The National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas has been through hell in the four years since it became a surprising right-wing fixation. Now, things have gotten bad enough that they’re shutting down for the weekend due to safety concerns.
Continue reading “Butterfly Center On Border Shuts Doors, Fearing It’s A Target Of Right-Wing Rally”Jan. 6 Committee Subpoenas Alternate, Trump-Backing Electors
The Jan. 6 Committee on Friday issued subpoenas to fourteen people who sought to act as supposed alternate electors for Trump in 2020.
Continue reading “Jan. 6 Committee Subpoenas Alternate, Trump-Backing Electors”Listen to This: The Breyer Scoop
A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement and some good news on the redistricting front.
You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.
TPM Reporter Kate Riga: My Literary Collection of ‘Demented Girls’
We’re asking our fellow TPMers to share their own personal reading recommendations: books they love or that have shaped their lives.
Comment below with some of your favorites! Also, you can always purchase any of the books by visiting our TPM Bookshop profile page.
Reporter and co-host of The Josh Marshall Podcast Kate Riga is up this month. Check out her literary collection of ‘demented girls.’
Continue reading “TPM Reporter Kate Riga: My Literary Collection of ‘Demented Girls’”Is This Ukraine’s Last, Best Chance At Avoiding War?
With tensions running high in and around Ukraine, the negotiating sides keep pointing back in time to the peace agreement that ended the last major bout of the conflict between Kyiv and Russia-backed separatists in the country’s east.
Continue reading “Is This Ukraine’s Last, Best Chance At Avoiding War?”The Past Is Never Past
A few weeks ago I got onto one of the genealogy kicks I get on every few years in response to a new family history revelation. Since genealogy was in the air my wife decided to follow up on some information she’d discovered a few years ago about a relative who died in the Holocaust. My lineal ancestors were all living in the United States no later than 1920. Others arrived in the late 19th century; some arrived in North America as far back as the 1630s. My wife’s background is quite different. Her grandparents immigrated to Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s. Much of her family three generations back were murdered in Hitler’s Final Solution.
Continue reading “The Past Is Never Past”Federal Court Rejects Alabama’s Effort To Stall Order For New District Map
A panel of three federal judges on Thursday denied Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill (R) and two GOP state lawmakers’ (R) emergency motion to pause the same panel’s order for a new district map that has two majority Black voter districts.
Continue reading “Federal Court Rejects Alabama’s Effort To Stall Order For New District Map”Redistricting Threatens Suburban Minority Coalitions As Those Voters Flex Their Power
In recent election cycles, a new power dynamic has driven Democrats to victory and captured the attention of those who track voting patterns: the “blueing” of the suburbs.
Continue reading “Redistricting Threatens Suburban Minority Coalitions As Those Voters Flex Their Power”Second Person Arrested By DOJ Election Unit Made Repeated, Violent Calls To Nevada SoS Office
The Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force has charged a second person in its investigations into violent threats against election workers.
Continue reading “Second Person Arrested By DOJ Election Unit Made Repeated, Violent Calls To Nevada SoS Office”COVID-Infected, Anti-Vax Sarah Palin Gallivanting Around NYC
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.
Out On The Town
Former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin (who says she refuses to get vaccinated) may have tested positive for COVID-19 this weekend and delayed her defamation trial against the New York Times as a result, but that won’t keep her from dining at multiple restaurants in New York City anyway!
A spokesperson for New York City Mayor Eric Adams advised New Yorkers who’ve come into contact with Palin to get tested.
Second Person Arrested By DOJ Election Worker Threat Task Force
A Nevada man was arrested on Wednesday and charged with making four threatening phone calls to an elections worker at the Nevada Secretary of State’s office, the Justice Department announced on Thursday.
- The threats included the man saying he hoped the worker’s children got molested and that “You are all going to fucking die,” per the indictment in the man’s case.
- It’s the second criminal case brought forth by Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Election Threats Task Force. The force made its first arrest last week.
Biden Plans To Find Breyer Replacement By End Of Feb
The President announced yesterday that he intends to unveil his pick to replace outgoing Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer “before the end of February.”
- We don’t know much about who exactly Biden’s looking at: All we know for sure is that he plans on picking a Black woman to fill the vacancy and that Republicans have already decided she’s going to be a Soros Far Left Antifa.
GOP Candidate Compared Him Not Getting University Job To Segregation
Former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R), who’s now gunning for outgoing Sen. Richard Burr’s (R-NC) seat, argued last year that Duke University rescinding a teaching offer was the exact same thing as Black people not being served at lunch counters in the ‘60s.
The Right-Wing Media Cesspit: Great Replacement Theory Edition
The deeply unfunny host of Fox News’ “Gutfeld!” late night show, Greg Gutfeld, described immigration as “foreign interference in our election” that’s leading to a “slow rolling insurrection” yesterday on “The Five.”
- By the way, “Gutfeld!” is a terrible show and I helpfully explain here why it’s terrible.
That was the same day Fox News host Brian Kilmeade ranted that allowing undocumented immigrants to enter the country is “poisoning” cities and schools “with people that don’t belong there.”
- I tried finding a video clip of that comment for this Morning Memo and ended up discovering that this isn’t even the first time Kilmeade’s gone off about immigrants who don’t belong here:
Biden Discusses Russia With Zelensky
Amid the looming threat of Russia invading Ukraine, the President had a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday. Two competing descriptions of that call soon emerged.
- According to the White House’s readout of the call, Biden “reaffirmed the readiness” of the U.S. and its allies to “respond decisively” if there were an invasion, and promised Zelensky that the U.S. embassy in Kyiv was staying fully operational even though American family members of its staff were ordered to leave.
- An anonymous Ukrainian official painted a tenser picture for CNN: The call didn’t go well, that unnamed official told the network. According to that official, Biden and Zelensky disagreed over the severity of the Russia situation, with the Ukrainian president stating he believed the threat was “dangerous but ambiguous.”
- Ukraine’s government has been striking a similar note for days in the face of increasingly dire warnings from Western intelligence.
- The White House disputed the Ukrainian official’s claim about the discussion going poorly. (Biden hasn’t repeatedly insisted that the call was “perfect,” though, so who knows?)
Dem Rep’s Car Struck By Bullets
Rep. Cori Bush’s (D-MO) car was hit with gunfire in St. Louis on Saturday. The progressive lawmaker’s office said on Thursday that she wasn’t in the car and that there isn’t evidence she was targeted.
Roy Moore Still Fighting Off Accusations He Molested A Teen
Failed Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore’s troubles aren’t over four years after he lost his race due to allegations of sexual misconduct with teen girls. One of Moore’s alleged victims — who says he molested her when she was 14 — has an ongoing defamation suit against him. Yesterday he testified he never knew the victim.
White House Kitty Has Arrived
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