Man With Weapons And Allegedly Spouting White Supremacist Rhetoric Arrested Near DNC

Posted on by Cristina Cabrera

A California man who allegedly had a machete and bayonet in a truck with white supremacist symbols on it was arrested late Sunday night near the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Continue reading “Man With Weapons And Allegedly Spouting White Supremacist Rhetoric Arrested Near DNC” →

The Rest of the Story

Posted on by Josh Marshall

The Washington Post has written up this story of an Alabama man who needed an ICU bed to treat a cardiac issue and none could be found for him in his home state. His home town hospital in Cullman, Alabama contacted 43 other hospitals in the state but none had room for him. He was eventually airlifted to a hospital in neighboring Mississippi where he died. The story garnered attention because his family included a plea for people to get vaccinated in Ray DeMonia’s obituary.

But there’s one detail about this story – or at least arguable tied to the story – that the Post doesn’t mention. Cullman, Alabama was the site of what the Alabama state GOP billed as the largest political rally in Alabama history just a couple days before DeMonia went to the hospital. The state GOP claimed 50,000 turned out for the rally in Cullman. Few if any seemed to be masked.

Continue reading “The Rest of the Story” →

Manchin Appears To Throw Cold Water On Key To Democrats’ Climate Plan

Posted on by Kate Riga

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) continued his media tour seemingly crafted to cause Democrats agita on Sunday, where he threw cold water on the crux of their climate plan. 

Continue reading “Manchin Appears To Throw Cold Water On Key To Democrats’ Climate Plan” →

The 4 Biggest Unknowns In The Disciplinary Cases Against Capitol Police For Jan. 6

Posted on by Matt Shuham

The U.S. Capitol Police’s response to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack has faced months of congressional investigations as well as an internal review, and the latter bore some news on Saturday: The department’s Office of Professional Responsibility has recommended that several officers be disciplined for their actions that day. 

Continue reading “The 4 Biggest Unknowns In The Disciplinary Cases Against Capitol Police For Jan. 6” →

Fox Host Brian Kilmeade Wants Biden To ‘Yell At’ Black People To Get COVID Shot

Posted on by Cristina Cabrera

“Fox and Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade ran straight to racism on Monday morning as he expressed outrage over President Joe Biden’s broad COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

Continue reading “Fox Host Brian Kilmeade Wants Biden To ‘Yell At’ Black People To Get COVID Shot” →

We’re Not Partisan Hacks! Justice Barrett Insists At McConnell Celebration

Posted on by Cristina Cabrera

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.

Who, Me?

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett wants you to know that the high court is definitely not another GOP machine.

  • “My goal today is to convince you that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks,” she said during a speech at an event on Sunday.
  • The event was a celebration the 30th anniversary of the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville, which is named after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who was sitting next to Barrett on stage during her remarks.

Sanders Pours Cold Water On Manchin’s Cold Water

Senate Budget Committee chair Bernie Sanders (I-VT) went full “Nice bipartisan infrastructure bill you got there, would be a shame if…..” on Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) in response to the West Virginia Democrat’s declaration on Sunday that he won’t vote for the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill.

  • No seriously, that’s almost exactly how Sanders put it during a CNN “State of the Union” interview: “Mr. Manchin, I know, worked very hard on the bipartisan bill. It would be a terrible thing for the American people if both of those bills fail. They are linked together. They’re going to go forward together.” 

  • Yes, the Senate already passed the bipartisan bill. But the House hasn’t–and Sanders’ allies in that chamber know what’s up.
  • Sanders’ remarks came shortly after Manchin said during his own “State of the Union” interview that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) “will not have my vote” on reconciliation, repeating his complaints about “inflation” he claims the sweeping legislation would cause.

Is Biden Finally Getting Ready To Do Something About The Filibuster?

The President has reportedly told Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) privately that he’s ready to step in and lobby moderate Democrats to approve a carve-out in the filibuster in order to pass election reform legislation, according to Rolling Stone.

  • “Chuck, you tell me when you need me to start making phone calls,” Biden reportedly told Schumer.
  • The President was previously resistant to putting his thumb on the scale with regards to the filibuster even for voting rights legislation, according to a CNN report in March. He privately told Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) that it was on Democratic senators to pressure Republicans to back voting rights reform.
  • In the meantime, Democrats are close to reaching an agreement on voting rights legislation that all 50 Democratic senators can support, according to NBC News.

Some Cops Face Discipline For Their Behavior On Jan. 6

The U.S. Capitol Police’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) has recommended “disciplinary action” for six of its officers in the agency’s internal investigation into certain officers’ shockingly friendly conduct with Trump supporters who were storming the Capitol.

  • The USCP did not identify the officers or specify what exactly those violations were. The announcement only lists “conduct unbecoming,” “failure to comply with directives,” “improper remarks” and “improper dissemination of information.”
  • The agency had investigated 26 officers in its probe. The rest of the 20 officers were found to have committed “no wrongdoing,” according to the USCP.
  • The announcement emphasized that the six cases “should not diminish the heroic efforts” of the other USCP officers who responded to the attack and that “the bravery and courage exhibited by the vast majority of our employees was inspiring.”
  • The investigation came after footage of officers chumming it up and even posing for selfies with the insurrectionists went viral:

  • It’s unknown if the selfie cop was one of the six officers who was recommended for disciplinary action. He was suspended after the attack.

Conservatives Are Ready To Delegitimize California’s Recall Race

The Golden State’s gubernatorial recall election that will decide Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) fate is tomorrow, and conservative wingnuts are already working to sow doubt over the results:

  • Actually, they’ve been setting the stage for that for a while now:
    • Fox News host Tucker Carlson falsely claimed two weeks ago that non-citizens would be allowed to vote in the election.
    • Fox Nation host Tomi Lahren told her viewers last week that the “only thing” that could keep Newsom from getting voted out in the election is “voter fraud.”
    • Trump himself claimed (without evidence, naturally) that the race was “probably rigged.”
  • Maybe all this has something to do with the fact that Newsom is enjoying a 14-point lead in the polls on whether he ought to be recalled.

Biden Gives Newsom A Boost

The President is traveling to Long Beach, California today to rally for Newsom the day before the state’s recall election.

Looking Back At America’s Wildest Post-9/11 Moments

Here are a couple of truly illuminating threads laying out how borderline deranged everything became in wake of the Sept. 11 attacks:

It’s hard to choose which is the most bonkers, but this pin has to be one of the top contenders:

There were also some nutty editorial cartoons:

Even kids’ movies and TV weren’t safe:

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!

Remembering 9/11 Before ‘9/11’

Posted on by Josh Marshall

So here we are 20 years later. I saw someone ask a couple days what was your most mundane memory from 9/11. I realized I don’t have any mundane memories from that day. This isn’t to say my day was especially traumatic, especially compared to so many others. I wake up to the TV I had left on to CNN the night before (I was single at the time) and see the first tower on fire and trying to make sense of it. Not in some deep existential sense – I was half asleep. What am I seeing? Then the second tower gets hit. (I’m still not certain if I saw the second tower hit live or a replay from a few moments earlier. I think it was the former but it’s all a jumble.) Then I’m talking to my then girlfriend in her office on Capitol Hill on instant messenger who’s telling me ‘we’re next, we’re next’. Then they get a call to evacuate. My most jarring memory from that day was seeing military vehicles on the streets of Washington, DC, something that seemed simply unimaginable. I don’t remember what kind precisely, some kind of APC, I think. Not being moved from one place to another but on patrol.

In some ways that was the most jarring thing for me. After getting my initial bearings I went outside to make sense of what was happening to report on it. I was still trying to make sense of what any of it meant. I had literally just rolled out of bed, remember. Seeing military vehicles patrolling the streets of the American capital. I understood deeply and intuitively that that meant something terrible and unimaginable had happened.

In the twenty intervening years I’ve become mostly accustomed to seeing national guard troops in fatigues carrying automatic weapons in train stations. If you’re old enough to remember, this was simply unimaginable before 9/11.

Continue reading “Remembering 9/11 Before ‘9/11’” →

GOP Declares War On Biden’s Sweeping Vaccine Mandates

Republicans are raising hell after President Joe Biden on Thursday implemented far-reaching vaccine mandates requiring that:

  • All federal employees, contractors that work with the federal government and health care workers who work at facilities that receive Medicaid or Medicare to get vaccinated with no option to opt out with testing
  • All employers with 100 or more workers to either make sure the employees are vaccinated or test them weekly (employers must provide paid time off to get the vaccine)

The President’s decision unleashed a flood of outrage from conservative governors and lawmakers (plus right-wing media cranks) who have fought tooth and nail to block COVID-19 safety measures even as cases skyrocket across the country. Several governors, such as South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R), have already vowed to sue the Biden administration.

Follow our live coverage below:

The Unemployment Insurance System Is Set To Get A Tech Makeover. But It Needs Much More, Biden Admin Says

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

This article was originally published in ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

The technologists who once overhauled the federal government’s HealthCare.gov website after the disastrous rollout of Obamacare are now being deployed to help modernize and streamline the nation’s aging unemployment insurance system, which buckled under a pandemic-driven wave of legitimate and fraudulent claims. Continue reading “The Unemployment Insurance System Is Set To Get A Tech Makeover. But It Needs Much More, Biden Admin Says” →