After multiple recent reports on the matter and months of toying with the notion of launching a 2024 presidential bid, former President Trump has finally spoken on the record: he has, in his own words, “already made that decision.”
Continue reading “Trump Claims He’s ‘Already Made That Decision’ On 2024 Presidential Bid”Conservatives, Right-Wing Media Left Flailing After Arrest Confirms Child Rape Story
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (R) announced on Fox News Wednesday night that he was going to investigate Caitlin Bernard, the doctor who provided abortion care for a 10-year-old rape victim who had traveled from Ohio, where abortion is banned after six weeks with no exceptions, to have the procedure in Indiana.
Continue reading “Conservatives, Right-Wing Media Left Flailing After Arrest Confirms Child Rape Story”As Red States Try To Seal Borders Against Abortion, Mailed Pills Zoom Around The US
In these earliest days of the post-Roe world, those both supporting and opposing abortion rights are scrambling on shifting sands to find loopholes in anti-abortion regimes, and to snap them shut.
Continue reading “As Red States Try To Seal Borders Against Abortion, Mailed Pills Zoom Around The US”Reports: Jan. 6 Witness Trump Tried To Call Was White House Support Staffer
At the end of Tuesday’s Jan. 6 panel hearing, committee vice chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) offered up a surprising revelation: Former president Donald Trump, she said, had personally reached out to a witness after ex-Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson gave her jaw-dropping testimony last month.
Continue reading “Reports: Jan. 6 Witness Trump Tried To Call Was White House Support Staffer”A Reader’s Lament
From TPM Reader DS …
Continue reading “A Reader’s Lament”Just read your latest piece. I still think you are correct on the Codify Roe promise. But every single day that goes by without explicit promises, in living rooms and cars, the energy wanes. The right to abortion (and the right to privacy in general), affects many, many people. The actuality of it, on a day to day or week to week basis, doesn’t.
I mean, think about it. The whole anti-choice movement was built on the idea that hundreds of thousands of women were just running around getting abortions every other week. It is kind of a classic Overton-window situation, right? A million abortions a day! Roe is overturned, now, it’s only a few thousand a day!! We have saved lives, and those who really need it still have some access!!
Next Jan. 6 Hearing Will Detail Events In White House During Insurrection, Panel Member Says
Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) on Wednesday previewed the next Jan. 6 Select Committee public hearing, which she said she is set to co-lead with fellow member Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL).
Continue reading “Next Jan. 6 Hearing Will Detail Events In White House During Insurrection, Panel Member Says”Jim Jordan Tries To Memory Hole His Awful Take On Child Rape
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
But The Internet Never Forgets
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is trying to pretend that he never attempted to discredit the Indianapolis Star’s report of a 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio who was forced to travel to neighboring Indiana to obtain an abortion because abortions are illegal in Jordan’s state.
- Jordan deleted his tweet, which called the report a “lie,” after the Columbus Dispatch reported on Wednesday that the man who allegedly raped the child had been arrested. The Ohio Republican didn’t follow up with a correction or any acknowledgement of his false claim.
- The House Judiciary GOP had retweeted Jordan’s post, by the way.
Jan. 6 Witness Trump Tried To Call Was White House Support Staffer
The unidentified witness whom House Jan. 6 Committee vice chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) said Trump had tried to reach out to was a member of the White House support staff, according to CNN.
- The staffer, who reportedly didn’t have regular contact with Trump and did not pick up the phone, was reportedly alarmed by the call, prompting them to tell their lawyer about it. CNN reported that its sources did not provide the name of the staffer.
- The Jan. 6 panel has referred Trump’s call to the Justice Department, Cheney said during the committee’s hearing on Tuesday, adding that the panel “will take any efforts to influence witness testimony very seriously.”
DOJ Focused On What Jan. 6 Commitee Has On Trump’s Fake Elector Scheme
House Jan. 6 Committee chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) told reporters on Wednesday that the “only issue” his committee’s “engaged” with with the Justice Department is the panel’s evidence of Trump’s bogus elector plot.
Trumpworld Eyeing Meadows As The Fall Guy
The ex-president and his inner circle have started to consider making ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows take the fall for Trump’s election steal scheme, believing the former official is likely in a whole lotta trouble, sources tell the Rolling Stone.
- The House Jan. 6 Committee has been quietly digging into Meadows’ finances, according to Rolling Stone. More specifically, his financial arrangements with the other cronies who tried to help Trump cling to power after the election.
- Trump himself has reportedly been starting to act like he didn’t always know what Meadows was up to in recent conversations with associates.
Bannon Pushes To Delay Trial Yet Again
Two days after the judge shot down ex-White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s request to push back his contempt of Congress trial, which is scheduled for Monday, the Trump crony asked the judge again yesterday to delay the trial.
- Bannon’s legal team claimed there were two new issues that’ve since arisen that create a “very serious risk of prejudice” against him among jurors: That the House Jan. 6 Committee had shown clips of Bannon’s podcast during the panel’s Tuesday hearing, and that CNN will air a one-hour documentary about Bannon Sunday, something Bannon’s lawyers claimed they found out “just today.”
- One of Bannon’s attorneys had openly griped on Monday “What’s the point in going to trial here if there are no defenses?” after the judge threw out several of his potential defenses, so maybe it’s not surprising that “clips of my client’s publicly accessible podcast were used in a hearing and also I didn’t know CNN was going to air a documentary about my client” was the best they could do.
- Meanwhile, House Jan. 6 Committee chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) says that Bannon still hasn’t sent any documents to the panel in response to its subpoena.
Graham Moves To Quash Georgia DA’s Subpoena
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) filed a motion in federal court in South Carolina on Wednesday to quash a Georgia grand jury’s subpoena that is part of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ probe of Trump’s election interference. The GOP senator’s move comes after a Georgia judge ordered him to comply with the subpoena, saying he was a “necessary and material witness” in Willis’ investigation.
Nope, Herschel Walker’s Global Warming Chinese Air Theory Wasn’t A One-Off Thing
GOP Georgia Senate nominee Herschel Walker offered the following take on climate change during a county GOP event on Saturday: “Since we don’t control the air, our good air decided to float over to China’s bad air. So when China gets our good air, their bad air has got to move. So it moves over to our good air space. And now we’ve got to clean that back up.”
- Several days later, Walker tried to spin the babble as him being “just really being funny.” Just a lil comedy, the nominee claimed during a radio interview on Tuesday.
- Walker’s floated his theory at least three other times on the campaign trail in recent weeks, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution has found:
Cat Does Double Duty As A Lamp
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Looking at the Polls In Light of the Abortion Rights Backlash
Over the last couple months I’ve been beating the drum over the critical importance of putting Roe v. Wade at the center of the midterm election and doing so with a unified pledge to pass a Roe law in January 2023 if Democrats hold the House and add two Senate seats. There’s been some but still not nearly enough progress on getting Democrats to make this pledge or at least to say they’d support such a bill if it comes to a vote. So I wanted to check in to see if polls suggest any of this is having an impact.
Continue reading “Looking at the Polls In Light of the Abortion Rights Backlash”Where Things Stand: Meadows Told Resigning WH Aide To Stick Around, Trump Wasn’t Leaving
Former White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin resigned from the White House after Trump lost the election. But when she informed then-chief of staff Mark Meadows of her impending departure, he told her to stick around.
Continue reading “Where Things Stand: Meadows Told Resigning WH Aide To Stick Around, Trump Wasn’t Leaving”Jan. 6 Participant Who Right-Wing Media Cast As Agent Provocateur Speaks Out
Ray Epps, a 61-year-old former Marine, called for Trump supporters to march into the U.S. Capitol building the night prior to the Capitol attack, and then joined them as they entered the restricted grounds outside the Capitol on the day of the riot.
Continue reading “Jan. 6 Participant Who Right-Wing Media Cast As Agent Provocateur Speaks Out”