I was offline for a few hours and I came back to the news that ex-President Trump is calling on Vladimir Putin to help him unearth dirt about Joe Biden. I had been thinking it was going to be important going forward to remind people that Trump has repeatedly worked with Vladimir Putin to intervene in U.S. domestic politics and subvert U.S. elections. After all, it seems like Putin is getting less popular in the United States of late. But I guess that won’t be as pressing a need as long as Trump continues to re-collude out in the open on an ongoing basis. So here we are.
Continue reading “Trump Colludin’ and Losin’ Steam At the Same Time”Where Things Stand: J.D. Vance Is Just A Trump Body Double At This Point
QAnon Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) recently endorsed “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance’s bid for the Republican nomination in Ohio’s Senate race. And as he continues his descent into Trumpian madness, he’s welcoming the far-right lawmaker’s support — and all the white nationalist ties that come with it — with open, orange-tinted arms.
It’s quaint now, but I wrote a bit here about my impression of Vance from the perspective of a young person living in a small conservative town in the Midwest at the time. I was once cautiously stirred by “Hillbilly Elegy” for what it did to seemingly usher-in a new wave of nuance surrounding conservative intellectualism. But I was also deeply skeptical of his approach to Republican values; a style that seemed far too generous to the GOP during an era in which the conservative movement largely shrugged off the vile and racist rhetoric overpowering the party.
Continue reading “Where Things Stand: J.D. Vance Is Just A Trump Body Double At This Point”Trump Demands Putin Drop What He’s Doing To Help Him Unearth More Hunter Biden Dirt
A month into Russia’s unprovoked, violent and deadly war on Ukraine, former President Trump is demanding Russian President Vladimir Putin turn his focus elsewhere: digging up dirt on … Hunter Biden.
Continue reading “Trump Demands Putin Drop What He’s Doing To Help Him Unearth More Hunter Biden Dirt”Liveblog: About That Hours-Long Gap In Trump’s Jan. 6 Call Logs…
There are no White House call records from 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m. on Jan. 6, at least according to records turned over to the Jan. 6 Committee by the National Archives. The Washington Post and CBS News first reported the mammoth gap, which raises all sorts of questions about where the missing logs are, and why they’re MIA in the first place.
It’s High Time We Revisited Manafort’s Dirty Work In Ukraine
For years, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort worked in Ukraine for people who have now either fled to Russia, or been accused of supporting it.
Manafort, now staging a comeback via a book deal, worked in Ukraine from 2005 up through the country’s 2014 revolution and afterwards.
Continue reading “It’s High Time We Revisited Manafort’s Dirty Work In Ukraine”GOPers Dare Cawthorn To Name Names As He Flings Around Cocaine And Orgy Accusations
“Key bumps.” “Fax machines.” “Orgy.” “Sexual perversion.”
We’ve been gifted a fresh congressional cocaine/orgy/sex party news cycle, folks — a treasure we shall not waste.
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) has once again found himself in a steamy situation with his fellow House Republicans.
And this time, it’s because Cawthorn’s tossing around allegations that Congress is basically a Den Of Sin, filled with devious colleagues hellbent on trampling his innocence by inviting him to orgies and doing a bunch of blow, right in front of him!
Continue reading “GOPers Dare Cawthorn To Name Names As He Flings Around Cocaine And Orgy Accusations”Trump Was 100% Making Phone Calls During The Jan. 6 Attack: Here’s The List
As you’ve probably seen by now, White House call logs the National Archives turned over to the House Jan. 6 Committee have a seven-hour gap that don’t include any calls then-President Donald Trump made or received from 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m. on Jan. 6, according to the Washington Post and CBS News, which obtained the records. That wide gap runs contrary to reports of multiple calls that Trump took as the Capitol insurrection was unfolding — key conversations between Trump and his allies that have helped shape the scope of the Jan. 6 committee’s probe.
Continue reading “Trump Was 100% Making Phone Calls During The Jan. 6 Attack: Here’s The List”Withdrawals from Ukraine
If you follow reports closely, you’ve heard that the Ukrainian military has incrementally been reclaiming territory from Russian forces in the north of the country and parts of the south in recent days. The situation is different in the east and southeast, in parts of which Russia has continued to consolidate its possession of territory. There have also been reports of Russian withdrawals. But it’s been hard to disentangle which of these withdrawals are more like retreats in the face of counter-offensives, or simply redeployments to find more defensible positions, or actual withdrawals. All that’s been clear is that in substantial parts of the country Ukraine has been retaking control of territory that had been occupied by the Russian Army.
Today though Russia’s deputy defense minister said that Moscow would “fundamentally cut back military activity in the direction of Kyiv and Chernigiv” in order to “increase mutual trust for future negotiations to agree and sign a peace deal with Ukraine.”
Continue reading “Withdrawals from Ukraine”Trump Was Repeatedly Warned His Attacks On 2020 Election Results Could Spark Violence On Jan. 6, Cheney Says
Then-President Donald Trump and his cronies were made fully aware in advance that their sustained campaign to steal the 2020 election could lead to violence on the day the election results were to be certified on Jan. 6, according to House Jan. 6 Committee vice chair Liz Cheney (R-WY).
Continue reading “Trump Was Repeatedly Warned His Attacks On 2020 Election Results Could Spark Violence On Jan. 6, Cheney Says”Trump’s White House Call Logs Have 7-Hour Gap On Jan. 6
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Nothing Suspicious Here!
The White House records of Trump’s calls on Jan. 6 don’t include any calls the president made or received from 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m. that day, according to the Washington Post and CBS News, which obtained the records. The call logs were turned over to the Jan. 6 committee by the National Archives. Key excerpts from the story:
- “The lack of an official White House notation of any calls placed to or by Trump for 457 minutes on Jan. 6, 2021 … means the committee has no record of his phone conversations as his supporters descended on the Capitol, battled overwhelmed police and forcibly entered the building, prompting lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence to flee for safety.”
- “The House panel is now investigating whether Trump communicated that day through backchannels, phones of aides or personal disposable phones, known as ‘burner phones,’ according to two people with knowledge of the probe …”
- “In a statement Monday night, Trump said, ‘I have no idea what a burner phone is, to the best of my knowledge I have never even heard the term.'”
- “The documents obtained by the committee show Trump having several previously unreported exchanges on Jan. 6, including brief calls with [Steve] Bannon and personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani that morning, before Trump had a final call with Pence, in which the vice president told him he was not going to block Congress from formalizing Biden’s victory.”
Jan. 6 Panel Tells Garland To Do His Job As It Approves New Contempt Charges
The House Jan. 6 Committee voted to recommend criminal contempt charges for former Trump advisers Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino on Monday night. The recommendation will now go to the House for a full vote, where it’ll likely pass and go to the Justice Department, which has done … not very much at all with the contempt recommendation it already got for ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
- Members of the committee called on Attorney General Merrick Garland multiple times on Monday night to, you know, actually do something about Meadows. After all, evidence so far shows that he was significantly more involved in the events of Jan. 6 than Steve Bannon, whom the DOJ has charged with contempt.
- The stakes in the panel’s investigation are getting higher every day: A judge had ruled earlier on Monday that Trump had likely committed felony obstruction of Congress when he and his then-legal adviser John Eastman plotted to have Vice President Mike Pence throw out Biden electors in the 2020 election certification process.
Judge Orders Trump Org To Comply With Subpoena By End Of April
The Trump Organization has until April 29 to comply with the New York attorney general’s subpoena in her fraud investigation, a New York state judge ruled on Monday. The subpoena in question was issued over two years ago, and “I think we can all agree we want this to end at some point for numerous reasons,” the judge said.
DeSantis Signs ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill Into Law
Surrounded by young children as props, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday signed the Parental Rights in Education bill, aka the legislation that bans classroom discussion about LGBTQ+ topics in kindergarten through third grade, or in any grade if it’s “in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students.”
- DeSantis, in his sustained war on the LGBTQ+ community, dialed the theater up a notch last week when he put out a functionally meaningless “proclamation” declaring that the runner-up in a NCAA women’s swimming championship was the “rightful winner” after transgender swimmer Lia Thomas won the competition.
Clarence Thomas Returns To Work Remotely
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas participated in oral hearings remotely on Monday, his first day back after a nearly week-long stay at the hospital brought on by an infection.
- The justice missed three days of arguments last week before he was discharged from the hospital on Friday morning.
- No word yet on whether he plans to recuse himself from cases about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 Capitol attack amid the neon signs of his wife’s involvement in MAGALand’s attempted election steal.
Must Read
“‘Designed to End Protesting’: Louisiana Supreme Court Makes Protesters Guilty by Association” – Bolts Magazine
Nebraska GOPer Walks Back Rant About Kids Transing Themselves Into Cats And Using Litter Boxes In School
Nebraska state Sen. Bruce Bostelman (R) backpedaled on Monday after he gave this batshit floor speech earlier claiming that students were identifying as cats (and “furries”) and demanding that they be allowed to use litter boxes:
(This whole thing is beyond cursed, but I’m just dying at “How is this sanitary?” being his first question here.)
- Bostelman later acknowledged on Monday that the fake rumor (which has been spreading for a while now, believe it or not) isn’t true. “It was just something I felt that if this really was happening, we needed to address it and address it quickly,” he said. (Excellent point, it would be indeed concerning if this fake thing that never happened happened!).
- On the other hand, Bostelman’s actually not wrong in that that some schools are equipping classrooms with cat litter. It’s not for indulging in the fantasies of these mythical trans cat kids, though. It’s there in case students need to use the bathroom during a lockdown in a school shooting.
Kushner To Speak To Jan. 6 Panel
Former White House adviser Jared Kushner is expected to sit down for a voluntary interview with the House Jan. 6 Committee as soon as this Thursday, according to ABC News.
Late Rep. Don Young To Lie In State
Rep. Don Young (R-AK), who passed away on March 18 at 88 years old, will lie in state in National Statuary Hall in the Capitol today.
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