“President Biden has informed Congress that he’s terminated the national emergency over the U.S.-Mexico border that Trump declared in 2019” reports MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin.

“Donald Trump posted a tweet attacking his own vice president for lacking ‘the courage’ to overturn the election for him – enraging his Jan. 6 mob even further – just minutes after learning that Mike Pence had been removed from the Senate chamber for his own safety. Newly elected Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) told reporters Wednesday night, following the second day of the former president’s impeachment trial, that Trump had called for his help in delaying election certification the afternoon of the U.S. Capitol attack but he had told Trump that Pence had just been taken from the Senate and he couldn’t talk just then.”

“‘He didn’t get a chance to say a whole lot because I said, ‘Mr. President, they just took the vice president out. I’ve got to go,’’ Tuberville said. According to video footage from that day, Pence was removed from the Senate at 2:14 p.m. after rioters had broken into the Capitol, meaning that when Trump lashed out at Pence at 2:24 p.m., he already knew Pence’s life was in danger. ‘Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution,’ Trump wrote in his tweet” – Huffington Post.

RNS: “A new survey reports more than a quarter of white evangelical Protestants believe a QAnon conspiracy theory that purports former President Donald Trump is secretly battling a cabal of pedophile Democrats, and roughly half express support for the debunked claim that antifa was responsible for the recent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.”

“Experts say the data point to a widening ideological divide not only between white evangelicals and other religious groups in the country, but also between white evangelical Republicans and other members of their own party. The survey, which was conducted by the conservative American Enterprise Institute, reported 29% of Republicans and 27% of white evangelicals — the most of any religious group — believe the widely debunked QAnon conspiracy theory is completely or mostly accurate. QAnon has infiltrated other faiths as well, with 15% of white mainline Protestants, 18% of white Catholics, 12% of non-Christians, 11% of Hispanic Catholics and 7% of Black Protestants saying they believe it.”

“The mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol may have been a fringe group of extremists, but politically motivated violence has the support of a significant share of the U.S. public, according to a new survey by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)” NPR reports.

“The survey found that nearly three in 10 Americans, including 39% of Republicans, agreed that, ‘If elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions.’ That result was ‘a really dramatic finding,’ says Daniel Cox, director of the AEI Survey Center on American Life. ‘I think any time you have a significant number of the public saying use of force can be justified in our political system, that’s pretty scary.’”

Washington Post: “Once his impeachment trial concludes and former president Donald Trump returns to his business, he will face some obvious challenges, such as declining real estate income and investigations from New York authorities. But he may also have to finally face two tax issues that have been simmering in the background, either of which experts say could carry significant consequences should they materialize now that he is out of office.”

“One is a massive income tax refund Trump received before entering office, according to the New York Times, one that has quietly been under a years-long review by the Internal Revenue Service and a little-known congressional panel, the Joint Committee on Taxation. The refund, which the IRS issued to Trump in 2010 for $72.9 million, according to the Times, could be a nonissue for Trump if the agency rules that it was issued appropriately and he should keep the funds.”

Heir to a frozen food fortune and person who chews sticks of gum without removing the aluminum foil Tucker Carlson claimed that the so-called “facts” being presented by House impeachment managers are patently false because something, something George Floyd.

https://youtu.be/AHJaq9uqJtM

Starting off by saying, “We’re not going to speculate,” Carlson then goes on to speculate that the entire impeachment charge is a fraud because “what we do know for certain is that the known facts of what happened on January 6th deviate in very important ways from the story they are now telling us, including the story they told us today in the impeachment hearing.”  Carlson didn’t explain what “deviated” from reality.

Deadline: “In the wake of Gina Carano’s controversial social media posts, Lucasfilm has released a statement tonight, with a spokesperson saying ‘Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.’ Carano played the bounty hunter Cara Dune on the first two seasons of The Mandalorian, and it looked like we’d be seeing more of her. It appears not. The actress shared a Tik Tok post a comparison of the divided political climate to Nazi Germany.”

“‘Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors…even by children. Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views,’ she wrote. Another photo on Carano’s Instagram story had a person with several masks covering their face and head with the caption ‘Meanwhile in California.'”

Seated in front of a number of model tractors apparently there to represent a farm he doesn’t have, California Republican Congressman and David Schwimmer-wannabe Devin Nunes told the human Lego figure Sean Hannity that Republicans will likely pursue impeachment of President Joe Biden for… something… if they regain the majority in the House of Representatives in 2022.

Nunes noted that it would require Republicans getting “good information”–his apparent euphemism for “propaganda” and “conspiracy theories”–to voters on social media platforms.  Then, Nunes said, Republicans could exact revenge on Democrats by kicking them off committees and impeach Biden.

“The way that I see this, Sean, is that if, if the social, the social media platforms of some of these that have been banned and some of these new upstarts can get back and going, we’re gonna be able to get good information out to the American people again,” Nunes said.

This is unfortunate @AdamKinzinger.

It’s a real shame you aren’t focused on defeating Democrats and would rather attack Republicans.

Adam is everything wrong in the Republican Party.

You’ve picked a fight you can’t win.

We will make sure of it. https://t.co/DauDOc6QVj

— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) February 11, 2021

Rep Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), who does not at all sound like a man who gives a fuck anymore about whether or not he has a future in politics, also went after Senator Josh Hawley on Wednesday.

Washington Post: “A Republican senator from Utah is trying to block D.C. Council legislation that would allow children as young as 11 to receive vaccinations without the consent of their parents. Passed 12 to 1 in October, the bill lets doctors decide whether minors are capable of informed consent for government-recommended vaccinations. Minors in the city could exercise this privilege if their parents cited a religious exemption or opted them out of vaccination, including for the human papillomavirus, which is transmitted through sexual contact.”

“Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) – who frequently attempts to overturn D.C. laws – introduced a joint resolution Monday disapproving of the bill, calling it a ‘dangerous violation of parental rights and children’s health.’ Because of D.C.’s unique status as a federal district, legislation passed by the council must be reviewed by Congress before it can become law. A disapproval resolution blocking D.C. laws has not succeeded since 1991, and only three succeeded before then, although Congress has used other mechanisms – such as riders – to block laws relating to government-funded abortions and commercializing marijuana.”

Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney sought out acting deputy Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Eugene Goodman after the impeachment trial session Wednesday to thank him for protecting him during the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol, NBC News reports.

“I expressed my appreciation to him for coming to my aid and getting me back into the path of safety and expressed my appreciation for all that he did that day,” Romney said.

Romney told reporters that he hadn’t seen the security camera footage aired during the hearing previously, and he didn’t know how close he was to the mob of insurrectionists when Goodman instructed him to return to the Senate chamber.

Republican Utah Senator Mike Lee, whose end-of-session objection to a citation made by House impeachment managers claimed he never made the statements cited by the managers, gave an interview to his hometown Deseret News in which he confirmed he received a call from Donald Trump as the Capitol was under siege by domestic terrorists.

Published a day after the January 6th coup attempt, Lee confirmed to the newspaper that he had, in fact, received a misguided call from Trump.

Lee told the Deseret News he realized Trump was trying to call Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the newly elected Republican from Alabama and former Auburn University football coach. Lee walked his phone over to Tuberville who was talking to some colleagues.

“Hey, Tommy, I hate to interrupt but the president wants to speak with you,” Lee said.

The bs never ends. https://t.co/JPn1j5wg1t

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) February 11, 2021

Wall Street Journal: “Facebook said it is beginning to reduce how much political content users see in their news feeds, potentially diminishing the role that the world’s largest social network plays in elections and civil discourse more broadly. The announcement, made in a Wednesday blog post, follows Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s declaration on the company’s earnings call last month that most users wanted to see less political content. He said at the time that cutting back on politics would allow Facebook to ‘do a better job of helping to bring people together and helping to promote healthier communities.’ Facebook says that political content currently constitutes only 6% of what people see on the platform. It will begin running experiments to reduce that amount for a small percentage of people in Canada, Brazil and Indonesia immediately, with tests in the U.S. in weeks to come.”

“The company said it isn’t removing political content but rather exploring ways to reduce the exposure for users who would prefer not to see it. In practice, that means Facebook will still allow users to post about politics and argue among friends, but its algorithms will de-prioritize those conversations and spread them less widely across the network, especially for people who have not expressed interest in those topics.”

Wall Street Journal:  “About 90 people were hospitalized with Covid-19-like symptoms in central China in the two months before the disease was first identified in Wuhan in late 2019, according to World Health Organization investigators, who said they pressed Beijing to allow further testing to determine whether the new virus was spreading earlier than previously known.

“Chinese authorities performed antibody tests on about two-thirds of those patients in the past few months, according to the investigators, and said they found no trace of infection by the virus. But members of the WHO team probing the pandemic’s origins said any antibodies could have subsided to undetectable levels during the delay.

Pornographer and First Amendment advocate Larry Flynt, the founder of Hustler Magazine, has died in Los Angeles at the age of 78, the Washington Post reports.

Flynt made a fortune on the back of his pornography empire, which included print magazines, movies and clubs.  Flynt faced multiple lawsuits and criminal charges for the explicit content of his publications, but he continued to fight for his right to publish the as a First Amendment issue.

Paralyzed by an assassin’s bullet in 1978, Flynt was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

“Playboy and Penthouse,” he once told an interviewer, “were parading their pornography as art, with the air-brushing and the soft lens. I realized that if we became more explicit, we could get a huge piece of this market. . . . I sensed that raw sex was what men wanted. And I was right.”

Someone named Chris Salcedo, who has a show on Newsmax for some reason, opened his 5 p.m. show on the little-seen propaganda network claiming to have coverage of “the bipartisan betrayal of the American people and our Constitution,” apparently not understand what the Constitution says or what the American people think.

“If these elites in Congress can do this to ‘Citizen Trump,’ imagine what they can do to you and me,” he muses, apparently unaware that impeachment is only a punishment for political appointees in the Executive and Judicial branches of government.

https://youtu.be/Qnkq1CaWlS8

Axios: “Netanyahu and his allies are publicly pressuring the judges in his corruption trial to postpone the presentation of evidence and witnesses until after Israel’s elections on March 23. ‘Everybody knows the cases against me are rigged,’ Netanyahu claimed on Monday. ‘This is why I don’t think the hearing of witnesses in my trial should begin before the elections because even if it is not the intention, it would look like a flagrant interference in the elections.'”

“The presentation of evidence against Netanyahu in the lead-up to the trial would be a gift to his opponents, and put him in a difficult position. It’s in Netanyahu’s legal interest to sit in the courtroom and look witnesses in the eyes as they testify against him, but it’s in his political interest to stay out of court in order to show that he’s focusing on affairs of state.”

“PA sources indicated to me that Bruce Castor was hoping to parlay his impeachment defense into a potential gubernatorial bid – with the coveted backing of Trump. If that was the plan, it seems to have hit a roadblock given the reviews of his performance yesterday.” —Jarrett Renshaw of Reuters