A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
A federal jury in California convicted Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) on Thursday on all three charges of concealing information (one count) and lying to the FBI about a foreign donation scheme with his 2016 campaign (two counts).
Putin banked on Trump’s cooperation and was eyeing Ukraine greedily should Trump be re-elected. Happily, that didn’t happen, and Biden was his own man and had his own ideas about the new world order.
To be fair, it HAS been done before. Even for a Presidential Election:
Eugene V. Debs was in an Atlanta penitentiary, serving a ten-year sentence, when he lost the 1920 presidential election. Two years earlier, Debs, a labor leader, had spoken out against America’s involvement in World War I. He was convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917, after the prosecution argued that his antiwar speech obstructed military enrollment. The 1920 loss didn’t come as a surprise to Debs, who had run four times before. His fifth and final run, promoted with a campaign button that read “For President Convict No. 9653,” brought him nearly one million votes, says Claire Jerry, curator of political history at the National Museum of American History. President Harding commuted his sentence in December 1921.*
It’s funny: we have long marveled at Mr. Trump’s admiration for Vladimir Putin. I think we figured that Mr. Trump just admired Mr. Putin’s governing style and wanted to emulate him. However, looking at Mr. Putin’s actions before and after the invasion of The Ukraine, it strikes me how similar Mr. Putin is to the former POTUS. Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin is angry and paranoid. He also seems to act based on a world view formed decades ago, and cherishes various delusions. At this point, I am not sure who was imitating whom…
As the convicted wing of the Republican party grows larger, we’re going to have to decide how their interests are represented in our political system. Even if you can’t vote yourself, you’re still here, with rights, even rights you’d take from others if you could. So we should discuss this, I would think.
But seriously folks, it’s rather pleasant to see things to approve of in the Morning Memo. Starts the day right! Representative Liar McLiarson is convicted of lying, one of the worst Supreme Court justices in history remains hors de combat, we have a proper President out in the world working with the good guys for a change, I do approve.