John Demers, the assistant attorney general of the National Security Division that handles all domestic security investigations, has resigned from the Department of Justice amid outcry about revelations that the department obtained the phone records for House Intelligence Committee Democrats, journalists and then-White House General Counsel Don McGahn, the Associated Press reports.

A Trump appointee who took the position in 2018, Demers headed the division that apparently made the requests for the subpoenas for phone and email records for then-Intel Committee minority leader Democrat Adam Schiff, Democratic member Eric Swalwell, their aides, and their families, including a minor.  The division also obtained phone and email records for journalists from CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

It was divulged over the weekend that the Department of Justice also obtained the personal communications records for McGahn and his wife while McGahn was White House Counsel in the Trump Administration. 

https://youtu.be/7tKHNJc6Ykg

Slate: “Things are supposed to feel better now – better than they felt during the Trump administration, at least. The Biden administration and the Justice Department appear hellbent on restoring the (appearance of) normalcy, boring us to death, and getting past the days of a citizenry held captive to madcap tweets. That’s why the administration is focusing on infrastructure, COVID relief, economic recovery, and the workaday acts of governance. Except that alongside these acts of sleepy normalcy are constant reminders of where we have been and where we are still heading.”

“In the past few days we have learned – among other object horrors – that Donald Trump’s Justice Department seized metadata records for members of the House Intelligence Committee and their families, whom it suspected of leaking. We learned that Trump supporters have been leveling crippling death threats against state election workers. We learned that White House counsel Don McGahn had been instructed to fire Robert Mueller. We learned that in 2019, Rudy Giuliani, acting in his capacity as Trump’s personal lawyer, pressed Ukraine to announce baseless investigations about alleged Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election. And yet as Richard Painter and Claire O. Finkelstein showed last week, the Justice Department has worked to stymie investigations and litigation that would unearth at least some of these truths, in a quest to protect institutional prerogatives and values. Perhaps this would all be understandable if we had actually turned a page. But this great unearthing taking place in the press right now has also revealed that Donald Trump and some of his (never disbarred) lawyers are presently insisting that he will be ‘reinstated’ as president in August, that several Republican senators who lost in November will be swept back into office with him, that Trump is insisting that ‘audits’ in Arizona and other states are going to trigger a nonexistent mechanism for his return to office. Oh and that huge numbers of Republicans believe him. In other words, nothing that is meant to be over is actually over.”

Harvard Nieman Journalism Lab founder Josh Benton spotted these pages from one of the two eighth grade history textbooks approved for public school students in the state of Louisiana, highlighting this clip about a slave-owning woman “suffering” due to emancipation:

“In an attempt to limit her losses, Amanda Stone sent 120 of her slaves to Texas in 1863. She and Kate were forced to follow the slaves to Texas later that same year. In the family’s absence, the few remaining slaves took over the plantation and moved into the family’s home, dividing the rooms and the Stones’ remaining personal property among themselves. The Stone women would remain refugees (people who are forced to leave their home or country) until the end of the war in 1865. They were able to reclaim their plantation but, due to emancipation (the freeing of slaves), lost all their property in slaves. The family had to face the new reality of planting and harvesting their fields with freed people who, Kate regretted, now demanded ‘high wages.'”

“The Philippines has for the third time suspended a decision to scrap a two-decade-old Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States, its foreign minister said on Monday, amid a territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea. Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin said the suspension would be for a further six months while President Rodrigo Duterte ‘studies, and both sides further address his concerns regarding, particular aspects of the agreement’. The Philippines is a treaty ally of the United States, and several military agreements are dependent on the VFA, which provides rules for the rotation of thousands of U.S. troops in and out of the Philippines for war drills and exercises. Duterte last year notified Washington he was cancelling the deal, which came amid outrage over a senator and ally being denied a U.S. visa.”

“The pact would have ended in August had Duterte not extended its life for a third time. His change of heart came as tensions increased between the Philippines and China over the disputed waters of the South China Sea, which China claims almost in whole. Manila has repeatedly protested what it described as the ‘illegal’ and ‘threatening’ presence of hundreds of Chinese ‘maritime militia’ inside its exclusive economic zone. His decision also followed a U.S. announcement that the Philippines was among countries that will receive part of the 80 million COVID-19 vaccines it is donating. Ties between the United States and its former colony have been complicated by Duterte’s rise to power in 2016 and his frequent condemnation of U.S. foreign policy and embrace of China” – Reuters.

NBC10 Boston: “A New Hampshire man facing charges for taking part in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot is now hoping to head back to Washington as a member of Congress. Jason Riddle said he is still working on the details of his campaign for office. ‘I guess, ‘Let’s get back to work,’ that’s going to be the slogan I go with,’ he told NBC10 Boston on Sunday. Riddle, from Keene, admitted in an interview with NBC10 Boston in the days after the attack, which left five people dead, that he entered the Capitol building and chugged from a bottle of wine he found in a Senate office. He provided NBC10 Boston photos and said he had no regrets about joining the mob that entered the Capitol, but criticized those who committed acts of vandalism and violence.”

“Riddle, from Keene, admitted in an interview with NBC10 Boston in the days after the attack, which left five people dead, that he entered the Capitol building and chugged from a bottle of wine he found in a Senate office. He provided NBC10 Boston photos and said he had no regrets about joining the mob that entered the Capitol, but criticized those who committed acts of vandalism and violence. He was arrested by FBI agents, with the help of Keene police, in February. Riddle was charged with knowingly entering a restricted building, violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, and theft of government property. But the supporter of former President Donald Trump doesn’t think his riot case will hurt his campaign. In fact, just the opposite. ‘In the long run, if you’re running for office, any attention is good attention, so I think it will help me,’ Riddle said. Riddle told NBC10 Boston Sunday that he’s running against Democrat Annie Kuster in the 2022 midterm elections. Kuster is in her fifth term as a U.S. congresswoman representing New Hampshire’s 2nd district. ‘I thought Ann was a state representative,’ Riddle said in his interview.”

“A woman was killed and two others were injured after being struck by a car during a protest in Minneapolis’ Uptown neighborhood, police said Monday. The suspect was pulled from his car by protesters after the 11:39 p.m. Sunday crash and is now in custody and being treated for injuries at a hospital, police said on Twitter. Police did not say how the man was hurt or give the extent of his injuries. His motive was not immediately known. There had been ongoing protests in Uptown since the June 3 shooting of Winston Boogie Smith Jr., a 32-year-old father of three, by members of a federal U.S. Marshals Service task force” the AP reports.

“Members of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force were trying to arrest Smith on a warrant for allegedly being a felon in possession of a gun, authorities said. The Marshals Service said in a statement that Smith, who was in a parked vehicle, didn’t comply with law enforcement and ‘produced a handgun resulting in task force members firing upon the subject.’ Smith died at the scene. State investigators said Smith’s passenger, a 27-year-old woman, was treated for injuries from glass debris. The woman, however, said she never saw a gun on Smith or in the vehicle, her attorneys said last week – contradicting investigators’ claims about Smith’s actions.”

Twitter users have identified the deceased white victim as 31 year old Deona Marie, who would have celebrated her 32nd birthday on Wednesday. The attacker is also white, though his identity is unknown at this time (some sources say his name is ‘Frank Adam Lincoln’, though this is almost certainly incorrect due to a misinterpretation of police scanner chatter of his license plate number). He does however appear to be a white trash Trump fan given his tattoos and clothing.

“Lynda Blanchard donated nearly $1 million to pro-Donald Trump political committees, served as his ambassador to Slovenia and launched her Alabama Senate campaign with a video spotlighting her Trump bumper sticker-adorned pickup truck. But the former president was annoyed after hearing from donors that Blanchard was hyping her connections to Trump and giving them the impression she had his backing. Trump, who was widely believed to be leaning toward Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), a longtime ally who spoke at the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the deadly Capitol riot, vented to his advisers that he barely knew Blanchard. The former ambassador’s allies insist she never meant to imply she had Trump’s support – but before long, Trump decided to make his endorsement of Brooks official, even though the primary was more than a year away.”

“With the 2022 Republican primary season beginning to take shape, candidates up and down the ballot are portraying themselves as staunch Trump loyalists, showing off photos they’ve taken with the former president, divulging private conversations they’ve had with him and, in Blanchard’s case, brandishing Trump-signed nomination papers. But some candidates are taking it too far – and Trump and his team are aggressively letting them know it. ‘Lots of candidates pretend to have the support of President Trump. Most are full of shit. You will know when President Trump endorses someone,’ said former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. The episodes illustrate the colliding pressures confronting the former president and the Republican office-seekers desperate for his support. While candidates are calculating that they need voters to see them as Trump-approved, the former president is protective of his political brand and recognizes that his much-coveted endorsement – and the performance of the candidates who get it – is one of his primary means of maintaining relevance” – Politico.

CNN: “The US government has spent the past week assessing a report of a leak at a Chinese nuclear power plant, after a French company that part owns and helps operate it warned of an ‘imminent radiological threat,’ according to US officials and documents reviewed by CNN. The warning included an accusation that the Chinese safety authority was raising the acceptable limits for radiation detection outside the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant in Guangdong province in order to avoid having to shut it down, according to a letter from the French company to the US Department of Energy obtained by CNN. Despite the alarming notification from Framatome, the French company, the Biden administration believes the facility is not yet at a ‘crisis level,’ one of the sources said. While US officials have deemed the situation does not currently pose a severe safety threat to workers at the plant or Chinese public, it is unusual that a foreign company would unilaterally reach out to the American government for help when its Chinese state-owned partner is yet to acknowledge a problem exists. The scenario could put the US in a complicated situation should the leak continue or become more severe without being fixed.”

https://youtu.be/vUuAXBp3wOw

Appearing on the show hosted by a person whose voice was made for mime, Republican Wisconsin Senator (and man who’s trying really hard to get you to buy the undercoating) Ron Johnson says that the people who attacked police officers and invaded the Capitol on January 6th weren’t really insurrectionists.

“We’ve seen plenty of video of people in the Capitol and they weren’t and they weren’t rioting,” Johnson claims.  You don’t…It doesn’t look like an armed insurrection when you have people that breached the Capitol, and I don’t condone it, but they’re staying within the rope lines in the Rotunda.  That’s not what an armed insurrection would look like.”

But to remind Johnson what the people in the Rotunda were doing, they were

The leaders of three media companies disclosed to have had the email and phone records of their journalists subpoenaed by the Trump administration will meet with Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday, CNN reports.

Executives of CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post will meet with Garland to learn more about the 2019 efforts by the Justice Department, then headed by Bill Barr, to obtain the phone records and, in some cases, email records of its journalists dating back to 2017 and 2018.

The records sought by the Trump administration were from reporters covering Defense Department matters as well as other covering the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“A judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Houston Methodist Hospital by employees who opposed a Covid-19 vaccine mandate as a condition of employment,” reports CNN.  “On Saturday, US District Court Judge Lynn Hughes ruled against Jennifer Bridges and 116 of her fellow Houston Methodist coworkers who sued to block the Covid-19 vaccination requirement. Houston Methodist Hospital moved to dismiss the case.”

MyPillow founder (and man with his lips planted firmly on Donald Trump’s backside) Mike Lindell will open a subsidiary in the United Kingdom, with a plant to make his products in the city of Coventry, Business Insider reports.

“With its unique technology and design, MyPillow has taken America by storm and now it’s available here in the UK for the first time,” the company claims on the UK version of the company’s website.

Products on the website range from £17 to £119 ($24 to $168).  It appears to be the same line of products sold in the United States.  The UK website makes the same copyright and patent claims as the American site, but it does not state if the patents and trademarks are registered in the UK or if they’re erroneously citing US registry.

Trump cultists on the internet Sunday were pretty upset over the political demise of Benjamin Netanyahu, understandable given they were conditioned to love his “strong man” bullshit.

“I cannot understand replacing a strong leader with a wimp” – Top comment on the Breitbart article.

“Changing horses, ‘mid-battle’, as it were, is not good politics, nor policy. The ouster of PM Churchill in Britain immediately after WWII, was a huge mistake on the part of British voters. England and the commonwealth began a decline under socialist governments that effectively stopped their economic recovery and led to stagflation, economic chaos and kept the British Empire in a dismal state for years. I hope Israel, when it needs to be stronger than ever, will not fall into stagnation and ruin as the results of this change” – Top comment on the Fox News article.

“Both Bibi and Trump will be back” – Top comment on the TownHall.com article.

“God bless, Bibi ❤️” – Top comment on the RedState.com article.

“One year ago today, under Trump’s leadership, things were in good form in the Middle East with Arab countries joining with Israel in new agreements. Netanyahu was a key figure in those negotiations. Now, Iran again is on the march. Afghanistan is being abandoned. If there is any current sign of U.S. leadership in the Middle East, it is a well kept secret. Maybe the vice president can visit there right after the border” – Top comment on the Washington Times article.

The way I see it is this: What happened today in Israel with Naftali Bennet being sworn in is like if Trump has been ousted by Congress or forced to resign in 2018 or 2019 and Mike Pence took over. Still pretty much the same right-wing politics, just less of a crazy asshole, and nonetheless the fanboys act like it’s the end of the world because he’s not “their guy”.

The ripples from Donald Trump’s disastrous trade war continue to spread across American businesses, with many hoping President Joe Biden’s meetings with other G-7 leaders breaking a stalemate in the battle.

No industry exemplifies the struggles of American businesses to see their products overseas than bourbon distillers, as CNN reports.  As Trump touted his tariffs on imported goods would cripple the French wine and Scotch whisky imports–along with German cars and Chinese steel–foreign countries were taking their countermeasures, including tariffs of their own on Kentucky-made bourbon.

Unlike many other products, bourbon cannot be made on demand.  The distilling and aging process takes years, so pre-establishing distribution networks and purchases are key to making a single batch profitable–versus having it sit in a warehouse for years.

In what has become old hat for her, Queen Elizabeth welcomed Joe Biden to Windsor Castle for tea, marking the 13th President of the United States she has met in her 69 years as the British monarch, NBC News reports.

Biden had previously met the Queen–the first time in 1982 when he was a Senator from Delaware–but this was their first meeting since Biden became president.  When the Bidens arrived at Windsor Castle, they were greeted with an official Guard of Honor military parade, who played the “Star Spangled Banner” for the American head of state.

“I don’t think she’ll be insulted, but she reminded me of my mother,” Biden said as he boarded Air Force One regarding “the look of her and the generosity.”  Biden extended an invitation for the Queen to visit the White House, although it is unlikely that Elizabeth will take him up on the offer because at 95-years-old, she rarely travels overseas.

Artillery shells and rockets hit a hospital in northern territory controlled by Turkish-backed rebels, killing at least 15 and injuring more than 40, the Associated Press reports.  The attack hit the clinic, the maternity ward and the surgical center as patients seeking treatment were crowded in the facility.

It was unclear which side in the battle was responsible for the attack.  The Al-Shifaa hospital is in the northern town of Afrin.  The roof of the hospital was collapsed by shell strikes, and the clinic was destroyed by a rocket strike.

The Syrian American Medical Association said two medical staff were killed and 11 were injured including a midwife who was in serious condition.

“This barbaric attack took the lives of children, medical staff, and first responders. Civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, must never be the target of military action,” the US State Department said.

The twelve year reign of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister of Israel has ended with the Israel voting Sunday to install a coalition government led by Naftali Bennett, an Orthodox leader of the New Right religious-nationalist party who was once a Netanyahu ally, the Washington Post reports.

Met by shouts of “shame” and “liar” from allies of Netanyahu in the Knesset, members of parliament took to the podium to endorse the unlikely alliance of right, center and left political parties that put Bennett in power.  It got no better when Bennett himself addressed the body.

“We are incapable of sitting together — what is happening to us?” Bennett pleaded over boos and catcalls as his own children flashed him heart symbols from the visitors’ gallery. “I am proud of sitting with people with who have very different opinions. We have decided to take responsibility.”

In prior essays in this series, I have repeatedly used the term “ego maintenance”. The nature of the term and the context of its usage hopefully made clear that “ego maintenance” is a process that the neurotic authoritarian employs to try to maintain an image of himself as a useful member of society. In this essay, I will offer a bit more insight into the ego maintenance function. There has been an on-going conflict regarding the exact definition of fascism, and how to identify fascist rhetoric that can have a destabilizing effect on a society. This essay will argue that the key factor that defines a movement as fascist is the existence of the ego maintenance process described here.