Scoop: Matt Gaetz eyes early retirement to take job at Newsmax

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Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has privately told confidants he’s seriously considering not seeking re-election and possibly leaving Congress early for a job at Newsmax, three sources with direct knowledge of the talks tell Axios.

Why it matters: Gaetz is a provocative figure on the right who’s attracted attention by being a fierce defender of former President Trump. The Republican also represents a politically potent district on the Florida panhandle.

What we’re hearing: Gaetz has told some of his allies he’s interested in becoming a media personality, and floated taking a role at Newsmax. Continue reading.

I warned of Trump’s psychological danger — and Americans suffered for the failure to stop him

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In the recent escalation of anti-Asian violence, there are important immediate causes and then more enduring societal ones.

In March 2020, I wrote in Raw Story: “The greatest risk factor of disease and death is not being considered, and that is Donald Trump. If he continues in this presidency, he is on course for having three main effects: First, he will make a deadly pandemic much worse. Second, he will stoke divisions between ‘believers’ and ‘unbelievers’ in his alternative reality. And third, he will vastly augment suffering, which he will … direct into widespread violence … by calling the novel coronavirus ‘Chinese virus,’ simultaneously deflecting blame and creating new targets for attack.”

As his presidency continued full-term, without repudiation or any reckoning for the violence he has incited, Asian-Americans have become victimized. Mental health professionals have since the beginning warned of his psychological dangerousness, among which is his tendency to project his own unacceptable actions onto others, as he did when he scapegoated Asians through derogatory phrases such as, “Chinese virus” and “Kung flu.” Continue reading.

Trump Lawyer Who Urged Executing Pence Seeks GOP Chair

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Lin Wood, the far-right, pro-Trump attorney who lost multiple lawsuits attempting to overturn the 2020 election, has announced he is running to be chair of the South Carolina Republican Party, the Post and Courier reported on Monday.

“My decision to run for the office was heavily influenced by my well known desire to reform local and state political parties and return power to the people,” Wood told the paper. “Here, I want to return power and control of the South Carolina Republican Party to the members of the party.”

Wood is now well-known for filing lie-filled legal challenges alleging voter fraud in the 2020 election, with zero evidence to back them up. Continue reading.

Trump is losing the war over his legacy

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On Sunday evening, CNN aired a special featuring interviews with the senior officials involved in the early coronavirus pandemic response under president Donald Trump. No longer operating under the Trump political umbrella, they offered assessments of the past year that lacked any soothing veneer.

Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House response under Trump, expressed her belief that the deaths that occurred after the first wave of infections last spring were largely preventable. It’s a sentiment that matches recent research but was at odds with the sanitization practices of the Trump White House to which Birx had so often adhered. Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s top epidemiologist, suggested it was government experts, not Trump, who had decided to push forward quickly on a vaccine to combat the virus in January 2020. That was months before the administration rolled out Operation Warp Speed, its push for vaccine development.

The former president got his say this weekend, too. He spoke for several minutes on Saturday night, excoriating the administration of President Biden in defense of his own. Continue reading.

Georgia officer who arrested lawmaker compares her to Capitol insurrectionists

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The Georgia police officer at the center of State Rep. Park Cannon’s (D-Ga.) highly publicized and controversial arrest claims he took action because he feared the possibility of an insurrection-style incident similar to what unfolded at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. However, many are pushing back against his claims while highlighting the stark differences between the two incidents. 

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, an incident report written by Lt. G.D Langford recalled the moments leading up to Cannon’s arrest.Lt. G.D Langford recalled the moments leading up to Cannon’s arrest. In the report, he wrote, “The events of January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol were in the back of my mind.”

Langford claimed he concerned when a group of protesters assembled in the lobby outside of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s (R) office and “began to get louder as she was refusing to follow my commands.” He said, “I didn’t want the protestors to attempt to gain entry into a secure part of the Capitol.” Continue reading.

Accused Capitol rioter arrested in T-shirt reading ‘I was there’ with Trump’s photo, insurrection date

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When police showed up at Garret Miller’s Dallas home earlier this year to arrest him on charges that he had participated in the Capitol riot, his wardrobe spoke for itself.

The 34-year-old unemployed man, who allegedly forced his way into the U.S. Capitol building and threatened a congresswoman and a police officer, was clad in a T-shirt emblazoned with a photograph of former president Donald Trump and text declaring: “I Was There, Washington D.C., January 6, 2021.”

New details of his Jan. 20 arrest were revealed this week in court documents as prosecutors urged a judge not to release him before his trial, noting that he allegedly admitted to bringing a gun into the Capitol during the deadly insurrection. Police also found an array of weapons and gear in Miller’s house, prosecutors said, including a grappling hook, ropes, body armor, night vision goggles, a crossbow and arrows, and multiple firearms with ammunition. Continue reading.

Sean Hannity calls for voter suppression in 5 more states: ‘This has nothing to do with race’

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Following passage of voter suppression bills by Republicans in Iowa and Georgia, Fox News personality Sean Hannity is now calling for his viewers to demand similar measures in five additional states.

“Now we turn to an important story on election integrity, and it matters. People ask me, ‘Hannity, what can I do?’ Well, first, if you live in Georgia, if you live in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, you want to work with your state legislatures,” he argued.

Four of the five states Hannity listed have Republican legislatures, with only Nevada controlled by Democrats. Continue reading.

Biden’s first slate of judicial nominees aims to quickly boost diversity in federal courts

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President Biden announced his first slate of judicial nominees on Tuesday, elevating U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the influential appeals court in Washington to succeed Merrick Garland as part of the largest and earliest batch of court picks by a new administration in decades.

Jackson, often considered a contender to be the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, is among Biden’s 11 nominations that include three Black women for appeals court vacancies and the first Muslim American to serve on a District Court. The group is designed to send a message about the administration’s desire for more diversity on the federal bench and how rapidly the president wants to put his mark on it.

Biden previously pledged to name the first Black woman to the high court, and his picks signal an early departure from the Trump administration, which successfully reshaped the federal courts with nominees who were overwhelmingly White and male. Continue reading.

Trump targets Fauci, Birx in lengthy diatribe

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Former President Trump on Monday went on a tirade against Anthony Fauciand Deborah Birx, two of his former top medical advisers on the COVID-19 pandemic, excoriating their decisionmaking during his administration on the day after CNN aired previews of comments by the top government health experts.

Trump issued a lengthy statement in which he argued that he ignored both Fauci and Birx while in office as a benefit to the country and boasted that he was responsible for getting vaccines rapidly developed and approved.

“Based on their interviews, I felt it was time to speak up about Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, two self-promoters trying to reinvent history to cover for their bad instincts and faulty recommendations, which I fortunately almost always overturned,” Trump said in a statement Monday. “They had bad policy decisions that would have left our country open to China and others, closed to reopening our economy, and years away from an approved vaccine—putting millions of lives at risk.” Continue reading.

Trump’s heir? Pence reemerges, lays groundwork for 2024 run

WASHINGTON — When former President Donald Trump was asked to list those he considers the future leaders of the Republican Party, he quickly rattled off names including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. Conspicuously absent from the list: Mike Pence.

The former vice president is steadily reentering public life as he eyes a potential run for the White House in 2024. He’s joining conservative organizations, writing op-eds, delivering speeches and launching an advocacy group that will focus on promoting the Trump administration’s accomplishments.

But Trump’s neglect in mentioning Pence during a podcast interview earlier this month signals the former vice president’s unique challenge. For someone who built a reputation as one of Trump’s most steadfast supporters, Pence is now viewed with suspicion among many Republicans for observing his constitutional duty in January to facilitate a peaceful transfer of power to the Biden administration, a decision that still has Trump fuming. Continue reading.