“The gay life is a life full of shame, misery, prostitution, drugs, and all manner of other things that I think only when you have a sense of critical distance and you can look at it in the rearview mirror, do you realize quite how self-destructive it is” says Yiannopoulos and yeah we probably shouldn’t be covering this but it is just so goddamned funny how much this guy sucks. Read more here.

“Former President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach club has been partially closed because of a COVID outbreak. That’s according to several people familiar with the situation, including a club member who received a phone call about the closure Friday. A receptionist at the Mar-a-Lago club confirmed the news, saying it was closed until further notice, but declined to comment further.”

“A person familiar with club operations said that, out of an abundance of caution, the club had partially closed a section ‘for a short period of time’ and quarantined some of its workers. The extent of the outbreak, what portions of the club were closed or how it was affecting the former first family weren’t immediately clear. Trump moved to Mar-a-Lago after leaving Washington in January, and has spent the weeks since laying low, golfing, dining with friends, meeting with Republican party leaders and plotting his political future” – AP.

New York Times: “For more than a decade, the Susan B. Anthony List and the American Principles Project have pursued cultural and policy priorities from the social conservative playbook, one backing laws to ban abortion once a fetal heartbeat could be detected and the other opposing civil rights protections for LGBTQ people. From their shared offices in suburban Virginia, they and their affiliated committees spent more than $20 million on elections last year. But after Donald J. Trump lost his bid for a second term and convinced millions of Americans that nonexistent fraud was to blame, the two groups found that many of their donors were thinking of throwing in the towel. Why, donors argued, should they give any money if Democrats were going to game the system to their advantage, recalled Frank Cannon, the senior strategist for both groups.”

“‘Before I give you any money for anything at all, tell me how this is going to be solved,’ Cannon said, summarizing his conversations. He and other conservative activists – many with no background in election law – didn’t take long to come up with an answer, which was to make rolling back access to voting the ‘center of gravity’ in the party, as he put it. Passing new restrictions on voting – in particular, tougher limits on early and mail-in voting – is now at the heart of the right’s strategy to keep donors and voters engaged as Mr. Trump fades from public view and leaves a void in the Republican Party that no other figure or issue has filled. In recent weeks, many of the most prominent and well-organized groups that power the GOP’s vast voter turnout efforts have directed their resources toward a campaign to restrict when and how people can vote, with a focus on the emergency policies that states enacted last year to make casting a ballot during a pandemic easier. The groups believe it could be their best shot at regaining a purchase on power in Washington.”

“There’s no doubt in Tennessee State Sen. Heidi Campbell’s (D) mind that Senate Republicans are retaliating against a state historical commission for voting to remove a bust of the slave trader, Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest from the state capitol. The Tennessee Historical Commission voted 25-1 last week to remove the bust and place it in a museum. On Wednesday, eight days later, five Republicans on a Senate committee voted to advance a bill to dismiss the commission’s current members entirely, and replace them with a new, 12-member body. An amendment to the legislation would also require any commission decisions about removing monuments to be approved by a joint resolution of the general assembly.”

“‘It’s embarrassing, is what it is,’ Campbell told TPM Thursday, adding that she believed the bill to replace the commission had enough support to reach the governor’s desk. But the effort to sack the historical commission is just the latest in a years-long bureaucratic struggle over monuments to Confederate history in Tennessee. In fact, the current rules for removing monuments date back to 2013, when the state passed the Heritage Protection Act, barring the removal of monuments on public property without a two-thirds waiver vote from the commission. Later, during another monument removal impasse in 2017, the majority-Black city of Memphis successfully circumvented the law by selling two public parks that contained Confederate monuments to a nonprofit run by Shelby County commissioner and NAACP official Van Turner for $1,000. The nonprofit then removed the statues, one of Forrest and one of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The legislature took note. The following year, it amended the Heritage Protection Act to prevent another such transfer in the future” – Talking Points Memo.

FrontPageMag: “The relentless de-platforming of conservatives in general and of the David Horowitz Freedom Center specifically, continues. On March 3rd the Editors at FrontPage received an email from Disqus, the networked community platform used by hundreds of thousands of sites all over the web. The statement reads: ‘It has come to our attention that your site is included in the Hate Groups listed on the Southern Poverty Law Center Hate Map: As fostering Hate is a violation of the Disqus Terms of Service and Basic Rules, we can no longer support your site on the Disqus network. Disqus will be removed from your site on March 17th, to allow time for transition and a comment export. If you will need a manual export, please let us know before the removal date.'”

“That was it. As of today, Disqus is de-platforming us. They have refused to respond to inquiries seeking further explanation. Disqus has taken on faith the libelous accusations of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a widely-discredited, partisan group that frequently characterizes mainstream conservative organizations as ‘hate groups.’ As loyal and dedicated readers of FrontPageMag.com, you know how vital the comments section is to a website. It engages the readers, provides a platform for lively debate and discussion, and allows for a community of like-minded readers to converse with each other. Comments are critical to the lifeblood of a website that engages in opinion and discussion. Rest assured, we will still have comments flowing soon. We are switching to a new service and while the look and feel will be a little different, we ask for your patience in getting used to the new section.”

“The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll, Sponsored by SLANTED from Sharyl Attkisson, for Friday shows that 52% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Biden’s job performance. Forty-seven percent (47%) disapprove” reports Rasmussen, name-dropping their anti-vaxxer sponsor’s stupid book about media bias. Managing a 52% in Rasmussen’s daily presidential tracking poll is good news, according to the former guy.
Sure would love to get more Rasmussen updates on Twitter. The problem is that they blocked National Zero’s account due to a probably profane reply to when they tweeted “Looking to block some trolls today” sometime last fall. Can’t remember exactly what the reply was though.

“Michael Cohen, former President Donald Trump’s former fixer, is meeting for the eighth time with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office on Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter.”

“Prosecutors have increased the frequency of their interviews with Cohen since they began in the fall of 2019 soon after the district attorney’s office subpoenaed Trump’s accountant for his taxes. Cohen, who worked for Trump for about a decade and once said he would take a bullet for Trump, knows the inner workings of the company. Prosecutors are interested in speaking with Cohen because he can help explain the culture of the company and the relationships between Trump, his family, and Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization. Prosecutors are investigating whether the Trump Organization improperly inflated the value of its assets when dealing with lenders and insurance companies and deflated them when filing taxes” – CNN.

Pay no attention to the fact that the President of the United States is so frail that he got knocked over repeatedly by a gust of wind.

Nothing at all to see here, folks! 🙄 https://t.co/u2OjEEqSnr

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) March 19, 2021

Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic: “If the link between Russian security services and the stories about the Biden family was bleedingly obvious at the time, why did anyone go along with it? Why were American journalists, American politicians, and the American president’s advisers messing around with Russian intelligence agents? The problem is not only the outgrowth of the peculiar climate created by Donald Trump – however simple and satisfying such an explanation might be. Think, for a moment, about why the Russian state indulges in this kind of activity, year in and year out, despite the political costs and the risk of sanctions: Because it’s very cheap, it’s very easy, and a lot of evidence suggests that it works.”

“For decades now, Russian security services have studied a concept called ‘reflexive control’ – the science of how to get your enemies to make mistakes. To be successful, practitioners must first analyze their opponents deeply, to understand where they get their information and why they trust it; then they need to find ways of playing with those trusted sources, in order to insert errors and mistakes. This way of thinking has huge implications for the military; consider how a piece of incorrect information might get a general to make a mistake. But it works in politics too. The Russian security services have now studied us and worked out (it probably wasn’t very hard) that large numbers of Americans – not only Fox News and OANN broadcasters but also members of Congress – are very happy to accept sensational information, however tainted, from any source that happens to provide it. As long as it suits their partisan frames, and as long as it can be used against their opponents, they don’t care who invented it or for what purpose. As a result, supplying an edited audiotape or a piece of false evidence to one of the bottom-feeders of the information ecosystem is incredibly easy; after that, others will ensure that it rises up the food chain. Russian disinformation doesn’t succeed thanks to the genius of Russians; it succeeds thanks to the sharp partisanship of Americans. Russian disinformation works because Americans allow it to work – and because those same Americans don’t care anymore about the harm they do to their country.”

.@POTUS set a goal to deliver 100 million vaccine shots in 100 days. His administration hit the milestone in just 58. Let’s keep it going: Please get the vaccine as soon as it’s available to you. It’s the only way to beat this pandemic. pic.twitter.com/uYmwRMMmYw

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) March 19, 2021

Foretelling a larger view of the prosecution, US attorneys on Friday charged the leaders of four regional Proud Boys cells with conspiracy for planning and coordinating the domestic terrorist attack on the US Capitol January 6th, Politico reports.

Prosecutors unsealed charges against Ethan Nordean of Seattle, Zach Rehl of Philadelphia, Charles Donahoe of North Carolina and Joseph Biggs of Florida alleging that the four orchestrated the attack on the Capitol with the intent of overwhelming the police on scene and breaching the building.

While these are not the first conspiracy charges filed in relation to the coup attempt–prosecutors filed similar charges against ten low-level members of the Oath Keepers weeks ago–these charges are the first against leaders of one of the groups suspected of working to undermine the election at the behest of Donald Trump.

“Nicolette Davis said she was 25, on her first networking trip as a junior lobbyist for an insurance company, when she felt the 45-year-old congressman’s hand on her back. She and other lobbyists had gathered at an Irish pub in Minneapolis after a day of ice fishing, Davis told The Washington Post, and Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y) was seated to her left. ‘A drunk congressman is rubbing my back,’ she texted a friend and co-worker at Aflac that evening in 2017, adding later, ‘HELP HELP.’ Reed, his hand outside her blouse, briefly fumbled with her bra before unhooking it by pinching the clasp, Davis told The Post. He moved his hand to her thigh, inching upward, she said” – Washington Post.

Every time Kamala Harris shakes Joe Biden's hand, she's checking his pulse.

— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) March 19, 2021

Long story short, Liberian energy officials sued a DC-based anti-corruption NGO called Global Witness for a report they published which alleged those officials had accepted bribes in return for selling Exxon Mobil a claim on oil reserves off the coast of Liberia. The circuit court ruled in favor of Global Witness citing the decision in the 1964 case New York Times v Sullivan, which places a much higher bar for defamation cases brought by public officials against media for their reporting. The DC circuit appeals court again tossed the case 2 to 1, but Judge Laurence Silberman, a George W Bush appointee, wrote this batshit dissent, lamenting that only Rupert Murdoch and his son stand alone against the others in fighting Dem bias in media. Here’s an excerpt:

“Although the bias against the Republican Party – not just controversial individuals – is rather shocking today, this is not new; it is a long-term, secular trend going back at least to the ’70s. (I do not mean to defend or criticize the behavior of any particular politician). Two of the three most influential papers (at least historically), The New York Times and The Washington Post, are virtually Democratic Party broadsheets. And the news section of The Wall Street Journal leans in the same direction. The orientation of these three papers is followed by The Associated Press and most large papers across the country (such as the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, and Boston Globe). Nearly all television – network and cable – is a Democratic Party trumpet. Even the government-supported National Public Radio follows along. As has become apparent, Silicon Valley also has an enormous influence over the distribution of news. And it similarly filters news delivery in ways favorable to the Democratic Party. See Kaitlyn Tiffany, Twitter Goofed It, The Atlantic (2020) (‘Within a few hours, Facebook announced that it would limit [a New York Post] story’s spread on its platform while its third-party fact-checkers somehow investigated the information. Soon after, Twitter took an even more dramatic stance: Without immediate public explanation, it completely banned users from posting the link to the story.”).”

While 24-year-old Sedrick Altheimer was delivering newspapers at 2 a.m. on January 27th, he started to be followed by an unmarked white SUV.  He continued his job, tossing newspapers out the windows of his car onto subscribers’ lawns and driveways.

After the SUV passed Altheimer’s 1995 Geo Prizm and then turned around to follow Altheimer again, he became concerned.  At one house, where he had to get out of his car to put the newspaper into a plastic holder as the homeowner requested, he approached the SUV to find out what was going on, according to a Seattle Times account of the incident.

The man in the SUV accused him of being a “porch pirate,” someone who steals packages off people’s porches, an unusual accusation given that the driver of the SUV saw Altheimer throwing newspapers out of the car windows.  Altheimer thought the driver looked familiar, but couldn’t place his face.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidelines for the reopening of schools, reducing the amount of space required between desks, a move that could speed the return to classrooms for more students, the Associated Press reports.

The CDC said a three-foot distance between desks, along with other measure, would be sufficient to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.  This is a reduction from the six-foot spacing previously recommended.

Because children and teens are less likely to get severe cases of coronavirus, they can be placed closer to one another so long as the students wear masks.  Adults, such as teachers, administrators and other school workers, should still stay six feet away from students.

“Twitter has once again suspended the account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., her office said Friday, as House Democrats move to expel the conspiracy-embracing lawmaker from Congress. Greene, who has previously promoted the baseless pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy and supported calls for violence against Democrats, said in a campaign message that Twitter suspended her account around 1 a.m. Friday ‘without explanation,’ her office told CNBC. Greene’s account is suspended for 12 hours, according to that campaign message” – CNBC.

Cincinnati Enquirer: “Twitter temporarily restricted Ohio Senate candidate Josh Mandel’s account for violating the social media platform’s rules on ‘hateful conduct.’ Mandel’s account created a poll Tuesday morning about which type of ‘illegals’ would commit more crimes, ‘Muslim Terrorists” or ‘Mexican Gangbangers.’ His campaign later shared that the account was temporarily suspended for 12 hours for violating Twitter’s policies on ‘hateful conduct.’”

The Wall Street Journal reports that authorities are telling military, government, and corporate officials to stop using tech built by a company based in a foreign country, as it could track their movements and provide the data to the intel services of that rival superpower.

The punchline to this is that the government in the Wall Street Journal story is China’s and the tech is American-built Tesla cars, which apparently are pretty popular among the ruling class of the Chinese Communist Party, government, and executives at state owned enterprises. Beijing is worried since Tesla apparently collects a shit ton of GPS and imaging data from every vehicle, likely for purposes related to its development of autonomous driving software. Not sure which possibility is funnier: that the assholes are just being paranoid because it’s what they regularly do to the United States with TikTok and God knows what other tech products and devices developed in China and used in the United States, or that Tesla really is providing the data to the CIA and NSA for surveillance purposes, wittingly or unwittingly. Read more at the Wall Street Journal.

“The ex-wife of a Trump Organization executive has spoken ‘multiple times’ with investigators from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, she told NBC News, as the probe into Donald Trump’s financial dealings intensifies. Jennifer Weisselberg said it appears investigators have been seeking information related to the role of Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer and the father of her ex-husband. Allan Weisselberg, whose relationship with Trump spans decades, is likely the one person outside of the family who has the most complete understanding of the Trump Organization’s inner financial workings.”

“‘He discusses everything with him,’ Jennifer Weisselberg said, speaking in her first broadcast interview. ‘And Donald trusts him to continue the legacy the way his father set things up.’ Jennifer Weisselberg said she has turned over documents to Vance’s investigators. But she declined to go into detail on her discussions with them, citing the sensitive nature of the probe. ‘I think it’s important that I don’t compromise the investigation,’ said Weisselberg, a former ballet dancer whose 14-year marriage to Barry Weisselberg, the longtime manager of the Trump-run ice rink in Central Park, ended in a contentious divorce in 2018” – NBC News.