his Delaware beach home Wednesday morning for more improperly retained classified documents. None were found, according to Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer.
The search came the same day as Robert Hur officially began his work as special counsel in the matter, after disentangling himself from his DC law practice.
With Abbe Lowell now his lawyer, Hunter Biden has shifted to a new, more aggressive strategy to confront his legal and political woes.
Nicholas Malindretos, 26, of Clifton, N.J., was arrested and charged under federal law with allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail at the synagogue last weekend.
The FBI has reportedly interviewed the disabled veteran who claims George Santos pocketed the money from a GoFundMe campaign for the vet’s dying dog.
The Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger: “an autopsy of George Santos’ latest campaign finance filing reveals what experts are calling ‘a colossal mess’ and a ‘chaotic state of affairs.’”
CNN: Inside George Santos’ transformation from Anthony Devolder into a political figure
Do you like Morning Memo? Share it with your friends and family … and let us know!
There now appear to be multiple federal investigations of George Santos. This is in addition to a number of investigations in New York state. The one we learned about today is based on the truly hideous story in which Santos used his sham charity to raise $3,000 for life-saving surgery for a disabled vet’s service dog and then pocketed the money and let the dog die.
You can read the story here, if you haven’t already. It’s almost cartoonish in its horribleness.
Continue reading “Santos Touches the Third Rail of Big Dog”A reader pointed out to me that in this video, in which Santos is interviewed by ABC reporter Will Steakin, Santos appears to be wearing an AR-15 lapel pin. He was being asked about news that the FBI is now investigating him allegedly stealing $3,000 meant to save the life of a dying dog.
I will preface this by saying that it appears the issue has been resolved BUT for at least a few of the last 24 hours, Democrats held a supermajority on the subcommittee that Jim Jordan created to, essentially, find out what dirt the DOJ has on him.
That’s a bit reductive but not untrue. Here’s what happened:
Continue reading “Where Things Stand: Can’t Even Set Up Their Bogus Subcommittee Right”On the first day of Black History Month, the College Board sent to us a revised curriculum for their Advanced Placement African American Studies course, weeks after Florida governor and likely 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis (R) said that it “lacks educational value.”
Continue reading “College Board Strips Down African American Studies Course After DeSantis Loudly Rejects It”Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) might finally have the votes he needs to keep his longtime promise and block Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from sitting on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. This comes as Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) — who had previously indicated she would not vote to boot Omar — reversed her previous statement, saying she’ll now support McCarthy’s effort to vote Omar out, which could take place today.
Continue reading “Looks Like McCarthy Managed To Cobble Together Enough Votes To Oust Omar”To many it seems premature to be thinking concretely about these things or planning them. But that’s wrong. The most logical and least destructive path out of the GOP radicals’ debt-ceiling hostage taking is for Democrats to temporarily ally with a group of House Republicans to force a vote on a clean debt ceiling bill through a discharge petition.
A discharge petition is a parliamentary tool by which a majority of members signs a petition which then forces a bill to be brought to the floor for a vote.
Continue reading “Preparation”This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
President Biden might not be known, first and foremost, for his stirring public remarks, but there is one subject to which he always brings a rousing passion: his son Beau, who died of an aggressive brain cancer in the spring of 2015. Biden’s 2017 memoir Promise Me, Dad is a testament to their intense bond. Biden has described Beau as “all the best of me.” Grappling with grief, Biden chose not to run for president in 2016. He ran in 2020 in part because of one of his and Beau’s last conversations.
Continue reading “Biden Should Wed His Cancer Moonshot To The Energy Transition”A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
A floor vote to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from the House Foriegn Affairs Committee could come as soon as today after a flurry of late night activity to check procedural boxes.
Almost every story covering this brouhaha claims the GOP’s power move is because of Omar’s past anti-Semitic remarks. That may be the ostensible reason, but the House GOP is unabashed about the real reason: It is payback for Democrats removing Reps. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) from committees in the last Congress.
“You were warned. You were warned in the last Congress. You were warned if you went down this road,” Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) told Democrats.
The fact that payback involves targeting a Somalia-born, hijab-wearing member who was one of the first two Muslim women in Congress is just icing on the bad faith cake.
The vote seems less in doubt than it was a few days ago after Speaker Kevin McCarthy wrangled a couple of GOP holdouts.
It feels like we’re just waiting now for the next shoe to drop.
TPM’s Hunter Walker with a profile of the proudly transgressive Vish Burra, a Steve Bannon acolyte and former aide to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) who is now working for Rep. George Santos (R-NY).
There’s always that one guy who takes the GOP’s pretend freakout one step too far:
Rep. Eric Burlison compares DirecTV dropping Newsmax to the Holocaust pic.twitter.com/XsyefbbRTr
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 1, 2023
The former president invoked his 5th Amendment right not to incriminate himself some 400 odd times in last summer’s deposition by New York Attorney General Tish James. CBS obtained some of the video of the deposition. Watch.
CNN: “The New York attorney general’s office is asking a judge to sanction former President Donald Trump, his adult children and their attorneys after taking issue with their legal responses to the $250 million fraud lawsuit filed last year.”
Two of the people hired by Donald Trump to search four of his properties for additional classified records testified last week to a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., CNN reports. Their November search found two more classified documents at a storage facility in Florida.
It had not been previously disclosed that the FBI searched the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement after the November discovery by President Biden’s lawyers of classified documents retained from his vice presidency.
I just can’t devote any brain cells to the arcane ins and outs of this particular faux GOP obsession, but thankfully others have taken on this difficult task. If you’re into it, or merely want to understand the byzantine references and shorthand, Asha Rangappa has a reference guide to catch you up.
The rollout of Biden-targeted circus investigations commences today:
The failed GOP candidate for the state House who bought into his own Big Lie theory and allegedly masterminded a shooting spree targeting Democratic elected officials has been indicted on 14 counts, including three counts of conspiracy to commit a shooting at a dwelling, three counts of shooting from a motor vehicle, and one count of aggravated battery.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) announced that he plans to defund diversity, equity and inclusion programs in every public university in the state.
Another of the handful of residents of The Villages in Florida who double voted in 2020 has admitted to the crime.
“John Rider, 62, recently entered into a pre-trial intervention program that will allow him to avoid potential prison time if he successfully completes court-ordered requirements and refrains from violating the law,” according to a local report.
But here’s the kicker. Rider was ordered, among other things, to complete 50 hours of community service. But in some jurisdictions, you can “buy out” of your community service at a rate of $10 per hour. So he’ll pay $500 and skip the community service. Nice.
Defense counsel for the upcoming Oath Keepers trial were in high dudgeon over the … limited amount of space at the single table they were allocated in the courtroom.
U.S. District Amit Mehta acceded to their demands and gave them an additional table but not before roasting them in a minute order:
Judge MEHTA’s sarcasm just drips off the page here in response to the defense’s complaint about tables pic.twitter.com/NGIgsyi5bX
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) February 1, 2023
Do you like Morning Memo? Share it with your friends and family … and let us know!
