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

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Akin Advisor: Thanks for Nothing, Guys

After it was revealed that the NRSC secretly funneled $760,000 to Todd Akin in the final days of his losing Missouri senate campaign, Akin’s top advisor tells TPM it was the NRSC’s “incompetent leadership” and trashing of his candidate that played a key roll in Akin’s defeat.

Josh Marshall

Charlie Crist Goes Dem

Charlie registers as Dem at White House Christmas party …

From the Tampa Bay Times

He did so during a Christmas reception at the White House, where President Obama greeted the news with a fist bump for the man who had a higher profile campaigning for Obama’s reelection this year than any Florida Democrat.

Josh Marshall

Shattered Lives

As I’ve mentioned many times, I print emails that I do not agree with in all their particulars. I’m not a big industrial hemp activist, for instance. But this email really got to me, simply as an artifact, one of the shattered lives of the drug war …

Josh, I think I told you long ago that I an an ex-con, I got pulled out of college and sent to prison for two years in the early 70’s, for simple possession.

Read More →
Josh Marshall
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Obama’s Secret Plan?

Mitch McConnell says President Obama’s effort to take the debt-ceiling off the table is part of the President’s secret plan to assume “unprecedented power” to spend taxpayer dollars to his heart’s content.

Josh Marshall

The Mother of All Government Shutdowns

It seems crystal clear that Republicans will and know that they will concede the game on rates and try to reclaim power with a new debt ceiling hostage drama early next year. Having spent a few days in DC, it seems clear to me that absent a dramatic and preemptive climb down on the part of Congressional Republicans, this means we’re headed for the Mother of All Government Shutdowns.

Here’s why.

Read More →
Josh Marshall
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Oh He’ll Fit Right In

If you have any doubt that Jim DeMint’s brand of path-of-destruction, everything is political, lose as many Senate seats as possible brand of conservatism will fit in at today’s Heritage Foundation, check out this video.

Josh Marshall

Most Recent Latest news stories from TPM reporters

IdeaLab

White House Energy Program ‘Green Button’ Quietly Lurches Forward

White House Energy Program 'Green Button' Quietly Lurches Forward It’s been a while since we last heard about the “Green Button”, the initiative announced by the White House in January, designed to incentivize utilities companies into making customers’ granular energy usage data openly available online. In fact, the last major announcement from the White House about the initiative came in May, when it reported that enough utilities had signed-up to the effort to provide coverage on the energy usage statistics to 30 million American households and businesses. Read More →
TPMDC

Team Akin On NRSC’s Late Assist: Thanks For Nothing, Guys

Team Akin On NRSC's Late Assist: Thanks For Nothing, Guys The top adviser to Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) Senate campaign is glad the NRSC finally came around and surreptitiously dropped more than $700,000 on Missouri to help Akin win. He just wishes they hadn’t repeatedly and publicly condemned his candidate first. Rick Tyler, the former Newt Gingrich adviser who guided Akin’s campaign through the general election, suggests that rather than Akin and his comments about “legitimate rape” dragging down Republican candidates nationwide, it was bad … Read More →
TPMDC

Supreme Court Decides To Hear California’s Prop. 8

Supreme Court Decides To Hear California's Prop. 8 The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it will take up California’s Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that amends the state’s Constitution to ban same sex marriage. The Court will hear oral arguments in next spring and render a decision by the end of June. At issue is whether the U.S. Constitution prohibits a state from codifying a ban on recognizing same sex marriages. Read More →
TPMDC

Supreme Court Takes Up Landmark Gay Marriage Case

Supreme Court Takes Up Landmark Gay Marriage Case The Supreme Court declared Friday that it will take up same sex marriage next year in what’s sure to be a blockbuster case with sweeping implications. The Court accepted a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that prohibits federal recognition of same sex marriage. Two appeals courts have ruled that Section 3, which effectively bans same sex couples legally married in their states from receiving federal benefits, is invalid under the Constitution’s equal protection clause. Read More →
TPMDC

Home Of The Big 3 Becomes The Latest Battlefield In GOP War On Unions

Home Of The Big 3 Becomes The Latest Battlefield In GOP War On Unions Michigan, home of the American auto industry and thousands of its unionized workers, is likely to be the latest state to sign so-called right-to-work legislation into law by next week. Of course, labor and Democrats are not letting that happen without a fight. Despite lacking the political power to stop the measure from advancing through the legislature Thursday, they are marshaling their troops in Michigan as the right-to-work push becomes the latest battlefield in the Republican-led war on unions. Read More →
IdeaLab

As Voyager 1 Exits Solar System, Plan To Extend Life Remains Undecided

As Voyager 1 Exits Solar System, Plan To Extend Life Remains Undecided NASA’s unmanned Voyager 1 spacecraft is due to make history soon, when it becomes the first spacecraft to leave our Solar System and enter interstellar space, ahead of its sibling Voyager 2, which is still about two billion miles behind. Scientists aren’t sure when that day will come, but it should be soon – within months or possibly a few years, a relatively short time given the spacecraft’s 35-year life so far. Voyager 1 survived massive doses of radiation near Jupiter in 1979… Read More →
TPMDC

Jon Stewart And Chris Christie Clash Over GOP, Federal Government

Jon Stewart And Chris Christie Clash Over GOP, Federal Government Jon Stewart and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) butted heads on Thursday over the Republican Party’s relationship with the federal government. Earlier on Thursday Christie was in Washington requesting additional federal funds for rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Sandy. That same day, the governor vetoed a bill that would have set up a state-run health care exchange in line with “Obamacare.” Read More →
TPMDC

Dems Slam NRSC For ‘Underhanded And Dishonest’ Dealings With Todd Akin

Dems Slam NRSC For 'Underhanded And Dishonest' Dealings With Todd Akin So it turns out that after all the condemnations and repudiations, the National Republican Senatorial Committee really did put big money behind Rep. Todd Akin’s (R) Missouri Senate bid. In a blistering statement, Democrats allege that the new FEC filings prove the NRSC was “underhanded and dishonest” in Missouri this year. Late Thursday night, USA Today reported the NRSC “pumped $760,000 into the Show-Me State” in the closing days of the Senate contest. That fits with late October… Read More →
TPMDC

Economy Adds 146,000 Jobs In November

Economy Adds 146,000 Jobs In November The economy created 146,000 jobs in November, nearly doubling expectations, according to a Friday report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The top-line employment figures exceeded analyst expectations, which factored in a significant drag caused by Hurricane Sandy, which made landfall on the east coast on October 29. But the unemployment rate actually dropped two points to 7.7 percent, and the Department of Labor explicitly cautioned that its “analysis suggests that Hurricane Sandy… Read More →
TPMDC

GOP Falsely Claims Obama Debt Limit Proposal Is Secret Plan To Spend Taxpayer Money

GOP Falsely Claims Obama Debt Limit Proposal Is Secret Plan To Spend Taxpayer Money Senate Democrats stand ready to pass legislation permanently empowering the President to raise the debt ceiling. The bill is based on an idea Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) first introduced last year to avoid a debt-ceiling-driven economic disaster, and now the White House wants it incorporated into an end-of-year plan to avoid automatic, across-the-board tax increases and spending cuts this January. Republicans, who hope to use the debt ceiling once again as leverage … Read More →
IdeaLab

U.N. Telecom Summit Ensnared In Controversy, Some Unexpected

U.N. Telecom Summit Ensnared In Controversy, Some Unexpected The United Nations is not having an especially good week. Aside from watching U.S. Congressional Republicans vote down U.S. ratification of an international treaty meant to protect the rights of those with disabilities (modeled after America’s own laws, no less), another U.N. agency has been busy attempting to counter the narrative that it would takeover the Internet by socially authoritarian-inclined governments. It’s worth noting the U.N. agency in question, the International… Read More →
TPMDC

‘Fire Boehner’ Crowd Feeling The Love From Jim DeMint

'Fire Boehner' Crowd Feeling The Love From Jim DeMint On his way out the Senate door Thursday, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) took a shot – just a little one – at House Speaker John Boehner. The tiny jibe was music to the ears of the #FireBoehner crowd, who are trying to build a coalition of conservatives to oust Boehner from the top spot in the House in retribution for his fiscal cliff counteroffer and a perceived war on the Tea Party. Read More →

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