Here’s the problem: None of the voters’ false arguments make sense if you understand that Trump lost the 2020 election.
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
It’s also not entirely clear that requiring ballots to be cast before Election Day would exclusively harm Democrats; Military voters and seniors are among the constituencies most reliant on mail voting. Yet the dispute over this issue mirrors the Republicans’ war on mail-in voting — a fight that has intensified under Donald Trump — and efforts to expand voting rights more generally.
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
Republicans tend to push for ballots to be received before Election Day. But the partisan divide on these issues is not brutal or rapid. This matter, Watson v. Republican National Committeepits Mississippi, which has a grace period for ballots, against the RNC, which wants the state to remove it. According to a recent analysis, 30 states and Washington, D.C., have laws to count at least some ballots if they are received after Election Day. This includes many states with Republican governance.
It’s also not entirely clear that requiring ballots to be cast before Election Day would exclusively harm Democrats; Military voters and seniors are among the constituencies most reliant on mail voting. Yet the dispute over this issue mirrors the Republicans’ war on mail-in voting — a fight that has intensified under Donald Trump — and efforts to expand voting rights more generally.
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will take up a case that touches on a perennial election dispute: Can states count mailed ballots postmarked on Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day? The heart of the debate is whether Election Day, under federal law, is supposed to define the deadline by which voters must make their choice and place it on a ballot, or the deadline by which election administrators must receive that ballot.
Republicans tend to push for ballots to be received before Election Day. But the partisan divide on these issues is not brutal or rapid. This matter, Watson v. Republican National Committeepits Mississippi, which has a grace period for ballots, against the RNC, which wants the state to remove it. According to a recent analysis, 30 states and Washington, D.C., have laws to count at least some ballots if they are received after Election Day. This includes many states with Republican governance.
It’s also not entirely clear that requiring ballots to be cast before Election Day would exclusively harm Democrats; Military voters and seniors are among the constituencies most reliant on mail voting. Yet the dispute over this issue mirrors the Republicans’ war on mail-in voting — a fight that has intensified under Donald Trump — and efforts to expand voting rights more generally.
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will take up a case that touches on a perennial election dispute: Can states count mailed ballots postmarked on Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day? The heart of the debate is whether Election Day, under federal law, is supposed to define the deadline by which voters must make their choice and place it on a ballot, or the deadline by which election administrators must receive that ballot.
Republicans tend to push for ballots to be received before Election Day. But the partisan divide on these issues is not brutal or rapid. This matter, Watson v. Republican National Committeepits Mississippi, which has a grace period for ballots, against the RNC, which wants the state to remove it. According to a recent analysis, 30 states and Washington, D.C., have laws to count at least some ballots if they are received after Election Day. This includes many states with Republican governance.
It’s also not entirely clear that requiring ballots to be cast before Election Day would exclusively harm Democrats; Military voters and seniors are among the constituencies most reliant on mail voting. Yet the dispute over this issue mirrors the Republicans’ war on mail-in voting — a fight that has intensified under Donald Trump — and efforts to expand voting rights more generally.
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
In case you’re worried, she hasn’t ended her decade-long losing streak. This morning, the Supreme Court refused to accept its challenge to overturn the Oberfell decision, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
—Josh Kovensky
Another major voting rights issue reaches SCOTUS
The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will take up a case that touches on a perennial election dispute: Can states count mailed ballots postmarked on Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day? The heart of the debate is whether Election Day, under federal law, is supposed to define the deadline by which voters must make their choice and place it on a ballot, or the deadline by which election administrators must receive that ballot.
Republicans tend to push for ballots to be received before Election Day. But the partisan divide on these issues is not brutal or rapid. This matter, Watson v. Republican National Committeepits Mississippi, which has a grace period for ballots, against the RNC, which wants the state to remove it. According to a recent analysis, 30 states and Washington, D.C., have laws to count at least some ballots if they are received after Election Day. This includes many states with Republican governance.
It’s also not entirely clear that requiring ballots to be cast before Election Day would exclusively harm Democrats; Military voters and seniors are among the constituencies most reliant on mail voting. Yet the dispute over this issue mirrors the Republicans’ war on mail-in voting — a fight that has intensified under Donald Trump — and efforts to expand voting rights more generally.
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
She was the former Kentucky county clerk who caused a stir in the summer of 2015 by refusing to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
In case you’re worried, she hasn’t ended her decade-long losing streak. This morning, the Supreme Court refused to accept its challenge to overturn the Oberfell decision, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
—Josh Kovensky
Another major voting rights issue reaches SCOTUS
The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will take up a case that touches on a perennial election dispute: Can states count mailed ballots postmarked on Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day? The heart of the debate is whether Election Day, under federal law, is supposed to define the deadline by which voters must make their choice and place it on a ballot, or the deadline by which election administrators must receive that ballot.
Republicans tend to push for ballots to be received before Election Day. But the partisan divide on these issues is not brutal or rapid. This matter, Watson v. Republican National Committeepits Mississippi, which has a grace period for ballots, against the RNC, which wants the state to remove it. According to a recent analysis, 30 states and Washington, D.C., have laws to count at least some ballots if they are received after Election Day. This includes many states with Republican governance.
It’s also not entirely clear that requiring ballots to be cast before Election Day would exclusively harm Democrats; Military voters and seniors are among the constituencies most reliant on mail voting. Yet the dispute over this issue mirrors the Republicans’ war on mail-in voting — a fight that has intensified under Donald Trump — and efforts to expand voting rights more generally.
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
Remember Kim Davis?
She was the former Kentucky county clerk who caused a stir in the summer of 2015 by refusing to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
In case you’re worried, she hasn’t ended her decade-long losing streak. This morning, the Supreme Court refused to accept its challenge to overturn the Oberfell decision, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
—Josh Kovensky
Another major voting rights issue reaches SCOTUS
The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will take up a case that touches on a perennial election dispute: Can states count mailed ballots postmarked on Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day? The heart of the debate is whether Election Day, under federal law, is supposed to define the deadline by which voters must make their choice and place it on a ballot, or the deadline by which election administrators must receive that ballot.
Republicans tend to push for ballots to be received before Election Day. But the partisan divide on these issues is not brutal or rapid. This matter, Watson v. Republican National Committeepits Mississippi, which has a grace period for ballots, against the RNC, which wants the state to remove it. According to a recent analysis, 30 states and Washington, D.C., have laws to count at least some ballots if they are received after Election Day. This includes many states with Republican governance.
It’s also not entirely clear that requiring ballots to be cast before Election Day would exclusively harm Democrats; Military voters and seniors are among the constituencies most reliant on mail voting. Yet the dispute over this issue mirrors the Republicans’ war on mail-in voting — a fight that has intensified under Donald Trump — and efforts to expand voting rights more generally.
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
Remember Kim Davis?
She was the former Kentucky county clerk who caused a stir in the summer of 2015 by refusing to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
In case you’re worried, she hasn’t ended her decade-long losing streak. This morning, the Supreme Court refused to accept its challenge to overturn the Oberfell decision, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
—Josh Kovensky
Another major voting rights issue reaches SCOTUS
The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will take up a case that touches on a perennial election dispute: Can states count mailed ballots postmarked on Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day? The heart of the debate is whether Election Day, under federal law, is supposed to define the deadline by which voters must make their choice and place it on a ballot, or the deadline by which election administrators must receive that ballot.
Republicans tend to push for ballots to be received before Election Day. But the partisan divide on these issues is not brutal or rapid. This matter, Watson v. Republican National Committeepits Mississippi, which has a grace period for ballots, against the RNC, which wants the state to remove it. According to a recent analysis, 30 states and Washington, D.C., have laws to count at least some ballots if they are received after Election Day. This includes many states with Republican governance.
It’s also not entirely clear that requiring ballots to be cast before Election Day would exclusively harm Democrats; Military voters and seniors are among the constituencies most reliant on mail voting. Yet the dispute over this issue mirrors the Republicans’ war on mail-in voting — a fight that has intensified under Donald Trump — and efforts to expand voting rights more generally.
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
A drawback to this theory is that the Constitution empowers states to decide “how” electors are selected. But the idea would be to give more of that function to federal oversight by a court.
—Josh Kovensky
Obergefell remains intact, for the moment
Remember Kim Davis?
She was the former Kentucky county clerk who caused a stir in the summer of 2015 by refusing to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
In case you’re worried, she hasn’t ended her decade-long losing streak. This morning, the Supreme Court refused to accept its challenge to overturn the Oberfell decision, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
—Josh Kovensky
Another major voting rights issue reaches SCOTUS
The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will take up a case that touches on a perennial election dispute: Can states count mailed ballots postmarked on Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day? The heart of the debate is whether Election Day, under federal law, is supposed to define the deadline by which voters must make their choice and place it on a ballot, or the deadline by which election administrators must receive that ballot.
Republicans tend to push for ballots to be received before Election Day. But the partisan divide on these issues is not brutal or rapid. This matter, Watson v. Republican National Committeepits Mississippi, which has a grace period for ballots, against the RNC, which wants the state to remove it. According to a recent analysis, 30 states and Washington, D.C., have laws to count at least some ballots if they are received after Election Day. This includes many states with Republican governance.
It’s also not entirely clear that requiring ballots to be cast before Election Day would exclusively harm Democrats; Military voters and seniors are among the constituencies most reliant on mail voting. Yet the dispute over this issue mirrors the Republicans’ war on mail-in voting — a fight that has intensified under Donald Trump — and efforts to expand voting rights more generally.
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
Here’s how it could play out: A bogus voter, pursued by state law enforcement, files a federal lawsuit asking to end the state’s prosecution by invoking clemency. The lawsuit would then cite Ed Martin’s assertion, echoed by anti-voting rights activist Cleta Mitchell, that the selection and work of presidential electors are federal, not state, functions.
A drawback to this theory is that the Constitution empowers states to decide “how” electors are selected. But the idea would be to give more of that function to federal oversight by a court.
—Josh Kovensky
Obergefell remains intact, for the moment
Remember Kim Davis?
She was the former Kentucky county clerk who caused a stir in the summer of 2015 by refusing to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
In case you’re worried, she hasn’t ended her decade-long losing streak. This morning, the Supreme Court refused to accept its challenge to overturn the Oberfell decision, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
—Josh Kovensky
Another major voting rights issue reaches SCOTUS
The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will take up a case that touches on a perennial election dispute: Can states count mailed ballots postmarked on Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day? The heart of the debate is whether Election Day, under federal law, is supposed to define the deadline by which voters must make their choice and place it on a ballot, or the deadline by which election administrators must receive that ballot.
Republicans tend to push for ballots to be received before Election Day. But the partisan divide on these issues is not brutal or rapid. This matter, Watson v. Republican National Committeepits Mississippi, which has a grace period for ballots, against the RNC, which wants the state to remove it. According to a recent analysis, 30 states and Washington, D.C., have laws to count at least some ballots if they are received after Election Day. This includes many states with Republican governance.
It’s also not entirely clear that requiring ballots to be cast before Election Day would exclusively harm Democrats; Military voters and seniors are among the constituencies most reliant on mail voting. Yet the dispute over this issue mirrors the Republicans’ war on mail-in voting — a fight that has intensified under Donald Trump — and efforts to expand voting rights more generally.
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
The question for me is whether these pardons will prove to be anything more than purely symbolic.
Here’s how it could play out: A bogus voter, pursued by state law enforcement, files a federal lawsuit asking to end the state’s prosecution by invoking clemency. The lawsuit would then cite Ed Martin’s assertion, echoed by anti-voting rights activist Cleta Mitchell, that the selection and work of presidential electors are federal, not state, functions.
A drawback to this theory is that the Constitution empowers states to decide “how” electors are selected. But the idea would be to give more of that function to federal oversight by a court.
—Josh Kovensky
Obergefell remains intact, for the moment
Remember Kim Davis?
She was the former Kentucky county clerk who caused a stir in the summer of 2015 by refusing to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
In case you’re worried, she hasn’t ended her decade-long losing streak. This morning, the Supreme Court refused to accept its challenge to overturn the Oberfell decision, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
—Josh Kovensky
Another major voting rights issue reaches SCOTUS
The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will take up a case that touches on a perennial election dispute: Can states count mailed ballots postmarked on Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day? The heart of the debate is whether Election Day, under federal law, is supposed to define the deadline by which voters must make their choice and place it on a ballot, or the deadline by which election administrators must receive that ballot.
Republicans tend to push for ballots to be received before Election Day. But the partisan divide on these issues is not brutal or rapid. This matter, Watson v. Republican National Committeepits Mississippi, which has a grace period for ballots, against the RNC, which wants the state to remove it. According to a recent analysis, 30 states and Washington, D.C., have laws to count at least some ballots if they are received after Election Day. This includes many states with Republican governance.
It’s also not entirely clear that requiring ballots to be cast before Election Day would exclusively harm Democrats; Military voters and seniors are among the constituencies most reliant on mail voting. Yet the dispute over this issue mirrors the Republicans’ war on mail-in voting — a fight that has intensified under Donald Trump — and efforts to expand voting rights more generally.
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
The question for me is whether these pardons will prove to be anything more than purely symbolic.
Here’s how it could play out: A bogus voter, pursued by state law enforcement, files a federal lawsuit asking to end the state’s prosecution by invoking clemency. The lawsuit would then cite Ed Martin’s assertion, echoed by anti-voting rights activist Cleta Mitchell, that the selection and work of presidential electors are federal, not state, functions.
A drawback to this theory is that the Constitution empowers states to decide “how” electors are selected. But the idea would be to give more of that function to federal oversight by a court.
—Josh Kovensky
Obergefell remains intact, for the moment
Remember Kim Davis?
She was the former Kentucky county clerk who caused a stir in the summer of 2015 by refusing to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
In case you’re worried, she hasn’t ended her decade-long losing streak. This morning, the Supreme Court refused to accept its challenge to overturn the Oberfell decision, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
—Josh Kovensky
Another major voting rights issue reaches SCOTUS
The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will take up a case that touches on a perennial election dispute: Can states count mailed ballots postmarked on Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day? The heart of the debate is whether Election Day, under federal law, is supposed to define the deadline by which voters must make their choice and place it on a ballot, or the deadline by which election administrators must receive that ballot.
Republicans tend to push for ballots to be received before Election Day. But the partisan divide on these issues is not brutal or rapid. This matter, Watson v. Republican National Committeepits Mississippi, which has a grace period for ballots, against the RNC, which wants the state to remove it. According to a recent analysis, 30 states and Washington, D.C., have laws to count at least some ballots if they are received after Election Day. This includes many states with Republican governance.
It’s also not entirely clear that requiring ballots to be cast before Election Day would exclusively harm Democrats; Military voters and seniors are among the constituencies most reliant on mail voting. Yet the dispute over this issue mirrors the Republicans’ war on mail-in voting — a fight that has intensified under Donald Trump — and efforts to expand voting rights more generally.
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
However, all of this would only make a little bit of sense if you continue to entertain the long-debunked conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election. That’s the only way you’ll have a real reason to preserve electoral votes, a cause that made sense to fight for.
—Josh Kovensky
What’s next with these preemptive pardons?
The question for me is whether these pardons will prove to be anything more than purely symbolic.
Here’s how it could play out: A bogus voter, pursued by state law enforcement, files a federal lawsuit asking to end the state’s prosecution by invoking clemency. The lawsuit would then cite Ed Martin’s assertion, echoed by anti-voting rights activist Cleta Mitchell, that the selection and work of presidential electors are federal, not state, functions.
A drawback to this theory is that the Constitution empowers states to decide “how” electors are selected. But the idea would be to give more of that function to federal oversight by a court.
—Josh Kovensky
Obergefell remains intact, for the moment
Remember Kim Davis?
She was the former Kentucky county clerk who caused a stir in the summer of 2015 by refusing to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
In case you’re worried, she hasn’t ended her decade-long losing streak. This morning, the Supreme Court refused to accept its challenge to overturn the Oberfell decision, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
—Josh Kovensky
Another major voting rights issue reaches SCOTUS
The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will take up a case that touches on a perennial election dispute: Can states count mailed ballots postmarked on Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day? The heart of the debate is whether Election Day, under federal law, is supposed to define the deadline by which voters must make their choice and place it on a ballot, or the deadline by which election administrators must receive that ballot.
Republicans tend to push for ballots to be received before Election Day. But the partisan divide on these issues is not brutal or rapid. This matter, Watson v. Republican National Committeepits Mississippi, which has a grace period for ballots, against the RNC, which wants the state to remove it. According to a recent analysis, 30 states and Washington, D.C., have laws to count at least some ballots if they are received after Election Day. This includes many states with Republican governance.
It’s also not entirely clear that requiring ballots to be cast before Election Day would exclusively harm Democrats; Military voters and seniors are among the constituencies most reliant on mail voting. Yet the dispute over this issue mirrors the Republicans’ war on mail-in voting — a fight that has intensified under Donald Trump — and efforts to expand voting rights more generally.
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
As part of this conspiracy, many fake voters themselves were deceived in one way or another. Trump’s lawyers told them they were simply preserving the legal option for the certificates to be used in case Trump prevails in one of the dozens of unsuccessful lawsuits he has filed; instead, they were submitted to Congress as if Trump had won those states. It’s the difference between preparing a legal document in the event you receive a loan and submitting that same document to a financial institution after you’ve already been denied: one is contingency planning, the other is fraud.
However, all of this would only make a little bit of sense if you continue to entertain the long-debunked conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election. That’s the only way you’ll have a real reason to preserve electoral votes, a cause that made sense to fight for.
—Josh Kovensky
What’s next with these preemptive pardons?
The question for me is whether these pardons will prove to be anything more than purely symbolic.
Here’s how it could play out: A bogus voter, pursued by state law enforcement, files a federal lawsuit asking to end the state’s prosecution by invoking clemency. The lawsuit would then cite Ed Martin’s assertion, echoed by anti-voting rights activist Cleta Mitchell, that the selection and work of presidential electors are federal, not state, functions.
A drawback to this theory is that the Constitution empowers states to decide “how” electors are selected. But the idea would be to give more of that function to federal oversight by a court.
—Josh Kovensky
Obergefell remains intact, for the moment
Remember Kim Davis?
She was the former Kentucky county clerk who caused a stir in the summer of 2015 by refusing to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
In case you’re worried, she hasn’t ended her decade-long losing streak. This morning, the Supreme Court refused to accept its challenge to overturn the Oberfell decision, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
—Josh Kovensky
Another major voting rights issue reaches SCOTUS
The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will take up a case that touches on a perennial election dispute: Can states count mailed ballots postmarked on Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day? The heart of the debate is whether Election Day, under federal law, is supposed to define the deadline by which voters must make their choice and place it on a ballot, or the deadline by which election administrators must receive that ballot.
Republicans tend to push for ballots to be received before Election Day. But the partisan divide on these issues is not brutal or rapid. This matter, Watson v. Republican National Committeepits Mississippi, which has a grace period for ballots, against the RNC, which wants the state to remove it. According to a recent analysis, 30 states and Washington, D.C., have laws to count at least some ballots if they are received after Election Day. This includes many states with Republican governance.
It’s also not entirely clear that requiring ballots to be cast before Election Day would exclusively harm Democrats; Military voters and seniors are among the constituencies most reliant on mail voting. Yet the dispute over this issue mirrors the Republicans’ war on mail-in voting — a fight that has intensified under Donald Trump — and efforts to expand voting rights more generally.
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
These were the most prominent people who actually concocted the plot, alongside the likes of John Eastman, Jim Troupis and others. On January 6, the idea was to use the fake election certificates not so much to “preserve” the legal option of a Trump victory in court, as MAGA supporters (and now the pardoning DOJ lawyer) still argue, but to put a damper on the process: according to the memos I obtained, congressional Republicans had to feign confusion over whether Biden electors or fake Trump electors from certain swing states were the real ones. This would delay certification of the election and potentially give enough time for some outside actors – Republican state legislatures, the Supreme Court, etc. – to take action. – to intervene and resolve the dispute in favor of Trump.
As part of this conspiracy, many fake voters themselves were deceived in one way or another. Trump’s lawyers told them they were simply preserving the legal option for the certificates to be used in case Trump prevails in one of the dozens of unsuccessful lawsuits he has filed; instead, they were submitted to Congress as if Trump had won those states. It’s the difference between preparing a legal document in the event you receive a loan and submitting that same document to a financial institution after you’ve already been denied: one is contingency planning, the other is fraud.
However, all of this would only make a little bit of sense if you continue to entertain the long-debunked conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election. That’s the only way you’ll have a real reason to preserve electoral votes, a cause that made sense to fight for.
—Josh Kovensky
What’s next with these preemptive pardons?
The question for me is whether these pardons will prove to be anything more than purely symbolic.
Here’s how it could play out: A bogus voter, pursued by state law enforcement, files a federal lawsuit asking to end the state’s prosecution by invoking clemency. The lawsuit would then cite Ed Martin’s assertion, echoed by anti-voting rights activist Cleta Mitchell, that the selection and work of presidential electors are federal, not state, functions.
A drawback to this theory is that the Constitution empowers states to decide “how” electors are selected. But the idea would be to give more of that function to federal oversight by a court.
—Josh Kovensky
Obergefell remains intact, for the moment
Remember Kim Davis?
She was the former Kentucky county clerk who caused a stir in the summer of 2015 by refusing to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
In case you’re worried, she hasn’t ended her decade-long losing streak. This morning, the Supreme Court refused to accept its challenge to overturn the Oberfell decision, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
—Josh Kovensky
Another major voting rights issue reaches SCOTUS
The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will take up a case that touches on a perennial election dispute: Can states count mailed ballots postmarked on Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day? The heart of the debate is whether Election Day, under federal law, is supposed to define the deadline by which voters must make their choice and place it on a ballot, or the deadline by which election administrators must receive that ballot.
Republicans tend to push for ballots to be received before Election Day. But the partisan divide on these issues is not brutal or rapid. This matter, Watson v. Republican National Committeepits Mississippi, which has a grace period for ballots, against the RNC, which wants the state to remove it. According to a recent analysis, 30 states and Washington, D.C., have laws to count at least some ballots if they are received after Election Day. This includes many states with Republican governance.
It’s also not entirely clear that requiring ballots to be cast before Election Day would exclusively harm Democrats; Military voters and seniors are among the constituencies most reliant on mail voting. Yet the dispute over this issue mirrors the Republicans’ war on mail-in voting — a fight that has intensified under Donald Trump — and efforts to expand voting rights more generally.
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
A telling aspect of the pardons is that the voters who were put on the list are not fake voters. Boris Epshteyn, who coordinated Trump’s defense in criminal cases, is present. He vigorously denied playing a coordinating role in the fake voter plot; and yet, it is there. Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, also received a preemptive pardon. Three lawyers who pleaded guilty to charges in the Georgia RICO trial – Ken Chesebro, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis – are also all on the list.
These were the most prominent people who actually concocted the plot, alongside the likes of John Eastman, Jim Troupis and others. On January 6, the idea was to use the fake election certificates not so much to “preserve” the legal option of a Trump victory in court, as MAGA supporters (and now the pardoning DOJ lawyer) still argue, but to put a damper on the process: according to the memos I obtained, congressional Republicans had to feign confusion over whether Biden electors or fake Trump electors from certain swing states were the real ones. This would delay certification of the election and potentially give enough time for some outside actors – Republican state legislatures, the Supreme Court, etc. – to take action. – to intervene and resolve the dispute in favor of Trump.
As part of this conspiracy, many fake voters themselves were deceived in one way or another. Trump’s lawyers told them they were simply preserving the legal option for the certificates to be used in case Trump prevails in one of the dozens of unsuccessful lawsuits he has filed; instead, they were submitted to Congress as if Trump had won those states. It’s the difference between preparing a legal document in the event you receive a loan and submitting that same document to a financial institution after you’ve already been denied: one is contingency planning, the other is fraud.
However, all of this would only make a little bit of sense if you continue to entertain the long-debunked conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election. That’s the only way you’ll have a real reason to preserve electoral votes, a cause that made sense to fight for.
—Josh Kovensky
What’s next with these preemptive pardons?
The question for me is whether these pardons will prove to be anything more than purely symbolic.
Here’s how it could play out: A bogus voter, pursued by state law enforcement, files a federal lawsuit asking to end the state’s prosecution by invoking clemency. The lawsuit would then cite Ed Martin’s assertion, echoed by anti-voting rights activist Cleta Mitchell, that the selection and work of presidential electors are federal, not state, functions.
A drawback to this theory is that the Constitution empowers states to decide “how” electors are selected. But the idea would be to give more of that function to federal oversight by a court.
—Josh Kovensky
Obergefell remains intact, for the moment
Remember Kim Davis?
She was the former Kentucky county clerk who caused a stir in the summer of 2015 by refusing to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
In case you’re worried, she hasn’t ended her decade-long losing streak. This morning, the Supreme Court refused to accept its challenge to overturn the Oberfell decision, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
—Josh Kovensky
Another major voting rights issue reaches SCOTUS
The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will take up a case that touches on a perennial election dispute: Can states count mailed ballots postmarked on Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day? The heart of the debate is whether Election Day, under federal law, is supposed to define the deadline by which voters must make their choice and place it on a ballot, or the deadline by which election administrators must receive that ballot.
Republicans tend to push for ballots to be received before Election Day. But the partisan divide on these issues is not brutal or rapid. This matter, Watson v. Republican National Committeepits Mississippi, which has a grace period for ballots, against the RNC, which wants the state to remove it. According to a recent analysis, 30 states and Washington, D.C., have laws to count at least some ballots if they are received after Election Day. This includes many states with Republican governance.
It’s also not entirely clear that requiring ballots to be cast before Election Day would exclusively harm Democrats; Military voters and seniors are among the constituencies most reliant on mail voting. Yet the dispute over this issue mirrors the Republicans’ war on mail-in voting — a fight that has intensified under Donald Trump — and efforts to expand voting rights more generally.
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
It seems almost ridiculous to be litigating this case more than five years after his defeat that year. But it’s necessary: This weekend, Trump pardoned bogus 2020 voters as well as several lawyers and campaign operatives who helped organize the scheme. The pardons are (mostly) symbolic, given that everyone on the list was prosecuted by the state for the conspiracy. The president’s federal pardon power cannot reach them.
A telling aspect of the pardons is that the voters who were put on the list are not fake voters. Boris Epshteyn, who coordinated Trump’s defense in criminal cases, is present. He vigorously denied playing a coordinating role in the fake voter plot; and yet, it is there. Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, also received a preemptive pardon. Three lawyers who pleaded guilty to charges in the Georgia RICO trial – Ken Chesebro, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis – are also all on the list.
These were the most prominent people who actually concocted the plot, alongside the likes of John Eastman, Jim Troupis and others. On January 6, the idea was to use the fake election certificates not so much to “preserve” the legal option of a Trump victory in court, as MAGA supporters (and now the pardoning DOJ lawyer) still argue, but to put a damper on the process: according to the memos I obtained, congressional Republicans had to feign confusion over whether Biden electors or fake Trump electors from certain swing states were the real ones. This would delay certification of the election and potentially give enough time for some outside actors – Republican state legislatures, the Supreme Court, etc. – to take action. – to intervene and resolve the dispute in favor of Trump.
As part of this conspiracy, many fake voters themselves were deceived in one way or another. Trump’s lawyers told them they were simply preserving the legal option for the certificates to be used in case Trump prevails in one of the dozens of unsuccessful lawsuits he has filed; instead, they were submitted to Congress as if Trump had won those states. It’s the difference between preparing a legal document in the event you receive a loan and submitting that same document to a financial institution after you’ve already been denied: one is contingency planning, the other is fraud.
However, all of this would only make a little bit of sense if you continue to entertain the long-debunked conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election. That’s the only way you’ll have a real reason to preserve electoral votes, a cause that made sense to fight for.
—Josh Kovensky
What’s next with these preemptive pardons?
The question for me is whether these pardons will prove to be anything more than purely symbolic.
Here’s how it could play out: A bogus voter, pursued by state law enforcement, files a federal lawsuit asking to end the state’s prosecution by invoking clemency. The lawsuit would then cite Ed Martin’s assertion, echoed by anti-voting rights activist Cleta Mitchell, that the selection and work of presidential electors are federal, not state, functions.
A drawback to this theory is that the Constitution empowers states to decide “how” electors are selected. But the idea would be to give more of that function to federal oversight by a court.
—Josh Kovensky
Obergefell remains intact, for the moment
Remember Kim Davis?
She was the former Kentucky county clerk who caused a stir in the summer of 2015 by refusing to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
In case you’re worried, she hasn’t ended her decade-long losing streak. This morning, the Supreme Court refused to accept its challenge to overturn the Oberfell decision, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
—Josh Kovensky
Another major voting rights issue reaches SCOTUS
The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will take up a case that touches on a perennial election dispute: Can states count mailed ballots postmarked on Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day? The heart of the debate is whether Election Day, under federal law, is supposed to define the deadline by which voters must make their choice and place it on a ballot, or the deadline by which election administrators must receive that ballot.
Republicans tend to push for ballots to be received before Election Day. But the partisan divide on these issues is not brutal or rapid. This matter, Watson v. Republican National Committeepits Mississippi, which has a grace period for ballots, against the RNC, which wants the state to remove it. According to a recent analysis, 30 states and Washington, D.C., have laws to count at least some ballots if they are received after Election Day. This includes many states with Republican governance.
It’s also not entirely clear that requiring ballots to be cast before Election Day would exclusively harm Democrats; Military voters and seniors are among the constituencies most reliant on mail voting. Yet the dispute over this issue mirrors the Republicans’ war on mail-in voting — a fight that has intensified under Donald Trump — and efforts to expand voting rights more generally.
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
It seems almost ridiculous to be litigating this case more than five years after his defeat that year. But it’s necessary: This weekend, Trump pardoned bogus 2020 voters as well as several lawyers and campaign operatives who helped organize the scheme. The pardons are (mostly) symbolic, given that everyone on the list was prosecuted by the state for the conspiracy. The president’s federal pardon power cannot reach them.
A telling aspect of the pardons is that the voters who were put on the list are not fake voters. Boris Epshteyn, who coordinated Trump’s defense in criminal cases, is present. He vigorously denied playing a coordinating role in the fake voter plot; and yet, it is there. Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, also received a preemptive pardon. Three lawyers who pleaded guilty to charges in the Georgia RICO trial – Ken Chesebro, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis – are also all on the list.
These were the most prominent people who actually concocted the plot, alongside the likes of John Eastman, Jim Troupis and others. On January 6, the idea was to use the fake election certificates not so much to “preserve” the legal option of a Trump victory in court, as MAGA supporters (and now the pardoning DOJ lawyer) still argue, but to put a damper on the process: according to the memos I obtained, congressional Republicans had to feign confusion over whether Biden electors or fake Trump electors from certain swing states were the real ones. This would delay certification of the election and potentially give enough time for some outside actors – Republican state legislatures, the Supreme Court, etc. – to take action. – to intervene and resolve the dispute in favor of Trump.
As part of this conspiracy, many fake voters themselves were deceived in one way or another. Trump’s lawyers told them they were simply preserving the legal option for the certificates to be used in case Trump prevails in one of the dozens of unsuccessful lawsuits he has filed; instead, they were submitted to Congress as if Trump had won those states. It’s the difference between preparing a legal document in the event you receive a loan and submitting that same document to a financial institution after you’ve already been denied: one is contingency planning, the other is fraud.
However, all of this would only make a little bit of sense if you continue to entertain the long-debunked conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election. That’s the only way you’ll have a real reason to preserve electoral votes, a cause that made sense to fight for.
—Josh Kovensky
What’s next with these preemptive pardons?
The question for me is whether these pardons will prove to be anything more than purely symbolic.
Here’s how it could play out: A bogus voter, pursued by state law enforcement, files a federal lawsuit asking to end the state’s prosecution by invoking clemency. The lawsuit would then cite Ed Martin’s assertion, echoed by anti-voting rights activist Cleta Mitchell, that the selection and work of presidential electors are federal, not state, functions.
A drawback to this theory is that the Constitution empowers states to decide “how” electors are selected. But the idea would be to give more of that function to federal oversight by a court.
—Josh Kovensky
Obergefell remains intact, for the moment
Remember Kim Davis?
She was the former Kentucky county clerk who caused a stir in the summer of 2015 by refusing to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
In case you’re worried, she hasn’t ended her decade-long losing streak. This morning, the Supreme Court refused to accept its challenge to overturn the Oberfell decision, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
—Josh Kovensky
Another major voting rights issue reaches SCOTUS
The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will take up a case that touches on a perennial election dispute: Can states count mailed ballots postmarked on Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day? The heart of the debate is whether Election Day, under federal law, is supposed to define the deadline by which voters must make their choice and place it on a ballot, or the deadline by which election administrators must receive that ballot.
Republicans tend to push for ballots to be received before Election Day. But the partisan divide on these issues is not brutal or rapid. This matter, Watson v. Republican National Committeepits Mississippi, which has a grace period for ballots, against the RNC, which wants the state to remove it. According to a recent analysis, 30 states and Washington, D.C., have laws to count at least some ballots if they are received after Election Day. This includes many states with Republican governance.
It’s also not entirely clear that requiring ballots to be cast before Election Day would exclusively harm Democrats; Military voters and seniors are among the constituencies most reliant on mail voting. Yet the dispute over this issue mirrors the Republicans’ war on mail-in voting — a fight that has intensified under Donald Trump — and efforts to expand voting rights more generally.
The Supreme Court will decide this case during a term in which it also appears poised to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Both decisions could have a significant impact on the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 general election.
-John Light
Trump Admin: Paying Snap Would Harm Us More Than Not Paying Starving Americans
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November, after the Agriculture Department failed to meet a judge-set deadline to partially fund the program. The Justice Department almost immediately appealed the decision. That resulted in a flurry of calls and orders unfolding over the weekend — demonstrating, among other things, that the Trump administration was working overtime to fail to provide food to the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
In part of their appeal, the Trump Justice Department claimed that the judge’s order directing the administration to make November SNAP payments in full “threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government that outweighs any alleged harm to plaintiffs.” In other words, the administration said that making SNAP payments would hurt the government more than not doing so would hurt the estimated 42 million low-income Americans who use the program, some of whom become desperate without the benefits.
On Monday, the appeals court refused to block an order directing the government to pay SNAP in full. This led the Trump administration to once again turn to the Supreme Court for intervention.
In reality, the legal back-and-forth will likely soon be moot now that eight Democratic senators have voted with Republicans to begin the process of ending the ongoing government shutdown. But the sentiment behind the Trump administration’s objections to a federal judge’s order will be another example of this administration’s efforts to assert its power.
-Emine Yucel
In case you missed it
From the TPM 25th Anniversary Series: How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Speech Much Dumber
Morning memo: Trump completes January 6 self-coup with massive preemptive pardons
Yesterday’s dispatch from the Senate Grotto: Group of Senate Democrats join GOP in ending shutdown without extending Obamacare funding
Yesterday’s most read story
The weekend: It’s Dick Cheney’s world, we just live in it
What we read
On The Gateway Pundit Podcast, Stewart Rhodes Announces He’s Relaunching the Oath Keepers — Media Matters
Trump’s 2024 “Realignment” Is Already Complete – G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers
Criminal released by Trump gets sentenced again, this time to 27 months — Santul Nerkar, Michael S. Schmidt and Olivia Bensimon, The New York Times
Risky loans from the housing crisis era are making a comeback – Nicole Friedman, The Wall Street Journal
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