This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
During the first debate between Ohio’s U.S. Senate candidates J.D. Vance (R) and Tim Ryan (D), Vance reminded the audience that his mother struggled with addiction, but that she’s fortunate to not be using during the current, brutal period when illicit fentanyl has poisoned the drug supply.
Continue reading “What Politicians And (Especially) JD Vance Don’t Get About The Overdose Crisis”The fast-ending premiership of the comical Liz Truss appears to be on the verge of finally concluding. Reports have gone out that she will resign imminently and a lectern is being wheeled out in front of Number 10.
Late Update: And it’s official, she resigned. Immediate resignation as head of the Tory Party. New party election within the next week, at the conclusion of which she will resign as PM.
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
The Texas secretary of state’s office told officials in Texas’ most populous county, Harris County, on Tuesday that it would be sending “inspectors” who will “perform randomized checks on election records, including tapes and chain-of-custody, and will observe the handling and counting of ballots and electronic media.”
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel discovered that Tim Michels, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ (D) Republican challenger, apparently likes to treat his local police department like a customer service line, having called the cops multiple times in the past 20 years for less-than-harrowing reasons.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered martial law in the four regions of Ukraine that he illegally annexed after the Kremlin held fake referendums in those areas (Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia).
Here’s a head-scratching development: The ex-president and his legal team are weighing whether to let federal agents search Mar-a-Lago again given that the Justice Department believes he still hasn’t turned over all the government records he squirreled away at the resort, according to CNN.
A federal judge in California found on Wednesday that Trump had knowingly signed a legal document that touted fake data about voter fraud as he was trying to argue that votes from dead people and convicted felons were being counted in Georgia’s Fulton County.
British Prime Minister Liz Truss lost a second senior minister in her government when Home Secretary Suella Braverman resigned on Wednesday, less than a week after Truss gave Treasury minister Kwasi Kwarteng the boot.
In short, Britain has done a lot of stupid shit.
“When the National Culture Wars Come to Your School” – The Washington Post
“Sean Hannity’s million-dollar in-kind contribution to the GOP” – The Washington Post
Former Vice President Mike Pence gave his biggest hint so far that he plans on running for president in 2024, saying Wednesday that there “might be somebody else I’d prefer more” when asked if he’d vote for Trump.
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Three years ago, when President Trump ordered an investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigations, he set expectations at a high level.
Continue reading “Durham Entered With Lofty Expectations. What Happened?”Back during the 2020 Senate election in Georgia, the campaigns of the two soon-to-be-defeated GOP senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, were both accused of digitally altering images of their Democratic opponents in negative campaign ads in racist and antisemitic ways.
Continue reading “Where Things Stand: The Racist Skin Darkening Has Returned”President Trump knew that data supposedly showing voter fraud in the 2020 election was false, but signed a court document attesting to it regardless, a federal judge said on Wednesday.
Continue reading “CA Judge Finds Trump Likely Lied To Court In Georgia Big Lie Case”This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.
U.S. Sen. Mike Lee is seeking reelection in Utah – a typically uneventful undertaking for an incumbent Republican in a state that hasn’t had a Democratic senator since 1977. But he faces a unique challenger: Evan McMullin.
The former CIA operative, investment banker and Republican policy adviser left the GOP in 2016 because of Donald Trump. McMullin then ran for president as an independent, styling himself as a principled conservative, and won 21% of Utahans’ votes.
Continue reading “Lee Is Distancing Himself From Trump’s Big Lie Before Midterms. Here’s Why That Matters For Utah’s Latter-Day Saint Voters”Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) served a spankin’ new spin on the GOP’s fake election fraud narrative about the horrors of mail-in voting on Tuesday night.
Continue reading “Rubio Argues Ballot Drop Boxes Are Dangerous Bomb Targets While Rejecting Gun Control”A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Yes, Special Counsel John Durham’s crumbling investigation of the investigators took yet another massive hit yesterday when the jury acquitted a researcher in what’s likely to be Durham’s final prosecution, but Fox News host Sean Hannity isn’t letting a pesky “not guilty” verdict ruin the anti-Trump “Deep State” conspiracy theory he’s worked so darn hard to sell to his viewers.
Durham’s defeat unleashed a new round of blistering criticism that he even brought these cases to trial:
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Democratic rival Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) debated for the first and only time in the hotly contested race for Rubio’s seat last night, when the issues of abortion and gun control took center stage.
House Jan. 6 Committee vice chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) said during an event at the Harvard Institute of Politics yesterday that the panel will be issuing a subpoena to Trump “shortly,” though she didn’t give a precise timeline.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told MSNBC yesterday that she wasn’t sure if then-Vice President Mike Pence “could trust” the Secret Service to “take him to a safe place” as the pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol.
The President promised on Tuesday that if Democrats win enough seats in the midterms to be able to enshrine abortion rights into law, that legislation will be the first to get his signature in January, around the 50th anniversary of the now-dismantled Roe v. Wade ruling.
Amid the legal firestorms over Trump’s election steal scheming, hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and alleged tax fraud, there’s another ongoing case that you might be missing right now: Trump’s been ordered to sit in for a deposition today in writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against him.
House Rules Committee chair Jim McGovern (D-MA) crafted a “new rule” for far-right Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) when she tried to submit a bunch of ridiculous amendments, according to a new book by reporter Robert Draper titled “Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind.”
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We’re really getting down to the wire on the midterms and in ways that aren’t necessarily inspiring if you’re a Democrat. The conventional wisdom now has it that after a summer of Dobbs backlash that buoyed Democrats, inflation and the economy have now reclaimed center stage putting Republicans back in the ascendent. Is this true? Is there evidence to support this?
There’s definitely some.
Continue reading “Tense”
