“House Democrats seeking to drill down on the spread of election fraud falsehoods on social media in advance of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot need to look no further than some of their Republican colleagues. A Washington Post analysis found that seven GOP members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee who are scheduled to grill the chief executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter about election misinformation on Thursday sent tweets that advanced baseless narratives of election fraud, or otherwise supported President Donald Trump’s efforts to challenge the results of the presidential election.”

“They were among 15 of the 26 Republican members of the committee who voted to overturn President Biden’s election victory. Three Republican members of the committee, Reps. Markwayne Mullin (Okla.), Billy Long (Mo.) and Earl L. ‘Buddy’ Carter (Ga.), tweeted or retweeted posts with the phrase ‘Stop the Steal’ in the chaotic aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. Stop the Steal was an online movement that researchers studying disinformation say led to the violence that overtook the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6” – Washington Post.

NBC News: “Pledging to put science above politics, the Biden administration will look back through four years of environmental policies and decisions made by the Trump administration to see where scientific data may have been manipulated or intentionally suppressed. In a letter to staff obtained by NBC News, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan said the agency would make good on a presidential memorandum on scientific integrity signed by President Joe Biden by updating policies, reports or data that suffered from political interference under former President Donald Trump. ‘When politics drives science rather than science informing policy, we are more likely to make policy choices that sacrifice the health of the most vulnerable among us,’ Regan wrote. He added that ‘manipulating, suppressing or otherwise impeding science has real world consequences for human health and the environment.'”

“Although letter doesn’t mention Trump by name, Biden administration officials confirmed the review is specifically focused on policies and actions taken during the four years Trump was president. Under Trump’s EPA, led first by Scott Pruitt and then Andrew Wheeler, the EPA was regularly accused of manipulating science and data for political purposes and to justify far more lenient regulations on polluting industries whose emissions contribute to global warming. The EPA during the Trump years removed climate change data from its website, and top scientists and long-serving policy experts left the agency at an alarming pace. Biden, in an executive order the day he was inaugurated, ordered an ‘immediate review’ of actions taken government-wide since January 20, 2017, when Trump was sworn in, to ensure they were guided by science. A week later, Biden signed a memorandum that went further by ordering agencies ‘expeditiously update any agency policies, processes, and practices issued or published since January 20, 2017, that prevent the best available science and data’ from informing decision-making.”

Rachel Levine, an openly transgender woman, was confirmed by the Senate to be Assistant Secretary of Health for the Biden Administration, becoming the first openly transgender person to win Senate confirmation, ABC News reports.

The former Secretary of Health for Pennsylvania, Levine oversaw the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, an effort that was largely praised for its effectiveness and outreach.  She got 52 votes in the Senate, with Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski the only Republicans to join Democrats in confirming Levine.

Levine will become the second-highest ranking official in the Department of Health and Human Services, behind HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.  The Department is dealing not just with the coronavirus pandemic, but also with the influx of migrants and a high number of unaccompanied minors for whom HHS will be responsible for finding housing.

Levine is a pediatrician with a medical degree from Tulane University.  She was also a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at the Penn State University School of Medicine.

“Donald Trump has been in talks with no-name app vendors as he contemplates partnering with an existing platform to create his own social media network, according to sources familiar with the private discussions. Among the social networking apps the former president and his digital adviser Dan Scavino have homed in on is a relatively unknown platform called FreeSpace, these sources told Axios. It’s unclear how this business relationship would work.”

“Trump is famously averse to putting his own money into companies, preferring to license his name and use other people’s money to fund his ventures. It’s also by no means a done deal. A source briefed on the situation said Trump had not made a final decision on the social network. ‘It could be any of several companies, with more meetings this week,’ the source said. Trump senior adviser Jason Miller told Fox News’ ‘#MediaBuzz’ on Sunday, ‘I do think that we’re going to see President Trump returning to social media in probably about two or three months here, with his own platform. It seems surprising that ‘FreeSpace’ caught Trump’s attention. It employs touchy-feely positivity language that’s the polar opposite of the incendiary and divisive social media persona he cultivated before he was banned from Twitter and Facebook following the Jan. 6 Capitol attack” – Axios.

Dozens of former Amazon employees in Bessemer, Alabama have received ballots on whether to unionize the current workforce, perhaps swaying the vote on whether the online retailer’s employees join a union, Reuters reports.  With 5,800 current workers, the Alabama warehouse has been the site of one of the largest union contests in recent years.

According to the voting rules set up by the National Labor Relations Board, any employee who quit or were dismissed for cause after to the pay period ending January 9th would not be eligible to vote, even though they may have received a ballot.  Amazon was required to provide a list of employees who were employed on that date so the NLRB could mail ballots on February 8th, but Amazon was required to notify them of the voting eligibility.

The ballots from ineligible former employees could be challenged by the NLRB, the union or the company.  The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which is trying to organize the workers, has said it has fielded questions from workers at other Amazone locations to see if they will be voting for a union next.

Esquire: “We ordinarily don’t do traffic reports hereabouts, but this one from the New York Times is a whopper. The ship, which was heading from China to the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, ran aground amid poor visibility and high winds from a sandstorm that struck much of northern Egypt this week, according to George Safwat, a spokesman for the authority that oversees the canal. Unfortunately, it also seems to have lit up the Batshit Signal among the QAnon set.”

“According to some veteran spelunkers, the believers have concluded that the container ship has multiple connections to Hillary Rodham Clinton, one of which is the fact that it has ‘EVERGREEN’ painted on its side, and ‘Evergreen’ is allegedly HRC’s Secret Service handle. (There’s also something-something about the ship’s call sign that has a big old neon sign reading ‘RABBIT HOLE’ above it.) There’s a certain mutability about this craziness that sets it apart from similar insanities of the past. The McCarthy-McCarran period had defined limits. As soon as the foot soldiers took aim at the likes of Dwight Eisenhower’s alleged ties to the International Communist Menace, the limits were breached and the political power of the theory drained away. The really formidable conspiracy theories are the ones that are in constant motion in several different directions at once, the ones that can move from the expectation that the former president* actually would be inaugurated in March to the notion that a huge container ship has the mother of all fender-benders in order to offload children being trafficked at the behest of a former First Lady, United States senator, and Secretary of State, and not miss a beat while doing so. This doesn’t make the whole thing less frightening, let alone less of a threat. Some day in the distant future, someone will figure out what it was about the Clintons that touches off the fireworks in the brains of so many people.”

That Joe Manchin bastard is really twisting Democrats’ arms with that demand, that American megacorporations must help foot the bill on an infrastructure package or else he won’t vote for it. What a total prick right? Why would Dems ever want to do that? NBC News has the story.

“Former President Donald Trump, as well as his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., have retained attorney Jesse Binnall to represent each of them in a lawsuit filed by Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-CA), according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Binnall, a Republican attorney based in Virginia, previously represented former Trump national security adviser Mike Flynn, alongside attorney Sidney Powell, after prosecutors charged him with lying to the FBI about his communications with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. More recently, Binnall filed a lawsuit in Nevada on behalf of the Trump campaign which sought to overturn President Joe Biden’s electoral victory there, and he has also repped Defending the Republic, a legal group founded in part by Powell, in a defamation suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems.”

“Trump Jr. is now the second Trump family member to be represented by Binnall after the attorney signed on to represent former President Trump in a similar lawsuit filed by Democratic Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson. Both the Thompson and Swalwell lawsuits allege that Trump and his associates violated the Ku Klux Klan act of 1871 and that Trump’s rhetoric was part of a deliberate attempt to incite rioters to disrupt Congress’ certification of President Biden’s victory on Jan. 6. Binnall also represented Trump in a lawsuit filed in November against the then-president, his campaign, and the Republican National Committee. The suit alleged that Trump ‘sought to overturn the result of the election by disenfranchising voters, in particular voters of color’ in part by ‘intimidating election officials and vote tabulators while they counted votes'” – Daily Beast.

The #FBI is still seeking information about people who took part in the violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. If you know this individual, visit https://t.co/iL7sD5efWD. Refer to photo 88 in your tip. pic.twitter.com/u7U92Lhr3u

— FBI (@FBI) March 24, 2021

AP: “More than three months into the U.S. vaccination drive, many of the numbers paint an increasingly encouraging picture, with 70% of Americans 65 and older receiving at least one dose of the vaccine and COVID-19 deaths dipping below 1,000 a day on average for the first time since November. Also, dozens of states have thrown open vaccinations to all adults or are planning to do so in a matter of weeks. And the White House said 27 million doses of both the one-shot and two-shot vaccines will be distributed next week, more than three times the number when President Joe Biden took office two months ago. Still, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said Wednesday he isn’t ready to declare victory. ‘I’m often asked, are we turning the corner?’ Fauci said at a White House briefing. ‘My response is really more like we are at the corner. Whether or not we’re going to be turning that corner still remains to be seen.’ What’s giving Fauci pause, he said, is that new cases remain at a stubbornly high level, at more than 50,000 per day.”

“Nonetheless, the outlook in the U.S. stands in stark contrast to the deteriorating situation in places like Brazil, which reported more than 3,000 COVID-19 deaths in a single day for the first time Tuesday, and across Europe, where another wave of infections is leading to new lockdowns. The gloom in Europe is compounded because the vaccine rollout on the continent has been slowed by production delays and questions about the safety and effectiveness of AstraZeneca’s shot. Public health experts in the U.S. are taking every opportunity to warn that relaxing social distancing and other preventive measures could easily lead to another surge. Dr. Eric Topol, head of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, sees red flags in states lifting mask mandates, air travel roaring back and spring break crowds partying out of control in Florida. ‘We’re getting closer to the exit ramp,’ Topol said. ‘All we’re doing by having reopenings is jeopardizing our shot to get, finally, for the first time in the American pandemic, containment of the virus.'”

Mississippi Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith was sworn in to office on Sunday, January 3rd, 2019.

A person Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-GA) called a “friend” and “amazing” who attended rallies with Greene was caught in recordings as part of the group of domestic terrorists who entered the Capitol during the January 6th coup attempt, CNN reports.

Anthony Aguero had admitted to CNN previously that he attended the insurrectionist attack, but declined to say one way or another if he entered the building.  Aguero posted videos from inside the building after January 6th, but claimed they were from screenshots of other people’s phones.

On other videos, Aguero is heard urging on people trying to smash the doors on the west side of the Capitol building, chanting “heave ho” as a crowd pushed forward through one of the doors.

The Bulwark: “The Big Lie is starting to unravel. One of Trump’s disinformation stars, Sidney Powell, is backing down. But while we’re considering the matter of truth and lies, let’s recall when conservatives cared about truth (or seemed to). In the 1990s, Guatemalan activist Rigoberta Menchú was a phenomenon. Of Mayan descent, she offered harrowing testimony about the conduct of the Guatemalan military during that country’s civil war. Her 1983 as-told-to memoir, I Rigoberta Menchú, was a sensation. When it came to light that Menchú had distorted key aspects of her autobiography, right and left responded very differently… Liberals tended to excuse Menchú, on the grounds that her story revealed a ‘larger truth.’ ‘Whether her book is true or not, I don’t care,’ said Marjorie Agosin, head of the Spanish department at Wellesley College. ‘We should teach our students about the brutality of the Guatemalan military and the U.S. financing of it.’ Conservatives were appalled that Menchú’s Nobel Prize was not rescinded, and galled that some liberals defended Menchú’s invocation of ‘my truth.’ There was no ‘my truth’ or ‘your truth’ they countered. There was only the truth. And when you depart from the truth, you are lying.”

“The Menchú story comes to mind because this week we’ve witnessed further evidence of just how corrupted the right has become. The assault on truth is Donald Trump’s most damaging legacy. For now, our best, and possibly only remaining check on flagrant lying is the tort system. (Disbarment is an available penalty for lawyers who severely transgress ethical norms, but it is rarely invoked.) It’s not good for Dominion and Smartmatic that allies of the president grossly defamed them, but it may turn out to be good for the country that they are availing themselves of legal remedies.”

“In late January, a small group of dedicated volunteers from the conservative Heritage Action for America met with Republican legislators in Georgia, delivering a letter containing detailed proposals for rolling back access to voting. Within days, bills to restrict voting access in Georgia began flooding the Legislature. Of the 68 bills pertaining to voting, at least 23 had similar language or were firmly rooted in the principles laid out in the Heritage group’s letter and in an extensive report it published two days later, according to a review of the bills by The New York Times. The alignment was not coincidental. As Republican legislatures across the country seek to usher in a raft of new restrictions on voting, they are being prodded by an array of party leaders and outside groups working to establish a set of guiding principles to the efforts to claw back access to voting.”

“Heritage, for instance, has claimed credit for a new Arizona law, signed last week by Gov. Doug Ducey, that requires the secretary of state to compare death records with voter registrations. The state representative who sponsored the bill thanked one of the Heritage volunteers in a Facebook post after it passed. Party leaders and their conservative allies are planning to export successful statutory language from one state to others, like the text of Alabama’s voter ID law. They are also drafting what they describe as ‘best practices’ principles for completely new legislation, with the impetus often coming from outside groups like the Heritage Foundation” – New York Times.

Miami Herald: “A woman missing for three weeks was rescued Tuesday after she was found trapped inside a storm drain just a few feet away from a busy Delray Beach thoroughfare. She was naked and unable to stand on her own. Detectives are now trying to figure out what happened. The bizarre rescue began early Tuesday during rush hour when a good Samaritan heard yelling coming from a drain on Atlantic Avenue and called 911, according to Delray Beach Fire Rescue. The woman had several scrapes, was ‘dirty and disheveled’ and could not stand to grasp the ladder, said Delray Beach Fire Rescue spokeswoman Dani Moschella. She believes the woman was in her 40s. ‘She couldn’t stand on her own… She’s very lucky that someone heard her ,’ said Moschella.”

“The woman, wrapped in the sheet, spoke briefly with her rescuers and a few officers before she was taken to Delray Medical Center for examination, she said. Moschella on Wednesday redirected all other inquiries to Delray Beach police, which did not immediately respond to the Miami Herald’s request for comment. Police have not disclosed the woman’s name or age yet. They say she was reported missing to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office on March 3, according to CBS12, a TV station that covers the Palm Beach County area. The woman told officers she was trapped in the storm drain system for ‘a significant time – perhaps days, perhaps weeks,’ Delray Beach police spokesman Ted White told WPTV, a TV station that covers the Palm Beach County area.”

You cannot legislate evil away.

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) March 24, 2021

“A key member of the Oath Keepers militia told associates he had coordinated alliances with the Proud Boys and other paramilitary groups in advance of Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 rally, according to new evidence filed by the Justice Department. Spurred on by the president’s incendiary rhetoric at that day’s rally, Trump supporters, including Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, rioted at the Capitol and assaulted police officers later that day in an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Kelly Meggs, the Florida leader of the Oath Keepers – who’s been charged along with nine others with conspiring to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election – said in private messages obtained by prosecutors that he’d been in touch repeatedly with Proud Boys leadership in particular. He said he had worked out a strategy to confront potential violence from antifa, a loosely organized collection of left-wing extremists.”

“‘This week I organized an alliance between Oath Keepers, Florida 3%ers, and Proud Boys,’ Meggs wrote in a Dec. 19 message to an associate via Facebook. ‘We have decided to work together and shut this shit down.’ The evidence is the first to suggest coordination among the various extremist groups as they prepared to descend on Washington. Oath Keepers attorneys have emphasized in court papers that evidence they were preparing for violence was limited to potential confrontation with Antifa – not a plan to storm the Capitol. But prosecutors say the planning, plus a growing body of evidence that the Oath Keepers executed a coordinated plan to enter the Capitol and rallied to the group’s leader, Stewart Rhodes, after first breaching the building, suggesting it was an element of their effort. In addition, prosecutors revealed messages of Oath Keepers celebrating the Capitol assault and promising to ‘reload’ for further action” – Politico.

MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin reports First Dogs Champ and Major Biden have been returned to the White House after a brief exile to Delaware following a biting incident.

Politico: “To Donald Trump’s previous failures as airline owner, football team operator, steak entrepreneur, magazine publisher, university proprietor, casino owner, mortgage lender, vodka merchant and all the rest, prepare to add failed social media entrepreneur to the list. According to Trump adviser Jason Miller on Fox News on Sunday, the former president will start his own platform ‘in probably two or three months.’ Trump has held ‘high-powered meetings’ about the startup at Mar-a-Lago, Miller added. ‘This is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media.’ This idea, which deserves to be catalogued next to the trial balloon the Trump camp sent up at the beginning of the year about him starting his own TV network, has little to no chance of succeeding as a business venture. Like the vaporous trial balloons he sent up during his presidency – to replace Obamacare, defeat Covid-19, not play golf because he would be too busy working, eliminate the federal deficit, get Mexico to pay for the wall and release his tax returns – this new Trump promise by proxy to take on Facebook and Twitter, which banned him after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol for glorifying violence, is doomed to crash like the Hindenburg.”

“Standing up a social media platform is so completely outside of Trump’s areas of business expertise – real estate, resorts and licensing – that if he does succeed in launching it, there’s very good reason to expect it will flame out the way his other dilettantish forays into airlines, sports, education and booze did: with losses and lawsuits. Silicon Valley has been filled to overflowing already with the compost of social media ventures – Friendster, Vine, FriendFeed and Yik Yak, just to name a few – that failed to dethrone Facebook and Twitter. Most notably, Google, whose parent company now has a market cap of $1.4 trillion and which knows a thing or two about technology, made at least four runs at creating a social media company to compete with Facebook: Google Buzz, Google Wave, Orkut, and Google+. All failed miserably. What does Donald Trump have that Google didn’t? Well, Trump’s people would tell you, he has the effervescence of Donald Trump! When Trump’s Twitter account was revoked in January, he had almost 90 million followers. Surely, some of those will follow him to a new social media site, but even millions following one guy won’t be enough to make the site viable.”