“A Sudanese flight crew was surprised by a cat accompanying them inside the cockpit half an hour after it took off from Khartoum International Airport last week. A source told Al-Sudani that about a half hour after Doha, Qatar-bound Tarco Airlines flight took off Wednesday evening from Khartoum Airport, a cat appeared inside the cockpit and attacked the captain, forcing him to return to Khartoum Airport. Sources told Al-Sudani the ground crew at Khartoum airport believed that the cat had infiltrated the cabin of the plane during the cleaning work or the engineering review the previous night” – Al Sudani, translated by Google and edited for clarity by National Zero.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on the Coronavirus:

"The risk to average Americans remains low. We are working to keep it low." pic.twitter.com/9737jG2ch7

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) March 1, 2020

By a 64 to 33 vote, the Senate confirmed Miguel Cardona, Connecticut’s former education commissioner, to be the Secretary of Education, the Washington Post reports.

Cardona will jump into the position as school districts around the country struggle with the goal of reopening as the coronavirus pandemic lingers across the country.  President Joe Biden has set a goal of reopening a majority of schools to at least one day of in-person classes per week.  The American Recovery Act bill, passed by the House this weekend and currently before the Senate, allots $170 billion to help disinfect and prepare schools for reopening.

Born in Puerto Rico to parents living poverty, Cardona was the first in his family to attend college, where he studied education.  He went on to get his master’s degree and doctorate in education.  He started his career as an elementary school teacher before becoming a principal and a school system administrator.  He takes over as US Secretary of Education from Betsy DeVos, an heiress who had her degree in business economics.

American Conservative Union General Counsel David Safavian was so steaming mad at Hyatt Hotels for daring to weigh in on the questionable and possibly Nazi Occult-inspired design of the CPAC stage in the Hyatt Orlando ballroom, he just had to dignify it with a sternly-worded letter:

“Contrary to Hyatt’s own mission statement of inclusivity, your company just attacked its own customer by caving into the pressures of the politically motivated social media agitators who seek to destroy CPAC, our attendees and speakers from across the country, and the millions of Americans who support our work. Hyatt made a decision to issue additional statements late last night after the conference ended that disparaged and defamed us. These statements appear to validate demonstrably false and malicious claims. When we learned of the orchestrated assault on us, we immediately contacted your senior management to set the record straight.”

“Together, we quickly responded to these slanderous accusations. Your hotel’s senior management was on notice and acknowledged that these claims were false and agreed to share any statement before its release. We agreed that coordination was critical so that the general public would know the truth and that you would treat your customer with honesty. Thus, we were shocked that the Hyatt waited until after the conference concluded to issue additional statements – ones that are irresponsible, untrue, and contribute to a climate of division and hatred. For months we have collaborated with your team on logistics, including sharing, reviewing, and approving the stage design that was created by one of our subcontractors. The fact that no one on the Hyatt staff ever raised concerns during the process shows the ridiculous nature of your statements.”

New York Times: “State prosecutors in Manhattan who are investigating former President Donald J. Trump and his family business are sharpening their focus on the company’s long-serving chief financial officer, asking witnesses questions about his dealings at the company, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The increased focus on the executive, Allen H. Weisselberg, could step up pressure on him to cooperate with the investigation if the prosecutors unearth evidence of wrongdoing on his part. He has served as the Trump Organization’s financial gatekeeper for more than two decades and could be a vital source of information for the government about the inner workings of the company.”

“In recent weeks, the prosecutors working for the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., have been interviewing witnesses who know Mr. Weisselberg and have asked at least one witness about Mr. Weisselberg’s sons, Barry and Jack Weisselberg, according to two of the people with knowledge of the matter. Barry Weisselberg has been the property manager of Trump Wollman Rink in Central Park, and Jack works at Ladder Capital, one of Mr. Trump’s biggest lenders. The district attorney’s office has not accused Mr. Weisselberg or his sons of any wrongdoing, and there is no indication that the sons are a focus of the investigation. If the prosecutors were to secure Allen Weisselberg’s cooperation, it might provide a significant boost to the long-running investigation and deliver a blow to Mr. Trump, who has long depended on Mr. Weisselberg’s unflinching loyalty.”

https://twitter.com/NickJFuentes/status/1366541812714856454

The American Petroleum Institute, the United States’ largest trade association representing all aspects of the oil and gas industry, is set to release a statement endorsing carbon pricing, a cornerstone of the Paris Agreement to fight climate change, the Wall Street Journal reports.

In a major shift from its previous stance, API will come out in favor of carbon trading, an economic process by which businesses, states/provinces and even nations can sell excess allotments of carbon emissions to others, generating income for private entities or raising money for environmental initiatives for NGOs and governments.

“API supports economy-wide carbon pricing as the primary government climate policy instrument to reduce CO2 emissions while helping keep energy affordable, instead of mandates or prescriptive regulatory action,” the draft statement says.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Fulton County prosecutors are expected to appear before a grand jury this week seeking subpoenas for documents and witnesses related to their investigation of Donald Trump and some of his top associates for possible election fraud, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned. Legal experts are split as to whether there’s a strong case to be made, but most agree Trump’s efforts to overturn Georgia’s election results merit greater scrutiny.”

“Fani Willis, Fulton’s new district attorney, has said she’s prepared to follow the evidence wherever it leads. Some believe the recording of Trump’s Jan. 2 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger leaning on him to ‘find’ the votes to reverse Joe Biden’s win is grounds to move forward. ‘If there were a textbook (example of) how to commit criminal election fraud, this would be it,’ said Atlanta attorney David Walbert, who has represented Fulton County and the state of Georgia in several elections and redistricting cases. Longtime criminal defense attorney Don Samuel believes the matter isn’t cut-and-dried. ‘You’ve got to prove not only that he encouraged the secretary of state to commit a crime, but that he did so willfully and aware that what he was doing was illegal,’ said Samuel, whose high-profile clients have included football stars Ray Lewis and Ben Roethlisberger and attorney Claud ‘Tex’ McIver. That ‘is kind of an uphill battle, it seems to me, when you’re surrounded by lawyers when you’re making the call.’ Willis, an experienced prosecutor admired even by courtroom adversaries, said during a recent interview that she has no choice but to investigate. ‘Nobody is above the law,’ she said.”

“Senator Mitt Romney has a black eye and stitches, says he took a fall while visiting his son in Boston, ‘I took a fall, knocked me unconscious but I’m doing better.’ Joked: ‘I went to CPAC, that was a problem…'” reports MSNBC’s Frank Thorp (his photo), who did not separately ask Ann Romney if that’s what really happened and if there have been any problems in their house lately.

Fox News: “The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan on Monday is calling on Chairman Jerrold Nadler to hold a hearing to ‘address the scourge of cancel culture’ in the United States, amid what he called a ‘dangerous trend’ of ‘silencing and censoring certain political speech.’ In a letter to Nadler, D-N.Y., obtained by Fox News, Jordan, R-Ohio, said ‘the wave of cancel culture spreading the nation is a serious threat to fundamental free speech rights in the United States.’ ‘From newsrooms to college campuses to social media giants, we have seen a dangerous trend toward silencing and censoring certain political speech,’ Jordan wrote. ‘As the committee entrusted with upholding the Constitution and our fundamental liberties, our first full committee hearing for the 117th Congress must examine this cancel culture sweeping America.'”

“Jordan said the First Amendment, which ‘guarantees to all Americans the right to speak freely,’ has ‘allowed our country to develop and maintain a political discourse fueled by the free exchange of ideas.’ ‘This freedom has empowered risk-takers and innovators. It has shaped bold new ideas and given us a prosperous democracy,’ Jordan wrote. ‘Quite simply, it has made the United States the envy of the world.’ But Jordan said that in the current climate, ‘our shared commitment to free speech principles is eroding under demands for the censorship and silencing of certain speech.'”

“New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration has hired a criminal defense attorney to take point on the dueling scandals facing the high profile Democrat. Cuomo tapped Elkan Abramowitz, a longtime attorney for director Woody Allen and former federal prosecutor to handle investigations into both nursing home deaths and allegations of sexual harassment, the Wall Street Journal first reported on Monday. Abramowitz has not been afraid to embrace aggressive tactics to defend his clients. He once called Allen’s adopted daughter a ‘pawn’ being used by her mother, Mia Farrow, to smear his client with allegations of sexual abuse. New York Attorney General Tish James also announced on Monday that she is moving ahead with her independent investigation into sexual harassment allegations against the governor” – Business Insider.

North Dakota state House Rep Emily O’Brien posted a statement on Facebook regarding the allegations of her colleague, Rep Luke Simons, who apparently was acting very Trump-ish toward her (while she was pregnant, no less) and a whole lot of other women in and around the Capitol:

“While we have received 14 pages of allegations, we know there are many more instances of harassment perpetrated by Rep Simons dating back to 2017 upon his colleagues for which documentation has not been received or that were not addressed. I, myself, have endured harassment by Rep Simons. In order to avoid continued proximity to him, my colleagues helped me relocate to a desk further away from him under the pretense that my pregnancy required closer proximity to a restroom rather than addressing his harassing behavior. Mine is just one of many instances that were handled by avoiding the real issue. If you have endured similar harassment, now is the time to speak up, and now is the time to demand action.”

“Former President Trump and former first lady Melania Trump were both vaccinated at the White House in January, a Trump adviser tells Axios. Trump declared at CPAC on Sunday that ‘everybody’ should get the coronavirus vaccine – the first time he’s encouraged his supporters, who have been more skeptical of getting vaccinated, to do so. It’s unclear which vaccine Trump and Melania received. Vaccine hesitancy is higher among white Republicans than any other group, and it hasn’t been improving much as the vaccination effort continues, according to Civiqs polling” – Axios.

His rambling, low-energy speech at CPAC may have been billed as his comeback, but Donald Trump’s return to the political arena was even less enthusiastically endorsed by the attendees of the far-right conservative circus, the New York Times reports.

While Trump won the annual CPAC straw poll of potential presidential candidates, he garnered just 55% of the vote, hardly an overwhelming endorsement of his political viability a little more than a month after being removed from office.  More tellingly, only two-third (68%) of the people polled said they wanted Trump to run again in 2024.

Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, where the conference was held, received the next largest percentage, with 21%. 

“QAnon adherents apparently believe that Joe Biden is actually a malfunctioning robot wearing human-like skin. The strange beliefs were revealed during an interview on CNN. A panel of former QAnon supporters spoke with CNN reporter Alisyn Camerota about their experiences within the conspiracy movement. Several of the former conspiracy believers expressed sadness that their friends and family members were still involved in the cult-like belief system. One former QAnon adherent, Ashley Vanderbilt, said when she left the movement she knew of several members who believed that Mr Biden is actually a robot.”

“‘The person that I started talking to … that had initially got me into QAnon, he was like, ‘You know, Joe Biden’s not even real’,’ she said. ‘That’s why he’s wearing a mask all the time, because the fake face that he’s wearing, the mouth doesn’t move correctly when he talks. Yeah, so they really believe that Joe Biden is not even Joe Biden.’ Charlotte Rozich, another former believer, said a common belief in QAnon circles was that Mr Biden is not truly the president. They claim that Mr Biden is acting as president from a movie-set version of the White House and is being controlled by the ‘deep state'” – The Independent.

“The Biden administration’s task force for reuniting migrant families separated by the Trump administration will allow separated families ‘the option of being reunified either in the United States or their county of origin,’ Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is expected to announce Monday, according to a DHS spokesperson. Lawyers representing the families in a federal lawsuit have called on the Biden administration to make such a move to allow parents who were separated from their children and then deported without them to come back to the United States to reunify. They have argued that without special protections for those parents to come back to the United States, they are forced to choose between bringing their children back to dangerous conditions in their home counties or remaining separated” – NBC News.

Palm Beach Daily News: “Former President Donald Trump is selling – for $49 million – a beachfront house next door to Mar-a-Lago’s Beach Club in Palm Beach. Trump is associated with the limited liability company that owns the house at 1125 S. Ocean Blvd., records show. The house was sold in 2018 to Trump’s company by his sister, retired federal appeals Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, for a recorded $18.25 million. The eight-bedroom house with 10,455 total square feet house stands at the intersection of Woodbridge Road. Broker Lawrence Moens began advertising the house Sunday as an ‘exclusive’ listing, but the property is not being marketed in the local multiple listing service.”

“Named ‘The Beachouse,’ the two story, West Indies-style home was built in 1956 on a lot of more than six-tenths of an acre with 194 feet of beachfront. The house will be sold with a gratis membership to The Mar-a-Lago Club, a perk available to residents of Woodbridge Road, the street immediately north of the club. Moens’ advertising campaign for the house, which does not mention Trump, describes the property as ‘a well known and very important oceanfront estate’ that will be available in the late spring for ‘a summer renovation project.'”

On Monday the Supreme Court denied mandamus to Chemtrails Kelli and pals’ lawsuit against Arizona Governor Doug Ducey and Secretary of State Katharine Hobbs, and some scrub William Feehan’s solo effort versus the Wisconsin board of elections commissioners and Governor Tony Evers, both of which were Sidney ‘The Kraken’ Powell’s last active cases re-litigating the outcome of the 2020 election in the justice system. We don’t know how many she lost, but she lost all of them.

Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman with a solid analysis on Trump’s ‘Get rid of them all’ line and his plans to target insufficiently loyal House and Senate Republicans with primaries: “We’ve been waiting for this moment because it gives us the opportunity to write about the challenges of this approach for Trump and for D.C. Republicans. For Trump, the principal question we have here is whether Trump is going to have the infrastructure and, more importantly, the sustained interest in launching and facilitating primary challenges against these Republicans. That would include endorsing and most likely clearing the field for candidates in various congressional districts across the country.”

“Saying you want to get rid of Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) is one thing. But ensuring that Cheney or any candidate faces just one challenger is critical. Remember: Many of the Senate Republicans Trump named are not real targets. Mitt Romney is up for election in 2024, and Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins and Ben Sasse are up for re-election in six years. Two of them – Richard Burr and Pat Toomey – are not running for re-election. In the Senate, the only real target is Lisa Murkowski, who is up in 2022. In the House, Reps. David Valadao (Calif.), John Katko (N.Y.), Jaime Herrera Beutler (Wash.), and Fred Upton (Mich.) are all from moderate districts. Tom Rice (S.C.) and Cheney are at real risk. But if a bunch of Republicans turn out to claim the Trump mantle, the incumbent could easily prevail just on the strength of their name ID. Republican leaders have a series of thornier questions to answer in this Trump-versus-the-GOP universe. Will Republican leaders cut checks and raise money for these candidates?”

“The sole Democrat elected to statewide office in Florida is calling on the U.S. House of Representatives coronavirus committee to investigate the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, for ‘alleged political favoritism’ in coronavirus vaccine distribution. That call comes in a letter that Florida’s agriculture commissioner, Nikki Fried, will send on Monday morning to Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., who heads the coronavirus committee, and Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, its ranking Republican member. The letter was obtained by Yahoo News over the weekend. ‘My office has received frequent complaints’ about the state’s vaccine strategy, Fried writes, charging DeSantis with ‘an inept distribution of vaccines at best, and corrupt political patronage at worst.'”

“It is the second such call, coming days after Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Fla., asked the Department of Justice to investigate DeSantis on much the same grounds. Crist’s letter, sent on Feb. 21, alleged that DeSantis, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, ‘is establishing vaccine distribution and administration sites in select locations to benefit political allies and donors, over the needs of higher risk communities.’ Crist and Fried are both potential gubernatorial candidates, making their requests for an investigation impossible to separate from politics. Then again, the pandemic has been hounded by politics from the start. It may just be that the politics in Florida are more bare-knuckled and consequential than they are in most other places. Fried, one of DeSantis’s most unstinting critics, told Yahoo News that “Florida’s vaccine distribution has been chaotic and without a plan. It’s been inequitable, with Black and Hispanic residents left behind. And it’s been corrupt, with the Governor’s donors and political allies getting special access.’ ‘The message is clear,’ she said. ‘If Ron DeSantis likes you, or if you give his campaign money, you can cut in line ahead of seniors, teachers, and essential workers. It’s despicable and it needs to stop'” – Yahoo News.