Crooked Media - What A Day: Gaetz crasher

If like millions of Americans you’ve been bowled over by the firehose of stories about the modern marvel of pathetic scumbaggery that is Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), fear not: Gird your loins, put aside anything you’re eating, and join us for an Attempted Matt Gaetz Explainer.
 

• A quick refresher: Matt Gaetz is the life-size MAGA bobblehead who occasionally announces sudden adult sons. The first thing to know is that the Justice Department has been investigating Gaetz and his friend Joel Greenberg, a former Florida politician currently facing at least 33 federal charges, over cash payments they appear to have made to women they recruited online for sex. Like the Fargo-esque lunkheads they are, Gaetz and Greenberg made some of those payments on Cash App and Apple Pay, and reporters have the receipts. Investigators are also looking into whether Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old girl (whom Greenberg has been charged with trafficking) and whether either of them paid her—oh, and also whether Gaetz misused campaign funds to bankroll all of this.
   
• But wait there’s more! Gaetz took ecstasy during the encounters, which we wouldn’t bother highlighting if he wasn’t a terrible person who brought up Hunter Biden’s struggle with drug addiction during an impeachment hearing and supported a Florida bill to require recipients of public assistance to get drug tested, but here we are. And finally, Gaetz might be tied to a fake-ID scheme at the center of the Justice Department’s case against Greenberg. The two of them made at least one weekend-night visit to the Seminole County Tax Collector’s Office together, where Greenberg was recorded digging through baskets of old driver’s licenses. Who among has not gotten the boys together for some good clean Saturday night fun at the local closed municipal offices?
   
• Matt Gaetz’s office put out a berserk statement denying all of the Matt Gaetz allegations, which invoked Matt Gaetz’s full name no fewer than four times and closed with this haunting Matt Gaetz sentence: “Matt Gaetz cherishes the relationships in his past and looks forward to marrying the love of his life.” Anyway, Matt Gaetz’s communications director, who’s worked in his office since 2017, resigned on Friday. Matt Gaetz said he will not do the same.

“But wasn’t there something about Matt Gaetz’s dad wearing a wire?” you ask miserably, rinsing your eyeballs with acid.
 

• There sure was. To deflect attention from reports on the investigation, Gaetz tried to drag Tucker Carlson into his sex crime swamp. He also claimed that he was the victim of a $25 million extortion scheme. Here’s where things get truly bananas: In March, Gaetz’s father Don (a prominent Florida Republican who nepotism’d Matt into politics—great work, Don) was evidently approached by two men who wanted a huge sum of money in order to locate former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran in 2007. The U.S. government concluded last year that Levinson had died in captivity, but these men weren’t convinced, and told Don Gaetz that they could make Matt’s legal troubles go away in exchange for the cash. Don went to the FBI about it, and Matt blew the whole thing up on Twitter to save his own ass. 
   
• To be clear, none of that exonerates Matt Gaetz in any way—the Trump administration Justice Department started investigating him months earlier. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he would boot Gaetz off of his committees if he gets indicted. Most other Republicans have remained silent, unless you count leaking to reporters about his penchant for showing off nudes on his phone to colleagues who do not like him. Apart from dropping his name during this segment on deep-fried pickle hot dogs, Fox News has barely mentioned Gaetz since the Carlson incident. And QAnon cultists, who are famously convinced that the government is full of perverts and sex traffickers, are oddly unenthused about one getting caught.

We’ll say this for Matt Gaetz: There aren’t many people who can say that getting a DUI was one of their finer moments. Congrats to the GOP on its growing stable of known predators! May this story get no more disgusting, and may you soon find yourself in a scalding hot shower.

One Capitol Police officer was killed and a second officer was injured when a car rammed into a barricade at the Capitol’s northern entrance on Friday afternoon. The officer who died has been identified as William “Billy” Evans, an 18-year veteran of the force. Acting chief Yogananda Pittman said that after ramming the officers, the suspect got out of his car and lunged at them with a knife, at which point police shot and killed him. The Capitol complex went into lockdown around 1 p.m. for an hour and a half—most lawmakers weren’t around since Congress is on recess, but many aides were on the premises. Investigators don’t yet know the suspect’s motive, or whether he was acting alone.

• The U.S. economy added a whopping 916,000 jobs in March, the biggest job gains since August, and 492,000 women reentered the workforce as schools started reopening for in-person learning.
   
• The CDC has released new guidance saying that fully vaccinated people can travel without testing or quarantining at low risk to themselves, but should still wear masks. Unvaccinated people should continue gazing morosely out the window. (CDC Director Rochelle Walensky also said she would still not recommend general travel, so interpret that nuance how you will.)
   
• The Minneapolis Police Department’s most senior officer testified that Derek Chauvin’s use of force in the arrest of George Floyd was “totally unnecessary.”
   
• A Chicago police officer fatally shot 13-year-old Adam Toledo this week. Toledo’s family and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot have demanded that police release body-camera footage of the shooting.
   
• The U.S. and Iran have agreed to begin indirect talks on returning to the terms of the 2015 nuclear agreement. 
   
• Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced the creation of a new (long overdue) unit within the Bureau of Indian Affairs to investigate missing and murdered Native Americans. About 84% of Native women experience violence in their lifetimes, and murder is the third leading cause of death for Native girls and women ages 10 to 24. 
   
• The fast-food labor movement Fight for $15 has filed an unfair labor-practice charge against McDonald’s, after a Vice investigation found that the company was labeling workers involved in labor activism and illegally spying on them.
   
• Sarah Palin has tested positive for coronavirus and now, in the spring of 2021, has decided it would be a good idea for people to wear masks.
   
• Look alive out there, FLOTUS is into pranks.

Republicans have introduced 361 voter-suppression bills in 47 states in the first three months of the year, according to a new report by the Brennan Center. That’s up from 253 bills as of February 19, a 43 percent increase in just over a month. Five restrictive bills have already been signed into law, in Georgia, Iowa, Arkansas, and Utah, and 29 more have already passed at least one legislative chamber. Fortunately, the backlash is growing, too: The MLB announced on Friday that it will move this year’s All-Star Game out of Atlanta, in response to Georgia’s restrictive new law. A number of Texas-linked corporations, including American Airlines, Microsoft, and Dell, have begun to speak out against the voter-suppression bill that just passed in the Texas Senate. All of that’s important, but there’s exactly one way to stop this Fantasia-broom-army of multiplying bills in its tracks, and that’s Democrats passing the For The People Act. H.R.1 or we’re fucked.

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The U.S. administered nearly *4 million shots* today, a new daily record! More than 100 million Americans—nearly a third of the country—have now received at least one dose.

An estimated 25 million people will get a boost in food stamp benefits starting this month.

An under-the-radar provision in the American Jobs Plan would invest $5 billion in community-based gun violence prevention programs.

The advocacy group 314 Action plans to spend $50 million on next year’s congressional races to help elect more science-oriented candidates.