President Biden signaled that he may take executive action to protect abortion access in the likely event that the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this summer.
Continue reading “Biden Is Weighing Executive Action To Protect Abortion Access If Roe Is Overturned”FBI Arrests A Top GOP Contender For Michigan Governor For Jan. 6 Charges
FBI agents have arrested one of the leading contenders for the Republican nomination for governor in Michigan over misdemeanor charges related to his actions during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
Continue reading “FBI Arrests A Top GOP Contender For Michigan Governor For Jan. 6 Charges”Michigan GOP Gov Frontrunner Arrested
We mentioned last week that after the top GOP candidates for the Michigan governor’s race were stripped from the ballot over forged signatures, the remaining at least nominal frontrunner (poll leaders in most recent poll) was a guy named Ryan Kelley, who was literally part of the mob that stormed the Capitol building on January 6th and had a lot of connections to the guys who plotted to kidnap and murder Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Well, he just got arrested by the FBI. No details yet on what the charges are or why he was taken into custody.
11:49 AM: Kelley’s arrest was part of a raid on his home and stems from his actions breaching the Capitol complex on January 6th. Charges forthcoming.
Feral Thiel-ite Candidate Throttles Dem Protestor
This is just a wild story. Really a sign of the times in many ways. A seventy-something Democratic protestor showed up at a Republican event in Arizona with far-right Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters. He was clearly there looking to make a stir. The man, Peter Jackson, had on a Black Lives Matter shirt, a “Jail Trump” hat and a mask. So clearly he wasn’t going to blend in. He also had his phone out videotaping. So he clearly wanted a record of how the crowd reacted. But he wasn’t violent in any way. The crowd quickly got violent with him, punching him, knocking him down. The Masters supporters claimed that he attacked a woman. The video clearly shows that’s not true. At one point Masters puts his hands around the guy’s neck and starts throttling him. It would probably be a bit much to say he tried to strangle him. But it wouldn’t be wildly off the mark. Anyway, THIS IS ALL ON VIDEO.
Continue reading “Feral Thiel-ite Candidate Throttles Dem Protestor”Understanding ‘Mass Shootings’
On the long list of excuses and deflections gun rights activists use to shut down any talk of gun regulation, one critical angle comes down to numbers. Mass shootings, school shootings, gun massacres — whatever you want to call them — only make up a tiny percentage of the number of people killed every year by guns in the United States. That’s true. Relatedly, AR-15s, the mass shooters’ firearm of choice, account for only a tiny percentage of overall firearms deaths in the United States. That’s true. Indeed, some noted that the 10 African-Americans murdered in a Buffalo supermarket on May 14th may not even have been a majority of the African-Americans killed by firearms on that single day. Using these very real numbers, gun rights activists portray supporters of assault weapons bans, bans on high capacity magazines and the rest as reactive and innumerate. It’s similar to the way that gun activists sometimes try to shut down restriction conversation by noting how people horrified by all the carnage don’t know all the technical differences between this gun and that one.
Continue reading “Understanding ‘Mass Shootings’”Just Before He Swept Jan 6 Under The Rug, McCarthy Privately Warned That GOPers Can’t ‘Sweep This Under The Rug’
Before he was obediently helping ex-President Donald Trump stonewall the House Jan. 6 Committee’s investigation into the Capitol insurrection, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was privately stressing the need for an investigation in the days after the attack.
Continue reading “Just Before He Swept Jan 6 Under The Rug, McCarthy Privately Warned That GOPers Can’t ‘Sweep This Under The Rug’”Raffensperger In Talks With Jan. 6 Panel To Testify Publicly
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Trump’s Really Not Gonna Like This One
After steamrolling Trump crony Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) in the primaries, Georgia Secretary of State and key witness Brad Raffensperger (R) is now speaking to the House Jan. 6 Committee on potentially testifying at a public hearing, according to Politico.
- Raffensperger has already provided testimony to investigators behind closed doors: He had a private interview with the Jan. 6 committee in November, and he also testified in front a special grand jury in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ Trump election meddling probe last week.
- Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone is also huddling with the Jan. 6 panel over a potential public testimony, according to ABC News.
What To Expect In Tonight’s Jan. 6 Hearing
Aides to the Jan. 6 Committee provided reporters on Wednesday afternoon with an early look at what to expect from tonight’s hearing. The plan, they said, is simple: The committee will “preview” the results of its investigation, giving a roadmap of what to expect from the coming weeks of hearings.
- That will include findings that Trump “was at the center” of a “coordinated, multistep effort” to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Panel Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) is expected to address the lack of precedent in American history for Trump’s scheming.
- Be on the lookout for the following:
- Previously unreleased video and audio testimony from Trump family members, campaign officials and White House aides
- More harrowing footage and documentation of the attack itself
- Testimony from the first Capitol Police officer to be injured in the attack, and from a documentary filmmaker who observed the Proud Boys up close throughout the insurrection
Pence Counsel’s Public Testimony Has Been Scheduled
Greg Jacob, former Vice President Mike Pence’s ex-chief counsel, is scheduled to testify at the House Jan. 6 Committee’s public hearing next Thursday on June 16, Politico reports. Former Pence chief of staff Marc Short and ex-federal Judge J. Michael Luttig, a friend of Pence, are reportedly expected to publicly testify, too, but it’s unknown when exactly they’ll do so.
House Passes Aggressive Gun Control Package
The House approved legislation on Wednesday that would, among other things, raise the minimum age to buy most semiautomatic rifles to 21, ban high-capacity magazines and establish new requirements for gun owners to store their firearms safely. It’s all but doomed in the Senate.
- The vote wasn’t entirely on party lines, believe it or not: Five Republicans voted for the legislation, while two Democrats voted against it. The Republicans were Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH), Chris Jacobs (R-NY), Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and Fred Upton (R-MI). The Democrats were Reps. Jared Golden (D-ME) and Kurt Schrader (D-OR).
- The House vote came after an 11-year-old survivor of the Uvalde elementary school shooting and family members of the victims of Uvalde and the Buffalo shooting testified in front of the House Oversight Committee.
GOPer Blames Mass Shootings On These Ding Dang Diddly Phones
On Thursday, Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) enthusiastically joined his fellow GOP colleagues in farting out some truly ridiculous takes on why mass shootings happen:
Another Conspiracy Theory-Addled Election Denier Is Now Secretary Of State Nom
Audrey Trujillo, a GOP candidate for New Mexico secretary of state who thinks the 2020 election was a “coup,” is now the Republican nominee to be her state’s top elections official after running in the GOP primary on Tuesday unopposed.
- Trujillo has argued that the U.S. voting system is “no better than any other communist country like Venezuela or any of these other states where our elections are being manipulated.”
- She’s also posted cartoonishly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 vaccine, which the candidate now claims she doesn’t remember posting.
- Trujillo is the second election denier to win the GOP’s support to be secretary of state after the Michigan GOP voted to endorse Kristina Karamo, a secretary of state hopeful who’s aligned with QAnon and also claims the Devil is lurking everywhere.
Date Set For Trump’s Testimony In NY Investigation
The ex-president and his two eldest kids, Ivanka and Don Jr., are scheduled to start testifying in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ (D) civil investigation into the Trump Organization on July 15 until the following week, according to a new filing in a New York state court.
DeSantis’s Bulldog Belatedly Registers As Foreign Agent
Christina Pushaw, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) press secretary, registered as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) on Monday for the work she did for former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili between 2018 and 2020.
- Pushaw registered after she was contacted by the Justice Department, according to her lawyer.
- The press secretary made a total of $25,000 for the work. She claimed in her FARA filing that her work for Saakashvili included “perception management, public relations, and preparation and dissemination of informational materials to an international audience, including U.S. persons and entities.”
- Pushaw started working for DeSantis in May last year, per her LinkedIn profile, and now she can proudly call herself a pioneer in conservatives’ renewed push to paint LGBTQ+ people as groomers and pedophiles.
Brookings Institution Puts Prez On Leave Amid FBI Investigation
Brookings Institution President John Allen, a retired four-star Marine general, has been placed on administrative leave as the FBI investigates his alleged involvement in an illegal lobbying scheme for Qatar.
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Verdict on Reform Prosecutors More Mixed Than Headlines Suggest
I consider myself middle of the road on police and criminal justice reform issues. As I said in the new episode of the podcast just out this afternoon, high crime rates will snuff out criminal justice reform as surely as night follows day. I’d reiterate a point I’ve made at other points over the years: no one has a greater interest in low crime rates than liberals and progressives because high crime rates spawn conservative politics. They don’t just turn the tide against more humane criminal justice policies. They shift the whole political universe in a more authoritarian, conservative direction. Again, just an observable fact.
But with all this said, the narrative emerging out of yesterday’s primaries that voters sent a big rebuke to Democrats over law and order politics or that it was a rejection of criminal justice reformers is at best incomplete.
Continue reading “Verdict on Reform Prosecutors More Mixed Than Headlines Suggest”How They Roll
This afternoon, in response to the arrest of a man who said he planned to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the Republican National Committee sent out an email with the subject heading “The Democrat SCOTUS Assassin.”
Trump And Secret Service Butted Heads On Request To March To Capitol, Ex-Chief Testifies
Robert Engel, head of former President Trump’s Secret Service detail on Jan. 6, discussed Trump’s unsuccessful request to march with his supporters to the Capitol during his testimony to Jan. 6 Select Committee investigators, according to Politico.
Continue reading “Trump And Secret Service Butted Heads On Request To March To Capitol, Ex-Chief Testifies”