The Trump Organization’s merchandise shop was resurrected after being booted from the Shopify platform in the wake of the Capitol riot by a tech company called Rackspace Inc – the majority owner of which Bloomberg reports to be Apollo Capital Management, a hedge fund which until last week was helmed by Jeffrey Epstein patron Leon Black. Black resigned from his role as CEO of Apollo on January 25th after it was revealed to the hedge fund’s board that Black had paid over $150 million to Jeffrey Epstein in what was most likely either Black being extorted by Epstein or Black kicking back after laundering extortion payments to Epstein made by others.

TrumpStore.com is distinct from the Trump 2020 Campaign’s now defunct merchandise shop, and long predates Trump’s career in politics, selling chintzy Trump-branded souvenirs and household/personal goods of suspect quality. Bloomberg’s report says Rackspace reactivated the site on January 15th, ten days prior to Black’s departure from Apollo, so the connection is tenuous at best, however it is still interesting – particularly because the Trump Organization could’ve outsourced the work to a foreign firm and probably for cheaper than whatever Rackspace/Apollo would be charging, as well as the fact that Bloomberg’s article indicates that Rackspace went through some unusual additional steps to mask their company is hosting a site that brought in less than $2 million in sales during 2020, per Trump’s financial statements for that year.

“Two Canada Post workers in Regina were temporarily suspended [in January] after they refused to deliver the latest sample edition of the Epoch Times. The head of the local CUPW union that represents postal workers said both mail carriers were escorted from the building when they informed their supervisors they were unwilling to deliver the publication. They were suspended without pay for three days. Ramiro Sepulveda, one of the suspended postal workers, told CBC News he objects to the insinuations in some of the paper’s past coverage of the origins of the coronavirus, which the paper calls ‘the CCP virus.’ ‘I’m not for censorship. I’m not against freedom of speech,’ he said. ‘What my thing is, is there is no disclaimer stating that this was theory.'” – CBC.

“Tragically, the FBI lost two of our own today. Special Agent Daniel Alfin and Special Agent Laura Schwartzenberger were shot and killed this morning in the line of duty while executing a federal court-ordered search warrant in a crimes against children investigation in Sunrise, Florida. Three other agents were shot and wounded; two suffered injuries requiring hospital care, but both are now in stable condition. The third injured agent did not require hospitalization.

“Every day, FBI special agents put themselves in harm’s way to keep the American people safe. Special Agent Alfin and Special Agent Schwartzenberger exemplified heroism today in defense of their country. The FBI will always honor their ultimate sacrifice and will be forever grateful for their bravery. We continue to stand by our FBI Family, and the families of these special agents, in the days to come, bringing every resource we can to get through this together.” –FBI Statement

“A Moscow judge has ruled to send Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to prison for 3.5 years for violating the terms of a 2014 conviction. Navalny has called the old conviction politically motivated. Navalny was arrested on Jan. 17 immediately after returning to Moscow from Germany, where he had been recovering from a poison attack with a rare nerve agent that he blames on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russian authorities, who have denied any involvement in the August poisoning, pressured Navalny to remain in exile” – NPR.

LA Times: “Six people were arrested Monday after scaling steep terrain around the iconic Hollywood sign and strategically changing it to convey what they said was a breast cancer awareness message, according to police. ‘Hollyboob,’ the sign briefly read, with a big tarp with the letter ‘B’ on it thrown over the ‘W’ and a strategically placed white dash to make the ‘D’ another ‘B.’ LAPD Capt. Steve Lurie, the Hollywood area commander, said LAPD security personnel observed the five men and one woman on video surveillance about 1:15 p.m. A police helicopter responded to the area, and flight crew were able to watch the group move back down the hill to a location on Mulholland Highway – where other officers and park rangers met them with handcuffs. The arrestees were not publicly identified and could not be immediately reached for comment Monday.”

The pair of lawyers currently representing Donald Trump in his Senate impeachment trial filed their answer to the House managers’ filing, claiming falsely that the impeachment is moot because Trump is no longer “President” [their use of quotation marks].

The lawyers claim that the impeachment trial is improper because Trump peacefully left office January 20th, and that his statements at the January 6th rally that preceded the domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol were protected under the First Amendment.  Trump, they claim, was only questioning the result of the election, not calling for an overthrow of the Constitution or the government.

In the 14-page response, the lawyers claim “[i]nsufficient evidence exists upon which a reasonable jurist could conclude that the 45th President’s were accurate or not, and he therefore denies they were false.”

Captain Sir Thomas Moore, a 100-year-old World War II veteran who raised money for charities by walking laps around his garden, died three days after being hospitalized with coronavirus, NPR reports.

Known as Captain Tom, Moore started his fundraising walks on April 6, 2020 with the goal of raising £1,000 for charity before his 100th birthday on April 30th.  By the time he reached his birthday, his campaign had raised more than £30 million.

During the coronavirus, photos of Moore behind his walker, in a coat and tie, military medals on his chest, cheered millions in the U.K. as the nation struggled through the early months of the pandemic.

Captain Tom was honored on his 100th birthday with flyovers by RAF squadrons.  He was featured on a pop song  “You’ll Never Walk Alone” sung by Michael Ball, making him the oldest person to ever reach #1 on British charts.  He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth last July for his efforts.

The Senate voted to confirm former South Bend, Indiana mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidate Pete Buttigieg as Secretary of Transportation on Tuesday, the first ever openly gay confirmed cabinet secretary in American History.

The Russian coronavirus vaccine that was greeted with skepticism when it was rushed into distribution in December has seen a 91.6% effective rate in Stage 3 clinical trials, CNN reports.

The Sputnik V vaccine test involved nearly 20,000 patients, a quarter of whom received a placebo.  Of those who received a double dose of the vaccine, only 16 contracted the coronavirus, versus 62 in the placebo group.

The Russian vaccine was introduced a month before the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in the West.  An advantage of the Sputnik V vaccine is that it only needs to be refrigerated to maintain viability, whereas the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines need sub-zero temperatures for storage and shipping.

One of the domestic terrorists who was arrested after participating in the attack on the Capitol January 6th has asked a US federal magistrate judge to allow her to go to the Mexican Riviera for a pre-planned vacation, KOSA CBS-7 reports.

Jenny Cudd, the owner of a flower shop in Midland, Texas, filed a request with the Court that she be allowed to travel to a resort in Riviera Maya for a work-related “bonding event” with her employees and their spouses.

Cudd was arrested January 13th for unlawfully entering a restricted building and disorderly conduct for her part in invading the Capitol to halt the Constitutionally-mandated certification of the Electoral College vote.  She was released on her own recognizance, with one of the conditions being she not leave the continental US without Court permission.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=3883&v=i7287j_ReQ8&feature=youtu.be

Country music superstar and coronavirus vaccine funder Dolly Parton twice refused to accept a Presidential Medal of Freedom offered by Donald Trump, NPR reports.

In an interview with the Today show on NBC, Parton said she turned down the first offer because her husband was ill, and she refused the second offer because she did not want to travel during the coronavirus pandemic.

A key funder of the Moderna vaccine research, Parton would not commit to accepting the award from President Joe Biden. “Now I feel like if I take it, I’ll be doing politics, so I’m not sure.”  She added, “I don’t work for those awards. It’d be nice, but I’m not sure that I even deserve it. But that’s a nice compliment for people to think that I might deserve it.”

Punxsutawney Phil, the allegedly prescient rodent of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, and the most famous of the ‘Groundhog Day’ groundhogs (also featured in the Bill Murray 1993 comedy classic set in the town during the day of the festival – the same day again and again and again), lives in a hole called ‘Gobbler’s Knob’, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. While the Punxsutawney festival appears to long predate the word ‘knob’ becoming slang for you-know-what, it is strange that the name was never changed to “Phil’s Lair” or something else similarly innocuous.

Phil “predicted” another six weeks of winter on Tuesday. Knockoff NYC groundhog Staten Island Chuck meanwhile said spring will come early, according to a report in the New York Post.

“To reaffirm our core constitutional principles—and to deter future Presidents from attempting to subvert our Nation’s elections—the Senate should convict President Trump and disqualify him from holding or enjoying ‘any Office or honor, Trust, or Profit under the United States.’ That outcome is not only supported by the facts and the law; it is also the right thing to do. President Trump has demonstrated beyond doubt that he will resort to any method to maintain or reassert his grip on power. A President who violently attacks the democratic process has no right to participate in it. Only after President Trump is held to account for his actions can the Nation move forward with unity of purpose and commitment to the Constitution. And only then will future Presidents know that Congress stands vigilant in its defense of our democracy.”  —from the summary of opening statement by House managers in the second impeachment of Donald J. Trump

“One FBI agent, and possibly a second, was shot and killed and others injured while serving a warrant at a Sunrise home Tuesday morning, law enforcement sources told the Miami Herald. After barricading himself in the home for several hours, the suspected gunman is believed to have shot and killed himself, one source said. One federal law enforcement source said at least five agents were shot during the raid. Sunrise police said the suspect, a man suspected of child pornography possession, had holed up in his home at 10100 Reflections Blvd. West” – Miami Herald.

Washington Post: “House Democrats made their case to convict former president Donald Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in a sweeping impeachment brief filed with the Senate Tuesday that accused Trump of whipping his supporters into a ‘frenzy’ and described him as ‘singularly responsible’ for the mayhem that ensued.”

“In the brief, the nine House impeachment managers argue that Trump is not protected by the First Amendment’s freedom of speech provision, which was never intended, they wrote, to allow a president to ‘provoke lawless action if he loses at the polls.’ ‘If provoking an insurrectionary riot against a Joint Session of Congress after losing an election is not an impeachable offense, it is hard to imagine what would be,’ the brief states. Democrats also rejected the claim embraced by many Republicans that it is unconstitutional to convict a president after he has left office – an argument that Trump’s lawyers are expected to make in his defense.”