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The federal government has issued a warning about an ongoing threat of violence fueled by many current members of the federal government, in a decent summary of the current state of American leadership.
- On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security issued a national terrorism alert for the first time in a year, to alert the public about the growing risk of attacks by violent domestic extremists who are frustrated by the presidential transition and “perceived grievances fueled by false narratives,” and may have been emboldened by the January 6 insurrection. While the contents aren’t great, the bulletin itself marks a huge shift from disgraced former president Trump’s DHS, where officials felt they’d lose their jobs by issuing even internal warnings about the threat of domestic extremism. Welcome to the immediate post-Trump era, where a national terrorism alert constitutes proof that things have gotten better!
- The elected Republicans who promoted those deadly false narratives have unfortunately undergone no such transformation. On Tuesday, 45 out of 50 GOP senators voted to advance the fabricated argument that trying Trump on an impeachment charge is unconstitutional—part of an effort by Trump loyalists to bypass any trial for a president who incited a violent insurrection, let alone a conviction. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), one of the five Republicans to break ranks, has called bullshit on his colleagues who try to frame impeachment as divisive without first recanting their inflammatory lies about the election, and on Tuesday urged them to get on Fox News and affirm that Joe Biden won legitimately.
- It seems they have not gone on Fox News to affirm that Joe Biden legitimately. Why speak up against the voter fraud lie fueling right-wing violence when you can use it as a pretext to rig future elections? Republican lawmakers around the country have been racing to pass restrictive new voter laws in the wake of GOP losses in November, nominally to tighten election security. Georgia Republicans introduced legislation on Wednesday that would require voters to submit photocopies of their IDs both when applying for absentee ballots and when returning them, in accordance with that well-known constitutional clause that only U.S. citizens in possession of an HP Laserjet Pro may vote. It’s another perfect day to abolish the filibuster and pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
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Not only are GOP leaders still promoting false narratives for political gain, they’ve literally promoted one of the most dangerous members of the party.
- We knew Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was a bigoted, unhinged QAnon cultist before she was elected. Here’s a quick and incomplete rundown of what we’ve learned about her since she took office: She has spread conspiracy theories about school shootings on Facebook, endorsed the executions of Democratic leaders, supported the QAnon claims that there’s a global pedophile cabal involving top U.S. political figures, and said the 2018 midterms represented “an Islamic invasion of our government.” On Wednesday an awful video resurfaced of Greene harassing Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg.
- Most House Republicans have said nothing. A spokesperson for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told Axios, “These comments are deeply disturbing and Leader McCarthy plans to have a conversation with the Congresswoman about them.” (“Hey Marjorie, could you, y’know, cool it? No? Haha alright, see you at lunch.”) Without saying much, Republicans have sent a clear message about where they stand on the formerly fringe elements of conservatism: Greene has been assigned to the House Education and Labor Committee. Meanwhile, Fox News hosts are defending QAnon in a scramble to hold onto their radicalized viewers, violent right-wing groups are ramping up their QAnon recruitment efforts, and no one on the right is inclined to hit the brakes.
Republicans had a post-insurrection opportunity to reckon with the extreme right-wing elements they’d allowed Donald Trump to unleash, redraw the party boundaries to exclude them, and find their way back to reality. That they continue to refuse has frightening implications, but it should clear the Biden administration’s conscience about simply leaving them behind.
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On the latest Pod Save America stream, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki talks to Tommy about being back in the briefing room and the first week of the Biden Administration. Don't forget to smash that subscribe button→ youtube.com/crookedmedia
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Reddit broke the stock market and now the hedge fund boys are screaming into their balled-up vests. GameStop, the brick-and-mortar video game chain whose stock had been in decline since 2015 and hit an all-time low when the pandemic hit, had become popular among short sellers. Those institutional investors borrow shares of a stock they think will lose value over time, sell those shares at the market price, then use the proceeds to purchase the same number of shares if and when the share-price drops. That way they can return the same number of shares they borrowed, but pocket the dividends. Like buying low and selling high, but in reverse.
Retail traders on the subreddit r/WallStreetBets began taking notice of signs that GameStop stock might actually be good (like prominent investor Ryan Cohen, co-founder of online pet supply behemoth Chewy, disclosing he had taken a large stake), as well as the short sales of the stock, and saw an opportunity. Acting together, Reddit investors orchestrated a short squeeze: They drove up GameStop’s stock price, screwing over short sellers by forcing them to buy back their stocks at a higher price (to the tune of billions of dollars) and making life-changing profits in the process. Over the last week, Redditors pulled the same stunt with AMC stock. Wall Street is in chaos, the hedge fund Melvin Capital has taken a huge loss, journalists are forced to quote people like “Thicc Dads Club”, and nobody really knows what happens next. Stonks!
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- A second police officer has died by suicide after responding to the attack on the Capitol, bringing the total death toll associated with the riot to seven. The Capitol Police union said on Wednesday that nearly 140 officers were injured during the attack.
- Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is OUT of the hospital and feeling FINE and there is NOTHING scary about a 50-50 Senate majority and if anything MORE senators should be OLDER.
- A federal judge in Texas (who was, wait for it, appointed by Trump) has temporarily blocked Biden’s 100-day moratorium on deportations in response to a legal challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is currently under investigation for several crimes. Just spitballing here, but why not abolish the filibuster and leave Ken Paxton out of it?
- Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio became a “prolific” informant for the FBI and local authorities after he was arrested in 2012. A confusing time for his criminally liable white-nationalist friends, who both claim to be pro-law enforcement and also sometimes try to beat cops to death with fire extinguishers.
- Notorious Twitter troll Ricky Vaughn (real name Douglass Mackey) has been arrested for election interference after spreading memes meant to mislead voters during the 2016 election.
- Philadelphia let college kids distribute coronavirus vaccines and it didn’t go too well, weirdly. “Surely these unsupervised 18-year-olds won’t steal vaccine doses and take pictures of themselves vaccinating each other, while elderly people weep in confusion,” said city officials, wrongly.
- Goya’s board of directors has voted to censure CEO Robert Unanue for his false claims of voter fraud. We conclude January as we began it, with a cancelled Bean Dad.
- If you have an iPhone or iPad, update it right now.
- Inaugural poet Amanda Gorman will perform at the Super Bowl. If you stay quiet and listen very closely, you can hear the faint rustle of thousands of gentle poetry enthusiasts begrudgingly marking their calendars.
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A happy Climate Plan Day to you and yours! President Biden has launched his unprecedented fight against climate change, signing a series of executive orders that aim to “confront the existential threat of climate change” across the federal government, with a focus on job creation and addressing racial inequity. The orders will specify, for the first time, that climate change be a core part of all foreign policy and national security decisions, reserve 30 percent of all federal land and water for conservation, and create millions of jobs for workers to build energy-efficient homes, install a nationwide network of electric-car charging stations, and seal off one million leaking oil and gas wells. Here’s what Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, had to say about it: “Today makes clear that President Biden hears our generation’s demands loud and clear, understands the power of our movement, and is serious about using executive power to deliver on his campaign promises.” Now Democrats just need to get serious about using their congressional power, and we’ll be in business.
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Democrats have introduced legislation to make Washington, DC, the 51st state. (Reason #8475 in this email alone to abolish the filibuster!)
The Bernie Memes have helped raise $1.8 million for Vermont charities.
Hundreds of Holocaust survivors in Austria and Slovakia got their first vaccine shots on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
A huge U.N. survey found that a majority of 1.2 million people across 50 countries support actions to combat climate change.
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