Amanda Gorman, the 22-year-old National Youth Poet Laureate who performed her poem “The Hill We Climb” at President Joe Biden’s inauguration, will perform an original poem at this year’s Super Bowl on February 7th, NBC News reports.

With a list of performers like Jennifer Lopez, Garth Brooks and Lady Gaga, Gorman was the breakout star of the inauguration with her inspiring poem, in which she recognizes the United States’ struggle to become a “more perfect union,” as the Founders described the nation, with Gorman referring to the country as “not broken but simply unfinished.”

Gorman will perform an original piece honoring three people the NFL has chosen to recognize:  Trimaine Davis, an educator, Suzie Dorner, a nurse, and James Martin, a Marine veteran.  These people were selected for honor for personifying the NFL’s message of “it takes all of us,” a theme for this season’s racial justice message and coronavirus impacted season.

“It remains striking to me how concerned and maybe even scared the Russian government seems to be of one man, Mr. Navalny” – Secretary of State Tony Blinken, via MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin.

KDFW also reports Jenna Ryan was hit with two additional felony charges on Tuesday for her role in the Capitol riot, Violent Entry and Disorderly Conduct in a Capitol Building and Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building.

Noting that in recent months, the US economic recovery has “moderated,” the Federal Reserve issued its monthly statement saying that the outlook for the economy is more tenuous as the nation continues to wait for widespread vaccinations, Politico reports.

“The path of the economy will depend significantly on the course of the virus, including progress on vaccinations. The ongoing public health crisis continues to weigh on economic activity, employment, and inflation, and poses considerable risks to the economic outlook,” the Fed statement reads.

Prior to the Biden Administration taking office, the scope of the vaccination effort was misrepresented by Trump officials.  Trump had vowed to have 100 million people vaccinated by the end of 2020, a figure that was revised down to 20 million; in actuality, fewer than nine million people were vaccinated, and the amount of doses in reserve were virtually nonexistent.

CNN: “The Biden administration’s planned task force aimed at reuniting children who were separated from their parents at the border under the Trump-era enforcement policies will include input from first lady Jill Biden, according to three sources familiar with the planning. Biden is tasking her East Wing with taking an active role in the reunification project. Her interest in the task force could offer something of a stark contrast with former first lady Melania Trump.”

“Trump made her first trip to visit a border facility for children and families in Texas in June 2018 in the midst of the zero-tolerance separation controversy, but did so wearing a jacket emblazoned with the words, ‘I really don’t care. Do U?’ The jacket spawned a news cycle of its own, drawing attention away from Trump’s objective for the visit, and helping create a public perception of a first lady disinterested in the issue. In an interview several months after her border trip, Trump called the separation of families, ‘unacceptable’ and ‘heartbreaking.’ The current first lady’s upcoming involvement in the issue and its targeted task force will lend visibility to the mission of reuniting children with their parents, which remains a crisis for many families. Lawyers are still unable to reach the parents of 611 children who had been split from their families by US border officials between 2017 and 2018, according to the latest court filing. The DOJ also officially rescinded the policy Tuesday in a memo to federal prosecutors, even though it had already been ended.”

They tried to cancel our votes, our voices, and our values. Our rallying cry for #CPAC2021: #AmericaUncanceled pic.twitter.com/j5XnrIA5tM

— CPAC (@CPAC) January 27, 2021

Huffington Post: “An extremist supporter of former President Donald Trump is facing federal charges after law enforcement raided his home and business in Napa County, California, and discovered dozens of weapons, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and materials that could be used to build pipe bombs. Ian Rogers, a 44-year-old auto repair shop owner previously charged with state offenses after his Jan. 15 arrest, is charged with the federal crime of unlawful possession of unregistered destructive devices after he admitted to authorities that he built pipe bombs.”

“Rogers, according to an FBI affidavit, claimed the pipe bombs were for entertainment purposes. But authorities said he had a sticker for the extremist group the ‘Three-Percenters’ and had ‘intent to attack Democrats and places associated with Democrats in an effort to ensure Trump remained in office.’ After raiding his home, the FBI found text messages on his phone discussing potential targets. ‘We can attack Twitter or the democrats you pick,’ Rogers allegedly wrote two days after the social media service permanently suspended Trump from the platform. ‘We can attack Twitter and democrats easy right now burn they’re shit down,’ Rogers allegedly wrote. ‘I want to blow up a democrat building bad.'”

One of the Michigan militia members accused of plotting to kidnap Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and conduct other acts of domestic terrorism has entered a plea agreement with federal authorities and is cooperating with investigators, USA Today reports.

In a federal court filing, prosecutors revealed that 22-year-old Ty Garbin of Wixom, Michigan, has entered into a plea agreement in which he vows to cooperate fully with the FBI and testify against his fellow conspirators.  Fourteen people, including Garbin, have been arrested in the plot.

Garbin and others plotted to kidnap Whitmer, destroying roads and bridges to prevent law enforcement to come to the governor’s aid.  They were going to conduct a faux trial of Whitmer for treason for implementing public health guidelines to stop the spread of the coronavirus, after which they were prepared to execute her. 

“F-35 jets sale to UAE have been temporarily suspended by the Biden administration… Munitions sale to Saudi Arabia is under review” – Ragip Soylu, Middle East Eye.

Douglass Mackey, known better by his alter ego, Ricky Vaughn, a white nationalist Twitter troll, was arrested Wednesday on federal charges relating to conducting a widespread disinformation campaign to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, NBC News reports.

Arrested in West Palm Beach, Florida, Mackey is charged with efforts to repeatedly disseminate information designed to deprive voters of their Constitutional rights to vote.

Mackey oversaw an effort to trick people into thinking their ballots could be cast via text message, falsely claiming that various influential people endorsed Donald Trump, and disseminating false information about changes to Election Day or voting locations.  Mackey used text messages and social media platforms to send this information to millions of people.

On Wednesday the Independent reported “Humanity is still as close to apocalypse as ever before, the scientists behind the ‘Doomsday Clock’ have said. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which orgazises the clock, said that it was leaving the time at 100 seconds to midnight” while NBC Philadelphia reports “On Wednesday, Kraft-Heinz announced a contest to give out free ‘kits’ of its latest, limited-time mac and cheese. The box of Original Mac & Cheese will be joined by a packet of pink, candy-flavored powder to mix into one’s cheesy dinner. According to the brand, the mix will turn the noodles a bright magenta color, rather than that familiar orange.”

AP: “The head of the Republican National Committee on Wednesday declined to encourage former President Donald Trump to run for the White House in 2024, saying the GOP would stay ‘neutral’ in its next presidential primary. In an interview, RNC Chairman Ronna McDaniel also described the pro-Trump conspiracy theory group known as QAnon as ‘dangerous.’ The national GOP, under McDaniel’s leadership, spent the past four years almost singularly focused on Trump’s 2020 reelection. But should he run again in 2024 – and he has publicly and privately suggested he wants to – the national party infrastructure would not support his ambitions over other prospective candidates in accordance with party rules, she said.”

“‘The party has to stay neutral. I’m not telling anybody to run or not to run in 2024,’ McDaniel told The Associated Press when asked whether she wanted to see Trump run again in the next presidential election. ‘That’s going to be up to those candidates going forward. What I really do want to see him do, though, is help us win back majorities in 2022.’ Just months removed from the last presidential election, several Republican prospects have already begun jockeying for position for the 2024 contest. McDaniel is far more focused on the 2022 midterms, when Republicans have an opportunity to break the Democrats’ monopoly on Congress. McDaniel is in a difficult political position as she begins her new term as the national GOP chair. She has been a devoted Trump loyalist, but as the RNC leader, she is also tasked with helping her party recover from its painful 2020 election season in which Republicans lost the House, the Senate and the White House. Trump’s fervent base continues to demand loyalty to the former president, even as some party officials acknowledge that Trump’s norm-shattering behavior alienated elements of the coalition the GOP needs to win future elections.”

On Tuesday night the chief of the DC Metro Police revealed that officer Jeffrey Smith, a 12 year veteran of the force, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on January 15th, reports the Daily Beast. Smith had been working at the Capitol on January 6th and is the second police officer to have taken his own life in the aftermath of the siege after US Capitol Police Officer Howard Liebengood died on January 9th. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher by the MAGA terrorists on the day of the riot.

The National Suicide Prevention Hotline in the U.S. is available 24 hours a day at 1-800-273-8255. Call them if you need to talk to someone.

This woman should be on a watch list. Not in Congress. https://t.co/ULwJ2lBpld

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) January 27, 2021

President Joe Biden came into office with most of his Cabinet members ready to go, but he also made appointments for positions lower in the chain of command, ridding the government of Trump appointees in positions that would normally stay to smooth the transition, the New York Times reports.

The Trump Administrations took months to fill certain positions, failing to even present nominees for certain key, upper-level jobs, sometimes two years into his four-year term, whether the job needed Senate confirmation or not.  According to the Washington Post tracker, more than 200 jobs of the top 700 were empty at the end Trump’s administration, with no pending nomination.

On his first full day in office, Biden swore in about one thousand political appointees for jobs that did not require Senate confirmation, immediately ejecting Trump appointees who had minor but key jobs for implementing Biden’s policies. 

“The Acting Secretary of Homeland Security has issued a National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin due to a heightened threat environment across the United States, which DHS believes will persist in the weeks following the successful Presidential Inauguration. Information suggests that some ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives, could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence.”

“Throughout 2020, Domestic Violent Extremists (DVEs) targeted individuals with opposing views engaged in First Amendment-protected, non-violent protest activity. DVEs motivated by a range of issues, including anger over COVID-19 restrictions, the 2020 election results, and police use of force have plotted and on occasion carried out attacks against government facilities. Long-standing racial and ethnic tension – including opposition to immigration – has driven DVE attacks, including a 2019 shooting in El Paso, Texas that killed 23 people. DHS is concerned these same drivers to violence will remain through early 2021 and some DVEs may be emboldened by the January 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. to target elected officials and government facilities. DHS remains concerned that Homegrown Violent Extremists (HVEs) inspired by foreign terrorist groups, who committed three attacks targeting government officials in 2020, remain a threat. Threats of violence against critical infrastructure, including the electric, telecommunications and healthcare sectors, increased in 2020 with violent extremists citing misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 for their actions” – DHS terrorism alert bulletin.

“The American Conservative Union on Tuesday accused Politico of attempting to ‘cancel’ the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) by contacting potential sponsors in an act that ‘crosses the line from protected speech to political activism.’ CPAC organizers sent a scathing letter, signed by American Conservative Union general counsel David Safavian, to Politico’s CEO and top editor that promises legal action. It began by claiming Politico has ignored its ‘ethos’ to provide accurate reporting and nonpartisan impactful information. ‘We see Politico’s ethos abandoned, and instead find its reporters working, not to report news, but instead to create a self-justifying narrative to support its own partisanship'” Fox News reports.

“‘We understand that Politico reporters are calling sponsors of our national conference (CPAC) and making claims about both our chairman and our conference that are contrary to the facts. We know this because those very same potential sponsors have immediately contacted us,’ the letter continued. ‘In pushing a misleading narrative to our supporters using cooperate resources, Politico is attempting to chill sponsorship of CPAC and harm the American Conservative Union. American Conservative Union’s general counsel wrote that the effort from Politico staffers ‘amounts to tortious interference with business relationships’ that won’t be tolerated… Whether you realize it or not, you are demonstrating to our sponsors and supporters your political bias. Fortunately, most see this effort for what is it: ‘fake news,’’ the letter continued. ‘Our Founding Fathers understood that the press has a special role to play in our democracy. As such, the Framers accorded the news media with protections in the First Amendment. However, Politico’s continued campaign against the American Conservative Union crosses the line from protected speech to political activism.'”

Politico: “The Biden administration on Wednesday made its first move to set the nation’s immigration courts in a new direction, announcing plans to replace the official who has overseen the system for nearly four years. One week into President Joe Biden’s term, the Justice Department said Jean King will soon take over on an acting basis as director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review. King, a former EOIR general counsel who currently serves as the office’s chief administrative law judge, will replace James McHenry, a close ally of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Staffers and judges were informed of the shift Wednesday morning in a memo from Acting Deputy Attorney General John Carlin. ‘Jean will provide continuity in EOIR’s leadership until a new director is selected,’ Carlin wrote, according to a person who received the memo.”

For the 8 millionth time

Could someone PLEASE tell me where the “millions” I’ve been “paid” by Soros is? I’d love to have the rest of college and if I go- grad or law school paid for, a nice place for my parents and therapy paid for the rest of my life

pic.twitter.com/7xNshI3SPV

— David Hogg 🟧 (@davidhogg111) January 27, 2021

“Two Arizona legislators who went to the U.S. Capitol the day it was stormed by a mob earlier this month will not provide emails or text messages about their travel to Washington, D.C. The Arizona Republic asked the state House of Representatives to provide any such messages from Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley, and then-Rep. Anthony Kern, R-Glendale, under public records laws” .

“But responding through a private attorney, and not the House, the duo said they would not turn over any records that are on their ‘personal devices,’ arguing that these are not public records. The letter also noted the ongoing FBI investigation into the storming of the U.S. Capitol and added that even if the lawmakers agreed the records were public, ‘the threat of criminal prosecution gives rise to certain Constitutional rights that may overcome the duty to disclose otherwise public documents under Arizona’s public records law'” – Arizona Republic