Washington Post: “The Manhattan district attorney is delving deeply into the personal and financial affairs of the chief financial officer for former president Donald Trump’s company, probing the extent of Allen Weisselberg’s loyalty to Trump and scrutinizing a Trump-owned apartment once occupied by Weisselberg’s son, according to people familiar with the investigation. This questioning is now led by a former mob prosecutor, and one person familiar with the investigation said it is aimed at ‘flipping’ Weisselberg – attempting to turn one of Trump’s longest-serving and most important aides into a witness against him.”

“Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D), Manhattan’s top prosecutor, has not formally accused anyone of wrongdoing, including Trump, Weisselberg or the latter’s family. But the focus on Weisselberg underscores the depth and ambition of Vance’s inquiry, a criminal investigation broader than any Trump’s company is known to have faced before. Vance’s focus on Weisselberg has included questions related to two of his adult children, a tactic that could be an effort to increase pressure on the elder Weisselberg. One of Weisselberg’s sons also works for the Trump Organization, where he manages the company’s Central Park ice rinks. Another Weisselberg son works for a company that has extended loans to the Trump Organization. Vance recently obtained millions of pages of Trump’s tax and financial records. Now he appears to be focused on their human equivalent: a man who has paid Trump’s bills and kept his books since the 1980s.”

The former police chief of Laurel, Maryland, a bedroom community outside Washington, DC, has been charged with setting fire targeting people he was angry with, the Baltimore Sun reports.

David Crawford was arrested Wednesday on the suspicion of setting fire to twelve homes, garages or vehicles in four counties over a ten year period.  Crawford targeted people with whom he was angry either professionally or personally.  The fires hit the properties owned by a former Laurel official, three former law enforcement officials including another former Laurel police chief, two relatives, two of Crawford’s former physicians and a resident in his neighborhood.

Crawford faces charges in the individual counties where his crimes took place.  In Prince George’s, Howard, Montgomery and Frederick Counties, Crawford faces scores of felony charges, including first-degree attempted murder, second-degree attempted murder, first-degree arson, first-degree malicious burning and second-degree arson.  He’s also suspected of a car fire in Charles County. 

Less than 24 hours before the QAnon-claimed “real” inauguration of Donald Trump as the 19th President of the United States, Washington, DC is surprisingly quiet, with no stage or grandstand being constructed at the Capitol or the White House for the expected ceremony.

“It started Tuesday night when former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann responded to the news that Republican Gov. Gregg Abbott was ending his state’s mask mandate and reopening businesses ‘100%’ with a tweet that asked, ‘Why are we wasting vaccinations on Texas if Texas has decided to join the side of the virus?’ Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore echoed that sentiment on Wednesday, tweeting, ‘Texas – we hear you. You didn’t want to be part of our electrical grid. And now you’ve removed your mask mandate and are allowing large crowds to gather. We hear you! COVID is a hoax! So you don’t need our precious vaccine. We’ll send it to people who are saving lives by wearing masks.’ After the inevitable blowback from those who pointed out that the millions of Texans who might disagree with their governor’s actions should not be punished with what could constitute a death sentence for the most vulnerable, Moore walked back his sarcastic tweet – somewhat” – Daily Beast.

Congresswoman Bullet Background Barbie Lauren Boebert (Q-Colo.) took to Steve Bannon’s podcast to demonstrate her ignorance and intolerance about the Democratic-sponsored Equality Act, which provides civil rights protections for members of the LGBTQ community.  Boebert claimed that “there’s nothing about equality in that act.  If anything, it’s, it’s, it’s the, uh, gnrl gnrl gnrl, it’s the, it’s supremacy of, ah, of of of gays and lesbians and, ah, transvestites.  I mean, that’s what this is about.  It’s about putting them higher than anyone else.”

Boebert didn’t explain how providing LGBTQ people the same rights as everyone else was making them “superior” nor did she explain why non-LGBTQ people should have supremacy over others.

https://youtu.be/6BtaaqpcgV0

“Donald Trump is telling allies he’s strongly considering another run for president in 2024 — and close advisers want him to choose someone other than former Vice President Mike Pence for his ticket, according to people familiar with the discussions, Bloomberg News reports.

“Trump publicly teased at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday that he’s mulling another bid for president. Privately, he’s discussed alternatives to Pence as he takes stock of who he believes stood with him at the end of his term and who didn’t, according to two of the people.”

Ever the drama queen, Glenn Beck cried “This is fascism!  You don’t destroy books!  What is wrong with us, America?” as demonstrates that he is what’s wrong with America by completely lying about the situation involving six titles from Dr. Seuss’s catalogue.  Beck clearly and intentionally misstates that the books will be destroyed (untrue) or somehow banned (untrue), and implies that some government entity removed the books from circulation (untrue).  The foundation that controls Dr. Seuss’s brand and creations asked the publisher to remove the books from distribution because they contain racist imagery that does not meet the author’s legacy.

https://youtu.be/cMLJwYO3aOU

Wall Street Journal reporter Jimmy Vielkind has the story.

“Donald Trump has been formally served with lawsuit related to the Capitol attack. Formal notice that Rep. Bennie Thompson, Democratic chairman of House Homeland Security Committee, has sued him was received by certified mail in February at Mar-a-Lago” reports CNN’s Jim Sciutto.

“The United States further moves for this Court to issue an Order directing that the exhibits submitted to the Court – particularly, the nine videos and unofficial rough transcript of defendant Munchel’s 50 minute video – be placed under seal until further order of the Court. In support of its motion, the Government submits that the materials are part of an ongoing covert grand jury investigation. At this time, the government requests that the nine videos and the unofficial rough transcript of the 50-minute video be placed under seal because they, in substance, are part of, or relate to, this ongoing investigation. More specifically, disclosure of these materials through their inclusion on the public docket would endanger other aspects of the government’s ongoing investigation, including the destruction of evidence and the safety of potential witnesses.”

“In particular, disclosure might alert individuals who are the subject of the investigation of the existence and extent of the investigation, and it might alert these same individuals of the particular methods being used by law enforcement to investigate their criminal activities. As such, disclosure would undoubtedly frustrate the investigation, likely cause some subjects of the investigation to flee and/or destroy evidence, and could endanger the safety of law enforcement agents and witnesses” – Section of the motion to seal evidence in the government’s case against the “Zip Tie Guy”, Eric Gavelek Munchel, and his mom, Lisa Marie Eisenhart.

Could Biden try to ban my book next?

One Vote Away was the #1 Bestseller on Amazon a couple of months ago…maybe Joe could get it back there?

GET it HERE: https://t.co/qts9gyKX1A https://t.co/C7nrpwQhPr

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 3, 2021

NBC News: “Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, commanding general of the District of Columbia National Guard, will tell Congress on Wednesday that it took more than three hours to get the greenlight from the acting secretary of defense to deploy troops to the Capitol after the Capitol Police chief made the urgent request on the afternoon of Jan. 6. ‘At 1:49 p.m. I received a frantic call from then chief of U.S. Capitol Police, Steven Sund, where he informed me that the security perimeter at the Capitol had been breached by hostile rioters,’ Walker says in his prepared remarks. ‘Chief Sund, his voice cracking with emotion, indicated there was a dire emergency on Capitol Hill and requested the immediate assistance of as many guardsmen as I could muster.'”

“Walker said he alerted the Army’s senior leadership of Sund’s request immediately after the phone call with the police chief. ‘The approval for Chief Sund’s request would eventually come from the acting secretary of defense and be relayed to me by Army senior leaders at 5:08 p.m. – 3 hours and 19 minutes later,’ he said.”

“The Federal Election Commission on Tuesday asked U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan’s campaign committee to explain large accounting discrepancies between reports it filed several years ago and corrected reports the committee filed earlier this year. The campaign says no money was ever missing from its accounts, and blames the inconsistencies on troubles adjusting to skyrocketing donations as Jordan’s national profile grew. Four March 2 letters from the FEC ask Jordan’s campaign to explain, an increase in disbursements totaling $122,706.60 on its 2018 post-general election report, a decrease in disbursements totaling $130,319.97 on a report of the campaign’s income and expenses during the final weeks of 2018, a decrease in receipts totaling $111,950.54 on Jordan’s campaign finance report for the first quarter of 2019, an increase in disbursements totaling $38,822.23 and a decrease in receipts totaling $164,342.47 on a report of the campaign’s income and expenses in the second quarter of 2019. Each letter gives Jordan’s campaign until April 5 to respond, and says failure to do so ‘could result in an audit or enforcement action'” – Cleveland.com

“FBI and DHS warn of increased chatter among extremists, including members of Three Percenters, discussing possible plots against Capitol on March 4, when conspiracy theorists believe Trump will retake office, sources familiar with the matter tell me” reports CNN’s Jim Sciutto.

Ron Brownstein, The Atlantic: “The most explosive battle in decades over access to the voting booth will reach a new crescendo this week, as Republican-controlled states advance an array of measures to restrict the ballot, and the U.S. House of Representatives votes on the federal legislation that represents Democrats’ best chance to stop them. It’s no exaggeration to say that future Americans could view the resolution of this struggle as a turning point in the history of U.S. democracy. The outcome could not only shape the balance of power between the parties, but determine whether that democracy grows more inclusive or exclusionary. To many civil-rights advocates and democracy scholars I’ve spoken with, this new wave of state-level bills constitutes the greatest assault on Americans’ right to vote since the Jim Crow era’s barriers to the ballot. ‘This is a huge moment,’ Derrick Johnson, the president and CEO of the NAACP, told me. ‘This harkens to pre-segregation times in the South, and it goes to the core question of how we define citizenship and whether or not all citizens actually will have access to fully engage and participate.'”

“In Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Iowa, and Montana, Republican governors and legislators are moving forward bills that would reduce access to voting by mail, limit early voting, ban ballot drop boxes, inhibit voter-registration drives, and toughen identification requirements – measures inspired by the same discredited claims of election fraud that Donald Trump pushed after his 2020 loss. Earlier this week, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives in Georgia, for instance, passed a sweeping bill that would do almost all of those things. The Supreme Court’s 6–3 conservative majority is unlikely to block many, or perhaps any, of these state laws. As a result, Democrats may have a single realistic opportunity to resist not only these proposals, but also GOP plans to institute severe partisan congressional gerrymanders in many of the same states. That opportunity: using Democrats’ unified control of Washington to establish national election standards – by passing the omnibus election-reform bill known as H.R. 1, which is scheduled for a House vote today, and the new Voting Rights Act, which is expected to come to the floor later this year.”

“Parler, the social media app popular among American right-wing users, has dropped its case against Amazon.com Inc for cutting off its web-hosting services, court documents from late Tuesday showed. The app went dark in January as many service providers pulled back support, accusing it of failing to police violent content related to the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the nation’s legislative seat, by followers of then President Donald Trump. Google removed the application from its Play Store and Apple from App Store. Parler sued Amazon, accusing it of making an illegal, politically motivated decision to shut it down to benefit Twitter Inc. A U.S. judge rejected its demand that Amazon restore services for the platform later in January. A month later, Parler re-launched its services online, built on ‘sustainable, independent technology'” – Reuters.

The Forward: “The company that was hired to set up the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida last weekend has taken full responsibility for the design of the stage that resembled a Nazi insignia. In an exclusive statement to the Forward on Tuesday evening, Design Foundry, a stage design firm based in Hyattsville, Maryland, said it ‘had no idea that the design resembled any symbol, nor was there any intention to create something that did.’ The organizers of CPAC have announced that it will not use the firm for future events.”

“Images of the CPAC main stage – which featured Donald Trump’s first post-presidency speech on Sunday – went viral online as observers noted its resemblance to the Odal or Othala Rune, a symbol emblazoned on Nazi uniforms. After the conclusion of the event, Hyatt Hotels released a statement saying that it had addressed the concerns with the conference organizers and denounced the use of such symbols as ‘abhorrent.’ Design Foundry said that the American Conservative Union approved the stage design, which was ‘intended to provide the best use of space, given the constraints of the ballroom and social distancing requirements.’ According to the terms of the contract signed with Design Foundry, the ACU approved the design but had no rights to change the design or dismantle the stage. ‘The designs, renderings, drawings, specifications, materials and other documents used or created as part of the proposal are owned by Design Foundry,’ the contract reads. Design Foundry has worked with CPAC for several years and has provided services to MSNBC and major corporations – including Google, Citibank and Target.”

“Agents with the FBI were involved in a raid at a home in Fort Lauderdale Tuesday morning that left a suspect in custody whose social media activity shows him possibly connected with and sympathetic to the right wing group the Proud Boys. A large law enforcement presence was seen at the home in the area of Southwest 6th Street and 14th Avenue. FBI officials said they arrested 32-year-old Paul N. Miller for being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. The arrest was made without incident by the FBI, Fort Lauderdale Police, and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, officials said. Neighbors told NBC 6 they were woken up around 6 a.m. by flash bangs, and footage from one neighbor showed a man being taken into custody” – NBC Miami.

Here’s why HR 1 is unconstitutional, reckless, and anti-democratic in my first Op-ed in the @DailySignal: https://t.co/PyYfMMAJAU

— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) March 3, 2021