CNN: “Conservative Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is scrapping the planned launch of her ‘America First’ caucus after receiving blowback from leaders in her own party, despite confirming through a spokesperson on Friday that the caucus would launch. Nick Dyer, Greene’s spokesperson, told CNN in an email on Saturday afternoon the Georgia Republican is not ‘launching anything…The Congresswoman wants to make clear that she is not launching anything. This was an early planning proposal and nothing was agreed to or approved,’ he said in an email to CNN. While referring to a flier promoting the caucus, obtained by Punchbowl News, that used inflammatory rhetoric. Dyer added that ‘she didn’t approve that language and has no plans to launch anything.'”

Greene apparently pulled back on the WASP Caucus idea after rep Kevin McCarthy and several ‘Freedom Caucus’ Republicans chided her for her overt racism and touting of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ values, which is considered a grievous departure from the GOP’s usual policy of covert and coded racism, combined with racial tokenism.

President Joe Biden made a golf outing in Delaware Saturday morning, marking his first round of golf since he took office, having gone 87 days into his administration without playing a round, Politico reports.

Biden hit the course with his late son Beau’s father-in-law, Ron Olivere, and White House advisor Steve Ricchetti.  He played at Wilmington Country Club in Delaware, where he has been a member since 2014.  Biden does not own the golf course or the country club.

At this point into his presidency, Donald Trump had already played 19 rounds of golf, all at one of the course he owned. He played 298 rounds of golf during his one-term presidency, more than one per week on average.

Tampa News 8: HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) — Two people were arrested on suspicion of stealing and burglarizing cars in Hillsborough County after they tried fleeing deputies in one of the cars on Tuesday, authorities said.

Ashley McCabe, 35, and Brian Martin, 35, are facing multiple charges including burglary and grand theft, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies said they spotted the pair sitting in a stolen Audi at the Wawa on Hillsborough Avenue and Hanley Road. When deputies tried to stop them, Martin hit the gas and rammed the Audi between two patrol cars. Deputies did not say whether any deputies were hurt or how much damage this caused. Deputies said Martin continued driving northbound, then got out of the car and started running while McCabe stayed in the passenger seat. She was arrested, then deputies eventually caught up with Martin, and he was placed under arrest. Conservatives continue to insist there’s no such thing as “white privilege” in this country, even though we know that if this had been a black couple they both would have been shot dead.  As of yet, no American law enforcement agency has bothered to answer why it is that white criminals can do shit like this without getting shot, but police officers insist they “can’t do their jobs” if they aren’t repeatedly let off the hook for immediately opening fire on anyone they spot who commits the offense of being “black in public”.

Politico: “As the GOP tries to position itself as the home of ‘working-class values,’ capturing loyalty with a steady campaign against the perceived excesses of progressive culture, it’s running afoul of a business community that can’t simply silo off ‘culture war’ topics. In the eyes of major corporations, issues like voting rights, immigration and transgender-inclusive restrooms have economic impact, too. The millions of people alienated by those fights aren’t just their future customers, many of whom expect to support brands they believe in, they’re the companies’ employees. ‘The bad news for Republicans is that they seem to have a 1920s view of who Big Business’ workforce is,’ says [Yale business professor Jeffrey] Sonnenfeld. ‘That workforce is, at a minimum, highly diverse – and they get along. Trying to stir that up is misguided.'”

“The new Republican penchant for mocking corporations for being too socially aware – for instance, Sen. Ted Cruz’s Twitter threat to use the power of the state to harm Major League Baseball’s business, signing the message off with ‘go woke, go broke’ – fundamentally misunderstands what matters to business in the 21st century, says Sonnenfeld. ‘Basically, business leaders believe that it’s in the interest of society to have social harmony. Divisiveness in society is not in their interest, short term or long term.’ If the marriage between the GOP and the business community is on the rocks, what does that mean for politics? What do we misunderstand about what really matters to CEOs? And why aren’t business executives more afraid of boycott threats from the right?”

IEEE Spectrum: If you’re the kind of creepy bastard who regularly thinks “I like the idea of random disemboweled body parts around my home like you see in serial killer movies and documentaries, but I’m not quite ready to go out and start cutting up waitresses,” the Eyecam prototype is a dream come true.  The Open Source set of plans for this device allow you to create a camera that sits on top of your computer and create a webcam that mimics the appearance and movements of a human eye.

Seriously, if you watch that video and think “I want that”, you should probably seek psychological help.  The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services National Hotline is available at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) or online at:

https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline

If you look at this video and think “The idea of a webcam that can follow you like a human eye is cool, but making it look like a  human eye is fucking creepy.  I could do something like that and make it look robotic, like a C3PO or an R2D2 eye,” then there’s no need to call the number above, as that is the reaction of a psychologically normal person.

New York Times: “About 31 percent of adults in the United States have now been fully vaccinated. Scientists have estimated that 70 to 90 percent of the total population must acquire resistance to the virus to reach herd immunity. But in hundreds of counties around the country, vaccination rates are low, with some even languishing in the teens. The disparity in vaccination rates has so far mainly broken down along political lines. The New York Times examined survey and vaccine administration data for nearly every U.S. county and found that both willingness to receive a vaccine and actual vaccination rates to date were lower, on average, in counties where a majority of residents voted to re-elect former President Donald J. Trump in 2020. The phenomenon has left some places with a shortage of supply and others with a glut.”

“The U.S. intelligence community has developed new information about Konstantin Kilimnik, whom they call a Russian spy, that leads them to believe the associate of ex-Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort passed internal Trump campaign polling and strategy information to Russian intelligence services, two U.S. officials say. On Thursday the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Kilimnik and for the first time said he passed along the data to Russian intelligence services. That new detail, part of a factsheet released by Treasury, was not included in the 2019 report by special counsel Robert Mueller, who was tasked with investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Mueller’s team said in its report that Kilimnik was believed to ‘have ties to Russian intelligence,’ and that Kilimnik had received the Trump campaign information from Manafort, but did not say what he did with it after receiving it. A bipartisan report by the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020 said coordination between the Trump campaign and a Russian operation to hack and leak Democratic emails may have existed through Kilimnik but could not be established with certainty. The report drew no conclusions about what the Russians ultimately did with the data” – NBC News.

CNN: “The Justice Department said Friday that a Nazi sympathizer who stormed the US Capitol on January 6 poses a threat to Jewish residents in his native New Jersey and therefore shouldn’t be released from jail. The alleged Capitol rioter, Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, was a well-known Nazi sympathizer at the Navy base where he worked in New Jersey. A federal judge ordered him detained last month while he awaits trial, but he has filed new motions with the court seeking his release. Opposing those requests, federal prosecutors told the judge that Hale-Cusanelli poses a danger to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Lakewood, which is near the Navy base where he worked before his arrest. ‘Defendant poses a more localized threat to the community, particularly the Hassidic community in Lakewood, New Jersey,’ federal prosecutors wrote in a court filing. ‘Defendant has demonstrated specific animosity towards the Jewish population and expressed a desire to commit violence against Jewish people.'”

“At previous court hearings, prosecutors mentioned some run-ins that Hale-Cusanelli apparently had last year with Jewish residents in the area, prompting police reports and allegations of harassment and doxing. Judge Trevor N. McFadden has not yet weighed in on Hale-Cusanelli’s new request for release. Hale-Cusanelli, 30, was charged with seven criminal counts, including obstructing congressional proceedings, civil disorder and disorderly conduct in the Capitol. He has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers have repeatedly insisted that he is not a member of any White supremacist organizations. When he was interviewed by the FBI, he denied that he was a Nazi sympathizer, according to court filings.”

“The global death toll from the coronavirus topped a staggering 3 million people Saturday amid repeated setbacks in the worldwide vaccination campaign and a deepening crisis in places such as Brazil, India and France. The number of lives lost, as compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the population of Kyiv, Ukraine; Caracas, Venezuela; or metropolitan Lisbon, Portugal. It is bigger than Chicago (2.7 million) and equivalent to Philadelphia and Dallas combined. And the true number is believed to be significantly higher because of possible government concealment and the many cases overlooked in the early stages of the outbreak that began in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019” the AP reports.

“When the world back in January passed the bleak threshold of 2 million deaths, immunization drives had just started in Europe and the United States. Today, they are underway in more than 190 countries, though progress in bringing the virus under control varies widely. While the campaigns in the U.S. and Britain have hit their stride and people and businesses there are beginning to contemplate life after the pandemic, other places, mostly poorer countries but some rich ones as well, are lagging behind in putting shots in arms and have imposed new lockdowns and other restrictions as virus cases soar. Worldwide, deaths are on the rise again, running at around 12,000 per day on average, and new cases are climbing too, eclipsing 700,000 a day.”

Politico: “Matt Gaetz’s former girlfriend has told friends she’s worried that the woman who is key to the federal government’s sex-crimes investigation tried to get her to incriminate the Florida lawmaker on a recorded call. The revelation raises the possibility that federal prosecutors have two top cooperating witnesses: the woman who was an alleged sex-trafficking victim when she was a minor and the Gaetz associate already indicted for that crime, former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg. Until now, there were signs the alleged sex-trafficking victim was not cooperating with federal authorities. In August, prior to Greenberg’s sex-trafficking indictment, Greenberg said in a WhatsApp chat with another friend that he was paying for her attorney at the time and that she was resistant to cooperating with investigators.”

“Gaetz’s former girlfriend has played a bit role in the unfolding public drama – she is the woman who sent the lawmaker a nude video of her performing a hula hoop dance that he showed to other members of Congress. But two of her friends, who declined to be identified publicly because of the sensational nature of the case, say she now suspects she was being set up when the alleged victim and another woman involved in the case called her to discuss the lawmaker in what she fears might have been a recorded conference call. The call took place sometime after Greenberg was indicted for the sex crime in August. The friends did not provide details about exactly what was discussed, but one recounted that Gaetz’s ex said she was opposed to talking to authorities and is now worried that prosecutors might try to charge her with obstructing justice in order to get to Gaetz.”

Raul Castro, the autocratic leader of Cuba, announced Friday that he is resigning as the head of the Cuban Communist Party, setting the stage for the first time in 62 years that a Castro will not run the island nation.

According to the Associated Press, the 89-year-old Castro spoke at the opening day of the Communist Party congress, saying he is resigning knowing he “fulfilled his mission and confident in the future of the fatherland.”

Castro succeeded his brother Fidel as president of Cuba in 2008.  He stepped down from that position in 2018, yielding the job to Miguel Díaz-Canel, a 60-year-old who’s seen as the heir apparent to Castro as the leader of the nation and represents a generational shift in governance. 

• Three mass shootings in seven days.  Is it still too soon to talk about gun control?
• It’s been 100 days since the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol and prosecutors have opened 400 cases against insurrectionists.  The first one took a plea deal Friday.  The dominos are starting to fall.
• Dr. Fauci should have told Jim Jordan that he would be able to guess when we can lift restrictions after everyone in the nation wears a mask for six straight weeks, particularly the political leaders who should set the example for the public.  Jordan would’ve cried more that it restricts his freedums.  
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume XV”

Twitter was down as of 8:17pm EST in New York State.  Users who tried to go to the twitter site at https://www.twitter.com received an https 503 error.  503 errors are for “service unavailable”, and typically appear when a website is having issues such as a server RAM leak, DNS issues, or problems with their backend database.

No word yet as to whether this is part of some devious Russian plot to bring down Western society, the result of a revenge hack to try to strike back at the US for sanctions against Russia, an underhanded move by the North Koreans, similar to when Kim Jong Un ordered the hacking of SONY, or just random cock-up that happened because Jack Dorsey got stingy with server maintenance.

NBC4 New York: A teenager from Ohio has been arrested after being found with an unloaded semi-automatic gun, ammunition and a possible gas mask in a bag, law enforcement officials tell News 4.

The man, identified by several law enforcement sources as Saadiq Teague, was apprehended by officers at the subway station in Times Square Friday afternoon near the A/C/E line, the officials said.

NYPD officers performing a station inspection spotted Teague as he took the unloaded weapon out of his bag and placed it on the ground. The officers approached and questioned him before taking him into custody, the officials said.

Rachel Powell, the 40-year-old mother of eight from Pennsylvania who was identified as the “pink hat lady” during the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol, is facing a revocation of her release after she was shown on social media wearing a less-than-effective face mask.

According to the Washington Post, Powell was released pending trial for her involvement in the coup attempt under specific conditions, including that she wear a face mask in public to comply with public health guidelines during the coronavirus pandemic.  Photos and video of Powell at work, smirking while wearing a facemask made of material similar to fishnet stockings, was posted on social media in the past week.  [Photo included after the fold.]

When asked by a court compliance officer if she was the woman in the posts and if she had been wearing a mask, Powell was reported evasive.  Powell reportedly stated that she stopped wearing the mask upon advice from her attorney.

The Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit against Trump advisor (and rejected Bugsy Malone character) Roger Stone seeking $2 million in taxes the department says Stone illegally avoided, NBC News reports.

The DoJ alleges Stone underpaid taxes from 2007 to 2011, resulting in $1,590,361 owed.  Stone reportedly also failed to report income in 2018 that would have resulted in an additional $407,036 in income tax.

Stone received a pardon from Donald Trump for his conviction on various charges related to obstruction of justice in the DoJ investigation of Wikileaks and Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.  This case, however, is a civil case not covered by the pardon.

IEEE Spectrum: Today at ProMat, a company called Pickle Robots is announcing Dill, a robot that can unload boxes from the back of a trailer at places like ecommerce fulfillment warehouses at very high speeds. With a peak box unloading rate of 1800 boxes per hour and a payload of up to 25 kg, Dill can substantially outperform even an expert human, and it can keep going pretty much forever as long as you have it plugged into the wall.

Pickle Robots says that Dill’s approach to the box unloading task is unique in a couple of ways. First, it can handle messy trailers filled with a jumble of boxes of different shapes, colors, sizes, and weights. And second, from the get-go it’s intended to work under human supervision, relying on people to step in and handle edge cases. Pickle Robots engineers have not released any info regarding the robots’ ability to crush our tiny human fingers, or to deliver a crippling sac-punch.

“Facing swift blowback from allies and aid groups, the White House on Friday said President Joe Biden plans to lift in the next month his predecessor’s historically low cap on refugees, after initially moving only to expand the eligibility criteria for resettlements. Biden earlier Friday moved to accelerate refugee admissions but kept his predecessor’s historically low cap of 15,000 refugees for this year, triggering a backlash from Democratic lawmakers and resettlement agencies” – AP.