Far right Twitter clone site Parler announces Kanye’s purchase of Parler is off.
From Parler HQ: “Parlement Technologies has confirmed that the company has mutually agreed with Ye to terminate the intent of sale of Parler. This decision was made in the interest of both parties in mid-November. Parler will continue to pursue future opportunities for growth and the evolution of the platform for our vibrant community.”
So this was the last straw.
Rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, appeared on Alex Jones’ far-right conspiracy theory swamp show InfoWars on Thursday and unapologetically praised Adolf Hitler. The shocking remarks, which even the far-right troll Jones tried to steer West away from saying, were apparently a bridge too far for some House Republicans.
During the InfoWars show, West began to acclaim Hitler after Jones tried to defend the rapper’s recent antisemitic statements. West and former President Donald Trump made headlines over the Thanksgiving holiday for having dinner with far-right leader and white nationalist Nick Fuentes at Mar-A-Lago last week. And Ye has experienced intense backlash recently for making antisemetic remarks, leading to his Twitter account being suspended last month and Adidas dropping his profitable Yeezy shoeline.
“You’re not Hitler,” Jones said. “You’re not a Nazi.”
“Well, I see good things about Hitler,” West said from behind a black mask that covered his entire face. “Every human being has value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler.”
During the show an out-of-character Jones seemed to be caught off-guard by West’s comments, and tried to change the subject multiple times. But the rapper kept going.
“They did good things too,” West said of the Nazis, as Jones tried to change the subject. “We’ve got to stop dissing the Nazis all the time.”
Jones even questioned if West was actually behind the mask at one point.
“I don’t like Nazis,” Jones said. “I like Hitler,” West replied.
Shortly after Ye’s comments, writer and filmmaker Matt Fulton noted that the House Judiciary GOP Twitter account had just deleted, seemingly sometime this afternoon, a tweet from October 2022 that said, “Kanye. Elon. Trump.” Fulton noticed the tweet was deleted a few minutes after he retweeted the tweet from earlier this fall, saying, “Easily one of the greatest tweets of all time at this point.”
One twitter user even caught the moment the tweet disappeared on camera.
Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) was elected assistant minority leader on Thursday, after surprise challenger Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) dropped out moments before the closed door vote.
Continue reading “Cicilline Drops Out Moments Before Dem Leadership Vote, Clyburn Elected Assistant Leader”Like many others I’ve been watching the alt-right take over of Twitter evolve in real time. The whole operation is now chained to the manic outbursts and enthusiasms of majority owner Elon Musk and he — as I explained here — is locked in an increasingly tight embrace with a series of far right accounts who keep buttering him up into an escalating froth about how his battle for “free speech” on Twitter is a battle in which the future of humanity at stake. “This is a battle for the future of civilization. If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead,” he tweeted on Monday. (Seriously, I watch this clown so you don’t have to …) But just over the last couple days it does seem like there’s a purge of progressive accounts on the site.
At first some of the banned account were ones that can be reasonably classed as radical anti-fascist accounts. To be clear, I do not in any way equate these groups with the fascist paramilitaries they oppose. But these are groups that mobilize to confront Proud Boys type groups on the streets. Some provide armed security at LGBTQ events and other marginalized group/threatened events. It’s plausible that they might say things that could be reasonably construed as endorsing violence. They might be “doxxing” far right individuals. My point is that in a climate of unequal enforcement of Twitter’s terms of service they might actually be violating those terms of service. Again, I’m not justifying their suspensions. I’m providing context for what might be driving them.
Continue reading “The Alt Right Shows Who’s Boss”A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss the to-be Republican House in disarray and Donald Trump getting punked on his own turf.
You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.
Cheryl Parsa is the latest in a long line of women who have come forward with allegations of violent behavior against Georgia’s GOP senate nominee Herschel Walker in recent months and years. And she’s the first to come out on the record with accusations since he announced his Senate bid in August 2021.
Dallas resident Parsa described an intimate yet turbulent five-year relationship with Walker to the Daily Beast.
Continue reading “Ex-Girlfriend Comes Forward On The Record With New Violent Allegations Against Walker”Let me game out a few possibilities on the speakership vote. And let me say first, these remain quite hypothetical. I think Kevin McCarthy will become Speaker. But it’s worth walking through how different scenarios could play out.
First, as we know, to be elected Speaker you have to win a majority of the chamber. In other words, 218 out of 435 votes. A majority of your own party doesn’t cut it. That’s why having such a narrow majority makes everything so difficult. Other unexpected events can become very important. The passing of Rep. Donald McEachin (D-VA), who died on Monday, could turn out to be significant in how this plays out, a point we’ll get to in a moment.
Continue reading “Gaming Out the Numbers in the Kevin McCarthy Tunnel of Doom”A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Back in early 2019, after Democrats won the House and were poised to start holding Donald Trump accountable, I cautioned our staff that these things take time, so don’t be impatient and don’t rush to judge the pace of accountability.
At the time there was growing public pressure on House Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal (D-MA) to immediately obtain Trump’s tax returns from the IRS. A lot of people thought Neal was being too cautious and too slow. I was dubious. Give the guy a half a second to get his feet under him and sort out an order of priorities. Tax returns are one avenue for accountability … blah blah blah.
I was wrong.
Congressional Democrats across the board were slow, they weren’t ready on Day One for the legal and political warfare ahead, and it cost them and the country.
And so it is that almost four years later, with one month left before Dems lose control of the House, Richie Neal finally obtained Trump’s vaunted tax returns with too little time left to do much about them.
A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., has subpoenaed raw video footage of Jan. 6 from filmmaker Alex Holder in what Playbook calls “a new avenue” in the Justice Department’s criminal investigations of the Jan. 6 attack. “The new subpoena … does not appear to be related to the DOJ’s criminal investigation of Trump himself,” Playbook reports.
Politico: Meet the legal nerd who MAGA bigwigs are turning to for help.
Just a taste of the corrosive, toxic, retaliatory, and absurd approach to politics the House GOP will bring to the last two years of the Biden presidency:
Kevin McCarthy is the passive-aggressive flip-side to Jim Jordan’s undisguised aggression. McCarthy sent Jan. 6 committee chair Bennie Thompson a pissy, disrespectful letter yesterday demanding that he preserve all records from the panel’s work. It hits all the notes of a troll in the Fox News comments section.
As the Jan. 6 committee winds down, it completed its last witness interviews Wednesday, according to panel char Bennie Thompson (D-MS). The final witness was Wisconsin House Speaker Robin Vos (R). Also interviewed this week: Kellyanne Conway and former Secret Service agent Tony Ornato.
The chair of the Georgia GOP was so central to the 2020 fake electors scheme that he can’t share defense counsel with the other fake electors caught up in the investigation by Fulton County DA Fani Willis, a state judge ruled.
Closing arguments begin today in the New York criminal trial of the Trump Org.
Here’s a good cheat sheet on a key issue jurors will have to resolve.
The last Pennsylvania county holding out on certifying the 2022 elections has relented. I believe that leaves Cochise County, Arizona, as the only laggard in the country.
The game GOP-controlled Cochise County is playing in Arizona could cost Republicans a House seat.
Secretary of State Katie Hobbs is warning in filings made in her lawsuit against Cochise County that if it doesn’t certify the results by Dec. 8, the ballots from the county will not be included in the final count. That would be enough to flip the results of the House race in the AZ-06.
That would flip the results of the race for Arizona’s Sixth Congressional District, where Republican Juan Ciscomani holds a 5,232-vote lead over Democrat Kirsten Engel in unofficial results, as well as the race for state Superintendent of Public Instruction, where the Republican candidate has a narrow lead.
Rep. Matt Gaetz’s old running buddy Joel Greenberg is scheduled to be sentenced in his sex trafficking case today. Greenberg pleaded guilty and cooperated with investigators, who are trying to give him some credit for his cooperation when its comes to sentencing, but in a surprise development the sentencing judge expressed deep skepticism toward both sides in a hearing Wednesday. The judge seems to think Greenberg deserves a stiffer sentence than range prosecutors and the defendant came up with. “The parties are under agreement about something I don’t agree with,” the judge reportedly said.
The House intervened in the labor dispute between railroads and workers, trying to avert a nationwide rail strike during the holidays. The 290-137 vote to impose a new labor agreement comes at a steep price for workers. The bill’s future in the Senate is very uncertain.
Axios: The Republicanization of Elon Musk
My PR Day of Yes: I accepted every publicist pitch I got for a full day. If only I knew what I’d done.
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Since the Georgia Senate race headed to a Dec. 6 runoff, GOP nominee Herschel Walker has been plagued by revelations that he is more Texan than Georgian. It is questionable how much of the new information around his residency will matter in a state where many see him as a football god, but reporting solidifies that the Georgia football star appears to have been living near Dallas until last year.
Continue reading “What’s The Upshot Of Herschel Walker’s Residency Issues?”Whatever happened to reforming the Electoral Count Act (ECA)? Earlier this year, Democrats were confident they would be able to pass some sort of reform to the 1887 law that dictates how election results are certified. But time for the 117th Congress is running out, and pro-democracy groups and election law experts have begun to worry that the lame duck session could wrap up without the legislation making it across the finish line.
“The closer you get to the 2024 cycle, it’s not helpful,” Holly Idelson, a policy advocate at the nonpartisan think tank Protect Democracy, told TPM. “We really think it’s vital that this get done this session. That is a sentiment we’ve heard from many believers as well.”
Continue reading “Experts Worry Congress Might Run Out Of Time To Pass Legislation To Prevent Next Jan. 6”
