Editors’ Blog

New documents released under Florida’s sunshine law have revealed more details of the Perla-DeSantis hoodwink operation in San Antonio. DeSantis Public Safety Czar Larry Keefe, the former lawyer for the contractor Florida has already paid $1.5 million for the Vineyard migrant flight, was closely involved in the operation. He directed the “Perla” crew’s operation from Florida. Critically, Keefe made at least one trip to San Antonio to oversee the operation.

From TPM Reader AG …

I very much agree with your strategic focus on abortion in the upcoming elections, and while I certainly don’t see it as an either/or choice, I find myself alternately baffled and furious that national Democrats haven’t made this a centerpiece of their fall campaigns.

This is the 2023 D.C. disaster no one is talking about but should be.

I’ve been reading various commentary in recent weeks about the rightward turn by big elements of the Silicon Valley tech community. It’s a complex story with various roots. But at a macro level a significant part of it comes down to something like political physics. Tech became extremely wealthy and extremely powerful, and when government started looking at Big Tech with a more critical eye a lot of the tech people … well, they didn’t like it. That’s not terribly surprising. When you’re used to being a master of the universe and then suddenly a bureaucrat who makes less than $200,000 a year comes asking questions or says you can’t do something, that can seem a little weird and annoying. And your political outlook, if you had one, can start to change. This reminded me of a decade-old episode in the history of American political economy which I watched unfold at the time and is relevant to this discussion.

Do you remember SOPA and the activism against it?

Our document for the day is this email released under the Freedom of Information Act. It is an email dated January 13th, 2021 in which the writer informs the then associate deputy director of the FBI, Paul Abbate, how a substantial portion of FBI personnel were in sympathy with the January 6th insurrectionists.

Just before the Jan. 6 committee unanimously voted to subpoena Donald Trump for testimony, we also learned that the Supreme Court had refused to hear the Trump team’s appeal in the Mar-a-Lago records case. The court unanimously sided with the Justice Department, which asked the High Court to not interfere in a lower court’s decision to keep certain documents out of the special master’s review.

Not a great day for Trump.

My colleagues Josh Kovensky and David Kurtz hosted a live Twitter discussion just after the hearing ended this afternoon, breaking down both big bits of news. We recorded it, in case you were busy. Listen here:

Our Josh Kovensky and David Kurtz are discussing today’s hearing news live as we speak. Join now if you’re free. We’ll have a recording up later in case you missed it.

Link here:

TPM Reader TK responds to the debate we’re carrying on below …

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss key Senate races and a recent Supreme Court order that’ll add some chaos to the mix.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.

There are many striking parts to this short video. The one that sticks with me is the part where Pelosi says what amounts to, or I interpret as, “let’s pretend this was the White House or the Pentagon or some other building you gave a crap about.”

Here’s more extended video which is very worth watching in full.