“Chinese state media have stoked concerns about Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, despite rigorous trials indicating it is safe. A government spokesperson has raised the unsubstantiated theory that the coronavirus could have emerged from a U.S. military lab, giving it more credence in China.”

“As the ruling Communist Party faces growing questioning about China’s vaccines and renewed criticism of its early COVID-19 response, it is hitting back by encouraging conspiracy theories that some experts say could cause harm. State media and officials are sowing doubts about Western vaccines and the origin of the coronavirus in an apparent bid to deflect the attacks. Both issues are in the spotlight because of the rollout of vaccines globally and the recent arrival of a World Health Organization team in Wuhan, China, to investigate the origins of the virus” – AP.

Reuters: “A Kentucky teenager whose 2019 face-off with a Native American activist in Washington went viral has fired his lawyer, a man who played a key role in Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his election defeat, according to court notices filed on Monday. The teen, Nicholas Sandmann, terminated lawyer L. Lin Wood from the team representing him in a series of lawsuits that accuse media companies like The New York Times Inc and CBS News Inc of inaccurately portraying the stand-off at the Lincoln Memorial on the day of a large anti-abortion protest.”

“‘I have ended my lawyer-client relationship with Mr. Wood and no longer wish to be represented by him,’ Sandmann said in an affidavit included in the court filings. Wood did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement shared on the Telegram app on Sunday, Wood said he expected Sandmann would ‘abandon’ him because of earlier social media posts in which Wood suggested former Vice President Mike Pence engaged in ‘treason’ and could ‘face execution by firing squad’ for formally recognizing the election victory of President Joe Biden.”

More than 500 rural hospitals–25% of the medical systems serving America’s sparsely populated areas–are at an immediate risk of closing because of their fragile financial situations, the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform reports.

Only four states–Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island–did not have a hospital on the list.  Tennessee, Alabama and Connecticut had the highest percentages of hospitals on the list, with Kansas, Mississippi and Texas having the most providers at risk.

The risks of these hospitals closing transcend the coronavirus pandemic, as the calculation is based on the financial situation of these hospitals was dire prior to 2020.  Their situations may have been exacerbated by the loss of revenue resulting from canceled or delayed services due to the pandemic.

Watch it live here at NatZero, expected at 6:55 p.m. ET

“Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-CO) claimed she ‘didn’t know’ the anti-government extremists she posed with on the steps of the Colorado Capitol in 2019, but it turns out she’s known some of them for over a year. Last week, a photo of Boebert posing with Bikers For Trump and ‘Three Percenter’ militia extremists at a Dec. 2019 gun rights rally in Denver, first reported by the Colorado Times Recorder, went viral due to misinformation stating it was taken in Washington prior to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.” “U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) said that one of his colleagues saw Boebert giving a tour to a large group prior to the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Boebert denied the accusation, responding with a fiery letter, in which she also insisted she didn’t know the people in the photograph she herself posted.”

“‘Extremists that believe your rhetoric have posted photos of me with people I don’t know at the Capitol Building in Denver, Colorado, following a rally from more than a year ago and claimed these were people that I gave a U.S. Capitol tour to on January 5, 2021,’ wrote Boebert in the letter. While it’s true the photo was misidentified, it’s also true that Boebert indeed knows the people with whom she posed back in December 2019. Yesterday she accepted a custom Glock 22 from Cory Anderson of the group Colorado Boots on the Ground: Bikers For Trump (BFT). Anderson, his wife Jacqueline, and several other BFT members, along with the extremist militia American Patriots Three Percent, stood with Boebert at the state Capitol fourteen months ago. In both photos, multiple members, including Cory Anderson sport ‘3%er’ patches” – Colorado Times Recorder.

“President Biden on Wednesday will direct federal agencies to determine how expansive a ban on new oil and gas drilling on federal land should be, part of a suite of executive orders that will effectively launch his agenda to combat climate change, two people with knowledge of the president’s plans said Monday. An eventual ban on new drilling permits would fulfill a campaign promise that infuriated the oil industry and became a central theme in the fight for the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania, where the natural gas extraction method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has become big business.”

“The move is the most prominent of several that Mr. Biden with announce Wednesday, the two people said. The president also will direct the government to conserve 30 percent of all federal land and water by 2030, create a task force to assemble a governmentwide action plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, issue a memorandum elevating climate change to a national security priority. Mr. Biden will also create several new commissions and positions within the government focused on environmental justice and environmentally friendly job creation, including one to help displaced coal communities” – New York Times.

The former Fed President crossed the Senate majority threshold and will be the first ever woman Secretary of the Treasury. Let’s see how fast she can get the $20 bill updated.

“Ron Johnson still undecided on whether to seek re-election in 2022, he tells me” reports Politico’s Andrew Desiderio which means it’s probably only a matter of time for RoJo.

New York Times: “The founders of Apollo Global Management, one of the world’s biggest private equity firms, engaged in a brief power struggle this weekend over control of the firm, a rift that opened up after an inquiry revealed that one founder – Apollo’s chief executive and chairman, Leon Black – had paid $150 million to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. On Monday, Mr. Black announced his plan to step down as chief executive of the company this year. ‘I have advised the Apollo board that I will retire as C.E.O. on or before my 70th birthday in July and remain as chairman,’ he said in a statement.”

“The review – ordered by the firm’s board in October after The New York Times detailed at least $75 million in payments – found that Mr. Black had paid Mr. Epstein significantly more, according to two people familiar with the inquiry, who requested anonymity because the report was not public. The sum effectively bankrolled the disgraced financier’s lifestyle in the years after his 2008 guilty plea to a Florida prostitution charge involving a teenage girl. The investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Black, according to a person familiar with the inquiry.”

Here’s the Resolution of the Oregon Republican Party Condemning the Betrayal by the Ten House Republicans Who Voted to Impeach President Trump, with annotations by National Zero: “Whereas President Trump gave a speech on January 6th encouraging his supporters to exercise their constitutionally protected right to peacefully assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances [there’s that word again]; and Whereas the demonstration at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th turned violent and resulted in the tragic deaths of five persons; and Whereas the House of Representatives voted on January 8th to impeach President Trump for ‘incitement of insurrection’ without investigation, evidence, sworn testimony, or serious debate, [Note that Trump did not attempt to make any defense is omitted here] exhibiting not even a shred of due process constitutionally guaranteed to President Trump”

“‘”Whereas history tells us that after George Washington appointed Major General Benedict Arnold to command West Point, Arnold conspired to surrender the fort to the British [What the actual fuck does that mean?] and Whereas the ten Republican House members, by voting to impeach President Trump, repeated history by conspiring to surrender our nation to Leftist forces seeking to establish a dictatorship void of all cherished freedoms and liberties [This is a cry for help]. Whereas the actual transcript of President Trump’s speech contradicts Democrat claims of ‘incitement of insurrection’; and Whereas there is growing evidence that the violence at the Capitol was a ‘false flag’ operation designed to discredit President Trump, his supporters, and all conservative Republicans; this provided the sham motivation to impeach President Trump in order to advance the Democrat goal of seizing total power, in a frightening parallel to the February 1933 burning of the German Reichstag.” Read more here.

On the NewsMax program “American Agenda,” Touro College professor Thane Rosenbaum told the hosts that because the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court isn’t going to preside on the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump, it “demonstrates yet again that we’re not prosecuting a sitting president.”

https://youtu.be/DuETq7rPBmU

“If the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is not sitting as the judge, that demonstrates yet again that we’re not prosecuting a sitting president; we’re prosecuting a private citizen,” Rosenbaum said.

“On January 11, 2021, I was informed the FBI had received a tip indicating Brandon Straka had posted a video on Twitter depicting a location near an entrance to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 in which he shouted, ‘Go, go.’ I conducted open-source searches for Straka and found he was active on Twitter with the username ‘@BrandonStraka.’ As of the evening of January 11, 2021, the video of Straka near the U.S. Capitol entrance was no longer up on Straka’s Twitter account. Open-source searches revealed that Straka was a self-described ‘former liberal’ and the founder of the ‘WalkAway Campaign.’ The WalkAway Campaign website described the campaign as a ‘true grassroots movement’ that Straka founded on May 26, 2018.”

“Straka described himself making his way through a crowd of people and walking up the stairs to the U.S. Capitol. Straka stated that he observed two large metal doors. Straka said that he saw ‘nothing being broken’ and ‘nobody committing any acts of violence’ or ‘vandalism.’ Straka described a ‘bottleneck effect’ that resulted from the large group of people trying to get into the building. Straka stated that he was within 10 to 20 feet of the building when he saw ‘bursts of teargas coming out of the doors.’ Straka said, ‘Shortly after that, a man came out, he said, ‘They’ve cleared Congress. Everybody’s left. There’s no one else inside. Everybody turn around. No one else come inside.’ Straka further stated that the man ‘said something to the effect of it being a victory for us, we got what we wanted, they cleared Congress.’ Straka stated that he left the Capitol shortly after this interaction'” reads the FBI’s affidavit in support of the federal criminal complaint against #WalkAway founder Brandon Straka.

UPDATE 1/25/21 3:41 PM EST: “The FBI has arrested an Omaha man for his actions during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Brandon Straka, 44, was arrested Monday by agents from the FBI Omaha Field Office, according to a report from the FBI” KETV reports.

Complaining about the upcoming impeachment trial of Donald Trump for incitement of insurrection, Republican Texas Senator John Cornyn stated on Fox News that holding a former office-holder accountable for crimes committed in office is a bad precedent to set because Republicans might retaliate against a former Democratic president in the future.

https://youtu.be/L9JkEKJfq3k

Cronyn failed to mention that an impeachment must be based on evidence of an impeachable offense and such an impeachment must be substantiated by a guilty verdict in the Senate. 

“Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced he will resign Tuesday, in what media reports said was an attempt to build a new government after weeks of political turmoil. He called a cabinet meeting for 9:00am (0800 GMT) when he ‘will inform the ministers of his desire to go to the Quirinale (President Sergio Mattarella’s office) to resign’, his office said. Media reports suggest Conte will seek a mandate to form a new government to run Italy as it battles the coronavirus pandemic, which has left more than 85,000 people dead in the country and crippled the economy.”

“The ruling coalition has been teetering on the edge of collapse since former premier Matteo Renzi withdrew his small Italia Viva party on January 13. Conte survived a parliamentary vote of confidence last week but failed to secure a majority in the Senate, the upper house, leaving his government severely weakened. His resignation comes ahead of a key vote on judicial reforms later this week, which commentators suggest the government was on course to lose” – AFP.

I’d like to see more members of government with the life experiences I’ve had.

We need people from all walks of life representing us here in DC.

There should be no such thing as a “political class.”

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) January 25, 2021

Monmouth: “Just over half (52%) of the American public wants the U.S. Senate to convict Trump on the impeachment charge, while 44% do not. As a point of comparison, 49% supported removing Trump from office via impeachment in January 2020, while 48% were opposed. Of course, Trump cannot be removed from office now, but he can be barred from holding federal office in the future. Support for the Senate taking this action stands at 57%, compared with 41% who oppose this move. This latter action needs to be preceded by an impeachment conviction.”

“When the small number of poll participants who initially opposed conviction but favored a ban on future office-holding were informed of this fact, support for conviction on the impeachment charge increased by three points to 55%. The impeachment charge is tied to false claims designed to undermine public faith in the 2020 presidential election. Currently, 54% are very confident that the election was conducted fairly and accurately, which is up from 44% in mid-November. Another 12% are somewhat confident and 9% are not too confident, while 25% remain not at all confident – which is down slightly from 29% in November.”

The US Supreme Court declined an appeal from a Texas death row inmate convicted through the use of witness testimony obtained through hypnosis, a pseudoscientific process of which experts question its validity, the Dallas Morning News reports.

Charles Don Flores was sentenced to death for the 1998 murder of Betty Black after his conviction in a trial in which a witness claimed she saw two men enter Black’s house.  The witness had been hypnotised by police investigators in an effort to get more details about what she claims to have seen.

Experts, however, question the legitimacy of testimony by witnesses who have been hypnotised by investigators, saying that the use of hypnosis can consequentially lead the hypnotist to inject false memories into the witness’s account or warp the witness’s memories of an incident.

According to FEC filings, the ‘MAGA Patriot Party National Committee’ was registered on Monday by some asshole in San Antonio, Texas. The statement of organization says the email contact is magapatriotparty@protonmail.com and lists the same person as custodian of records, treasurer, and agent. The still-existing Trump Campaign responded by publicly disavowing any connection to the new committee, per a report from Axios which says the MAGA Patriot Party “falsely stated in FEC paperwork that it had a joint fundraising agreement with the Trump campaign committee”.

“The White House said the Treasury Department was resuming efforts to put escaped slave turned abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. The effort to put Tubman’s image on the currency had been pushed by the Obama administration but wasn’t completed during former President Donald Trump’s tenure. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said it was important that the nation’s currency ‘reflects the history and diversity of our country’” – Wall Street Journal

Reuters: “Kaja Kallas of the centre-right Reform party became Estonia’s first female prime minister on Monday after parliament approved her nomination following predecessor Juri Ratas’ resignation over an inquiry into a property development. Her cabinet will take its oath of office on Tuesday, marking the end of the far-right EKRE party’s spell in the governing coalition in the European Union nation of 1.3 million people. Kallas, who had ruled out taking over the government with EKRE still in it, has pledged not to define marriage strictly as a union between a man and woman, which was a signature policy of the far right. In another shift, she has promised to bar any further investment in the fossil fuel industry.”