Amid his refusal to concede, then-President Trump reportedly clued-in Senate Republican leaders about a far-fetched plan to stay in office weeks after losing the 2020 presidential election.
Continue reading “Trump Insisted Other States Would Decertify Biden’s Win If Kemp Did So, New Book Reports”Where Things Stand: Just A Reminder That SCOTUS Is Poised To Loosen New York’s Gun Restrictions
The suspected shooter who fired a gun inside a New York City MTA train car in Brooklyn yesterday was arrested this afternoon after a 24 hour-plus manhunt. The man is suspected of releasing smoke grenades inside the moving train and firing a gun 33 times, shooting 10 people and injuring 29 others. None of the victims have died.
The attack roiled New York on Tuesday, the realization of a nightmare scenario in a city that relies heavily on its massive and largely underground transit system.
Continue reading “Where Things Stand: Just A Reminder That SCOTUS Is Poised To Loosen New York’s Gun Restrictions”A Crucial Target In Republicans’ War On Fair Elections: Voting Rights Groups
The 2020 election may be remembered for Donald Trump’s attempt to steal a second term in the White House, but there’s another fundamental truth about the last election: Tens of millions of people voted amid a historic pandemic, largely without a hitch. In other words, it went well. Really well.
Continue reading “A Crucial Target In Republicans’ War On Fair Elections: Voting Rights Groups”As He Speaks To Jan 6 Panel, Here’s A Reminder Of What Cipollone Was Up To Pre-Insurrection
Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin, two of former President Trump’s top White House lawyers, are reportedly set to speak informally with the Jan. 6 Select Committee on Wednesday.
Continue reading “As He Speaks To Jan 6 Panel, Here’s A Reminder Of What Cipollone Was Up To Pre-Insurrection”A Few Ukraine Notes
A few miscellaneous Ukraine notes.
The White House just announced that President Biden has approved the transfer of another $800 million in arms and security assistance to Ukraine, including ammunition, armored personal carriers and helicopters. This comes just after a call today between Presidents Biden and Zelensky. This is part of a more general move toward providing Ukraine not just defensive weaponry — light/mobile anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry — but heavier weaponry required for offensive operations. It’s also best to see these moves in the context of actions taken by all NATO member states since they are all coordinated.
Continue reading “A Few Ukraine Notes”Judge Lets Durham Prosecution Go Ahead, Leaving Key Question For Jury
Special Counsel John Durham will get to proceed with his prosecution of a lawyer that he’s accused of being in cahoots with the global Hillary Clinton conspiracy, after a federal judge denied a motion to dismiss the case.
Continue reading “Judge Lets Durham Prosecution Go Ahead, Leaving Key Question For Jury”GOP Guvs’ Anti-Immigration Theater Gets Weird With D.C. Bus Stunt
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) political clown show has rolled into town and parked itself helpfully right on Fox News’ doorstep.
Continue reading “GOP Guvs’ Anti-Immigration Theater Gets Weird With D.C. Bus Stunt”Meadows Nixed From North Carolina Voter Roll Amid Probe Into Fraud Allegations
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is reportedly no longer listed in North Carolina’s voter rolls amid an investigation by state authorities into allegations of election fraud in the 2020 election.
Continue reading “Meadows Nixed From North Carolina Voter Roll Amid Probe Into Fraud Allegations”Leading Iowa Democrat Battles In Court To Qualify For Bid To Challenge Grassley
Former Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D-IA), Democrats’ current leading contender to take on Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) in the fall, is already fighting for her political life — and that’s just to get on the ballot.
Continue reading “Leading Iowa Democrat Battles In Court To Qualify For Bid To Challenge Grassley”A Genocide Friendly GOP
I found out yesterday that the latest episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast with me and Kate Riga got pulled from YouTube apparently because we were **discussing** QAnon-adjacent pedophilia conspiracy theories peddled by Republicans. This got me in the mind of the frequently absurd ways that social media platforms try and fail to distinguish between bad or predatory speech and discussing bad or predatory speech. It also made me want to expand on some points that I made in that episode. (To be clear, you can still hear the episode. You just can’t watch the video version of it, at least for the moment.)
As I noted yesterday, mainstream political media is particularly ill-equipped to grapple with the ways in which the GOP pushes what is in essence eliminationist rhetoric and incitement. Many of us know about the QAnon conspiracy theory world which posits a vast liberal/Democrat conspiracy of sex trafficking and pedophilia which will finally be undone by a violent cleansing of America by Donald Trump. Conventional media seems entirely incapable of grappling with, explaining or describing the way that the “mainstream” GOP has increasingly promoted and mainstreamed these beliefs with a spectrum of indirect to increasingly explicit messaging. We see it in the otherwise quite difficult to explain focus on the sentencing specifics of a few cases overseen by future Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. We see it in what I discussed yesterday as the right-wing appropriation of the pedophile/sexual predation language of “grooming” to indict and discredit any and all support of transgender minors. Conventional journalism simply has a willed incapability to make the connections.
Continue reading “A Genocide Friendly GOP”