Crooked Media - What A Day: Trashing the Gaetz

 -Donald Trump, explaining why he told his goons to assault protesters

Is Kevin McCarthy the shrewdest, most handsome leader in Congress? Or is he merely a nimble, fearless operator doing what has to be done to Win in Washington? Find out inside today’s issue of Beltway Tipsheet Whose Main Source Is Kevin McCarthy.
 

• More secretly recorded audio from the immediate aftermath of the insurrection (withheld from the public until now to juice book sales) shows the disgraced House Minority Leader was genuinely fearful that Donald Trump and his most shameless loyalists in the GOP conference were going to cause more violence, and might even be committing crimes. McCarthy singled out several members, and in particular Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), for “putting people in jeopardy,” and, in the words of House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, engaging in “potentially illegal” incitement by singling out specific Republicans as anti-Trump apostates after January 6.
   
• Because the overwhelming majority of elected Republicans genuinely don’t care that McCarthy abandoned his instinct to put the country ahead of his personal or party interests, or that he lied to reporters about what he’d said in private before he knew he’d been recorded, they treated him to a standing ovation when he encouraged them move past this scandal.
   
• And because McCarthy stands a very good chance of being the next House speaker, and aggressively courts and supplies leaks to DC’s insider press corps, his decision to help Donald Trump cover up a coup attempt and lie to the media about it has won him such adversarial headlines as “How McCarthy survived” and “McCarthy shores up support after leaked audio.”

Naturally that must be true, otherwise Republicans would cop to being in disarray?

• For now at least Trump himself seems content to let McCarthy continue to serve as his personal valet. But it wouldn’t take much to dash McCarthy’s hopes. Gaetz called McCarthy and Scalise “weak men” who only say what they truly think to “lobbyist[s] with a $5,000 check” and “on sniveling calls with Liz Cheney.” Tucker Carlson called McCarthy “a puppet of the Democratic Party.” Let them fight, as we like to say.
   
• Members of the House January 6 committee seem to think McCarthy’s a bit cross-pressured after getting caught with his pants down. The committee had all but abandoned the idea of trying anything punitive (criminal contempt citations, or internal House sanctions) to force Trump’s co-conspirators and witnesses to testify. But given new revelations, chairman Bennie Thompson now says the committee will issue “another invitation” then decide whether to subpoena McCarthy and other members of his party. Meanwhile, the timeline for public hearings has slipped to June. 

Today on Keep It! Ira, Louis, and a returning Aida discuss Janelle Monae coming out as non-binary and other genderqueer celebs, Jerrod Carmichael’s comedy special Rothaniel, Elon Musk buying Twitter, and more. Plus, Kiernan Shipka joins to discuss her new Roku series Swimming with Sharks and her Mad Men memories. New episodes of Keep It! drop every Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has ViBe ShIfTeD from strategically cautious Biden administration ally, to vocal Cassandra warning that if Democrats don’t shake off their doldrums and deliver more of President Biden’s agenda, they will lose badly in the midterms. Through the first year-plus of Joe Biden’s presidency, Warren has used her clout within the administration, and her deep network of apprentices, to move the needle on policy and place trusted allies in key staffing positions. But more recently she’s transitioned out from behind the scenes to, as she put it, “light the fire of urgency” among Democrats in Congress and in the White House, to stop wasting the party’s agenda-setting power. In prominent platforms like the New York Times, and, um, Crooked Media, she’s called on Senate leaders to advance legislation to ban inflation-era price gouging and congressional stock trading, and hold votes on a pared-down version of the Build Back Better act, and pushed Biden to cancel student loan debt, reduce drug prices, and increase overtime pay through executive action. The idea isn’t just that changing policy will mechanically redound to Democrats’ benefit in November, but that the party’s current listlessness leaves Republican propaganda uncontested. “We’re not here to fight cultural wars,” she said. “We’re here to make a real difference in the lives of people who need us.”

• A Minnesota Department of Human Affairs investigation launched after the murder of George Floyd has concluded that the Minneapolis Police Department has engaged in a pattern of race discrimination for over a decade, if you can even believe it. 
   
• Scammers have duped major tech companies including Apple, Google, and Meta (nee Facebook) into handing over private information about customers, which they’ve then used to sexually exploit minors and harass other vulnerable, unsuspecting users.   
   
• It seems notable that the extremely conservative former appeals-court judge J. Michael Luttig keeps warning that Republicans are plotting to steal the 2024 election. 
   
• Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader of Myanmar who was ousted in a coup last year, has been sentenced to a 5 year prison term for corruption by the junta.
   
• The Florida GOP’s hasty, thug-like effort to punish Disney for speaking out against its Don’t Say Gay law will likely be struck down in court unless the legislature first agrees to pay off some of Disney’s debts. 
   
• Earlier forecasts suggesting Democrats might come out a bit ahead in the redistricting wars were premature, and new gerrymanders will likely be a wash, or slightly (further) favor the GOP.
   
• Measles cases have jumped 79 percent around the world this year as COVID-19 has disrupted other global vaccination efforts. 
   
• Senate Republicans will introduce legislation meant to block President Biden from canceling any student debt.  
   
• The federal government is poised to demolish two abandoned skyscrapers in downtown Chicago, rather than repurpose them, because they pose a security risk to a nearby federal courthouse, including views directly into judges’ chambers.
   
• Some truly excellent young leaders drove away a “freedom convoy” of truckers who were harassing California state assembly member Buffy Wicks by pelting them with a fuckton of eggs.
   
• It would be a shame if Ohio GOP primary voters saw this ad. 
   
• A mask designed to capture cow-burp methane has won a new climate innovation award. The butt side of cows will presumably remain unmasked for now.

Elon Musk’s pending purchase of Twitter has already made the site friendlier to and more populated by right-wing conspiracy theorists and bigots, but Musk’s central role in that shift may actually complicate the completion of the sale. Twitter insists that both the explosive, overnight growth of prominent right-wing and GOP accounts, and the abrupt decline in the numbers of users who follow prominent Democrats and liberals, were the organic consequences of the company’s deal with Musk. That is, the announcement that Musk would purchase Twitter inspired tons of alt-right types to join or rejoin the platform, and tons of progressives to deactivate their accounts. Whether or not that’s true, though, Musk is quite clearly encouraging the trend, and he’s doing it in a way that appears to violate the sale contract. Musk publicly agreed with a conspiratorial smear of Twitter’s general counsel, published by white-nationalist/Pizzagate freak Mike Cernovich, and publicly criticized another senior Twitter executive. Twice. Yet the terms of the merger specifically prohibit Musk from “disparag[ing] the Company or any of its Representatives” on Twitter. Almost makes you wonder whether he's got cold feet.

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The U.S. has secured the release of marine corps veteran Trevor Reed, who had been imprisoned in Russia since 2019, through a prisoner exchange that took place in Turkey. 

President Biden has sent his seventeenth round of judicial nominees to the Senate for consideration, bringing his total nominations to 95. 

A conservative Michigan Republican has resigned from the party because it has failed to distance itself from “undisciplined loser” Donald Trump, and has instead “decided that encouraging his delusional lies—and, even worse—cynically appeasing him despite knowing they are lies, is the easiest path to ensuring their continued hold on power.”

The vice president of a private Russian bank has resigned to fight on behalf of Ukraine.