Perhaps I’m just so dispirited after a year of being forced to analyze and discuss Joe Manchin on a daily basis. But I find myself compelled to resort to media criticism for the second time in a week. I read this morning that Whoopi Goldberg has been suspended for two weeks from The View for her earlier comments about the Holocaust. This whole episode is a testament to the general insipidness of our public culture.
Goldberg’s comments were clearly rooted in ignorance rather than malevolence. She not only issued a genuine apology rather than a half-assed ‘I’m sorry if anyone was offended’ type apology. She also spoke to people, privately and publicly, and seemingly learned why her comments were wrongheaded and corrected herself. ABC’s suspension was needless and stupid. It will be derided as “cancel culture.” But it’s really more the kind of corporate ass-covering that only discredits the values it purports to serve. It’s a consequence that, as far as I can tell, basically no one was asking for.
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.
Gerrymandering? Why I Never!
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) is Not Pleased with New York’s new congressional district map that was drawn and passed by the state’s Democrat-controlled legislature on Wednesday. Under those new lines, Malliotakis’ district would merge with a deeply liberal area of Brooklyn – and needless to say, that’s going to be a problem for her.
Malliotakis accused Democrats of trying to “tilt the scale” during a Fox Business interview. “We know one thing from the Democrats this year: It is that if they can’t win by the rules, they’ll change the rules,” the Republican complained.
It’s too bad that there wasn’t any legislation that Malliotakis could’ve voted for that would’ve prevented this from happening.
Thousands Of US Troops To Be Deployed To Eastern Europe
Biden has officially ordered the deployment of about 3,000 American troops to Germany, Romania and Poland over the next several days amid the growing threat of a Russian invasion of the Ukraine border, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby announced yesterday.
2,000 of those troops are being sent from Fort Bragg in North Carolina to Europe. The other 1,000 U.S. troops are currently based in Germany but will be moved to Romania.
The troops will not fight in Ukraine and their deployment is temporary, Kirby said, adding that the forces are there to “ensure the robust defense of our NATO allies.”
More Than A Dozen Civilians In Syria Reportedly Killed In US Raid
At least 13 civilians were left dead after U.S. special forces launched a counterterrorism raid in northwest Syria overnight, residents and first responders said on Thursday.
Dem Sen. Luján Expected To Return Next Month
A senior aide to Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), who is currently hospitalized after suffering a stroke last week, told CNBC and the Associated Press that the lawmaker is expected to be back in the Senate in four to six weeks. Until then, Democrats will only have 49 senators available to vote.
National Archives To Turn Over Pence Records To Jan. 6 Panel
National Archivist David Ferriero sent Trump a letter on Tuesday informing him that the agency will hand over former Vice President Mike Pence’s records, which Trump had claimed to be privileged, to the House Jan. 6 Select Committee.
The Pence documents will be delivered to the committee on March 3 unless the courts stop the agency, Ferriero said.
It’s not hard to predict what the ex-president’s next move will be: A bid to get the courts to stop the agency.
Jeffrey Clark Meets With Jan. 6 Panel
The former top Justice Department official who plotted to use the DOJ to help Trump steal the 2020 election sat down with the Jan. 6 committee, which had moved toward holding him in contempt in December, for almost two hours on Wednesday.
Clark told the panel in December that he planned on pleading the Fifth. It’s unclear whether he ended up doing so yesterday.
Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, who’s been indicted on sedition charges in connection to the Capitol insurrection, also talked to the committee yesterday, according to his lawyer.
Roy Moore Defamation Trial Ends In Defeat On Both Sides
Leigh Corfman’s defamation lawsuit against failed Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore — whom Corfman has credibly accused of molesting her when she was 14 — and Moore’s counter lawsuit were both tossed out by an Alabama jury on Wednesday.
Corfman sued Moore for defamation in 2018 after he accused her of lying about her allegations. Moore insisted that he’d never met Corfman and sued her back.
Corfman’s lawsuit only sought a declaration from Moore that he had defamed her. The ex-Senate candidate was after monetary damages in his defamation suit.
It’s pronounced “punk-saw-taw-nee.” You probably already knew that, but I didn’t until I looked up clips of local news anchors covering the celebration on YouTube.
Not all of us are Groundhog Day buffs, okay?
Anyway, someone showed up at the celebration in Pennsylvania with this:
(Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
I absolutely love it. In the era of “F*ck Your Feelings,” there’s a poster cheering on Phil — declaring faith in his groundhog powers, giving him a lil lightsaber to emphasize the Phorce within him.
The Jan. 6 committee subpoenaed the phone records of Arizona GOP chair Kelli Ward and her husband, Michael Ward, both of whom falsely claimed in documents that they were among the battleground state’s presidential electors in 2020.
On the first day of Black History Month this week, there were a string of bomb threats made targeting historically Black colleges and universities in the U.S. The FBI announced today that it would be looking into those threats and investigating them as “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism and hate crimes.”
“This investigation is of the highest priority for the bureau and involves more than 20 FBI field offices across the country,” the FBI said in a statement, noting the probe was “of the highest priority for the bureau.”
As a growing number of books are challenged and then removed from schools and libraries nationwide, it’s worth noting not only the discriminatory circumstances surrounding the bans, but also the frenzied and haphazard way in which they are often implemented.
Trump’s enthusiasm for pardoning the Jan. 6 insurrectionists isn’t new, according to a Politico report.
President Trump seriously considered a blanket pardon for Jan. 6 rioters shortly after the insurrection, in the final days of his presidency, the outlet reported Wednesday.
The National Butterfly Center, a target for right-wing conspiracy theories situated along the U.S.-Mexico border, is shutting down for the “immediate future” after a fringe border wall rally brought a weekend of unwanted attention to the wildlife sanctuary.
In recent days, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) repeatedly pushed a baseless conspiracy theory that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has fled to the United States, supposedly escaping protesters in Ottawa who are furious with vaccine mandates, COVID-19 health measures and Trudeau himself.
In May of last year, I wrote about a recall effort aimed at county supervisors in conservative Shasta County, California, where anger over COVID health measures had turned bitter.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who served as a key witness in the first impeachment proceedings against then-President Donald Trump in 2019, filed a lawsuit against Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr., plus ex-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former White House officials Dan Scavino and Julia Hahn on Wednesday.
