Here’s an annotated version of the criminal complaint against David DePape, the QAnon domestic terrorist who allegedly broke into the home of Speaker Nancy Pelosi to kidnap her and shatter her legs.
Continue reading “The Criminal Complaint”On Twitter and Elon Musk
I’ve written several posts about Twitter and new boss Elon Musk recently. I’ll probably be writing more. I realize that for those of you who aren’t on Twitter this might seem like an odd or perhaps even annoying focus. This is a political news site, Josh. Why are you going on about Twitter? At one level, I’ve always followed the rule of letting my interests drive my writing focus at TPM. But I don’t write about my ideas about medieval history or my estimation of the new Charlie Watts biography. Here I write about things in the broadly political domain. And Musk’s absurd but consequential Twitter adventure is right at the center of the bigger political issues that animate our age.
Continue reading “On Twitter and Elon Musk”Trump Refuses To Allow Bolduc To Escape Election-Denier Past
It hasn’t escaped ex-president Donald Trump’s notice that GOP New Hampshire Senate nominee Don Bolduc is trying to wiggle away from his devout election denialism in his bid to unseat incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH).
Continue reading “Trump Refuses To Allow Bolduc To Escape Election-Denier Past”Elon Musk Responds With ‘No U’ Defense After Posting And Deleting Conspiracy Theory About Pelosi Attack
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, aka the new owner of Twitter, deleted on Sunday his tweet boosting a far-right conspiracy theory about the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) husband, Paul Pelosi — but instead of issuing a correction to his 112.4 million followers, the billionaire is attacking the media for reporting on his tweet.
Continue reading “Elon Musk Responds With ‘No U’ Defense After Posting And Deleting Conspiracy Theory About Pelosi Attack”A Note on the Polls
One simple note about the polls, especially if you’re a poll obsessive. There’s little question that trends have moved in a GOP direction since mid-October. But there is an important caveat to this. In key Senate races around the country, the polling zone has been absolutely flooded over the last couple weeks with partisan GOP polls. In some cases, I mean literally polls fielded by GOP committees or organizations. In other cases I mean polls like Rasmussen or Trafalgar which may be nominally independent but are clearly partisan and routinely have poll results more friendly to Republican candidates.
Continue reading “A Note on the Polls”A County Elections Director Stood Up to Locals Who Believe the Voting System Is Rigged. They Pushed Back Harder.
This article 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.
On a Saturday in late March, the woman who runs elections in the rural hills of Surry County, North Carolina, was pulling another weekend shift preparing for the upcoming primary, when she began to hear on the other side of her wall the thunder of impassioned speeches. She was dismayed that the voices were questioning the election she’d overseen in 2020 and implying that corrupted voting machines had helped steal it. She also believed it was no coincidence that the Surry County GOP convention — the highlight of which was a lecture from a nationally prominent proponent of the stolen-election myth — was taking place in a public meeting room right next to her office.
Continue reading “A County Elections Director Stood Up to Locals Who Believe the Voting System Is Rigged. They Pushed Back Harder.”Zip Ties Found At Pelosi’s Home After Attack On Her Husband, Cops Say
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
It Just Gets Worse
The San Francisco police told NBC News on Sunday that law enforcement had discovered zip ties at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) home on Friday when they were investigating the scene of the horrific assault on Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband, Paul Pelosi.
- They also found duct tape, according to CNN and ABC News.
- The alleged attacker, David DePape, faces charges of attempted murder, elder abuse, burglary, and other crimes connected to the attack, according to San Francisco Police Chief William Scott.
- DePape, who had regularly posted far-right conspiracy theories online, allegedly targeted Pelosi’s home specifically to find the House speaker, shouting “Where’s Nancy?” when he broke into the house. The California Democrat wasn’t home at the time.
- Pelosi’s son, Paul Pelosi Jr., signaled on Saturday that his father was still on track for a full recovery, telling reporters “So far, so good.” Paul Pelosi is recovering in the hospital after surgery for a skull fracture from the assault.
Halloween Tragedy In South Korea
At least 153 people were killed in South Korea over the weekend during a stampede at an outdoor Halloween celebration in Seoul.
Death Toll Climbs In India Bridge Collapse
At least 130 people have been confirmed dead in India after a bridge collapsed over a river in the city of Mobi in the western region of the country.
Kemp And Abrams Square Off In Final Debate
Georgia had its second and final debate last night in the gubernatorial race between incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and his old 2018 rival, voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams (D).
- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “In final debate, Kemp won’t say whether he’d sign new abortion limits”
- CNN: “Five takeaways from the second Georgia gubernatorial debate”
- USA Today: “In second debate, Georgia candidates Kemp and Abrams argue over abortion, gun control”
- The New York Times: “4 Takeaways From the Last Kemp-Abrams Debate Before Election Day”
SCOTUS To Start Hearing Affirmative Action Arguments
Get ready for the very likely possibility that the Supreme Court, with its conservative supermajority, will deal a blow to affirmative action soon. On Monday, the high court will begin to hear oral arguments in two affirmative action cases centered on the college admission processes at Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Trump & Co. Have 3 Court Cases In NYC This Week
The ex-president’s attorneys have a busy week ahead of them in the concrete jungle where courts are made of, there’s nothing you can’t sue (alright, that clumsy…whatever I’m trying to do with that Alicia Keys song only really applies to two out of three of the cases).
Anyway, Trump and/or his business are going to court in New York City for the following cases:
- New York Attorney General Letitia James’ (D) $250 million tax fraud civil lawsuit against Trump, his three eldest children, and the Trump Organization
- The Manhattan district attorney’s tax fraud criminal case against the Trump Organization
- A group of protesters’ 2015 lawsuit against Trump, his 2016 presidential campaign, and the Trump Organization alleging that the then-candidate sicced his security team on them to violently crack down on their protest against his racist comments outside Trump Tower.
Key Analyses: The Price Elon Musk’s Paying For Going ‘Goblin Mode’
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, fresh off completing his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, posted an unhinged conspiracy theory about the attack on Paul Pelosi on Sunday that he later deleted after critics pointed out that the article he was sharing about it came from a right-wing fake news site.
Thoughts on the general self-ownery of Musk’s Twitter purchase in general:
“Welcome to hell, Elon” – Nilay Patel at the Verge
So you can make all the promises about “free speech” you want, but the dull reality is that you still have to ban a bunch of legal speech if you want to make money. And when you start doing that, your creepy new right-wing fanboys are going to viciously turn on you, just like they turn on every other social network that realizes the same essential truth.
“By Buying Twitter, Elon Musk Has Created His Own Hilarious Nightmare” – Jon Schwarz at the Intercept
Bolsonaro Ousted By Lula Da Silva
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s former left-wing president aiming for a comeback, triumphed over far-right Jair Bolsonaro in the country’s presidential election yesterday.
- It was a narrow victory for da Silva, even though he won the most votes in Brazilian history: The ex-president won 50.9% to Bolsonaro’s 49.10%, according to Brazilian officials.
- The next question is: Will Bolsonaro, having spent months sowing doubt about the legitimacy of the election a la Trump, accept his defeat?
Must Read
“How one small-town lawyer faced down the plans of election skeptics” – The Washington Post
Happy Halloween! Y’all Are Getting Spooky Cats!
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Pour More Gas on This Fire
“ELON MUSK (and his consortium of much smaller investors) now owns Twitter. We need to take seriously the possibility that this will end up being one of the funniest things that’s ever happened.” That’s the lede in Jon Schwarz’s piece on the Elon Musk era on Twitter. I think he is right on target. And that was before Musk went full Alex Jones this morning.
The Musk Bonfire
So to give you a sense of how this is going, Elon Musk started the day by replying to Hillary Clinton’s condemnation of the Pelosi attack with a link to an article containing an anti-LGBT conspiracy theory about the attack on Paul Pelosi. I don’t want to get into the details. But let your imagination go wild and it’s that bad. Now he’s deleted the tweet and is getting attacked by his alt-right fans for giving into the left wing mob. Twitter has always been a marginal proposition in business terms. I suspect that the advertiser exodus had already started. Whatever its other shortcomings, Facebook in its day was a killer app when it came to ad targeting. Advertisers found it impossible not to be there. The post-2016 climate has taken a toll regardless. Its market cap has now collapsed. Twitter is a far more marginal buy for advertisers.
The Story Gets More Detailed!
After yesterday’s Proud Boys rally in Hialeah, Rubio canvasser Christopher Monzon appeared at a GOP event in Miami Springs today during which he gave a fiery speech with numerous new details about the allegedly politically motivated attack he suffered a week ago. Remember that in the initial report to police he didn’t mention any political remarks at all. Now they said “F**k Marco Rubio,” along with threatening to kill Monzon for being a Republican.
The Herald also has more details about the father of one of the attackers who apparently tried to break up the fight. According to the Herald he also introduced a limp today that he didn’t have yesterday.
Basically every eyewitness or contemporaneous police report makes it fairly clear that this was a street fight of some sort that Monzon and Rubio are now making into a kind of GOP martyrdom story.