A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate analyze a batch of primary races, and what they indicate about the midterms.
You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.
Judges Reach Dueling Conclusions In Fight Over Abortions During Medical Emergencies
Over the last 48 hours, federal judges have split on a fundamental question determining when doctors have to perform abortions amid medical emergencies, a dispute that could reach the Supreme Court.
Continue reading “Judges Reach Dueling Conclusions In Fight Over Abortions During Medical Emergencies”Why James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas Is Probably Every Kind of F*cked
Have you not liked James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas and been hoping for years to see these sleazy degenerates get into a world of hurt? This may be your lucky day. We’ve known for a while that Project Veritas got hold of the diary and more of Ashley Biden, Joe Biden’s daughter. That story has been rattling around for almost two years and Project Veritas has made great hay out of how the investigation is allegedly an attack on their First Amendment rights. The DOJ just announced two plea deals with the thieves, one of whom, Robert Kurlander, has agreed to testify against the as yet unnamed “organization” noted in the plea deal.
That’s Project Veritas.
We’ll have an accompanying news story shortly. But this is a case where I have some specific insight and perspective as an editor and publisher about how to stay out of trouble or, as Project Veritas seems to have done here, get in a lot of trouble.
So here goes.
GOP Sec Of State Nominee Equates 2020 Election With 9/11
The GOP nominee for Minnesota secretary of state said changing voting rules after the “big rig” that was the 2020 presidential election was “our 9/11,” likening the election to the 2001 terrorist attacks when discussing proposed reforms to election laws.
Continue reading “GOP Sec Of State Nominee Equates 2020 Election With 9/11”A Peek Into What The Next Two Years With A Split Congress Would Look Like
In recent months, due to some combination of unexpected Democratic legislative success, a somewhat rosier economic outlook, abominable Republican candidate recruitment and fallout from the Supreme Court’s overturning of abortion rights, Democrats’ congressional prospects have brightened.
Continue reading “A Peek Into What The Next Two Years With A Split Congress Would Look Like”Bill Barr Was Just As Bad As We Thought And Maybe Worse
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Call It What It Is: Corruption
Yielding to a FOIA lawsuit by CREW, the Justice Department has released a key memo that gave Trump Attorney General Bill Barr Barr everything he needed to whitewash the Mueller Report.
It’s difficult to capture what a compromised and disturbing document this is without going back in time and reliving those fraught days in the spring of 2019 when Barr bamboozled the press corp and shamelessly dragged DOJ into the business of protecting the incumbent president.
Let’s put it this way: This memo by Steven Engel, the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, and Ed O’Callaghan, the principal associate deputy attorney general, never gets written if the answer it gave was anything other than exculpatory of Trump. The conclusion was baked in from the beginning, and the poor quality of the legal analysis is just one tell that the fix was in.
But let me yield the floor to the experts on this:
The NYT’s Charlie Savage has an excellent thread on Twitter expressing the appropriate level of skepticism about the memo’s convoluted legal reasoning, misleading recitation of some of the facts, and overall weakness.
I should note that a lot of the news coverage of the memo treats it with a lot less skepticism. Even the NYT article that Savage co-authored reads like the memo is a somber legal analysis made in good faith – until about the eighth paragraph, when it finally lowers the boom:
Outside specialists in white-collar law greeted the disclosure of the memo with some skepticism, describing its tone as essentially that of a defense lawyer in a trial rather than an even-handed weighing of the law and evidence.
The most worked-up commentator was understandably Andrew Weissmann, a former DOJ lawyer on Mueller’s team:
Neal Katyal gets it:
Randall Eliason weighs in too:
Let’s Take A Peek At The Election Prognosticators
- Cook Political Report: Red Wave Looks More Like a Ripple
- Kyle Kondik at Sabato’s Crystal Ball changes his rating on three races all in the Democratic direction:
NY-18 moves from Toss Up to Leans Democratic
NY-19 moves from Leans Republican to Toss Up
OH-Sen moves from Likely Republican to Leans Republican.
Flip The Script
The conservative reaction to Biden’s student loan forgiveness program has mostly been a curdled mix of complaining about bailouts and deep animus toward any collective action to help others. Here’s how Biden responded when a White House reporter gave voice to the grumps:
Run By WHO???
A new federal criminal case against alleged participants in the Jan. 6 attack:
Federal authorities have arrested and charged five members of a militia alleged to be run by a former candidate for Congress in connection with the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
NBC News identified the former candidate for Congress as Jeremy Liggett, a Florida man who ran in the GOP primary for the FL-07 this year.
Not Cool
Police in Georgia are investigating a “swatting” at the home of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA):
According to a Rome Police Department report, police officers responded to a 911 call on Wednesday at 01:03 a.m. that led them to initially believe a man who had been shot multiple times was in the bathtub at Greene’s home. The caller also stated there was a woman inside the home and possibly children with her. When officers arrived, Greene assured them there was no issue at the home.
“After we cleared the call and went back in service, Rome-Floyd 911 received a call from the suspect, claiming responsibility for the incident and explaining his/her motives,” the report stated. “It was a computer generated voice. They explained they were upset about Ms. Greene’s stance on ‘trans-gender youth’s rights,’ and stated they were trying to ‘swat’ her.”
How Are Things Going For Ron Johnson?
He’s just a victim, y’all.
I’m up against massive amounts of spending. I’m up against the media. They’re very good. They are very good at assassinating people’s character, playing class envy, distorting things beyond any reasonable recognition of things I say.
Please stop persecuting Sen. Johnson.
IG: Zinke Lied
Trump Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke lied to investigators, the department’s inspector general concluded in a new report. Zinke, a former Republican congressman from Montana, is poised to return to the House this fall.
Must Read
NYT Mag: How a Corporate Law Firm Led a Political Revolution: The untold story of Jones Day’s push to move the American government and courts to the right.
Sorting Out Some Confusion Over The Inflation Reduction Act
TPMCafe: Inflation Reduction Act Won’t Get Around SCOTUS Climate Ruling. But It Strengthens EPA’s Future Abilities
Ukraine Updates
- The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine, captured by Russian forces in March, continues to be the scene of fighting that risks a catastrophic incident. “Anybody who understands nuclear safety issues has been trembling for the last six months,” one expert told the AP.
- The death toll rose to 25 in a Russian strike on a train station on Ukraine’s independence day.
Art Heist!!!
On original print of perhaps the most famous photograph of Winston Churchill was swiped from an Ottawa hotel around Christmas and replaced with a fake. The hotel, where the photographer Yousuf Karsh lived for many years, discovered the theft last week.
Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!
Oh Good Lord, What?
My God it’s been a while since I’ve seen this level of journalistic force-feeding of self-wompery to what may be embarrassingly compliant Democrats. Politico Nightly is just out noting that even skeptics now recognize the demise of Roe profoundly reordered the trajectory of the 2022 midterms. And this is … wait for it … terrible news for the Democrats! Wait, what? When I saw the headline (“Post-Roe political regrets sink in”) I figured this was about electorally focused Republicans having some misgivings about defying the views of solid verging on overwhelming majorities who wanted to keep the Roe status quo. But no, it’s Democrats who are crying in their beer because they didn’t anticipate the anti-Dobbs backlash enough a year ago and didn’t get referendums and propositions on ballots in every state.
Pretty Much
From TPM Reader JS …
Democrats always do this.
They have an issue that’s popular and that they have the power to do. But it gets staffed/committeed to death and all of the sexiness is taken out. It starts as a transformational thing, then Very Serious People in the media tell you why it’s a bad idea that will be bad for Democrats when really it just makes them mad. Then the Democrats get criticism from people who like the idea for not doing it and from people who feel like they need to be with the smart kids and who doubt it.
Notable New Data
Pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, today the Biden administration released an unredacted version of the memo Bill Barr received recommending against obstruction of justice charges tied to President Trump’s actions detailed in volume two of the Mueller Report. That was the part of the Report that made the case about obstruction of justice.
To understand the context, these were two Trump appointees (Steven A. Engel and Edward C. O’Callaghan) working under Barr, who had made clear publicly prior to his nomination as attorney general that he did not think the Mueller investigation was merited or proper. So this is essentially two of Barr’s subordinates preparing a memo for Barr containing what all involved knew Barr wanted to hear.
Still, it is a notable document for understanding the internal reasoning and justifications. Also important: We know there is a longstanding DOJ policy that holds that a sitting President cannot be prosecuted at all. This memo sets that question aside and simply looks at whether prosecution would be merited in any case. Worth a read.
Graham Makes Another Attempt To Dodge Fulton County Grand Jury Testimony
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Wednesday launched another attempt to avoid testifying before a special grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia investigating efforts by former President Trump and his allies to overturn the election results in the battleground state.
Continue reading “Graham Makes Another Attempt To Dodge Fulton County Grand Jury Testimony”