Sarah Bloom Raskin has officially withdrawn her nomination to serve as vice chair for supervision of the Federal Reserve Board. She had floated in limbo for weeks after Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee boycotted her confirmation hearing.
Continue reading “Sarah Bloom Raskin Withdraws From Fed Job After Republican, Manchin Opposition”Thanks!
Hey, a big thank you to the new members who’ve signed up so far. We really appreciate it. If you’ve been considering becoming a member, please make today the day. Just click right here. And thank you so much for your emails answering my questions below. If you haven’t had a chance to read our drive launch post I’d truly be in your debt if you’d take a moment to read it. It’s just below this post or you can read it by clicking here.
(To all the members who wrote such thoughtful replies to the questions below: seriously, thank you. I’m going to be reading through all of them personally. It will take me a while as I’m trying to work several stories too. But I will be making my way through them all. Some will be published and all will figure into our planning and internal discussions. Seriously, thanks.)
Putin Puts International Justice On Trial – Betting That The Age Of Impunity Will Continue
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published by The Conversation.
Images of pregnant women fleeing a bombed maternity ward in Mariupol, Ukraine, raised again the question of how far the Russian military will be willing to go to conquer the country – and whether war crimes are being committed.
In just over two weeks of the invasion, the World Health Organization has verified 39 attacks by Russians on health care facilities. Ukraine claims more civilians than Ukrainian soldiers have already been killed.
Continue reading “Putin Puts International Justice On Trial – Betting That The Age Of Impunity Will Continue”How One Odessan Fled The Russian Onslaught
Gunshots, a bombed-out road, and four days driving out of Ukraine with two distraught children in the back of the car.
Continue reading “How One Odessan Fled The Russian Onslaught”Please Stop and Read This (Seriously)
Okay, enough warnings and preparation. Today we launch our annual TPM membership drive. Even if you are a member, I would greatly appreciate if you would give this a read. It’s really important. If you’re not a member or if you’re a lapsed member, would you consider making today the day you join us? A basic Prime membership is really cheap. Just $5.99 a month and a bit less if you sign up for an annual membership. You’ll barely miss that cash and in exchange you’ll get access to everything we publish, a cleaner and less cluttered reading experience and a lot more. But at least as important is that your membership fee — along with those of over 33,000 other TPM members — make this operation possible and sustainable. This isn’t just chatter and words. We’re not owned by a big corporation or funded by some foundation. It’s not one revenue source. The overwhelming percentage of the funding that pays for the salaries, health insurance, rent, web hosting and everything else comes from those membership fees. (Like over 80%.) And we really need a chunk more of the people who regularly visit the site to become members. It’s really important. Are you convinced? Just click right here to sign up.
Over the coming days, along with bringing you the latest on the big land war in Europe, the hopefully subsiding global pandemic and the struggle to preserve democracy in the United States, I’m going to be telling you some of our plans for the near and long term here at TPM, how we plan to expand and deepen the way we bring you the news every day. For members and non-members alike, I hope you’ll join me for that discussion.
For now, I have an ask of members too. Why do you read TPM? And more specifically, what do you get from TPM that you don’t get from other news sources? This might sound like we’re fishing for compliments. And in a way we are. I’m asking Readers and Members to write in with their answer to these questions and I hope to publish some of them as part of our pitch for others to join. But it’s not only that. It’s also audience research. This drive is also combined with a number of projects and efforts this year to improve and evolve the site. (There’s no standing still in digital news. You’re either busy being born or busy dying.) And to do that we need to be in constant dialogue with our Readers. We do that in a lot of ways every day. But here I want to do it in a focused and concentrated way.
As a digital native news organization, we’ve always approached what we do and viewed ourselves as a news operation that is part of an ecosystem of sources where you get your news. This isn’t just humility (yes, they probably do go to other news websites sometimes…) It’s a way of thinking about the practice of journalism as one that is in relationship to other news organizations that operate in different ways, with different perspectives, with more long or short term focuses. So as we figure out how to evolve in response to the ever-evolving news environment, it’s critical that we understand where we fit into the mix for our current Readers.
So, that’s our to do list for today. Not a member? Seriously, can you sign up today? You’ll make about twenty of us really happy and at least one of us a bit relieved. If you are a member, can you drop me a line answering those two questions above? Just send it to talk at talkingpointsmemo dot com with the subject line “Why TPM?”
And thank you. Thank you from all of us.
Russian State TV Producer Missing After Protesting Ukraine War Live On Air
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Beyond Gutsy
Lawyers for Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor and producer of Russia’s state-run Channel One who burst onto the set during a live broadcast to protest the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine on Monday night, told the Washington Post on Tuesday that they can’t find their client.
- Ovsyannikova had run up behind the news anchor and shouted “Stop the war!” while holding up a sign that said in Russian “Stop the war. Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here”:
- Ovsyannikova was arrested after the incident and detained at a police station at the Ostankino broadcasting center in Moscow, according to OVD-Info, a human rights group that tracks protests in Russia.
- Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused the TV producer of “hooliganism” on Tuesday but claimed the broadcasting station, not the government, was “dealing with this.”
- Ovsyannikova recorded a video before she stormed the set in which she expressed regret over “working on Kremlin propaganda” at Channel One. “I am ashamed that I’ve allowed the lies to be said on the TV screens,” she said in the video. “I am ashamed that I let the Russian people be zombified.”
They’re PERFECT Together
Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman and Tina Peters, the indicted Mesa County, Colorado clerk, will be at the same event for 2020 election truthers next week.
- Gableman is the guy Wisconsin Republicans appointed to run a bogus 2020 election audit and also thinks it’s possible to “decertify” the election (it’s not).
- Tina Peters is the pro-Trump election official who was charged last week in a bizarro alleged scheme involving county voting machines.
- Gableman is headlining a March 25 event in Utah that promises to deliver “mind blowing Information on Utahs [sic] 2020 election,” according to the event’s Facebook page.
- Peters will be there to share “her incredible story of exposing Dominion fraud” (there’s no evidence that Dominion Voting Systems conspired to rig the election against Trump, as MAGA supporters have insisted).
- Gableman, who also went to MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s “Cyber Symposium” circus, will also speak at another “election data” event in Utah the next day on March 26, his office confirmed to the Wisconsin State Journal on Monday.
- Gableman has presented zero evidence that the Wisconsin election results were fraudulent.
European Leaders Travel To Kyiv
- CNN: “Prime ministers of Poland, Slovenia and Czech Republic en route to meet Zelensky in Kyiv”
- The Washington Post: “Kyiv under attack as European leaders announce visit”
- The New York Times: “The leaders of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia head to Kyiv, a visit that was kept secret.”
Idaho Passes Texas-Inspired Abortion Ban
Idaho is now the first state to approve an abortion ban modeled after Texas Republicans’ law, which prohibits the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy and incentives private citizens to sue abortion providers and collect a reward in court.
- Idaho’s GOP-controlled legislature passed the measure on Monday and sent it over to Gov. Brad Little (R), who is expected to sign it.
- The Idaho ban is somewhat less extreme than the Texas one: Idaho’s bill is limited to family members of the so-called “preborn child,” while Texas allows literally any citizen to sue the providers. Idaho includes an exception for rape and incest (though the victim is required to obtain a police report) while Texas has no exceptions.
Ginni Thomas Went To Pre-Insurrection Jan. 6 Rally
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, Ginni Thomas, admitted on Monday that she went to the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 that came right before the Capitol insurrection.
- Thomas–who has ties to both the rally organizers and MAGAland’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election–said she “got cold and left early” before Trump took the stage at the event. Thomas claimed she wasn’t involved in planning the rally.
- Clarence Thomas was the only dissenting vote in the Supreme Court’s 8-1 decision denying Trump’s attempt to block the House Jan. 6 Committee’s subpoena for records on the Capitol attack.
Ohio Now Allows Concealed Weapon Carry Without Training Or Permit
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) signed state Republicans’ bill on Monday that lets anyone age 21 and over carry a concealed firearm without limits unless the person’s been banned from carrying guns by state or federal law.
Capitol Moves Toward Reopening After Two Years
Multiple outlets report that U.S. Capitol Police and House and Senate officials are reviewing a plan to reopen the Capitol, which has been shut to the public since March 12, 2020 due the pandemic.
Politico Demands Hawley Stop Using Fist-Pump Pic For Merch
Lawyers for Politico sent a cease-and-desist letter to Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-MO) campaign last month after the senator started selling mugs featuring that infamous photo of him fist-pumping Trump supporters several hours before the Capitol attack on Jan. 6. The photo was taken by a photojournalist at E&E News, which is owned by Politico.
- A Hawley campaign spokesperson told E&E News on Monday that “we are in full compliance with the law” but wouldn’t say if the campaign paid for the license to use the photo. The spokesperson claimed that the campaign hadn’t gotten the letter from Politico.
- In case you had any questions about it, Hawley insists that the mug is “not a pro-riot mug,” so that’s that on that.
Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!
Where Things Stand: Tulsi Gabbard Has Some Thoughts About Those ‘Biolabs’ That The Kremlin Is Fixated On
Former long-shot presidential candidate and congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii is just the latest U.S. politician to seize on debunked, Kremlin-backed conspiracy theories about the supposed existence of U.S.-run bioweapon research labs in Ukraine.
But she’s the first high-profile Democrat to do so.
What started as an InfoWars talking point has been embraced by the Russian and Chinese state media and has morphed in recent days into a full blown right-wing effort to place the blame for President Putin’s deadly war on Ukraine squarely on the shoulders of the U.S. right’s usual cast of enemies, including President Biden and, of course, Anthony Fauci. Kate Riga digs into the madness here.
Continue reading “Where Things Stand: Tulsi Gabbard Has Some Thoughts About Those ‘Biolabs’ That The Kremlin Is Fixated On”Ukrainians Promote Talks As Russia Tries To Surround Kyiv
Next week will mark one month of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Continue reading “Ukrainians Promote Talks As Russia Tries To Surround Kyiv”?One Day More!?
We’re coming up on our big annual membership drive. So keep your eyes out. And if you’re not a member, we would so appreciate it if you would choose to join as a member during this drive, which kicks off tomorrow. The stuff you get is really great. And in addition to that transactional part of becoming a member, you also make TPM possible. When I see we need your support, I don’t mean it in a notional way: I mean we need your support. We need more of our regular readers to become members. If you’re already a member, well, we’re going to have fun for you to. We’re going to talk about TPM and we might even throw in some small contests. So get ready for tomorrow and thank you all in advance.
A New Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory With The Same Old Cast Of Characters
In the QAnon universe, people like Hillary Clinton and George Soros are unbelievably busy.
Their days are filled with funding immigrant caravans, being hanged at Guantanamo Bay, running child sex rings in the basements of basement-less pizzarias, paying people to protest former President Donald Trump’s election.
Continue reading “A New Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory With The Same Old Cast Of Characters”