A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.
Pass The Popcorn
Smartmatic, the voting tech company at the center of Trumpland’s 2020 election fraud conspiracy theories, is now suing both OAN and Newsmax, two pro-Trump media outlets that gleefully trafficked in those conspiracy theories as the ex-president tried to steal the election.
- Smartmatic is accusing the outlets of deliberately spreading misinformation about the company in pursuit of pro-Trump viewers who’d given up on Fox News (after all, Trump whined repeatedly how Fox wasn’t sufficiently sucking up to him during the election).
- OAN was sued in federal court in Washington, D.C.; and Newsmax was sued in Delaware state court.
- Newsmax claims the lawsuit is a “clear attempt to squelch the rights of a free press.”
- The two new lawsuits add to the veritable avalanche of Smartmatic’s suits against various Trump cronies, including: Fox News, Fox Corporation, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro
- Dominion Voting Systems has already filed defamation suits against OAN, Newsmax, Fox News, Giuliani and Powell.
So it looks like these totally-not-panicked disclaimers didn’t work:
Dems Narrowly Avoid Defeat In New Jersey
Incumbent New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) has been declared the winner in his re-election bid against Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli in a nailbiter of a race.
- Murphy won 50.2 percent of the vote to Ciattarelli’s 49 percent with 90 percent of the votes counted, according to the Associated Press.
- Murphy is the first Democratic governor in New Jersey to be reelected in 44 years.
- Ciattarelli has not conceded.
Manchin’s Takeaway From Virginia
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), one of the key holdouts on passing Biden’s Build Back Better plan, said yesterday that his takeaway from Democrats’ defeat in the Virginia gubernatorial race was–yet again–they need to pump the brakes on passing reconciliation.
- Manchin told Fox News last night that the lesson from Virginia was that his Democratic colleagues need to “kind of slow down and take a breath,” which was essentially the same take he’d offered earlier yesterday.
- Manchin was using the Virginia results to double down on his repeated push for a “strategic pause” on reconciliation.
More Than Half A Dozen Jan. 6 Rally Attendees Were Just Elected
At least eight Republicans who went to the pro-Trump Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse were elected to office on Tuesday.
- Three of them won seats in the Virginia House of Delegates. The other five were elected to local positions, including city and town council, in Idaho, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
- On the other hand, at least five candidates who went to the rally lost on Tuesday.
- At least 57 Republican state and local officials were at the pre-insurrection rally at the Capitol, according to the Huffington Post.
A New Grim COVID-19 Milestone
The U.S. has now reached 750,000 deaths from COVID-19 as of yesterday.
2 Dems Vote Against Confirming Rahm
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday approved former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s nomination as ambassador to Japan, but Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Ed Markey (D-MA) voted against him.
- Progressives have slammed Emanuel’s nomination, pointing to his handling of Black teen Laquan McDonald’s death–specifically the fact that the then-mayor refused to released footage of white police Officer Jason Van Dyke fatally shooting McDonald.
- Merkley hinted at Emanuel’s shoddy civil rights record as the reason for his “no” vote.
- But Emanuel’s nomination isn’t dead thanks to the public support of a handful of Republican senators.
Must-Read
“He’s the youngest Chief in his First Nation’s history. Now he’s leading their fight against climate change.” – The Washington Post
Eating Hundreds Of Pizzas To Own The Libs
Disgraced Papa John’s founder John Schnatter told Bloomberg that he’s eaten 800 Papa John’s pizzas in the past 18 months to prove the quality of the pies has dropped after what he called the “progressive elite left” pushed for his ouster as the company’s chair.
- In case you forgot, Schnatter resigned in 2018 after using the N-word during a conference call.
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