A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1477471
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1477471
Well looky here
Oversight Chairman James Comer’s ‘Legitimate’ Shell Company Was Shut Down—Twice (msn.com)
But a review of dozens of tax, real estate, and business filings in Kentucky and Tennessee indicate that Comer’s own personal “books and records” are opaque at best—and improper at worst.
Those records include the dealings of Comer’s shell company, Farm Team Properties LLC, which the state of Kentucky has dissolved twice for failure to file annual reports—first in 2020, then again in 2022.
While Comer and his wife rectified the first dissolution within a few weeks, they allowed the October 2022 dissolution to languish for more than a year, only reinstating the entity last month, after The Daily Beast first reported on the company and flagged the dissolution on social media. It’s not clear from Comer’s filings whether Farm Team Properties ceased business activity for those 14 months.
The “books and records” questions also run to Comer’s real estate holdings, which directly contradict his recent public statements about his LLC. For one, Comer reports rental income from all of his farmland holdings, but it’s not clear whether that income derives from Farm Team’s alleged hunting leases. If so, experts told The Daily Beast, his records should reflect that, and they do not.
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Well, color me shocked and surprised…
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Now this is how it done!
I could watch this a few times. Kristen Welker could learn a few lessons from Boris Sanchez, too.
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Gosh what will Comer Pyle do now?
We know what he will do…double down on chasing Hunter’s Pee Pee!
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Good chance they toss it on interlocutory jurisdiction, which would also make SCOTUS’s denial relatively easier. But I’m fairly sure they also want to deny this nonsense on the merits. 50/50, all stacked against trump. Opinion to issue within a couple weeks.
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::waving to you from snow day/syllabus-writing land::
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In a perfect world the appeals court would deny the Mayor of Mal-de-Lardo’s claim of immunity before the end of the day today and SCOTUS would deny cert tomorrow morning.
A guy can dream, can’t he?
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That was fun! Thanks!
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If it was based on common sense arguments instead of legal arguments it would be easy and we wouldn’t be dreamers.
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Penny seems less enthusiastic about the new year than my son. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for some positive rulings.
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Is there some secret requirement in the Republican party that the member heading up impeachment must be guilty of what they accuse a Democratic President?
Cause it sure is looking like that’s the case.
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The critics were right about conservative Christians’ true loyalties
In Iowa, white evangelicals are embracing Donald Trump, not Jesus
“Trump is our David and our Goliath,” [Karen] Johnson said recently as she waited outside a hotel in eastern Iowa to hear the former president speak.
…
At Mr. Trump’s rally in Coralville, it was Joel Tenney, a 27-year-old local evangelist who does not lead a church, who delivered the opening prayer.
The crowd responded tepidly to his impassioned recitation of several Bible verses. But the rallygoers roared to life when he set aside the Scripture and told them what they had come to hear.
“This election is part of a spiritual battle,” Mr. Tenney said. “When Donald Trump becomes the 47th president of the United States, there will be retribution against all those who have promoted evil in this country .”
“I voted for Trump twice, and I’ll vote for him again,” said Cydney Hatfield, a retired corrections officer in Lohrville, a town of 381 people in Calhoun County. “He’s the only savior I can see.” Raised as a Baptist, Ms. Hatfield no longer attends church. “I just try to do right,” she said . “I pray to God every night.”
Ron Betts, a 72-year-old Republican who said he plans to caucus for “Trump all the way,” said he felt the former president “exemplified what Jesus would do.”
…
The 72-year-old Betts likened Trump’s legal troubles — from the 91 criminal charges he currently faces to the effort in some states to keep him off the 2024 presidential ballot because of his push to overturn his 2020 election loss — to a crucifixion.
“I think they are doing the same thing they did to Jesus on the cross,” Betts said. "I can see a lot of correlation there.”
But if (when) Trump wins next week, it’ll prove what critics of Christian Nationalism have been saying for decades: Those Republicans were never “values voters.” They were conservatives who merely used religion as a weapon to hurt their enemies. Now that they found someone who speaks their language, they’re ready to ditch the religious stuff they never really cared about anyway.
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“Our David AND our Goliath”?
Whatever.
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How did Sanchez do it? He asked Ashcroft follow-up questions.
Surprising how this one simple journalist trick can trip up Republicans. 
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Run Gen Z? For the GOP olds it’s, “Run! Gen Z!” For Gen Z it’s, “Run, Gen Z!”
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Trump Takes Sledge Hammer To Rule Of Law Today In Historic Case
Maybe I’m wrong, but this strikes me as a clickbait-y headline worthy of Buzzfeed that presupposes Trump will be successful, and suggests impending doom to the reader. It clashes with the more measured tenor of most of Josh Marshall’s blogs, which tell us not to get carried away by the doom-and-gloom framing that the establishment media typically tries to propagandize us with.
We shouldn’t turn into a mirror image of the Fox News viewership being fed a steady diet of fear and despondency.
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No one is claiming these White Christian Nationalists are smart. Remember, IOWA stands for Idiots Out Wandering Around.
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