White Nationalists Oppose Black Confed. Memorials, Fight For VA House Continues, And Collins Moves Goalposts Again

January 5th, 2018 Top Stories --------------------------------------------------------------- [White Nationalists Push Back Against Efforts to Honor Black Confederates]( The Gist: Two Republican lawmakers want to erect a new monument at the South Carolina statehouse—to African-Americans who fought for the Confederacy. It’s not surprising that they’re running into opposition from historians, who say almost no blacks chose to take up arms for the South. But the project is also at odds with the efforts of white nationalists who, for different reasons, want to ensure the Confederacy is remembered as a white supremacist project. [Trump Directed WH Lawyer To Pressure Sessions Against Russia Probe Recusal]( The Gist: President Donald Trump directed his White House counsel to tell Attorney General Jeff Sessions to not recuse himself from the Justice Department’s investigation into potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, according to a person familiar with the matter. [Fight For Virginia House Continues With Court Hearing]( The Gist: The long-running fight for control of the Virginia House of Delegates isn’t over. A federal judge is set to hear arguments Friday in a federal lawsuit challenging the results of a House race after numerous voters were assigned to the wrong district and thus given the wrong ballots. Democrat Joshua Cole lost the Fredericksburg-area seat to Republican Bob Thomas by 73 votes in a race that went to a recount. From The Reporter's Notebook --------------------------------------------------------------- As the Trump administration signals that the work of the now-defunct voter fraud commission will be shifted to the Department of Homeland Security, [TPM's Tierney Sneed reported]( on the tricky terrain DHS will be on if it attempts to repeat the commission's mission of validating the President's false claims about mass voter fraud. Among other things, the DHS is subject to the privacy and transparency laws that the commission tried to skirt, prompting lawsuits. "If the Kobach commission was a Pinocchio, the DHS is a real boy," Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School who worked for Obama's DOJ, told TPM. Agree Or Disagree? --------------------------------------------------------------- Josh Marshall: "On the big question of actions between Russia and the Trump campaign, they are certainly guilty as charged. As I explained yesterday, how far it went, how high it goes, whether Trump himself crossed a line that can be proven, all of those questions are yet to be determined. But fundamentally, Trump and his associates have grave misdeeds to cover up. [All the chaos of the last 48 hours is merely a continuation of that](. The idea that a sitting President can seek to silence critics and silence dissent using the civil courts is as monstrous as it is comical and is entirely in keeping with the practice of broken democracies that slip into autocracy. (And yes, even though it’s Steve Bannon, it’s still dissent.) But it’s chaos and impulse and incompetence at the core." Say What?! --------------------------------------------------------------- "I certainly think that it’s something they should look at and consider." - White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday [saying]( that Breitbart should consider firing Steve Bannon. BUZZING: Today in the Hive --------------------------------------------------------------- From a TPM Prime member: "I do not think Collins 'sold out cheap.' I also agree with her earlier complaint that it's misogynistic to assume she was duped. She did not sell out cheap and she was not duped -- she always knew what the final result will be and she was always OK with that result, she just needed a spectacle of pretending to care for her compatriots." Related: [Susan Collins Moves The Goalposts (Again) On Her Health Care Demands]( Have something to add? Become a [Prime]( member and join the discussion [here](. What We're Reading --------------------------------------------------------------- We Found The Neo-Nazi Twitter Account Tied To A Virginia Double Homicide ([The Huffington Post]( 'You Can’t Make This S**t Up': My Year Inside Trump's Insane White House ([The Hollywood Reporter]( [unsubscribe from this list]( | [update subscription preferences]( | [view email in browser](