Watch out Kermit. The Muppets aren’t woke enough for today’s Left. https://t.co/QwEo3ehMiQ

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) February 22, 2021

Media Matters: “Leading Republican officials are set to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this week along with a virulently anti-Semitic speaker named Young Pharaoh. Young Pharaoh is an online commentator who has told followers that Judaism is a ‘complete lie’ and ‘made up for political gain,’ said that Jewish people are ‘thieving fake Jews,’ tweeted that ‘all the censorship & pedophilia on social media is being done by Israeli Jews,’ and claimed that ‘all of these big tech [companies], media, & social media platforms are controlled by CCP & Israel through Jewish CEO & corrupt Democrats.’ Young Pharaoh has also attacked conservative commentator Ben Shapiro for being Jewish. He’s additionally promoted the QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories and falsely claimed that coronavirus vaccines will ‘alter your DNA.'”

“The American Conservative Union and ACU Chair Matt Schlapp run CPAC, which is scheduled for February 25-28 in Orlando, Florida. On its website, CPAC describes itself as ‘the largest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world. Launched in 1974, CPAC brings together hundreds of conservative organizations, thousands of activists, millions of viewers and the best and brightest leaders in the world.’ This year’s speakers include former President Donald Trump, Govs. Ron DeSantis (FL) and Kristi Noem (SD), and numerous other leading Republicans. According to its schedule, CPAC is hosting Young Pharaoh during a Sunday session called ‘Please Check the Number and Dial Again: Doubt, Dysfunction, and the Price of Missed Opportunities.’ CPAC states on its website that Young Pharaoh is a ‘Philosopher, Scholar, Musician’ and links to his Twitter account. CPAC also links to youngpharaoh.net – that site redirects to ‘Pharaoh Aten University,’ which features Young Pharaoh’s videos spreading conspiracy theories about vaccines and the ‘new world order.'”

Your front-row seat to my Mars landing is here. Watch how we did it.#CountdownToMars pic.twitter.com/Avv13dSVmQ

— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 22, 2021

An alumnus of Morgan State University in Baltimore donated $20 million to the historically-Black college to help students pay for their educations in what is thought to be the largest donation by an alumnus to a HBCU, the Baltimore Sun reports.

Calvin E. Tyler Jr. had to drop out of Morgan State in 1963 because he could not afford to pay his college tuition at the school.  He took a job as one of the first ten UPS drivers in the city and eventually moved up the ranks of the company, becoming senior vice president of operations and a board member before retiring in 1998.

He and his wife, Tina, have donated more than $27 million to the university, who bestowed an honorary degree on Tyler.  His latest gift will fund scholarships for Baltimore City youth who could not otherwise afford to attend college. 

Daily Voice: “A Hudson Valley man planning his child’s gender reveal party was killed and his brother seriously injured while building an explosive device to be used during the celebration. Christopher Pekny, age 28, of the town of Liberty in Sullivan County, was killed around 11:55 a.m., Sunday, Feb. 21, at a residence on the Lt. JG Brender Highway, said Trooper Steve Nevel of the New York State Police. An investigation revealed that Christopher Pekny was building a device to be used at a child gender reveal party when it exploded, killing him and injuring his brother, Michael Pekny, age 27, also of Liberty, Nevel said. The incident remains under investigation by the New York State Police and the New York State Police Bomb Disposal Unit.”

The animated pile of Brylcreem and flannel known as Donald Trump Jr. took to the interwebs to decry the Supreme Court decision to turn over his father’s tax returns to New York prosecutors investigating Daddy’s fraud and tax evasion schemes.

Junior said the heavily-conservative Supreme Court is perpetuating a political prosecution with the decision, exhibiting his understood privilege by saying, “If they can do this to Donald Trump, they can do this to anyone,” apparently not remember that throughout the 2016 campaign his father threatened legal action against dozens of women and media outlets, and vowed to lock Hillary Clinton in jail for some reason.

https://youtu.be/3joj7MvmYr8

In a statement rife with lies, delusion and self-aggrievement, Donald Trump responded to the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the Manhattan DA to obtain his tax returns, calling it a “political persecution“, even resurrecting the claim that he won the 2020 election, but it was stolen from him.

This investigation is a continuation of the greatest political Witch Hunt in the history of our Country, whether it was the never ending $32 million Mueller hoax, which already investigated everything that could possibly be investigated, “Russia Russia Russia,” where there was a finding of “No Collusion,” or two ridiculous “Crazy Nancy” inspired impeachment attempts where I was found NOT GUILTY. It just never ends!

So now, for more than two years, New York City has been looking at almost every transaction I’ve ever done, including seeking tax returns which were done by among the biggest and most prestigious law and accounting firms in the U.S. The Tea Party was treated far better by the IRS than Donald Trump. The Supreme Court never should have let this “fishing expedition” happen, but they did. This is something which has never happened to a President before, it is all Democrat-inspired in a totally Democrat location, New York City and State, completely controlled and dominated by a heavily reported enemy of mine, Governor Andrew Cuomo. These are attacks by Democrats willing to do anything to stop the almost 75 million people (the most votes, by far, ever gotten by a sitting president) who voted for me in the election – an election which many people, and experts, feel that I won. I agree!

“A number of Republican senators who blithely supported former Attorney General Bill Barr using his post to act as former President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer are suddenly expressing serious concern that Merrick Garland promise to be apolitical in the same role. ‘My sole criterion for voting for your confirmation is your pledge to make sure that politics does not affect your job as attorney general,’ Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said Monday at Garland’s Senate Judiciary hearing. Cornyn, who voted to confirm Barr, later was a point Republican scrambling to smooth over strained relations between Trump and Barr last winter, loathe to let a reliable ally be fired going into the election.”

“Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) took the argument a step further, blaming the ‘Obama-Biden Justice Department’ for being ‘politicized and weaponized’ in an unprecedented way. ‘It is very much my hope, if you are confirmed as attorney general, that you will bring that reputation for integrity to the Department of Justice and demonstrate a willingness to stand up to what will be inevitable political pressure to once again politicize the Department of Justice and use it as a tool to attack the political opponents of the current administration,’ he said. He did not mention the Trump-era DOJ in his line of questioning” – Talking Points Memo.

The family of Cristian Pineda, an 11-year-old boy from Conroe, Texas who is believed to have died of hypothermia last week after his home lost power during a winter storm that hit the region, has sued the operator of the state’s power grid and the regional power company for $100 million, USA Today reports.

The wrongful death suit alleges that Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and Entergy Corporation were grossly negligent and “put profits over people” for failing to enact recommendations made by a federal watchdog after a 2011 winter storm caused widespread power outages.  The suit also alleges that the power authorities repeatedly lied to the public about the extent of the problem and how long it would be before power was restored.

“Despite having knowledge of the dire weather forecast for at least a week in advance, and the knowledge that the system was not prepared for more than a decade, ERCOT and Entergy failed to take any preemptory action that could have averted the crisis and were wholly unprepared to deal with the crisis at hand,” the lawsuit states.

“President Biden is ordering that all flags on federal property be lowered to half staff for five days in honor of the 500,000 Americans who have died from coronavirus” – Sabrina Siddiqui, WSJ.

President Joe Biden announced changes to the Paycheck Protection Program that will give advantages to small businesses with 20 employees or fewer, putting them at the front of the line to get federal aid.

Biden announced that small businesses with fewer than 20 employees will have an exclusive opportunity over the next two weeks to apply for aid before larger companies can apply.  The program will also cancel a provision in the program that barred people with criminal records from applying for aid, except in the cases of people convicted of fraud or theft.

To help these businesses apply, the Small Business Administration has set up additional assistance phone lines to help small business owners apply directly.  Other funding will be directed through community banks to inject the funds directly into neighborhoods.  Some of the aid will be forgivable under certain circumstances.

Streaming service Disney+ inserted a viewer advisory that airs before some episodes of the iconic family variety program “The Muppet Show,” telling viewers that those episodes may contain material that some people find objectionable, CNN reports.

The series, which ran for five years starting in 1976, broadcasts a disclaimer stating that the episode “includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures.  These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now.”

The episodes with the label include on featuring  Johnny Cash singing in front of American and Confederate flags, another where Muppets dressed as Arabs search for oil, and singer Joan Baez speaking in an Indian accent.

After the Supreme Court majority ruling refused to take up a case relating to Pennsylvania expanding access to mail-in voting and thereby putting a final nail in the “election was stolen” narrative, Justice Clarence Thomas issued a dissent echoing a number of talking points supported by his wife, Ginni, who vocally supported the January 6th rally that incited the domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol.

As Raw Story points out, Ginni Thomas cheered on the insurrectionist crowd via Twitter; two days later she added an addendum to her encouraging tweets saying that they were posted prior to the violence occurring.  A vocal supporter of Donald Trump, Ginni Thomas has enjoyed access to the Oval Office unparalleled by other spouses of Supreme Court justices throughout history.

Clarence Thomas, for his part, picked up his wife’s talking points about the Pennsylvania courts expanding access to mail-in voting during the pandemic, saying that he was (paraphrasing) “just asking questions” about the propriety of the change made by Pennsylvania courts.

Adam Serwer, The Atlantic: “Ideally in a democracy, when politicians govern poorly, the voters punish them for it. Real life is obviously more complicated, and politicians who fail at their duties aren’t held accountable for all sorts of reasons. But in the contemporary Republican Party, governance has taken a back seat to waging the culture war. Whether you are a competent public official who serves your constituents well matters less than your ability to illustrate your contempt for the rival party’s constituency in word and deed. Democrats have their own symbolic politics they use to win the allegiance of their constituents while avoiding or failing at their actual duties – witness New York Governor Andrew Cuomo playing tough guy with Trump but failing to protect elderly New Yorkers in nursing homes from COVID-19, or the San Francisco school board’s obsession with renaming schools rather than focusing on reopening them safely.”

“But these dynamics are not equivalent – Democrats need a broader ideological coalition to prevail, so they cannot as readily engage in elaborate gestures of contempt for conservatives the way Republicans do toward liberals. California’s Democratic senators and state officials did not take to social media to mock Texans as they froze – Governor Gavin Newsom urged his followers on Twitter to donate and ‘lend a hand to folks in Texas.’ The elevation of this symbolic politics over competence has had a devastating effect on actual governance in Texas, a state that has been under Republican control since the 1990s. If politicians can win and exercise power simply through expressions of contempt for others, then they have no need to govern well, as the tenure of Texas Governor Greg Abbott makes abundantly clear. Filing expensive lawsuits that kick people off Medicaid in order to stick it to Barack Obama, signing laws defending Chik-fil-A, allowing state-funded adoption agencies to refuse services to same-sex couples – this is the stuff that gets you on Fox News, not attending to prosaic duties such as making sure your state’s utilities will function properly under emergency conditions.”

https://twitter.com/ManhattanDA/status/1363860879893286915

AP: “Customs authorities in Ohio say they intercepted a shipment of cereal earlier this month with a special frosting – cocaine. CBP officers in Cincinnati reported finding 44 pounds (20 kilograms) of cocaine-coated cornflakes that had been shipped from South America to a Hong Kong home. Officials said a narcotics detection dog named Bico was checking out incoming freight from Peru on Feb. 13 when he alerted officers to the package. Officers found that the cereal contained white powder and the flakes were coated with a grayish substance. Both tested positive for cocaine.”

On Monday the Supreme Court denied Certiorari in “TRUMP, DONALD J., ET AL. V. BIDEN, JOSEPH R., ET AL.”, “DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT V. DEGRAFFENREID, ACTING SEC. OF PA, ET AL.”, and “KELLY, MIKE, ET AL. V. PENNSYLVANIA, ET AL.”, with the latter two allowed “leave to file a brief as amicus curiae” which I will leave to the experts to interpret, but I don’t think it’s good news.

“TRUMP, DONALD J. V. VANCE, CYRUS R., ET AL. The application for a stay presented to Justice Breyer and referred to the Court is denied” appears on the Supreme Court’s list of Monday orders.

If there’s one message I want to cut through to everyone in this country, it’s this: The vaccines are safe.

For yourself, your family, your community, our country — take the vaccine when it’s your turn and available. That’s how we’ll beat this pandemic.

— President Biden (@POTUS) February 22, 2021

“Republicans had a choice to make over the last few months, a period during which their presidential candidate refused to concede after losing and whose behavior inspired an attack on the Capitol that will now put an asterisk on America’s tradition of the peaceful transition of power. They could have shown a modicum of backbone, realizing that there are worse things to fear than the president’s defunct Twitter account. They could have voted to impeach Trump, convict him, and disqualify him from future office. They could have drawn a clear line that they won’t submit to politics by mob agitation.Or they could continue to cower in fear, terrified that his base would punish them at the ballot box for doing the right thing.”

“The GOP took the path of cowardice. As Shakespeare told us, a coward dies a thousand deaths, while the brave man dies but one. The GOP has chosen to die a thousand deaths. Rather than standing up to the Trumpist mob and risking political destruction once, they will die bit by bit, over and over, acquiescing to one indignity after another and destroying the party slowly” – The Bulwark.