ex-POTUS* noise increasing because something even worse is coming for him and the GQP

Plenty of dimwittedness to share as Trump demands via a cease and desist order that the GOP not use his likeness or name unless they pay for it. Also, Trump threatens to negative campaign against Lisa Murkowski in yet another empty threat. And finally Trump returns to NYC, the reasons for which are vague at best, but it does seem clear that the legal pincers are closing on Trump and his minions on a variety of fronts. Then again he didn’t get magically swept back into the White House last week.

Internet Laughs as Trump Threatens to Go to Alaska to Campaign Against Lisa Murkowski, ‘He Knows It’s a Long Place Ride, Right?’ https://t.co/9RA4t1uK7a— #TuckFrump (@realTuckFrumper) March 7, 2021

Look away, look away… Lando Cotton delays the AG confirmation because justice needs denying….

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Cotton to block Garland’s quick confirmation to lead Biden DOJ proving once again it’s very possible that’s where we got the idea for cotton balls. https://t.co/jSg6rJh7ev via @politico

https://t.co/q5hwbaY913

— Armand Hamouth (@AreMond2) March 7, 2021

Tom Cotton is slowing Merrick Garland’s confirmation b/c he won’t “answer basic questions” he wants answered. Of course, he had no problem w/Amy Coney Barrett not answering basic questions. @SenTomCotton, Americans are yearning for justice, not a charade. https://t.co/lPjVRXHPSs

— Steven Beschloss (@StevenBeschloss) March 4, 2021

Democrats are trying to expedite Judge Garland’s confirmation vote. I’m blocking them because Judge Garland has refused to answer basic questions, including whether illegally entering the country should remain a crime. pic.twitter.com/Cv2FHF6VwV

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) March 3, 2021

I heard part of it and had the same reaction. It was so completely ironic.

— Juli Tarsney (@juli_tarsney) February 26, 2021

What's my personal exposure here Director Wray?
– Ted Cruz

Director Wray, do you have my cell phone data?
– Josh Hawley

I'm not a racist, but let's talk about those Syrians
– Tom Cotton

ANTIFA!
– Chuck Grassley

— Hamish Mitchell (@H_MitchellPhoto) March 2, 2021

Will Ron Johnson pull a “Mitch”, claim he'll retire and then run again?

Typical nonsense bait-and-switch of Mitch McConnell and Ron Johnson comes with suddenly talking about retiring, now that Biden’s Attorney General is about to take office. Reckoning is still happening, and AG Garland will find those receipts, unlike a special counsel Mueller constrained by Bill Barr.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) opposes the legislation under consideration in the Senate that would provide a $1.9 trillion response to the coronavirus pandemic. He’s made that abundantly clear, speaking from the Senate floor to oppose its passage and excoriating its size.

On Thursday, he took an unusual procedural step to slow the bill’s passage. Normally, the House and Senate waive the requirement that legislation be read in the chamber before passage. But one member can force it to be read — and Johnson chose to do so.

The effect was twofold. First, it meant that two clerks spent nearly 11 hours laboriously walking through the 628-page document. Second, it meant that the Senate wouldn’t do anything else over those 10-plus hours, which stretched from about 3:20 p.m. until just past 2 a.m.

Johnson framed his decision as a desire that the public “know what’s in the bill,” though the actual intent was obvious to anyone familiar with Senate procedures: delay the passage of something the opposition party didn’t have the votes to stop. (In an interview on Fox News on Friday, he made this point explicitly: Without the delay from reading the bill, there would have been “no time to really prepare decent amendments.”)

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Analysis: The dubious value of reading legislation out loud to near-empty rooms https://t.co/ZATH44lvdz

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 6, 2021

CSPAN has a feed of the reading, which you can view. The link to that feed was shared on Twitter 23 times. It did not go viral.

To put a very fine point on it: It is good for the public to know and understand what complex legislation does. This is why The Post and other media outlets do what we do to help unpack that complexity.

Johnson himself has had plenty of opportunities to inform the public about what the bill does. In a floor speech on Wednesday, he mostly demonstrated the scale of the bill’s cost by making comparisons like the height of $1.9 trillion in $1 bills. (It is very high.) But Johnson’s procedural maneuver was not that sort of effort, one legitimately aimed at informing the public about the bill’s contents. It was, instead, an effort to demonstrate the fervency of his opposition.

In conveying that bit of information, the reading of the legislation was entirely effective.

www.washingtonpost.com/…

Johnson says retiring after 2022 “probably my preference now” https://t.co/CB8W3Bh0ch pic.twitter.com/UYeC6d06RK

— The Hill (@thehill) March 6, 2021

At least Ron Johnson said “fuck it” and went ahead to do the wrong thing as much as possible. Few of the retiring senators are saying “fuck it” and then doing the right thing.

(Okay, Pat Toomey, on one vote.)

— Joshua Tanzer (@JoshuaTanzer) March 5, 2021

“As of 9:11 p.m. Friday night, here’s how many votes the Senate had completed: Zero.” https://t.co/bydn9sk1ki

— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) March 6, 2021

cheese-it, it's the Federicos

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Trump State Department official Federico Klein, who also worked on the 2016 Trump campaign, is charged with assaulting police during the Capitol riot https://t.co/xTgkVxY7yu

— Anthony DeRosa 🗽 (@Anthony) March 5, 2021

A political appointee of President Donald Trump has been arrested on charges that he stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and assaulted an officer with a weapon, marking the first arrest of a Trump administration official in connection with the insurrection.

Federico Guillermo Klein, a former State Department official, made an initial appearance by teleconference on Friday before U.S. Magistrate Zia M. Faruqui in Washington, where prosecutors said they would seek to jail him pending trial at a hearing next Wednesday.

The court papers obtained by The Washington Post detail Klein’s alleged conduct throughout the siege of the Capitol, tracing his apparent movements and actions from using a police shield to try to pry a door open, to calling for reinforcements from the crowd, to losing his red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, looking for it amid the chaos, and then grabbing another red hat on the ground that turned out to be the wrong one.

Klein’s arrest is the most direct link yet between the Trump administration and the rioters, despite attempts by some conservatives to dissociate the insurrection from the former president. Many of the 300-plus people who have been charged in connection with the insurrection have described themselves as Trump supporters, while some have ties to extremist groups like the Proud Boys, which Canada has designated a terrorist group, and the Oath Keepers.

Klein, who is also a former Trump campaign employee, did not respond to a request for comment. A State Department spokesman said Klein served as a political appointee in the department from 2017 until his resignation in January. “This is being investigated by FBI, and they are the appropriate agency to answer questions specific to the charges,” the spokesman said.

Klein had a top-secret security clearance that was renewed in 2019, the FBI said. A LinkedIn profile the FBI identified as Klein’s also lists a top-secret security clearance and shows that Klein has been politically active in the Republican Party since at least 2008, when he began volunteering for political campaigns. Before joining the State Department in 2017, Klein worked for the Trump campaign, which paid him a $15,000 salary.

State Department aide appointed by Trump stormed the Capitol, beat police with a riot shield, FBI says https://t.co/f2Bz2jPcW9

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 5, 2021

It was only a matter of time before a Trump staffer was uncovered at the insurrection. https://t.co/he9aWV5AVm

— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) March 5, 2021

Location, cell & call data revealed a call tying a Proud Boys member to the Trump White House in the days before the Jan 6 riot; but no comms between the rioters and members of Congress during the attack.
w. @alanfeuer @adamgoldmanNYT https://t.co/r06meZFzBH

— Katie Benner (@ktbenner) March 6, 2021

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The latest lawsuit against Trump from ⁦@RepSwalwell⁩ makes some of the same claims as the lawsuit from ⁦@BennieGThompson⁩ — citing a civil rights law meant to counter the Ku Klux Klan's intimidation of elected officials. https://t.co/pkrKCccNkt

— Eugene Scott (@Eugene_Scott) March 5, 2021

March 7, 2021

ex-POTUS* noise increasing because something even worse is coming for him and the GQP

cheese-it, it's the Federicos

A political appointee of President Donald Trump has been arrested on charges that he stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and assaulted an officer with a weapon, marking the first arrest of a Trump administration official in connection with the insurrection.

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