Talking Points Memo

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The Trump administration can’t seem to decide whether its child separation border policy is God’s will, Democrats’ fault, or if it even exists.

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Right after attacking Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, President Donald Trump heaped a jaw-dropping amount of praise upon North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, whose record includes starving his people, running a ruthless police state, sexual violence and even ordering the murder of members of his own family.

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What’s Donald Trump fixer Michael Cohen’s “insight” worth? Just ask pharmaceutical company Novartis, AT&T, and even the government of Ukraine, all of whom quietly shelled out the big bucks to Cohen’s secret shell company in exchange for the lawyer’s access to POTUS.

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Republicans Running For Georgia Governor Race Try To Out-Crazy Each Other

It's tough for Trump-era Republicans to prove who's the biggest hardline conservative, but the Georgia Republicans touting their own "deportation buses" while running for governor are up for the challenge.

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Trump Admin Poised To Give Rural Whites Exemption From Medicaid Work Rules

As the Trump administration moves aggressively to allow more states to impose mandatory work requirements on their Medicaid programs, several states have come under fire for crafting policies that would in practice shield many rural, white residents from the impact of the new rules.

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High praise for the boss!

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“All Hail The Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger”: The Toronto Attacker’s Link To A Violently Misogynistic Community

Shortly after police say Alek Minassian plowed a rental van down a Toronto sidewalk Monday, killing 10 people and injuring 15 others, a Facebook post circulated in which he appeared to praise Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old Californian who blamed his 2014 killing spree on his rejection by women.

“All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger,” the message read in part.

Many important details about the case are still unknown, and extremist experts noted that it’s odd that the post contained no other messages expressing an affiliation with the misogynistic, hateful ideology Rodger espoused. But they also told TPM that Rodger has become an icon among the most extreme members of the men’s rights and “incel,” or “involuntary celibate,” communities. And they said they wouldn’t be surprised if Rodger inspired the gruesome Toronto attack.

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Top Trump-Appointed Interior Dept. Officials Have History Of Hostility To Native Tribes Trying To Get Justice From Federal Government

Current and former members of Congress and former Interior Department officials tell TPM that two top Trump political appointees at the department — at least one of whom played a key role in the reassignments — have long been hostile to Native concerns. Both officials, Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt, the department’s second in command, and Associate Deputy Secretary Jim Cason, served in top DOI posts during the George W. Bush administration, at a time of intense conflict between the agency and Native American tribes.

Cason has more recently sparked tensions with tribes by characterizing the settlement-funded land buy-back program as “free money” in testimony to Congress last year. He was chided for the remark by Rep. Norma Torres (D-CA), who reminded him that it wasn’t free money, but repayment for stolen resources.

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High-Ranking Trump Admin. Official At Interior Dept. Compared Parkland Students To Nazis, Promoted Conspiracies

A high-ranking official at the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation has repeatedly shared conspiracy theories on his personal Facebook page, a review by TPM found, including posts calling the students who survived the Parkland school shooting “Nazis” and alleging the massacre was a staged false flag.

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Trump’s Interior Secretary Disproportionately Targeted Native American Workers

Nearly a third of the senior Interior Department (DOI) career officials reassigned under Secretary Ryan Zinke in a major agency reshuffling are Native American, even though Native Americans make up less than 10 percent of the Department’s workforce, a review by TPM has found.

Former government officials tell TPM that they see the reassignment of top Native American staffers as part of an effort to remove internal opposition to Zinke’s plan to open up more tribal and public lands to the fossil fuel industry.

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2017 Golden Dukes Winners Announced!

TPM is pleased to announce the winners of the 11th Annual Golden Duke Awards recognizing the year’s best purveyors of...

‘Tis the season for TPM’s annual celebration of the year’s most outrageous moments of corruption and scandal, and our judges have chosen the lucky winners after wading through the extraordinarily large pool of candidates that 2017 has dumped into the political arena!

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My time in this office hasn’t fixed everything; as much as we’ve done, there’s still so much I want to do. But for all the tough lessons I’ve had to learn; for all the places I’ve fallen short; I’ve told Hillary, and I’ll tell you what’s picked me back up, every single time.

It’s been you. The American people.

ICYMI: Read the full text of Obama’s speech last night at the Democratic National Convention.

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“Hillary Clinton will make an outstanding president and I am proud to stand with her here today.”

“Our job now is to see that platform implemented by a Democratic Senate, a Democratic House and a Hillary Clinton president – and I am going to do everything I can to make that happen,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said, endorsing Clinton during a joint rally on Tuesday.

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Twelve law enforcement officers were shot, with five killed, after gunshots rang out during an anti-police brutality protest in Dallas on Thursday night.

Here are some of the powerful images taken as the events began to unfold.

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During the White House Fourth of July celebration, President Obama took a moment for a more personal celebration:

"And just because it's a job of a father to embarrass his daughters, I've got one last job," he said. "It just so happens that we celebrate our country's birthday on the same day that we celebrate my oldest daughter's birthday."

Watch here.

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Nowhere has the outsourcing of public functions to private companies been more systematic than in the criminal justice system. It’s so pervasive that the phrase we use to describe the industry – “private prison companies” – is far too limiting to accurately depict the situation.

The True Cost: Why the Private Prison Industry is About so Much More Than Prisons

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President Barack Obama on Friday designated the nation’s first monument to the gay rights movement, commemorating the historic Stonewall Uprising in New York City.

The new Stonewall National Monument memorializes the explosive, six-day-long protests that erupted in 1969 after police conducted one of its frequent raids on the Stonewall Inn gay bar. As Obama said in a proclamation designating the monument, the uprising “is considered by many to be the catalyst that launched the modern LGBT civil rights movement.”