Wall Street Journal: “Prosecutors would face clear challenges in bringing any case… Tom Firestone, a lawyer with Baker & McKenzie LLP and former assistant U.S. attorney in New York, said prosecutors would have to consider several factors, including whether Mr. Trump was engaged in constitutionally protected political speech or instead crossed a line that prompted supporters to commit violence.”
Trump Aide to Primary GOP Impeachment Supporter
“Former Trump White House aide Max Miller is expected to wage a primary challenge against GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, the latest opponent to take on a House Republican who supported the former president’s impeachment,” Politico reports.
“Miller, who hails from northeastern Ohio, has been in talks with top Republican donors in the state and other party leaders since leaving the White House last month.”
Tuesday Night Massacre
Coming soon: Tuesday Night Massacre: Four Senate Elections and the Radicalization of the Republican Party by Marc C. Johnson.
“The turnover of these seats not only allowed Republicans to gain control of the Senate for the first time since 1954 but also fundamentally altered the conduct of American politics.”
Tuesday Night Massacre: Four Senate Elections and the Radicalization of the Republican Party
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Johnson, Marc C. (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 243 Pages - 02/25/2021 (Publication Date) - University of Oklahoma Press (Publisher)
GOP Lawmaker Rips Ted Cruz
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) delivered a pointed rebuke of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) following his much-criticized trip to Cancun, Mexico, as a winter disaster rocked Texas last week, CNN reports.
Said McCaul: “Look, when a crisis hits my state, I’m there. I’m not going to go on some vacation.”
What Were the Capitol Rioters Thinking?
Byron York: “For the rioters who are alleged to have committed serious criminal acts, more information is coming out in court papers filed in the Justice Department cases against them. And now, specifically, there is a new indictment against nine people who are said to be members or associates of the Oath Keepers militia. It’s a revealing document…”
“The indictment shows what they were saying to each other on social media in the days and weeks before the riot. Read together, their social media posts suggest people living in a kind of fantasy world in which they could take the Capitol, while carefully obeying Washington, D.C.’s strict gun control laws and carrying no firearms, change the course of U.S. history, and then head home.”
Biden to Mark 500K Covid Deaths with Ceremony
“With the US approaching 500,000 Covid-19 deaths, plans are underway for President Joe Biden to mark the moment this week,” CNN reports.
“The President is planning to deliver remarks and hold a candle lighting ceremony at the White House around sundown as soon as Monday, if the threshold is crossed.”
Biden Aiming for Even Bigger Vaccine Numbers
“It sounded so ambitious at first blush: 100 million vaccination shots in 100 days,” the AP reports.
“Now, one month into his presidency, Joe Biden is on a glide path to attain that goal and pitching well beyond it to the far more ambitious and daunting mission of vaccinating all eligible adults against the coronavirus by the end of the summer.”
Arkansas Governor Won’t Support Trump In 2024
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) told CNN that he would not support former President Trump if he ran for the White House again in 2024, pointing to the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Said Hutchinson: “I would not support him for reelection in 2024.”
How Facebook Went Easy On Alex Jones
BuzzFeed: “In April 2019, Facebook was preparing to ban one of the internet’s most notorious spreaders of misinformation and hate, Infowars founder Alex Jones… Mark Zuckerberg didn’t consider the Infowars founder to be a hate figure, so he overruled his own internal experts and opened a gaping loophole: Facebook would permanently ban Jones and his company — but would not touch posts of praise and support for them from other Facebook users. This meant that Jones’ legions of followers could continue to share his lies across the world’s largest social network.”
Most Trump Voters Falsely Say Antifa Led Capitol Riots
When asked by a USA Today/Suffolk poll to describe what happened during the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 58% of Trump voters call it “mostly an antifa-inspired attack that only involved a few Trump supporters.”
That’s more than double the 28% who call it “a rally of Trump supporters, some of whom attacked the Capitol.”
Nearly Half of Republicans Would Join Trump Party
A Suffolk University-USA Today poll found that 46% of Republicans said they would abandon the GOP and join the Trump party if the former president decided to create one.
Only 27% said they would stay with the GOP, with the remainder indicating they would be undecided.
Big Tech Employees Opened Wallets for Biden
Wall Street Journal: “Employees of big technology firms were a key source of contributions for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, newly released campaign finance records show, eclipsing donations from employees at traditional Democratic fundraising sources such as banks and law firms.”
“Employees of Google’s parent, Alphabet Inc., and Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc. were the five largest sources of money for Mr. Biden’s campaign and joint fundraising committees among those identifying corporate employers.”
Lindsey Graham Is All In on Trump
Washington Post: “Graham is set to visit the former president’s gilded Mar-a-Lago Club on Sunday to spend two days golfing and dining with Trump. He has spoken to the former president nearly daily since Jan. 6 — more frequently than any of his Republican colleagues in the Senate — and served as an informal adviser to Trump’s defense team during his Senate impeachment trial this month…”
Said Graham: “If he ran, it would be his nomination for the having. I don’t know what he wants to do. Because he was successful for conservatism and people appreciate his fighting spirit, he’s going to dominate the party for years to come. The way I look at it, there is no way we can achieve our goals without Trump.”
Merrick Garland Meets His Moment
New York Times: “When President Biden nominated Judge Garland last month to be attorney general, the news conjured up his ordeal in 2016 as President Barack Obama’s thwarted nominee to the Supreme Court. But Judge Garland’s experience prosecuting domestic terrorism cases in the 1990s was the formative work of his career, from the nuances of federal statutes down to the feeling of broken glass crunching beneath his dress shoes.”
“The man has now met the moment. At his Senate confirmation hearings starting on Monday, he will almost certainly be asked about the Department of Homeland Security’s warning that the United States faces a growing threat from ‘violent domestic extremists’ and that the Jan. 6 mob attack on the Capitol may not have been an isolated episode.”
Politico: Garland to stress law enforcement experience at confirmation hearing.
Cruz Mocked Over Photos After Cancun Vacation Debacle
“Sen. Ted Cruz is being mocked for posting pictures of himself loading water bottles into a vehicle as he seeks to repair the political damage from jetting off to Cancun for a family vacation during the winter storms that devastated Texas,” Insider reports.
Texas Blackouts Point to Coast-to-Coast Crises In Future
NYT: “The crisis carries a profound warning. As climate change brings more frequent and intense storms, floods, heat waves, wildfires and other extreme events, it is placing growing stress on the foundations of the country’s economy: Its network of roads and railways, drinking-water systems, power plants, electrical grids, industrial waste sites and even homes.”
“Failures in just one sector can set off a domino effect of breakdowns in hard-to-predict ways. Much of this infrastructure was built decades ago, under the expectation that the environment around it would remain stable, or at least fluctuate within predictable bounds. Now climate change is upending that assumption.”
Politico: Texas and California built different power grids, but neither stood up to climate change.
The Ten Year War
Out this week: The Ten Year War: Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage by Jonathan Cohn.
HuffPost runs an excerpt, featuring an interview with Barack Obama.
Playbook: “One big takeaway from Obama, who sat down with Cohn for over an hour last year: There’s nothing new about moderate Democratic senators from consevative states frustrating Democratic presidents. And even without the filibuster, there’s no magic solution that allows progressives to enact ambitious legislation without winning the support of the Manchins of the world.”
The Ten Year War: Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Cohn, Jonathan (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 408 Pages - 02/23/2021 (Publication Date) - St. Martin's Press (Publisher)
Trump Offered Kim Ride Home on Air Force One
BBC: “Trump’s second summit with Kim Jong-un, in Hanoi, Vietnam, did not go to plan. As negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear programme broke down, Trump left abruptly, saying to the press: ‘Sometimes you just have to walk.'”
“But before he departed, the then US president did make one astonishing offer to Kim.”
“Matthew Pottinger, the top Asia expert on Trump’s National Security Council told us: President Trump offered Kim a lift home on Air Force One. The president knew that Kim had arrived on a multi-day train ride through China into Hanoi and the president said: ‘I can get you home in two hours if you want.’ Kim declined.”
