Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) raked Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) over the coals on Wednesday after the Republican senator repeatedly harangued and thundered over Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson during her confirmation hearing, refusing to let her finish answering his questions.
Continue reading “Sen. Leahy Slams Graham After GOP Senator Shouts Unhinged Tirade At Jackson”SCOTUS Sidelines Wisconsin Supreme Court On Redistricting, Delivers For Republicans
The U.S. Supreme Court just sidelined Wisconsin’s highest court and delivered a significant win for Wisconsin Republicans, who were trying to throw out a state legislative map that included a new majority-Black district.
Continue reading “SCOTUS Sidelines Wisconsin Supreme Court On Redistricting, Delivers For Republicans”Astonishing
This is the core portion of a statement just released by Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), one of ex-President Trump’s most ardent Big Lie supporters, after Trump pulled his endorsement. It’s an astonishing statement.
President Trump asked me to rescind the 2020 elections, immediately remove Joe Biden from the White House, immediately put President Trump back in the White House, and hold a new special election for the presidency. As a lawyer, I’ve repeatedly advised President Trump that January 6 was the final election contest verdict and neither the U.S. Constitution nor the U.S. Code permit what President Trump asks. Period.
It’s definitional sedition.
What Made You Decide to Join?
Newly-minted TPM Member MT tells us why he joined. Some very kind words at the beginning. But the ones in the second half stood out to me about our team …
Continue reading “What Made You Decide to Join?”I joined because when I first started reading blogs, I thought you were the best out there. You had the best takes, the best insight, but more than anyone else–you found (and still find) the best questions to ask. You very much know the limitations of your own knowledge, and that sets the stage for your readers to learn on their own.
I’ve taken issue with you over the years, for the most part unfairly (I believe I once criticized the number of Oberlin grads on your roster), usually during some broader national trauma (yes, that is indeed my excuse), but I’ve stuck around because y’all have kept proving me wrong. I’m grateful to call myself a subscriber, and I’ll be “giving the gift of Prime” to my little brother on his 49th birthday in May, so watch for that.
Keep An Eye on This
I don’t want to get too deep into particular reports. But both Ukrainian government sources in Kyiv as well as reporters on the ground in contested areas are reporting that the Ukrainian Army is having some success reclaiming territory around Kyiv over the last 24 to 48 hours. (Peruse my Ukraine Crisis and Military Analysts lists to get more granular details.) I wouldn’t put too much into these reports as yet since both propaganda and the fog of war make our visibility blurry at best. (I find it impossible to know what to make of claims like this, for instance.) And even the reported gains are fairly small. But this does seem to be happening. And it matches reports of real though not game-changing counteroffensives and reclaiming of territory in other parts of the country. There’s been an assumption that these fronts are basically stalemated or that the Ukrainian Army’s size and armament is really suited only to defensive operations. But it’s not clear that is the case.
Continue reading “Keep An Eye on This”Manafort Removed From Miami Plane Bound For Dubai
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was blocked from traveling to Dubai on Sunday, after Customs and Border Protection found that he had an invalid passport.
Continue reading “Manafort Removed From Miami Plane Bound For Dubai”Trump Officially Ditches Mo Brooks For Not Big-Lying Hard Enough
Former President Trump on Wednesday yanked his endorsement of Rep. Mo Brooks’ (R-AL) bid for an Alabama Senate seat after the GOP senator dared to utter it was time to move on from the 2020 presidential election.
Continue reading “Trump Officially Ditches Mo Brooks For Not Big-Lying Hard Enough”Tucker Carlson Argues Black SCOTUS Noms Should Think Like Rappers, And I Can’t Make This Headline Sound Less Awful
Fox News host Tucker Carlson wants to know: If Supreme Court Justice nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson really represents Black women, then why doesn’t she think like a street rapper?
Continue reading “Tucker Carlson Argues Black SCOTUS Noms Should Think Like Rappers, And I Can’t Make This Headline Sound Less Awful”The Heady Call of Triumphal Maximalism
Eliot Cohen is a commentator on military affairs who’s been a fixture of Washington’s conversations for decades. He’s generally been in line with the policy hands identified as “neocons” but his writing has never been entirely in line with theirs. It’s at least a bit more independent, a bit less infected with their antic zeal. Earlier this month Cohen wrote a short article for The Atlantic titled “The Strategy That Can Defeat Putin.” It’s essentially a neo-Cold War manifesto which calls for a military crusade against the kind of revanchist authoritarianism which Vladimir Putin’s Russia both embodies and leads. Cohen writes that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine “is a threat, too, to the integrity and self-confidence of the world’s liberal democracies, battered as they have been by internal disputes and backsliding abroad.” He argues that the goal of U.S./EU/NATO policy must be not only to defend the territorial integrity of Ukraine but “to leave Russia profoundly weakened and militarily crippled, incapable of renewing such an onslaught, isolated and internally divided until the point that an aging autocrat falls from power. Targeting Putin alone is not enough.”
Continue reading “The Heady Call of Triumphal Maximalism”In Case You Didn’t Know
Quite frequently I’ll get an email from a TPM Reader who asks me whether they can cut and paste a whole paywalled article to share it with someone else or whether we can put it in front of the paywall so non-members can read it. As I tell people individually, there’s no need. We’ve done a poor job getting the word out about this so here goes. If you’re a member, you can take any Prime/paywalled article and create a link that is not behind the paywall, that anyone can read whether they’re a member or not. On every paywalled article there’s a “share” button. Click that and it allows you to copy a non-paywalled link. It’s not the same as if you just cut and paste from your browser. You have to do it with that button. So if you want to email it to your colleague or son or daughter or anyone else you’re welcome to. It also allows you to share a non-paywalled version on the big social media sites. We do this because we want you to be able to share with people you know who aren’t members. It’s also an indirect form of publicity to attract new readers and hopefully new members.