This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It first appeared at The Conversation.
During an interview with NASCAR driver Brandon Brown on Oct. 2, 2021, NBC sportscaster Kelli Stavast made a curious observation. She reported that Talladega Superspeedway spectators were chanting “Let’s go Brandon” to celebrate the racing driver’s first Xfinity Series win.
In reality, however, the crowd was shouting a very different phrase: “F–k Joe Biden,” a taunt that had become popular at college football games earlier in the fall.
The bizarre race among Republican members of Congress to win Kyle Rittenhouse as an intern is threatening to become just that: a physical race. Rittenhouse is the recently acquitted shooter of three people amid racial justice protests in Wisconsin last year.
I’m not sure whether I agree with this. But TPM Reader JB knows the ins and outs of government and follows things closely …
While I’m thinking of it….I’ve observed the Biden administration doesn’t maneuver quickly in response to changed circumstances, often waiting until an issue became controversial in the national press. It’s had this problem since the beginning of the year.
Note: We won’t have a Morning Memo tomorrow or on Friday.
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.
Curious Coincidences
John Hamercheck, the GOP president of the Lake County Board of Commissioners in Ohio, on Tuesday denied knowing anything about an attempt to breach the local election board’s computer system in May.
A private laptop that was plugged into the county network inside Hamercheck’s office captured network traffic — not election data, according to investigators. But the traffic, TPM reported in September, was presented at MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s “Cyber Symposium,” the goofy event that claimed to show evidence of election fraud in the 2020 race (it did not).
Investigators have determined that the breach did not lead to sensitive data getting leaked.
Hamercheck had been privately discussing election fraud conspiracy theories with one of Lindell’s cronies prior to the attempted breach, according to the Washington Post.
A Broadway actor who’s starring in the traveling tour of the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar” was arrested yesterday for allegedly joining a dozen members of the far-right militia known as the Oath Keepers as they broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6., the Justice Department announced.
James Beeks, who plays Judas in the show and is billed as James T. Justis on the tour’s website, was arrested in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the show was slated to perform that day.
The feds “observed” Beeks by watching some of his performances in San Francisco and Los Angeles, according to the FBI’s complaint.
Beeks is also a Michael Jackson impersonator, and he allegedly wore a Michael Jackson “BAD” world tour jacket on the day of the insurrection, the complaint says.
The complaint helpfully includes photos of the replica of the jacket.
Beeks has also performed in the Broadway musicals “Kinky Boots,” “Aida,” “Ragtime” and “Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” according to his biography.
U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia
County GOP Chair Pleads Guilty To Making Threatening And Bizarre Phone Call
Matthew Smith, the chair of the Genesee County Republican Party in Michigan, pleaded guilty on Monday to making a malicious phone call to a county clerk last year.
The clerk alleged that Smith called her at 1:00 a.m. and, pretending to be a TV production worker, asked to film her at home. When she said no, Smith allegedly claimed he worked on the show “Hoarders” and said that her home and office were messy.
Smith also allegedly threatened to poison and kill her dogs, the clerk said.
The clerk’s GOP political opponent admitted to law enforcement that he had listened in on the call but denied that Smith had threatened to kill the clerk’s dog.
Jan. 6 Trump Rally Organizers Used Burner Phones To Talk To POTUS’ Inner Circle
Kylie and Amy Kremer, the conservative activists who organized the pre-insurrection Trump rally on the White House Ellipse on Jan. 6, used burner phones to communicate with the then-president’s top goons, according to Hunter Walker in Rolling Stone.
Said goons allegedly included then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Trump’s son, Eric, Eric’s wife Lara, plus Katrina Pierson, a Trump campaign consultant.
Those burner phones were crucial to planning the rally with Trumpland, a source told the Rolling Stone. Any conversation Kylie Kremer had with the White House or Trump’s family was allegedly through the burners.
Oklahoma GOP Leader Demands RNC Chair’s Resignation For Being Too Nice To The Gays
Oklahoma Republican Party chair John Bennett wrote a 1,100-word screed on Tuesday demanding that Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel resign for greenlighting a “RNC Pride Coalition” with Log Cabin Republicans, aka LGBTQ+ conservatives.
NYC Poised To Allow 800k Non-Citizens To Vote In Local Races
Lawful permanent residents and green card holders in New York City will be allowed to vote in local elections under a new bill that is expected to be passed by the New York City Council on December 9.
The bill also extends to non-citizens who’ve been authorized to work in the U.S., including Dreamers (aka undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children).
About 808,000 New Yorkers will be affected by the measure.
Kinzinger Talks Potential Gubernatorial Bid
Trump critic Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) said during a podcast interview yesterday that he believes he’s the only candidate who could beat incumbent Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D).
Kinzinger hinted at a gubernatorial or Senate bid in an interview with CNN earlier this month. The GOP lawmaker said he’d “probably” make a decision on whether or not to run for either by January.
He’d be up against Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) if he decided to go for the Senate in 2022.
Kinzinger running for governor would be an uphill climb: First he’d have to win a GOP primary with a deeply pro-Trump base, then he’d have to defeat a Democrat in a blue state.
Is Boris Johnson Okay?
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s speech at the Confederation of British Industry conference on Monday was….something:
"Yesterday I went to Peppa Pig World… I loved it, it's very much my kind of place"
'Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me'@BorisJohnson appears to lose track of his notes as he delivers a speech to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) pic.twitter.com/cdCJ2tO6ye
Closing arguments continued Tuesday in the murder trial of three white men — Gregory McMichael, his son Travis McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan Jr. — who are accused of murdering 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man, while he was out on a jog near his home town of Brunswick, Georgia, in February last year.
Maryland’s Republican Gov. Larry Hogan threw himself into the small chorus of GOP governors willing to distance themselves from former President Trump this week.
Here are a few links to a topic I continue to think more and more about. On the surface it’s Peter Thiel, about whom more in a moment. But beyond Thiel, there’s a broader reality. In the first years of the century we learned to see Tech as a rising business and political powerhouse that was broadly liberal, at least by the standards of Big Business. ‘Liberal’ was probably never quite right – but at least broadly cosmopolitan in its social values and culture. It was young, comparatively diverse, based outside San Francisco. It was in many ways the product of the major cities and universities that are the seedbeds and home of Blue State political culture. That was never wholly true. And it’s become less true, especially as its financial titan corporations have been forced to interact more intensively with Washington DC. But it was at least partly true.
But many of the dominant figures in the world of Big Tech aren’t just conservative. A number are what might be termed neo-reactionary. Thiel of course is the first that comes to mind in this category. But he’s not the only one.
A federal jury in Virginia has awarded more than $25 million in damages to plaintiffs in a lawsuit against organizers and participants in the 2017 “Unite the Right” white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The House January 6 Committee sent subpoenas on Tuesday to a series of far-right groups and their leaders whose members were involved in either the Capitol insurrection or the rallies beforehand.
