DOJ Dismisses
John Edwards Case
CBO Chief Debunks Romney's Talking Points
Belief In God Plummets Among Youth (CHART)
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The Day In 100 Seconds
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Picture of the Day
Arizona Keeps On Giving
Ryan Reilly does a deep dive on a federal public corruption investigation in Arizona that included a sting complete with a front company – and that may not be over yet.
Quote of The Day
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) to Jamie Dimon: “We can hardly sit in judgment of your losing $2 billion. We lose twice that every day in Washington.”
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Just In
Feds drop case against John Edwards.
Romney vs Reality, Obamacare Edition
It was a passing comment, but it really should close the door on today’s Big Political Story®.;
By way of background, at a breakfast roundtable today, a reporter for another outlet asked CBO director Doug Elmendorf if his agency has detected that the health care law has had an adverse impact on business. “We don’t think that the health care law is having a significant impact on the economy today,” he said.
Why does that matter?
Read More →Profiles In Courage
A quick look at the most obsequious treatment Jamie Dimon received from senators today:
Hard for me to imagine that business leaders like Dimon don’t find these guys to be pathetic, too, and ridicule them privately. But maybe I’m just projecting.
Take Me To Your Leader
If you’re going to meet the President, always break out the 3D glasses.
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The Coattails Question
How much of downballot boost will Obama be – and for which party? Kyle Leighton looks into it in the latest Polltracker Crosstabs:
Senators Lash Dimon–With Kid Gloves
The most telling thing about Jamie Dimon’s appearance before the Senate Banking Committee today was the deference most senators showed him. If you were hoping that the JPMorgan high-risk gamble that went bust would sharpen the teeth of politicians and regulators, today’s mostly clubby treatment of Dimon will be a letdown.
Fox News Has A Bieber Fever
Taking Bieber to task:
A Different Kind Of Pocketbook Politics
Activists try to make end run around Citizens United by upping the pressure on companies that spend corporate funds on partisan politics.
FL Voter Purge Goes Mainstream-ish
Jon Stewart lets loose on Rick Scott’s Florida voter purge. Watch.
Merkley Calls Out Dimon On Bailout Bragging
The air kisses from Banking Committee senators to Jamie Dimon sort of gave away the game at today’s hearing: as big and embarrassing as JPMorgan’s losses were, they haven’t changed the underlying political dynamic enough to threaten banks with tough new regulations. But a couple of (Democratic) senators did take their shots at Dimon, including Jeff Merkley of Oregon. Watch.
As Close To Panic As You Get In Politics
Democrats sound the alarm to donors that their SuperPACs are getting trounced by their GOP counterparts.
Pop Quiz
What do Jeffrey Katzenberg, Amy Goldman, Kareem Ahmed, Bill Maher, Leo Linbeck III, Fred Eychaner, and James H. Simons all have in common?
CNN Drops John King’s Show
Spokesperson tells TPM: “John is an exceptional reporter and we want him to be available to report for more shows and to be out in the field, as he did in the last election.”
Quick Public Service Announcment
If you ever did business with Longford Solutions LLC, you should probably call your lawyer.
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Dem Donors' Super PAC Freeze-Out Is Starting To Thaw
Democrats are becoming more and more vocal in expressing to their donor base the need to pony up funds super PACs.
George Zimmerman Fears For Wife's Safety After Her Arrest
George Zimmerman says he’s worried for his wife’s safety because her mugshot was plastered throughout the media.
Most Recent Latest news stories from TPM reporters
Romney Adviser: Good Economy In Ohio Comes Despite Obama, Not Because Of Him
On Thursday, President Obama and Mitt Romney will lay out their contrasting views on the economy in dueling speeches both made in the same state. Not surprisingly, the relatively close quarters (the candidates will still be miles apart) are coming in the key battleground of Ohio, a state both men desperately want to win in November. On a Wednesday conference call with reporters, top Romney adviser Russ Schriefer sketched out Romney’s message to voters in the state, where the economy …
Read More →
White House Debuts Ambitious Plan To Remake The Web Using Broadband
President Obama will sign an executive order on Thursday designed to lower the costs and speed up the installation of broadband networks on and through federal property, the White House announced in a statement. But that’s just the beginning of what the White House has in mind for the future of the Internet in this country. Another part of the plan, a massive public-private partnership called “US Ignite,” seeks to reprogram the very Web itself for an era of near-ubiquitous…
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Justice Department Dismisses John Edwards Case
The Justice Department’s dismissal of its case against John Edwards on Wednesday brought a close to a controversial prosecution which many campaign finance experts contended was doomed from the outset.
In dismissing the case, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said it was DOJ’s duty to “bring hard cases when we believe that the facts and the law support charging a candidate for high office with a crime.”
Read More →
Poll: Obama Tops Romney In Nevada, But Lead Is Shrinking
President Barack Obama’s lead over Mitt Romney in Nevada is dwindling, according to a new poll released Wednesday. The latest survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP) shows Obama winning the support of 48 percent of Silver State voters, compared with 42 percent who prefer Romney. Obama’s lead is slightly down from the 8-point advantage he held in PPP’s previous survey of Nevada in late March and much smaller than his 12-point margin of victory in the state in 2008. …
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George Zimmerman Fears For Wife’s Safety After Her Arrest
George Zimmerman, the man charged with murder in the killing of unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, says he’s worried for his wife’s safety because her mugshot was plastered throughout the media following her arrest on Tuesday.
Zimmerman’s lawyer told ABC News that he visited his client in jail on Tuesday night after the arrest of Shellie Zimmerman, who had been charged with lying to the judge in her husband’s case. There, George Zimmerman told him about the concerns.
Read More →
Democratic Donors’ Super PAC Freeze-Out Is Starting To Thaw
Democratic-supporting super PACs say Democratic donors, wary of giving money to the outside spending groups their candidates have railed against since the Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision, are starting to put their principles aside as the power of super PAC spending becomes more pronounced. Democratic Party groups are now openly appealing to their donor base to give money to super PACs and other outside spending groups, saying they need the air cover even this early in the…
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Senators Fawn Over JPMorgan CEO After Massive Trading Debacle
The long-shot big hope for Wall Street reformers Wednesday was that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon would trip up before the Senate Banking Committee and expose the need for tighter rules governing big banks. His firm, after all, recently lost billions making risky bets with depositor funds on the line. Instead, with some notable exceptions, the senators themselves turned the cross-examination into a coronation, and exposed the extent to which elected officials still feel compelled to…
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Independent Women Voters: ‘Show Our Children It’s Not Just A Man’s World’
Last week, Democrats in the Senate forced an unsuccessful vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act, a largely political move in the generally dysfunctional Senate meant to shore up support among women voters.
The vote underscores the outsize role women voters – particularly independent women – will play in determining the 2012 elections. They could also provide a crucial boost several female candidates hoping to grow the ranks of women in Congress.
Read More →
John King: Ending CNN Show ‘Stings’
Updated: 1:32 p.m. ET CNN is ending John King’s evening political show at the end of the month, and expanding “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer” to three hours. King will return to his role as the network’s lead political reporter, covering the 2012 campaign. “John King, USA” will be on the air until June 29. “The Situation Room” will pick up the third hour on July 2. The New York Times first broke the news of King’s shift at the network. “I obviously wish we had performed…
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Here Are All The Internet Domains Google (And Others) Want
Google and Microsoft are vying for control of the entire “.docs” domain on the Internet, while Google is competing with Amazon for control of “.apps.” Only Apple wants control of “.apple.” These are some of the intentions revealed on Wednesday in list of applications for new “.anything” domains published by the The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Google published its own list of the 101 names it applied for (under the company “Charleston Road…
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Jeff Merkley Scolds JPMorgan CEO: ‘This Is Not Your Hearing’ (VIDEO)
One of the few senators willing to press Jamie Dimon at a Banking Committee hearing Wednesday was Jeff Merkley (D-OR), who challenged the notion that his firm JPMorgan would have survived in 2008 absent billions of dollars in government money. “Sir, this is not your hearing,” Merkley insisted. “I’m asking you to respond to questions and I also only have five minutes. So let’s agree to disagree, but I think that many analysts have reached the conclusion that if you’d applied that Old…
Read More →
From Behind Fake Company, FBI Set Arizona Corruption Sting
The rich Wall Street-types approached Arizona lobbyist Mike Williams out of the blue. Claiming to be executives from a New York firm known as Longford Solutions, they expressed interest in getting into Arizona’s real estate market by buying up property from cash-strapped government entities. But they were FBI agents, and Longford Solutions, it turns out, was a front company. Working from court documents, public information requests, campaign finance records and interviews with…
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Washington State Referendum On Same-Sex Marriage Set For November
Washington state is the newest battleground for gay marriage, with a referendum organized by opponents now set for November.
The state’s same-sex marriage law, passed by the legislature and signed by Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire earlier this year, was originally supposed to go into effect last week. But anti-gay marriage advocates successfully put the measure on hold when they submitted enough signatures under the state’s referendum process to trigger a November vote on whether to keep the law.
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Poll: Americans Are The ‘Clear Outliers’ In Support For Drone Strikes
The results of a Pew Global Attitudes Project poll on United States drone strikes show that “Americans are the clear outliers” on the issue. In 17 of 20 countries surveyed, more than half disapprove of the strikes carried out in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. Sixty-two percent of Americans approve of the strikes, while 28 percent disapprove. Most Republicans – 74 percent – approve of the strikes, according to the survey. Britain and India are the only other two countries with less…
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CBO Chief: It’s Not All Bad News On The Economy
The U.S. economy remains weak and serious outside threats could weaken it further, but Doug Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, says there are also indications that the economy could perform better than most forecasters expect.
“In broad terms the view we had in January of an economy that we expect to grow slowly I think still holds,” Elmendorf said at a breakfast roundtable with reporters in Washington Wednesday, hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
Read More →
Belief In God Plummets Among Youth (CHART)
The younger generation is abandoning God in droves.
A new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that belief in the existence of God has dropped 15 points in the last five years among Americans 30 and under.
Pew, which has been studying the trend for 25 years, finds that just 68 percent of millennials in 2012 agree with the statement “I never doubt the existence of God.” That’s down from 76 percent in 2009 and 83 percent in 2007.
Read More →
Crossroads Unveils New Attack Ads Against Dems In Senate Races
Updated June 13, 12:40 p.m. ET
The Karl Rove-founded American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS have rolled out another new round of attack ads, totaling $4.6 million across six key Senate races.
The ads target two incumbent Democratic Sens. Claire McCaskill in Missouri, and Sherrod Brown in Ohio; three candidates for open Democratic-held seats in Nebraska, North Dakota and Virginia; plus one Democratic challenger for a Republican-held seat, Rep. Shelley Berkley in Nevada.
Read More →
Elizabeth Warren Links Scott Brown To JPMorgan, Weakened Wall Street Reform
Elizabeth Warren sees JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s Wednesday testimony before the Senate Banking Committee as an opportunity to push the government to strengthen financial reform, to increase pressure on Dimon to resign from the New York Fed Board – and to tie her Massachusetts Senate opponent Scott Brown to the Wall Street excesses that crippled the U.S. economy. But the longtime reform advocate worries that powerful financial interests still control Congress and their own…
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Colbert: Romney’s Olympic Dressage Horse Will Help Him Connect With Joe Sixpack
Mitt and Ann Romney’s horse, Rafalca, and its rider have done well enough in Olympic trials to “almost certainly” compete in dressage at the London games.
That’s just the thing Mitt Romney needs to attract regular voters, Stephen Colbert said on Tuesday. “He’s had a little trouble relating to Joe Sixpack,” he said. Talking about an especially tall man he met, Romney recently said he was surprised the man wasn’t in “sport.”
Read More →
Just Who Are The Top Democratic Super PAC Backers?
It’s no secret that big-time Republican donors have given millions of dollars to super PAC groups this year, and it’s also no secret that Democratic groups haven’t seen the same amount of money roll in. Individual donations of $1 million or more make up a significant chunk of all super PAC giving this cycle, and of the 31 individuals or married couples listed by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) as having given $1 million or more, only seven are considered to “generally”…
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