President Joe Biden will host at the White House the family of murdered Minneapolis man George Floyd on May 25th, the first anniversary of his death at the hands of a former police officer, the Associated Press reports.

Biden had hoped that a policing reform bill he named after Floyd would have passed through Congress to allow him to sign it on the anniversary, but intransigent Republicans in Congress, particularly those in the Senate, refuse to act on Biden’s proposals.

According to the AP, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act would ban chokeholds by federal officers and end qualified immunity for law enforcement against civil lawsuits, as well as create national standards for policing in a bid to bolster accountability. It passed the House in March, but faces a much tougher road in the evenly-divided Senate, where Republicans have expressed opposition to efforts to repeal qualified immunity.

“Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, during an interview on a conservative podcast this week, compared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to continue to require members of the House to wear masks on the chamber floor to steps the Nazis took to control the Jewish population during the Holocaust. Greene, in a conversation with the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody Real America’s Voice TV show ‘The Water Cooler,’ attacked Pelosi and accused her of being a hypocrite for asking GOP members to prove they have all been vaccinated before allowing members to be in the House chamber without a mask. ‘You know, we can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany,’ Greene said. ‘And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.'”

“Jewish groups were quick to condemn Greene’s remarks. ‘You can never compare health-related restrictions with yellow stars gas chambers and other Nazi atrocities. Such comparisons demean the Holocaust and contaminate American political speech,’ the American Jewish Congress said in a tweet in response to Greene’s comments. ‘Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene must immediately retract and apologize.’ Greene’s office did not respond to CNN’s inquiry about her comments” – CNN.

https://youtu.be/HhQ40MDwmkw

Florida Republican Congressman (and man who definitely thinks money can buy Happiness, if Happiness is the nom de amor of a high school junior) Matt Gaetz took to Fox News’ AA affiliate Newsmax to peddle his defense to child sex trafficking to claim he’s “not focused on scandal.  I’m focused on socialism” prior to his big appearance in Arizona with Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-Georgia).

Gaetz lied about why his “wingman” Joel Greenberg is sitting in jail:  Greenberg pleaded guilty to six federal charges, including sex trafficking of a child; he’s not in jail for falsely claiming someone had sex with a minor.

No word if Greene will question Gaetz about his ties to child sex trafficking to clear up her QAnon conspiracy.

New Jersey Democratic Congressman Tom Malinowski made a series of stock trades in 2020 involving companies getting contracts to help the coronavirus response, leading to questions about his use of insider information to profit, Politico reports.

Malinowski’s full trading activity is not yet known, but he apparently shorted stocks and failed to report some trades, as is required by House ethics rules.  His malfeasance could cost him his seat if he chooses to run for reelection, and it increases the possibility the GOP could pick up the seat Malinowski barely won in 2020.

“At no point in the last 25 years have I directed, suggested, or even asked questions about a particular trade being made by my brokerage firm,” Malinowski, who is serving his second term, told the AP. He also said his failure to file reports on his financial activity was “a mistake that I own 100%.”

CNN: “Federal authorities investigating alleged sex trafficking by GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz have secured the cooperation of the congressman’s ex-girlfriend, according to people familiar with the matter. The woman, a former Capitol Hill staffer, is seen as a critical witness, as she has been linked to Gaetz as far back as the summer of 2017, a period of time that has emerged as a key window of scrutiny for investigators. She can also help investigators understand the relevance of hundreds of transactions they have obtained records of, including those involving alleged payments for sex, the sources said. News of the woman’s willingness to talk, which has not been previously reported, comes just days after the Justice Department formally entered into a plea agreement with Joel Greenberg, a one-time close friend of Gaetz whose entanglement with young women first drew the congressman onto investigators’ radar. CNN reported last week that investigators were pressing for the woman’s cooperation. The sources would not say if she had reached a formal agreement.”

Spotted by Twitter user @ne0liberal. As he/she points out, it’s a blatant self-own by China’s state propaganda mill by making Biden look totally badass and terrifying to them. There’s a reason why Trump fanboys would spend hours making memes showing Donald as this omnipotent titan, and it was as much to troll the libs as it was to show their love for him – and if they see this they’re immediately going to consider it Pro-Biden propaganda, because “Beijing owns him” blah blah blah.

As many as forty bodies have been discovered buried in the yard of a former chief of police in a city in northwest El Salvador, leading to charges against at least ten people, including the former chief, NBC News reports.

Homicides hit a historic low in El Salvador in 2020, but the bodies are thought to have been buried before then.  Most of the bodies appear to be of women, leading to questions of femicide by Hugo Ernesto Osorio Chavez, the former police chief in Chalchuapa, a city of more than 70,000 people.

The discovery of the bodies coincidentally happened the same week as a serial killer was arrested in the Salvadoran state of Mexico.  The unnamed 72-year-old man was being investigated in the disappearance of a 36-year-old woman when police found the remains of several others in his home.

Ralph Puckett Jr., a 94-year-old Army veteran, received the Medal of Honor from President Joe Biden Friday afternoon for his heroism on a isolated hill in Korea more than seventy years ago, CNN reports.

“Why all the fuss? Can’t they just mail it to me?” Puckett reportedly said upon being told he was receiving the nation’s highest military honor for his actions on Hill 205 in November 1950, when he and a group of 51 Americans and nine South Koreans faced waves of hundreds of Chinese troops.

A young lieutenant with the US Army Rangers, Puckett was wounded at least six times as he led the troops in repelling attacks from the surrounding Chinese in a battle to hold a strategic position overlooking the Chongchon River.  Before the last wave, Puckett ordered his surviving troops to retreat downhill.

CNN: “A top aide to Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida says he spoke with both the Capitol Police and the FBI on the morning of January 6 after overhearing a man in tactical gear talk about storming the FBI building just hours before the deadly insurrection. Alex Ferro, chief of staff to the Florida GOP congressman, says he heard the comments as he and Gimenez were standing inside the lobby of the Hyatt Regency near Capitol Hill. Gimenez, who was staying at the hotel as an incoming freshman lawmaker, alluded to the moment during an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett.”

“‘I know for a fact that I saw people in my hotel room that were saying they were going to do something at 2 o’clock. And that happened at 9 o’clock in the morning,’ Gimenez told CNN. Ferro said Gimenez meant to say that the activity in question occurred in the lobby of the hotel, not his room. It was Ferro who initially picked up on the disturbing comments. According to Ferro, the man who made the remark about storming the FBI did so ‘with passion in his voice.’ ‘It didn’t sit well with me,’ Ferro added. ‘I could have sworn I heard ‘we’re gonna storm the FBI building,” Ferro continued.”

Israeli security forces used rubber bullets and stun grenades on a group of thousands of Palestinians gathered at a Jerusalem mosque for Friday prayers on the first day of a ceasefire agreed to by the Netanyahu administration and Hamas, CNN reports.

More than 20 people were injured, with two hospitalized, after Israeli police went at the worshipers and others at the Al Aqsa mosque.  Police attacked journalists, calling those showing media credentials “liars.”

Police reported were responded to gangs of young men and boys throwing rocks at security forces, but journalists did not witness that at the mosque.

More than 300 homes were evacuated in Iberville Parish in Louisiana after a temporary dam failed from rainfall as Tropical Depression Cristobal moved inland, the Weather Channel reports.

Millions of gallons of water washed over a road, endangering the houses along the street, after the temporary dam, called an AquaDam, failed in heavy rains.  More than two dozen people had to be rescued from cabins at a local state park.  The cabins, built on stilts to protect them from flood waters, were still structural sound but the people were cut off from roadways by raging floodwaters.

The Coast Guard continued a search for two boaters who attempted to dock a 20-foot skiff in rough waters, taking the boat out at 1 p.m. and not returning by their announced time a half hour later.

Ars Technica: “Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s office knew of looming natural gas shortages on February 10, days before a deep freeze plunged much of the state into blackouts, according to documents obtained by E&E News and reviewed by Ars. Abbott’s office first learned of the likely shortfall in a phone call from then-chair of the Public Utility Commission of Texas DeAnne Walker. In the days leading up to the power outages that began on February 15, Walker and the governor’s office spoke 31 more times. Walker also spoke with regulators, politicians, and utilities dozens of times about the gas curtailments that threatened the state’s electrical grid.”

“The PUC chair’s diary for the days before the outage shows her schedule dominated by concerns over gas curtailments and the impact they would have on electricity generation. Before and during the disaster, she was on more than 100 phone calls with various agencies and utilities regarding gas shortages. After the blackouts began, Abbott appeared on Fox News to falsely assert that wind turbines were the driving force behind the outages. Wind turbines were a factor, but only a small one. Wind in Texas doesn’t produce as much power in the winter, and regulators don’t typically rely on wind turbines to provide significant amounts of power. Instead, regulators anticipated that natural gas and coal power plants would meet demand.”

“White House says it has offered a counterproposal to Senate Republicans on infrastructure that pares down the package from $2.2 trillion to $1.7 trillion” CNBC reports.

https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1395742264379559943

Wall Street Journal: “Abubakar Shekau, the fundamentalist warlord who turned Boko Haram from an obscure radical sect into a jihadist army whose war with the Nigerian state has left tens of thousands dead across four nations, has died, according to officials, mediators, phone calls intercepted by a West African spy agency and internal intelligence memos seen by the Wall Street Journal. His death, which Nigeria’s military has erroneously reported at least three times before, was confirmed by five Nigerian officials who detailed how he detonated a suicide vest during a confrontation with rival insurgents to avoid being taken alive.”

“It removes one the world’s most brutal and effective terrorists, who plunged four nations, including Africa’s most populous, into a religious war. Globally, he was best known for kidnapping nearly 300 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok on the night before their final exams, an abduction that sparked the world-wide social-media movement #BringBackOurGirls. There was no official confirmation from Nigeria’s government, Boko Haram or the media arm of Islamic State. The Journal was able to review transcripts of geolocated, intercepted calls between insurgents discussing his suicide, alongside an audio message from a longtime mediator between Shekau and the government reporting him dead. ‘Shekau detonated a bomb and killed himself,’ one intercepted militant commander said.”

Joe Concha, a disgraced one-time media columnist for The Hill who is now relegated to “contributor” (cough, cough… unpaid) status, fell off the face of reality by using the satire website Babylon Bee as a source in a recent column.

In an op/ed chock full of misinformation, Concha used a tweet from the Babylon Bee to complain about President Joe Biden wearing a mask during a recent Zoom call with world leaders, saying he was “virtue signalling.”  Concha doesn’t note that while Biden was the only one on camera, there are typically a number of staffers in the room while the President talks to foreign leaders, making Biden’s mask conform to CDC guidelines in place at the time.

Concha also contorts himself to support a claim by Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (Q-Colorado) that Texas’s lifting of mask requirements didn’t have detrimental impact on fighting the virus in the state.  Concha says, “Using the latest data available, on May 16, there were zero COVID deaths in Texas.” 

“U.S. House candidate Anthony Bouchard had a relationship with and impregnated a 14-year-old girl when he was 18, he told the Star-Tribune late Thursday, hours after he disclosed the relationship in a Facebook Live video to his supporters. Bouchard, who did not specify the girl’s age in the video, said he went public with the information to get ahead of the story after learning that people were investigating it in opposition to his candidacy. A Wyoming state senator since 2017, Bouchard has risen in prominence since announcing he would challenge Rep. Liz Cheney following her vote to impeach then-President Donald Trump” – Casper Star Tribune.

NPR: “Leaders around the world welcomed news of a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas early Friday after days of hostilities killed altogether at least 250 people, including some 70 children. After 11 days of the worst fighting in the region since 2014, global leaders called for both sides to resolve the decades-long conflict and to build a lasting, peaceful and stable future. President Joe Biden’s administration held ‘intense, high-level discussions hour by hour’ with the Israelis, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and others to reach the truce. He said Thursday that there is a ‘genuine opportunity’ to build on the progress. The U.S. appears ready to continue its involvement in the region. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted early Friday that he will visit the region in the coming days and that he looks ‘forward to meeting the Foreign Minister and other Israeli, Palestinian, and regional leaders.'”

Politico Playbook reports “Nick Offerman, aka Ron Swanson of ‘Parks and Recreation,’ will appear before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Wednesday to urge Americans (particularly Republican men) to get vaccinated” which ought to be interesting to see if he does it in character.