TPM Editors’ Blog Opinions, Context & Ideas from TPM Editors

Into The Future

Google reveals the concept for its augmented reality glasses -- for those who want to live on the cutting edge, and who also don't mind looking totally ridiculous.

Paul Werdel
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I'm Rubber, You're Glue

If this is the start of the general election, we're in for a long ride to November.

Paul Werdel

Whatever, Bud

The Associated Press was apparently unmoved by President Obama's chiding on reporting as false equivalence.

Paul Werdel

Motive?

The man charged with bombing a Wisconsin Planned Parenthood office may have attended anti-abortion protests, police officials tell TPM.

Paul Werdel
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The 'Other' Torture Memo

Three years after a FOIA request, the State Department has finally made public Philip Zelikow's 2006 memo dissenting from the Bush Justice Department's line on torture.

Paul Werdel
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'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'

Arizona Rep. Daniel Patterson -- accused of offering to exchange sex for votes, threatening other lawmakers, and violent outbursts -- is so feared by one of his colleagues that she now sleeps with a weapon by her side.

Nick Martin reports.

Paul Werdel

Chevy Volt Back in Production

Coming on strong sales in March, the Chevy Volt is going back into production a week early. This is part of today's strong sales report for the Big Three US automakers and another part of the equation in the on-going debate over the wisdom of the US government rescue in 2008 and 2009. Very big news.

Josh Marshall

Tonight's Primary Results

Tonight's primary results -- free of drama though they may prove to be -- start rolling in at 8PM eastern, with Maryland and Washington D.C. poll closings. Wisconsin closes at 9PM eastern.

Follow TPM Livewire for real-time results, and our TPM election scoreboard at the top of the page.

Paul Werdel

Cows Can't Vote

Today, a very special Lamestream Day In 100 Seconds.

Watch.

Paul Werdel

Wisconsin Bombing - UPDATE

Police chief in Wisconsin tells TPM it's too soon to know for sure whether the man they have in custody bombed a Planned Parenthood office.

Update, 4:51PM: TPM has learned the man in custody is Francis Gerald Grady. We've also obtained his mugshot.

Paul Werdel

BREAKING

The Department of Justice has cut off negotiations with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, relating to a probe of alleged abuses in his Maricopa County Sheriff's Office.

Paul Werdel

Arrest In Wisconsin

A man has been arrested in connection with the bombing of a Wisconsin Planned Parenthood office on Sunday night.

Paul Werdel

Welcome To The General

In his speech responding to the 2013 House Republican budget, President Obama is launching some of the most direct shots yet on his presumptive rival in the general election.

Paul Werdel

Most Recent Latest news stories from TPM reporters

IdeaLab

What Detroit's Resurgence Says About The Auto Bailout

Forget the ides, the American auto industry had a banner month in March. General Motors, Chrysler and Ford all reported some of their best sales numbers in years, with fuel-efficient vehicles, even some hybrids, accounting for much of the increases. The data reflect unvarnished good news for the country's economic recovery, and the companies' production strategies seem neatly tailored to withstand car consumers' squeamishness over high gas prices. None of these strides would have been possible if the...
TPM2012

Day In 100 Seconds: Bully

Fox News anchors know bullying when they see it -- and it doesn't come in the form of scared children being harassed on the playground. No, bullying is when a president gives a dry, wonky answer about the Supreme Court at a press conference Watch: ...
TPMDC

Steve King On Sexual Orientation In Workplace: Don't Ask, Don't Tell

If colleagues never know an employee's sexuality, there's no opportunity to discriminate, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) told Think Progress this week. "If you don't know anybody's sexuality you can't discriminate against them," King said in a discussion about sexual orientation in the workplace. Private businesses need the freedom to operate, King said. "I would think that, unless somebody makes their sexuality public it's nobody's business. Neither is it our business to tell an employer who to hire," he added. ...
Muckraker

Arpaio: Feds Want To 'Control Everything I Do' (VIDEO)

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- who previously claimed he was cooperating with the Justice Department in an attempt to settle allegations that he violated the civil rights of Latinos in his jurisdiction -- told Fox News on Wednesday that he'll "be glad to meet them in court." DOJ cut off negotiations with Arpaio Tuesday saying he had refused to let an independent monitor be a part of any settlement agreement.
IdeaLab

Google Reveals Augmented Reality Glasses: 'Project Glass'

Google on Wednesday finally confirmed the existence of, and showed off a prototype, of its long-rumored forthcoming computerized glasses, and the spectacles are eye-catching, to be sure, although perhaps not in the way Google might have intended. "A group of us from Google[x] started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment," Google wrote in a post on a new account for the glasses on its Google Plus social network...
TPM2012

Romney To Obama: I Know You Are, But What Am I?

Call it the "I'm rubber, you're glue" election. Running President Bush's campaigns, Karl Rove became famous for taking his opponent's single biggest strength and turning it into his biggest weakness. Mitt Romney is laying out another approach: taking his own top vulnerabilities and projecting them onto his opponent. As Romney begins to settle into the role of presumptive nominee, he is deploying the strategy more and more. On Wednesday, Romney addressed the Newspaper Association of America intrue:...
TPMDC

Associated Press Ignores Obama On Drawing False Equivalences On Health Care

One of the key moments of President Obama's Tuesday speech before an Associated Press luncheon came at the end, when he urged reporters not to cast partisan disagreements about the key issues of the day -- health care, the environment, the role of the federal government -- as a product of equal intransigence on both sides. Republicans, he noted, have abandoned their previous support for Obama initiatives -- from transportation funding, to cap and trade, to the health care reforms that compriseconservative...
Muckraker

Wisconsin Bombing Suspect May Have Attended Anti-Abortion Protests

Investigators are looking into the possibility that the man accused in the weekend bombing of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Wisconsin may have been involved with anti-abortion protests there in the past, a police official told TPM on Wednesday. Francis Gerald Grady, 50, was charged Tuesday with two federal crimes in the attack, which took place Sunday night in the town of Grand Chute. No one was injured and the explosion did only minor damage to the clinic. Grand Chute Police Chief Greg Peterson said...
Muckraker

The Other Torture Memo: State Department Releases 2006 Dissent

Philip Zelikow was an aide to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2006 when he wrote a memo dissenting from the Bush Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel opinion that approved various forms of "enhanced interrogation techniques" that most considered forms of torture. Six years later, the State Department has finally made it public. George Washington University's National Security Archive and Wired's Spencer Ackerman both obtained a copy of the memo through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)...
TPMDC

Conservatives Bristle At Federal Court's Retaliatory Move At Obama

The legal battle over the constitutionality of the health care law was always going to be hard-fought. But in the aftermath of Supreme Court arguments, Republican-appointed appellate judges have taken the unusual step of publicly confronting President Obama after he bristled at the notion that the high court would overturn the law. That wouldn't be an unusual play for an elected politician, and indeed congressional Republicans have blasted Obama for politicizing the judiciary. But federal judges are...
TPM2012

To Catch A Primary: Bruning Accuses Opponent Of Following His Daughter On Twitter

A debate Tuesday night in Nebraska for the Republican primary for Senate took a turn for the awkward when state Attorney General Jon Bruning accused his main opponent, former state Attorney General Don Stenberg, of stalking Bruning's 14-year old daughter on Twitter. The Omaha World-Herald was there for the action. Bruning said that this past weekend, his daughter told him Stenberg tried to follow her. "Now you tell me -- I'd like to know, why does a 62-year-old man want to follow a 14-year-old girl on...
TPMDC

Olbermann On Current TV: 'I Didn't Think The Whole Thing Through'

Keith Olbermann on Tuesday opened up on the Late Show, explaining his turbulent departure from Current TV. "I screwed up really big on this," Olbermann told David Letterman. "It's my fault that it didn't succeed, in the sense that I didn't think the whole thing through." After asking about Olbermann's tenure at Current TV, Letterman presented the progressive pundit with an adjustable business card featuring his past employers: CNN, ESPN, MSNBC and Current. "That's brilliant," Olbermann said. Olbermann ...
TPM2012

Colbert Jabs Santorum For Making Things Up

Rick Santorum recently "read something out of California" that indicated how bad colleges there have gotten. They don't even teach American history anymore, Santorum asserted. "That is an outrage," Stephen Colbert said on Tuesday. "The only thing that would be more outrageous is if this were true." Well, it's not. Public colleges in California do offer degrees in American history. Well, the University of California in San Francisco doesn't -- but it happens to be a medical school. Santorum just pulled...
TPM2012

Jon Stewart Skewers Sarah Palin's Today Show Appearance

Jon Stewart thought Sarah Palin was "quite good" and "likeable" on the Today Show, but that didn't stop him from skewering her entire appearance. Ahead of co-hosting the Today Show, the former Alaska governor boasted that she would be "infiltrating" the NBC morning program. "Going rouge," you might say. "Ooh, infiltrating the Today Show, Stewart mocked. "You're cynically exploiting a manufactured notion of yourself as a crusader against a monolithic, exclusionary activist liberal media, whilstToday!...
TPM2012

Today On The Trail: April 4, 2012

Here are ten things you need to know today. Romney sweeps Wisconsin, Maryland, and D.C.: Mitt Romney had a good night Tuesday, winning all three of the primaries. With close to 100% of precincts reporting in Wisconsin, Romney beat Rick Santorum 42.5% to 37.6%. In Maryland, Romney took 49% to Santorum's 29%. In Washington, D.C., Romney won with 38%. Romney wins over new voters: Exit polls in Wisconsin show that Romney has begun to get votes from those who had been stubbornly holding out on him:Romney On A ...
IdeaLab

MIT Creating Printable Robots For 'Robot Kinkos'

MIT's robotics scientists aren't just playing in the sand. They have a vision for the future where you will be able walk into a store like Kinkos (technically renamed FedEx Office several years ago) and design and print your own custom made robot. Yes, you read that right, print out your own custom robot, using something like a standard paper injket or laser printer. "We imagine that a user would head into something we've been fondly calling 'Robot Kinkos,'" said MIT researcher and robotics...
TPMDC

Pew: Trayvon Martin Coverage Has a Political Bent

The shooting of unarmed Florida teen Trayvon Martin was the first story of 2012 to receive more news coverage than the race for the White House. But a new Pew Research Center study shows a wide racial and partisan divide in reactions to the coverage. Fifty-eight percent of black respondents cite the Martin case as their top story, compared to 24 percent of whites. And 56 percent of Republicans surveyed say there has been too much coverage of the case, while 25 percent of Democrats say the same. The...
TPMDC

John Roberts Faces A Legacy-Defining Predicament On 'Obamacare'

You're the chief justice of the United States, and you're presented with a choice: Either rebuke the political movement that gave you your dream job, or put your institution's reputation on the line by neutering a sitting president's signature legislation for the first time in 75 years. This is the unenviable dilemma John Roberts faces as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on "Obamacare." Initial votes were cast by the justices last Friday, and a final decision on the law's constitutionality is expected ...
Muckraker

Arizona Lawmakers Say They're Afraid Of Their Colleague

If what his colleagues in the Arizona statehouse say is true, Rep. Daniel Patterson might be the most feared politician in the state. But it's not his politics they say they fear. It's his angry, threat-filled outbursts that they say are becoming all too normal. One such outburst managed to rattle a fellow lawmaker enough that she says she now sleeps with a weapon at her bedside — just in case.
TPM2012

Independent Voters Brighten On The Economy

The debt ceiling fight from last summer did no one in Washington any favors. Least of all President Obama. When Speaker of the House John Boehner declared in a CBS News interview that he had been able to extract 98 percent of what he wanted in the prolonged negotiations over raising the nation's borrowing level, he wasn't just declaring a legislative victory. President Obama's approval had been dragged well into negative territory, and the whole thing had even damaged Obama's vaunted favorability...

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