National Guard troops still patrol non-state Washington D.C. after President Trump announced the end of deployments (or attempted deployments) in Chicago, Portland and Los Angeles.
Continue reading “DC Still Flooded With National Guard After Trump Pulls Them Out Of Other Blue Cities”Status Check on Trump’s Nationwide Gerrymandering Assault to Predetermine Control of Congress
For months now, the Trump administration has been aggressively pressuring red states around the country to gerrymander their congressional maps. It’s part of a sweeping and unprecedented scheme for which President Trump has often been a mouthpiece, aimed at making it easier for Republicans to maintain control of the U.S. House in the 2026 midterm elections.
The Trump administration saw some early wins in its pressure campaign, but more recently it has faced a series of significant setbacks that indicate the larger effort may be losing steam.
Continue reading “Status Check on Trump’s Nationwide Gerrymandering Assault to Predetermine Control of Congress”The Latest Defenses of SCOTUS’s Corruption Only Make the Case Against It
Chris Geidner flags today an appearance by CBS News’ Chief Legal Correspondent Jan Crawford’s attacking Supreme Court critics who call the Court and its current jurisprudence “corrupt.”
“There is a narrative the Supreme Court is corrupt,” she told Face The Nation. “We saw that emerge in the wake of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and now we see it that they’re in the tank for Trump. Not only is that narrative over-reported, it is patently false, and it is dangerous for the institution and the public’s faith and confidence in the rule of law.”
Chris has more of Crawford’s quotes. And he makes clear the most telling thing about Crawford’s defense is that she doesn’t even address the arguments against the Court’s practices and behavior. She just asserts it in a ‘the King can do no wrong because he’s the King’ kind of fashion. But this one passage is enough to make the point. Not only is the Court demonstrably not corrupt, Crawford claims, it is also dangerous for the Court to have itself be called “corrupt”. And, she claims, what is dangerous or threatening to this Court threatens the rule of law itself. In other words, you might say, the danger to the state is that child in the third row saying the King is naked.
Continue reading “The Latest Defenses of SCOTUS’s Corruption Only Make the Case Against It”2026 Will See a Major Wisconsin Supreme Court Race. Yes, Another One
When is Wisconsin not electing a Supreme Court justice?, weary voters may ask.
The seemingly rapid-fire judicial elections have captured national attention since at least 2020, when liberal Jill Karofsky upset Trump-endorsed incumbent Dan Kelly and reduced the court’s conservative majority to a bare 4-3. Three years later, Janet Protasiewicz beat the returning Kelly again, in what was then the most expensive judicial race in United States history (and one that gave the liberals a majority). That spending record was shattered in 2025 when liberal Susan Crawford won, maintaining the liberal majority despite Elon Musk’s $25 million contribution to Republican-backed Brad Schimel (and his attempts to bribe Republican voters with oversized $1 million checks).
The race in 2026 shouldn’t reach the fever pitch of the previous two. Unlike 2023 and 2025, it won’t decide the court’s majority. But gone are the days when swing-state judicial races were reduced to the province of the political obsessive — Donald Trump’s attempts to steal the 2020 election made sure of that.
Retiring Justice Rebecca Bradley had some refreshing candor on the way out
A particularly brain-melting feature of the American judicial system is the insistence that judges are nonpartisan, despite that many at the state level campaign on ideological issues and are supported by the major parties and their donors. Bradley, the right-wing justice who opted against running for reelection despite initially indicating her intent to, put up no such pretense in her August farewell statement.
“I will not seek re-election to the Wisconsin Supreme Court because I believe the best path for me to rebuild the conservative movement and fight for liberty is not as a minority member of the Court,” she said.
Check the language — her opposition to running again isn’t because it’s inappropriate for a GOP activist to sit as a judge, but because it’s proving an inefficient way to advance a right-wing agenda. At least she’s honest!
It’ll be a partisan slugfest, despite the conservative’s protestations
Maria Lazar, a conservative state appeals court judge and leading Republican-backed candidate, has said that she won’t say on the campaign trail how she’ll vote on potential cases, lamenting that judicial ethics have been “thrown out the window” in recent races. This is likely a dig at Protasiewicz, who was unusually candid during her race about her stance on expected redistricting and abortion cases.
Lazar can try to be high-minded, but the race will fall along flat partisan lines. A former assistant attorney general under Gov. Scott Walker (R), she defended a notorious anti-union law in high-profile court hearings, fought for an aggressive Republican gerrymander and defended voter ID laws and abortion restrictions.
Chris Taylor, a liberal judge at the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and the leading candidate backed by Democrats, was formerly a member of the Wisconsin state assembly representing parts of Madison and worked as public policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin.
The new justice will likely participate in the major redistricting challenges that could upend the state
Challenges to Wisconsin’s absurdly Republican-friendly gerrymander were expected as soon as Protasiewicz flipped the court’s majority, but they’ve moved very slowly.
The state Supreme Court declined to take up a case challenging the maps this summer without explanation. But it did recently appoint three-judge panels to hear two of the ongoing lawsuits against the gerrymander in state court. One lawsuit was filed by Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy, and the other by Wisconsin voters.
The judges, though, seem in no hurry to wrap the cases up before the 2026 midterms (the judicial election is held in April). When an attorney for the voter plaintiffs pushed the court on a timeline to get new maps in place by March so they can be used for the midterms, a judge replied (in regard to motions that are part of the case) that “we’ll decide them when we can decide them,” per the Associated Press.
The court’s liberal majority is a brand-new dynamic
The court hadn’t had a liberal majority in 15 years — and, as an expert argues persuasively to the Wisconsin Examiner, perhaps hadn’t had a clear and dependable liberal majority “in living memory.”
It’s another shockingly anti-democratic idiosyncrasy from a 50-50 state (in which Republicans currently control six of eight U.S. House seats).
The court is already resetting those political dynamics, handing down major rulings including that an 1849 state law does not forbid abortion in the state and upholding Gov. Tony Evers’ (D) ban of conversion therapy.
Liberals have a chance to entrench their majority for years
If Taylor (or some blackhorse late entrant) wins the election, liberals will almost certainly hold the court until at least 2030, since only one liberal judge is up for reelection in that window.
The Grand AI Disconnect
It’s coming to the surface now. But it’s a marvel in itself that it has taken as long as it has. AI is really, really unpopular with the American people — even more unpopular than I’d realized, as I noted a week ago. And yet for most of the last couple years, in elite discourse, on TV and in the big news publications, you would feel very backwards and Luddite expressing more than a general caution that rogue AI intentionally blowing up the world would be a bad thing. Because it’s the new thing and who doesn’t like the new and innovation and all the good stuff? We remain, meanwhile, in an economic moment in which vast, almost unprecedented amounts of economic resources are being directed toward AI rollout. Public messaging in advertising and product development are filled with reminders of how many awesome things AI can do for you. And yet everyone basically hates it.
Continue reading “The Grand AI Disconnect”An Ode to Corruption: Announcing 2025’s Golden Duke Winners
The lawless no man’s land between the holidays and the New Year are an apt time to announce the winners of the 17th Annual Golden Duke Awards, TPM’s yearly toast to the toads who took venality and nonsense to new heights.
In 2025, the first year of Donald Trump’s second term, those who specialize in political corruption, shameless capitulation and unabashed betrayals of public trust had ample opportunity to shine. And shine they did.
Continue reading “An Ode to Corruption: Announcing 2025’s Golden Duke Winners”Update on Free TPM Ultra-Merch for New Subs and Upgrades
I wanted to let you know that we are now out of free TPM 25th anniversary baseball caps and t-shirts that we were giving away as inducements for people to become members of TPM or upgrade their memberships. Thanks to everyone who took us up on the offer. Your ultra-merch should either be in your hands or on the way.
I wanted to add an important additional point. This isn’t the last chance. A number of you wrote in asking if you could simply purchase a piece of ultra-merch or why newbs were getting first dibs while years-long-members were shut out. Here’s the deal.
The ultra-merch we commissioned for the 25th anniversary was also basically a proof of concept. We wanted to find good suppliers and get a sense of pricing and so forth for a different quality tier of clothing, something a few notches above the standard made-to-order, meh-quality stuff that any substack can set up to sell in a few minutes, stuff that is essentially a novelty. We wanted stuff that that was of quality you’d feel good wearing as a simple garment. That’s a different part of the clothing commission industry; pricing is different, fulfillment is different. And what we found is really nice stuff. Like the high end version of the kind of baseball cap you might buy from an MLB team or the kind of well-made t-shirt you might buy at a real clothing store. So it was done with the expectation that we would start selling similar ultra-merch in the new year. So there’s more coming and that was the point all along.
The Trump Opposition Needs Its Second Wind
In a number of recents posts I’ve been trying to make sense of the climate of drift and enervation that now seems to suffuse the Trump administration and, in a way, the country. Making sense of these things isn’t just interesting in the abstract or an opportunity to dunk on the administration. It’s important to know just where we are, what’s possible now that might not have been possible in the Spring or even a few months ago. And that’s important because we’re all kind of worn out. It’s not just the Trump administration. In a way the opposition to Trump is, too, albeit in a very different way. It’s been a really long year.
I first proposed my DOJ-in-Exile idea back in April. If you’re not familiar with the DOJ-in-Exile concept, this post explains the idea. But the main points I’m about to make don’t require knowing those details. As I’ve mentioned a few times here and to a number of you in email correspondence, it was harder going than I anticipated. For a mix of reasons, I did not want to run it myself or even be involved. I wanted to find a group that wanted to do it and hand the idea and the name off to them. But people were scared. Without my really asking, various TPM Readers came forward with soft pledges totaling probably upwards of a million dollars. So money wasn’t going to be a problem. But the kind of people who would run it or take responsibility for it were scared. People in the key do-gooder groups were scared. People who are hard-chargers were scared. Sometimes they wouldn’t quite say as much in calls but I could read their intonations and I realized a conversation wasn’t going to go anywhere.
Continue reading “The Trump Opposition Needs Its Second Wind”DOJ: Jan. 6 Bomber Suspect Believed 2020 Election Conspiracy Theories, Acted Out of ‘Frustration With the World Around Him’
One of Jan. 6’s enduring mysteries, that of who planted pipe bombs at the DNC and RNC, has, according to the DOJ, been solved. Prosecutors charged Brian Cole, a Virginia man, over the incident; per a Sunday filing in his case, he confessed to FBI agents after his arrest.
Continue reading “DOJ: Jan. 6 Bomber Suspect Believed 2020 Election Conspiracy Theories, Acted Out of ‘Frustration With the World Around Him’”Trump’s Takeover of Education Is Taking A Page From the Confederacy
The thread of partisan power and control is stitched through America’s public education system. In the name of the revisionist Lost Cause history — which holds that the South fought the Civil War over states’ rights and not to maintain the institution of slavery — the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) in the early 20th century leveraged the group’s considerable political influence and went after school curricula. The UDC lobbied for ahistorical, pro-South school materials, and its members joined Southern state textbook commissions where they helped control which books would be deemed suitable for children and which would not. For the next several decades, nearly 70 million Southern students were taught that the enslaved were actually servants and that the Confederates fought merely to preserve a Southern way of life.
Continue reading “Trump’s Takeover of Education Is Taking A Page From the Confederacy”