Ex-McCaskill staffers launch PAC to block Hawley’s electoral ambitions

The group is called JOSH PAC, an acronym for Just Oust Seditious Hacks. 

Democrats are looking for revenge against Sen. Josh Hawley after he challenged the results of the presidential election last week.

A group of ex-staffers for former Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill are launching a new organization dedicated to preventing Hawley from winning any further election, whether it’s reelection to the Senate in 2024 or in a future presidential run, according to a source familiar with the effort. Hawley defeated McCaskill in 2018.

The new group is called JOSH PAC, an acronym for Just Oust Seditious Hacks. The organization formally registered with the Federal Election Commission this week and has quietly set up a website and Twitter account. Continue reading.

What’s in Biden’s $1.9 trillion emergency coronavirus plan

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The rescue proposal covers a national vaccination program, direct aid for struggling families and relief for small businesses and communities.

Biden administration officials unveiled the details of a sprawling $1.9 trillion rescue package on Thursday, proposing an extensive response to the coronavirus pandemic and its devastating grip on the nation’s economy.

The Biden plan directs roughly $400 billion to fighting the public health crisis, including through a national vaccination program, scaling up testing and contact tracing and providing paid sick leave to contain the virus’s spread, senior Biden administration officials told reporters ahead of the speech. To fill the lingering holes in the economic recovery, the plan also includes more than $1 trillion in direct aid to struggling families by increasing stimulus checks to $2,000, extended unemployment insurance, rental protections and nutrition assistance. The Biden proposal also allocates $440 billion to small-businesses, local communities and transit systems on the brink.

Less than a week before Biden takes office, the proposal comes at a consequential time for the country. More than 4,200 people had died as a result of the coronavirus on Tuesday, a new daily-record high. Fears that the economic recovery is losing ground are mounting as nearly a million people filed for unemployment last week and the country lost jobs in December, marking the first decline since the recovery began in May. Continue reading.

Top FEMA official attended Trump’s ‘Stop the Steal’ rally

Chris Grisafe, the agency’s associate administrator for resilience, has told associates he did not go to the Capitol.

A top official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has been assisting in preparations for the Inauguration next week, attended President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6.

At that rally, Trump urged his followers to “fight” and march to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, where hundreds broke into the Capitol building in a riot that left five people dead.

The official, Chris Grisafe, told staff this week that he attended the rally to show his support for the outgoing president, and has claimed that he did not move with the crowd from the rally area near the White House to the Capitol grounds. Continue reading.

QAnon Congresswoman Says She Will ‘Impeach Biden’

Freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) announced Wednesday night that she plans to file articles of impeachment against President-elect Joe Biden the day after he takes office. Her statement was met with silence from Republicans who had slammed the second round of impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump as divisive.

“On Jan. 21, 2021, I’ll be filing Articles of Impeachment against Joe Biden for abuse of power,” Greene tweeted after the House of Representatives voted 232-197 to impeach Trump for the second time.

Greene took to far-right network Newsmax to confirm her intention later in the evening: “I would like to announce on behalf of the American people, we have to make sure that our leaders are held accountable. We cannot have a president of the United States that is willing to abuse the power of the office of the presidency and be easily bought off by foreign governments, foreign Chinese energy companies, Ukrainian energy companies. So on Jan. 21, I will filing articles of impeachment on Joe Biden.” Continue reading.

Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller Praises Russia, Says He ‘Can’t Wait To Leave’ His Job

Reporters stunned by Miller’s odd, rambling comments.

Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller stunned reporters with a bizarre, meandering interview in which he praised Russia and said he can’t wait to quit his post, according to a transcript released Friday.

Miller, appointed just two months ago by President Donald Trump, told reporters Thursday on a flight back to Washington that he had “professional respect for how they do things” in Russia. He said the nation had been dealt a “bad hand,” and played it “very, very well.” 

Miller added: “I kind of, you know, like, professionally, I’m like, wow, they’re doing pretty well, and they’re using a lot of irregular warfare concepts, information, all this stuff, in a way that, you know, like … good on them.” Continue reading.

Fact-checking Biden’s speech on his coronavirus economic relief plan

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President-elect Joe Biden on Thursday night announced his nearly $2 trillion economic plan to deal with the economic fallout from the coronaviruspandemic. There were five factual claims he made that caught our interest.

When we queried the Biden-Harris transition team, we received citations for each factoid within 15 minutes — setting a standard for a response that we hope is maintained. The Trump White House, of course, rarely responded to such queries, generally because the president’s claims almost never could be supported.

“Just since this pandemic began, the wealth of the top 1% has grown by roughly $1.5 trillion since the end of last year — four times the amount for the entire bottom 50%.”

The source for this statistic is the Federal Reserve, which has a website showing the distribution of household wealth in the United States since 1989. Continue reading.

Alex Azar resigns as Health and Human Services Secretary, citing Capitol mob

Azar said his resignation would become effective on Jan. 20th, which is the same date he would have been leaving office once President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in.

Alex Azar, the Health and Human Services Secretary, resigned earlier this week, citing the violent Capitol riot inflamed by President Donald Trump in his resignation letter obtained by NBC News.

Azar said his resignation would become effective on Jan. 20th — the same date he would have been leaving office once President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in. The letter was dated Jan. 12, almost a week after the riot.

He said that the attack — which left five people dead and many injured — and the president’s slow response to condemn it, threaten to “tarnish” the achievements the administration has made over the past four years. In particular, Operation Warp Speed, which led to the creation of two vaccines to combat the raging coronavirus pandemic. Continue reading.

Federalist Society Leader Helped Foment Capitol Riot

More than 200 judges have been embedded in the federal judiciary by outgoing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump. The huge majority of those judges come from the Federalist Society, the right-wing dark money association that has been working for years to erode civil rights, end abortion, oppose LGBTQ equality, stop gun safety laws, and fight regulations protecting the environment, health care, and worker safety—aka everything achieved in roughly half a century of progress. They are responsible for the current makeup of the Supreme Court and most of the Republican Senate. And they also have at least partial responsibility for the insurrection that happened at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

John Eastman, until this week the chairman of the Federalist Society’s Federalism & Separation of Powers practice group, spoke at the pre-insurrection rally. “Anybody that is not willing to stand up and [vote to overturn the election] does not deserve to be in the office!” Eastman told the crowd. Standing next to Rudy Giuliani at the rally, he broke into a smile when Rudy incited the crowd with “Let’s have trial by combat!”

Those linked tweets are from Slate‘s Mark Joseph Stern, who highlighted Eastman’s role in pushing Trump’s various plots to overturn the election: “As the president’s actual attorneys backed away from his coup, Eastman rushed in to fill the void, attempting to bolster the scheme with incoherent legal theories,” Stern writes. “When Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton urged the Supreme Court to overturn the election by nullifying millions of votes, it was Eastman who intervened on Trump’s behalf to endorse Paxton’s suit.” Continue reading.

Washington Post Photographer Catches My Pillow CEO’s Notes On Martial Law

Michael Lindell, an avid Trump-backer, headed to the White House armed with notes on the “Insurrection Act” and action to “save the Constitution.”

A Washington Post photographer managed to capture a clear, partial image of notes that My Pillow CEO Michael Lindell — otherwise known as the “My Pillow guy” — carried into the West Wing on Friday. They included the chilling words “Insurrection Act” and “martial law.”

Observers have feared that outgoing President Donald Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act to declare martial law and mobilize the military in a coup to override the democratic presidential election.

Based on the notes, Lindell, a multi-millionaire and avid Trump supporter who is also the TV pitchman of My Pillow USA, appeared to be about to discuss that very tactic with the White House. Trump was impeached for a second time on Wednesday, charged with “incitement of insurrection.” Continue reading.

For those who quit Trump after riot, critics say it’s too little — and four years too late

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Sarah Matthews, a 25-year-old White House spokeswoman, said she watched the violent images unfolding at the Capitol last Wednesday with horror.

Before joining the Trump campaign, and later the White House, she had worked in Congress, and said that “seeing people I know, who were scared for their lives, just shook me to my core.”

After President Trump sent out two halfhearted tweets calling on the angry mob he had encouraged to remain peaceful, Matthews walked to the West Wing’s lower press office where, in front of several colleagues, she appeared visibly shaken. Several hours later, Trump finally put out a video calling on his supporters to leave the Capitol and go home, but Matthews was disturbed by the president’s ad-libbed remarks in which he called the protesters “very special” and said, “We love you.” Continue reading.