The man who attained national notoriety as the face of the January 6 Capitol riot has emerged from prison with his conspiratorial views “reinforced. ...If anything, they're stronger than they were."

The QAnon Shaman, whose real name is Jacob Chansley but who now wants to be known as Jake Angeli, walked out of an Arizona halfway house Thursday after being sentenced to 41 months in prison for his role in the incitement. His image as he strutted through the Capitol bare-chested, his face smeared with red, white and blue paint and his head and shoulders draped in a fur, bison-horned headdress, became world famous.

Hours after his release, he told Raw Story in an exclusive interview that he continues to love and support Donald Trump – and he isn't ruling out a political career of his own.

Angeli, 35, pleaded guilty on November 17, 2021, to felony obstruction of an official proceeding. He served 29 months of his sentence.

He spoke one-on-one with Raw Story via Zoom – though he was told by his lawyer not to respond to questions about the events of January 6.

His release occurred just hours before Oath Keeper founder Stewart Rhodes received an 18-year sentence from U.S. Judge Amit Mehta for seditious conspiracy in connection with the attack on the Capitol. At his sentencing, Rhodes continued to claim to the judge that he was a “political prisoner.”

In the Raw Story interview, Angeli was asked if he believed he was the same – or if prison had mellowed his views.

"That's an interesting question," Angeli said. "Let me put it this way: My belief that the government and the media are corrupt has only been reinforced."

He added: "It just reinforced them. If anything, they're stronger than they were."

So, did Angeli, who sat in former Vice President Mike Pence's Senate chair and left him a threatening note, but who was not charged with acts of violence, feel that he fell into a different category than the Oath Keepers? Or did he consider them brothers-in-arms?

"I feel compassion and sympathy for them because I try to remain as objective as possible in every instance and I try to see things from everybody's perspective," he said. "I can see why they consider themselves whatever it is. I understand, that doesn't mean I agree. But I also understand positions on the left that I don't agree with."

Angeli said he continues to back Trump.

"I love Donald Trump," he said. "I respect that man and he has my support. But that doesn't mean that I don't critique his policies or the things that he says. I mean, this is America, you know, we're allowed to have an opinion."

"I don't even think he's a politician," Angeli added. "I think he's a man who – especially because the media had such a strong and intense campaign against him – had more of a following than if they would have just gotten behind him or just left him alone. And it also illustrated through his plight that anybody that isn't uniparty Washington DC establishment is going to be vilified and destroyed by the system that profits from our tax dollars and proxy foreign wars."

But asked if he'd do it all again, if he thought it was in support of Trump, he declined to answer. "There's too much there and we don't have time to cover it," he said. "It's a loaded question."

Angeli, who lives in Arizona, similarly doubled down in his support for former TV anchor Kari Lake, who has refused to accept her loss last November to Governor Katie Hobbs. Lake’s claims of election fraud have been repeatedly rejected by the courts.

But Angeli said, "Of course" Lake was the real winner in the election. He reiterated her claims that the election was fraudulent.

"Absolutely. Kari Lake has my full support. I love that woman and everything she's done for Arizona," he said.

Angeli apparently plans to stay involved in the political world in some manner. "He is set to speak Sunday at a welcome-home celebration at a Scottsdale church, the Arizona Republic reported. He has a website offering consultations with him for $500, and merchandise that features his iconic image on reusable water bottles, phone cases and apparel," the report said.

Raw Story asked Angeli if he was considering a run for office.

"People have asked me that before," he responded. "The only way that I would ever do that is if there was such a strong demand for it."

So, was that a yes?

"I wouldn't rule it out, but in all honesty, politics is so dang dirty, and Washington is so frickin’ filthy and politics, even here in Arizona, is so corrupt," Angeli said. "You get in there all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and then a man in a suit with a gun in one hand and maybe a briefcase in the other says, 'Look, this is how it works, son.'"

Angeli said he continues to maintain what he terms "the practice of shamanism." Asked if he embraced the title of "Shaman," he said: "I am a shamanic practitioner. Anybody that calls themselves a shaman most likely isn't one. Shaman is actually a Mongolian or Siberian term, and it means 'the one who knows.'"

"But every culture has shamanism at the roots. It's like a medicine man or medicine woman – 'witch doctor' is the derogatory term. It's about getting in touch and in tune with nature, about getting in touch and in tune with the spirit world and God. It's about experiences. It's about ascension. It's about enlightenment. It's about altered states of consciousness to gain a larger broader view of this world and the spirit world simultaneously."

"So, the shaman has their foot in one world, the spirit world, and the other foot in the actual physical world. And they act like a medium between these two worlds for the people that per se don't have the courage to do what the shaman does."

Does that make it a cult?

"Usually, cults are led by some sort of a charismatic and egocentric leader. Shamanism is not a cult at all. It's actually the antithesis of that."

Of his outfit, Angeli said, "I've heard a lot of people call it a costume. It's regalia on the level of priestly robes in the shamanic tradition."

The moniker QAnon Shaman, he said, wasn't some he came up with. Instead it was given to him by the Sandy Hook conspiracist Alex Jones. "Then the media just took off with it and had the audacity to proclaim that I gave myself that title without any proof whatsoever for their claims."

"I neither embrace nor reject the title. ... If a mystical shamanic name is necessary, I use the name 'Yellowstone Wolf.' But there are those who call me America's Shaman and I like that name much more than Qanon Shaman. The reason being the stigma that has been created in the media for that name and the persona they attached to it are in no way who I am or the persona I represent. They created a straw man to use in their propaganda machine, a straw man that they could use to create a shock and awe campaign to further their psychological, social and political agenda."

Angeli declined to discuss his current views on Qanon, saying it was "far too nuanced and complex to comment on right now."

But he did say: "I want to be very clear. I am a libertarian. I'm not a Republican, I'm not a Democrat. That's very important. I'm a Libertarian who believes in the Constitution and I firmly believe in the idea that we are a republic, not a democracy."

He added, "I'm of the belief that we can no longer trust institutions. I don't care what they are. We have to learn to stop trusting the wrong people or the wrong institutions to do the right thing. And we have to start trusting individuals who have proven over the years that they are willing to undergo great personal sacrifice to get the truth to the people."

Given the opportunity to suggest a headline for a story about himself, Angeli suggested: "Jake Angeli. He's not what you think."

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been accused of citing illegally leaked children’s medical records as part of a vendetta against trans kids and their families.

Paxton announced an investigation Friday of trans care by Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, according to the Houston Chronicle.

But Harris County attorney Christian Menefee is firing back that Paxton’s move was predicated by conservative-media reports based on illegal leaks from his office, the report said.

“Menefee called for ‘swift and appropriate action’ in response to the apparent records leak and described Paxton’s investigation as ‘legally baseless,’” the Chronicle reported.

“This illicit release of medical records puts children and their families at risk, and swift action must be taken to ensure that this does not happen again," he said in a statement.

"I have spoken with representatives at Texas Children’s Hospital and understand that the hospital will fully investigate how this happened and notify all impacted families if their information was released.

“I expect they will fully disclose what they find to the United States Department of Health and Human Services. If a hospital employee leaked these medical records, they must be fired. If it was a hospital vendor, their contract must be terminated.”

The Chronicle said the AG's investigation followed as series of tweets from an activist that shared what he called evidence that the hospital "secretly" provided gender-affirming care. The tweets included details from medical records, with the patients' names redacted.

Menefee, the first Black person to serve as the top lawyer in Texas’ largest county, which is home to Houston, “noted that unauthorized disclosures of medical records may violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, commonly known as HIPAA,” the newspaper reported.

Hospital officials fired back at Paxton as well: “At Texas Children’s Hospital, our mission is to provide high-quality care for all patients. Throughout the policy debate surrounding gender medicine, our healthcare professionals have always and will continue to prioritize the care of our patients within the bounds of the law.”

The Chronicle said the AG's investigation followed as series of tweets from an activist that shared what he called evidence that the hospital "secretly" provided gender-affirming care. The tweets included details from medical records, with the patients' names redacted.

Menefee, the first Black person to serve as the top lawyer in Texas’ largest county, which is home to Houston, “noted that unauthorized disclosures of medical records may violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, commonly known as HIPAA,” the newspaper reported.

Hospital officials fired back at Paxton as well: “At Texas Children’s Hospital, our mission is to provide high-quality care for all patients. Throughout the policy debate surrounding gender medicine, our healthcare professionals have always and will continue to prioritize the care of our patients within the bounds of the law.”

“Though many unhinged activists compromising the healthcare field think otherwise, children are not to be treated as science experiments. Doctors and hospitals should not be pushing mutilative and irreversible ‘gender transitioning’ procedures that will negatively impact innocent children for the rest of their lives.”

As the Texas Tribune reported Friday, Paxton’s newest investigation is part of an ongoing effort aimed at trans care.

The Texas Legislature recently passed a bill that would bar minors from receiving that medical care, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and related surgery — though such surgery is rare for minors, the Texas Tribune reported. “Gov. Greg Abbott has said he will sign the bill, and it is expected to go into effect in September.”

Paxton’s targeting of Texas Children’s Hospital was only the latest salvo in an ongoing campaign, according to the Tribune.

“Two weeks ago, Paxton announced a similar investigation into Dell Children’s Hospital in Austin, citing allegations from a hidden camera video investigation from the conservative activist group Project Veritas," it reported.

“The same day Paxton announced the investigation, parents began receiving calls from Dell Children’s, telling them their appointments were canceled and their doctors had parted ways with the adolescent health clinic.”

Dr. Makenzie Lystrup became the first-ever female director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) this week, but it was the choreography of her swearing-in ceremony that drew her special praise.

Writing on his Substack “Friendly Atheist,” Hemant Mehta proclaimed “the joy of seeing a NASA official swear her oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot.’” He noted that NASA’s press release didn’t note Lystrup’s choice of books, but it was visible in a photo that accompanied it.

“It’s a little tough to see, but if you zoom in, that’s no Bible,” Mehta wrote. “That’s a copy of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot."

Lystrup, who holds a doctorate in astrophysics, is “a natural fit” to head up the $4 billion GSFC, which is the research laboratory that develops unmanned spacecraft, including the James Webb and Hubble space telescope, Mehta wrote. But he emphasized her selection of Sagan's work.

Mehta wrote, “That title is a reference to the indelible image taken by the Voyager 1 space probe in 1990, which Sagan so memorably talked about in this passage:

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

Added Mehta: “It’s the antithesis of the Bible, really, because it suggests we’re not the center of the universe. It's all about how there’s so much we don’t know, so much to explore, and why we shouldn’t take for granted how lucky we are to have the opportunity to answer questions that perplexed our ancestors. It’s motivation for all the work done at the GSFC.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis is planning to introduce legislation banning Floridians from making use of a digital currency under consideration by the federal government – a “crazy” idea that would serve to protect financial crime, economic Paul Krugman writes today in the New York Times.

The United States doesn’t have such a currency today, but the Federal Reserve is studying the idea, Krugman writes. The economist notes there’s a demand for a new system that would provide “virtual equivalents of old-fashioned cash that can be stored and transferred electronically.”

But DeSantis' condemnation in advance of the idea as “woke” is irrational, according to Krugman, citing the governor’s claim that a digital currency would “impose an E.S.G. agenda” and, for example, prevent people from spending too much on gas or from buying rifles.”

Here’s Krugman’s take:

“If this sounds crazy, that’s because it is. I have no idea whether DeSantis believes any of it, or even knows what a central bank digital currency is or what it would do. And it’s possible that he’s taking this stand out of general paranoia."

“But my guess is that he’s being influenced by people who do in fact know what a digital currency might do and fear that it might make it more difficult to engage in such un-woke activities as tax evasion and money laundering. In that sense, DeSantis’s new crusade is a lot like the vote by House Republicans — one of their first legislative moves after taking control of the chamber — to rescind funding that would allow the I.R.S. to crack down on tax cheats.”

Krugman cited the demand for a cryptocurrency “whose tokens wouldn’t be pegged to the dollar — they would legally be dollars, and hence risk-free.” He says that demand is mostly driven “partly from people who honestly, rightly or wrongly, don’t trust banks, and partly from people engaged in illicit activities.”

Krugman says the first group would flock to a safe digital currency, “helping deflate the crypto bubble.” But it’s the bad guys whose DeSantis’ proposed ban would serve:

“DeSantis’ attack on central bank digital currency…wouldn’t protect the rights of Floridians to buy gas or guns; instead, it would protect the ability of wise guys to evade taxes, launder money, buy and sell illegal drugs, and engage in extortion."

"But hey, I guess thinking that money laundering and extortion are bad things is just another example of the wokeness that DeSantis is trying to kill.”

Journalist Matt Taibbi admitted to repeated errors in his reporting – and was left stammering – in a brutal interview segment Thursday on MSNBC’s “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”

Hasan called out Taibbi for multiple falsehoods in Taibbi’s “Twitter Files” claims regarding the 2020 election.

“You talk a lot about the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) in the Twitter Files, which Stanford and the University of Washington founded to monitor attacks on our elections. You say some stuff about them that a lot of your critics say is not true and that affects your credibility. You say the EIP was formed in response to the government dropping its proposal for a disinformation governance board, but that’s not true: It was formed two years earlier. You suggest it was government funded, even though it wasn’t."

“You say they labeled 22 million tweets as misinformation in the runup to the 2020 vote. They didn’t,” Hasan said. “They flagged 3,000 election-misinformation tweets so you were only 21,997,000 off. You also claimed the EIP was partnered with the government cyber-security and infrastructure agency CISA to censor Twitter, but you mix up CISA, a Homeland Security agency, with Center for Internet Security – CIS – a non-profit. In fact, you added an aided an A to CIS in brackets to make that false claim. It’s just error after error.”

Taibbi admitted on air, “That was a mistake. That was an error, but the other ones aren’t.”

But Taibbi would admit on his own Twitter account that three of Hassan’s accusations were correct. (And then Taibbi then launched a tweetstorm of attacks at MSNBC for its coverage of other subjects.)

The devastation did not go unnoticed at The Bulwark. Here’s how Jonathan V. Last reported it.

“Russia-loving, Musk errand boy Matt Taibbi went on Mehdi Hasan’s show this week. No más! Those with a humiliation kink will definitely want to watch the whole thing. Those with weak stomachs should probably pass."

“Normally I’d be against this sort of premeditated public beat-down. But here’s the thing about Taibbi: If anyone deserves it, it’s him. Because this isn’t the low-point of his career. Heck, this isn’t even his most embarrassing moment of the last year.”

Last offered this sarcastic assessment of Taibbi:

“Just another brave, anti-woke, tankie truth-teller getting targeted by the dreaded liberal media. Because truly, liberal media bias is the single most important threat facing the world.”

You can watch a portion of Hasan's interview with Taibbi below or at this link.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) violated state law in New York with his threats to conduct a Congressional investigation of Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg over the indictment of Donald Trump, legal analyst Glenn Kirschner said Saturday on his "Justice Matters" podcast.

The comments by Kirschner were reported by Newsweek. Here’s part of its account:

"Under our law, a person is guilty of Obstructing Governmental Administration in the Second Degree when that person intentionally...prevents or attempts to prevent a public servant from performing an official function by means of intimidation, physical force or interference," Kirschner told his audience. "That is precisely what Jim Jordan has done and is doing."

Jordan issued a Thursday to former Manhattan prosecutor Mark Pomerantz, who worked on the Trump case before resigning last February, Newsweek reported. That prompted the following angry response from Bragg:

"The House GOP continues to attempt to undermine an active investigation and ongoing New York criminal case with an unprecedented campaign of harassment and intimidation," a spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney's office said Thursday. "Repeated efforts to weaken state and local law enforcement actions are an abuse of power and will not deter us from our duty to uphold the law."

On his podcast, Kirschner said Bragg had put Jordan on notice for his potential violations of state law. He added that it remained to be seen whether the Manhattan DA would further pursue the matter, Newsweek reported.

"Kirschner also noted that Jordan's efforts were in violation of the 10th Amendment, as the federal government cannot interfere with a state-level prosecution," the report said.

As reported at Raw Story this week, Jordan has invited the Senior Counsel of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office to testify "despite having no legitimate or constitutional authority to perform oversight of a county elected official's actions."

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene will be the subject of an interview by correspondent Lesley Stahl Sunday on CBS’ “60 Minutes”– and the show’s decision to give the Q-Anon-friendly agitator has provoked a firestorm of protest.

The network first promoted Greene’s interview late Saturday morning with a Tweet simply announcing it.

Then it stirred the pot with this Tweet stating: “Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, nicknamed MTG, isn’t afraid to share her opinions, no matter how intense and in-your-face they are.

“She sits down with Lesley Stahl this Sunday on 60 Minutes.”

That was all it took to provoke an avalanche of angry responses from a wide range of critics.

Here’s a smattering of the pushback that greeted the network:

Former West Wing Actor Bradley Whitford: “Reminds me of a guy we defeated in the 1940s who wasn’t afraid to share his opinions, no matter how intense and in-your-face they were. Too bad you couldn’t interview him, you could have asked about his vegetarianism and his love of dogs.”

Elie Mystal, correspondent for The Nation: “The way you guys say her ‘nickname’ is MTG... as if it’s a cute moniker bestowed by her besties… when her initials are just MTG and her ‘nicknames’ are ‘Marjorie Three Names’ and ‘Unfrozen Caveman Congresswoman’ just shows that you’re here to launder her rep and complicit.

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger: “Wow. Insane that 60 min would do this.”

Atlantic contribute Jemele Hill: “There’s nothing wrong with interviewing and profiling controversial, even despicable people, but this framing is s---. There’s also a fine line between engaging provocative people and platforming stupid. This is platforming stupid.”

MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan: “So brazen anti-Muslim, antisemitic, anti-trans bigotry, and insane conspiracies about Hillary Clinton torturing kids and murdering her opponents, are reduced by a storied American news brand merely to ‘intense and in-your-face’. This is equal parts embarrassing and reckless.”

Just to stir the pot more, Greene, who has promised to travel to New York City to protest on Trump’s behalf, praised Stahl with this Tweet, misspelling the interviewer’s first name:

“It was an honor to spend a few days with the legendary icon Leslie [sic] Stahl and talented crew [of 60 Minutes]. Leslie is a trailblazer for women in journalism. And while we may disagree on some issues, I respect her greatly.”

A large coalition of Catholic nuns has issued a public letter supporting transgender, nonbinary and gender-expansive individuals – and "implicitly rebuking recent statements from the U.S. Catholic hierarchy," the Religious News Service reported Saturday.

The letter was issued by a wide range of Catholic communities representing more than 6,000 religious orders across 18 states, RNS reported.

As members of the body of Christ, we cannot be whole without the full inclusion of transgender, nonbinary and gender-expansive individuals,” the letter reads.

It goes on to argue that "we will remain oppressors until we — as vowed Catholic religious — acknowledge the existence of LGBTQ+ people in our own congregations. We seek to cultivate a faith community where all, especially our transgender, nonbinary and gender-expansive siblings, experience a deep belonging."

The letter had been in the works since a wave of bills targeting trans people swept across state legislatures, one of its authors –Sister Barbara Battista, congregation justice promoter for the Sisters of Providence, St. Mary-of-the-Woods – told RNS.

But she added that release of the letter was "jump-started" by an anti-trans statement by Catholic Church leaders.

"The nuns' effort comes in the wake of a doctrinal statement published earlier this month by a committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which discouraged Catholic health care groups from performing various gender-affirming medical procedures, arguing doing so does not respect the "intrinsic unity of body and soul," RNS reported.

The nuns were explicit about their disagreement with legislators and church leadership. Battista noted that many of the bills working their way through state legislatures revolve around the health care needs of trans people, an issue that hits home for her as a licensed physician’s assistant in Indiana.

"She described her work as 'participating in the healing ministry of Jesus,' rooted, she said, in a 'sacred trust' between patients and providers." But Catholic leaders and government officials, she argued, have tried to "insert themselves into the private, very personal and intimate conversations and decisions made between the health care provider."

The indignant response of Donald Trump and his GOP allies to his indictment by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg last week has a fundamental flaw, the Washington Post observed Saturday.

"Trump ceded the moral high ground long ago" on indicting former presidents, a WAPO analysis notes. That destroys the argument that Trump and company are advancing now that’s he the one being indicted.

"Sometimes it’s explicitly stated, and sometimes it’s more implicit: Indicting a former president and a candidate in the next election is beyond the pale," the Post characterized the Trump position. "It's even election 'interference' or the stuff of banana republics."

Inconveniently for Trump, the Post cited a long trail of evidence from Trump's own mouth pointing to the contrary.

"He has advocated for the prosecutions of each of the last four Democratic presidential nominees — every single one since 2004. In two cases, he did it during the campaign, even suggesting they should be ineligible to run.

"And that's to say nothing of the many other political opponents he has suggested should be prosecuted. He even, in some cases, actually agitated for that outcome when he held sway over the Justice Department."

The Post also pointed to the most glaring example.

The 'lock her up' chant leveled at Hillary Clinton is the most well-known entry in this long succession. Trump at times merely goaded his 2016 rally audiences to go down that road, but at other times he endorsed it. He said late in the 2016 campaign, "Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted and should be in jail," and he even told Clinton to her face at a debate that if he were president, "You'd be in jail." He added at a later debate that "she shouldn’t be allowed to run."

"And Trump didn’t stop calling for prosecutions of top political figures even after a blizzard of accusations rained down upon him in his one-term presidency.

"By 2020, Trump gave a similar treatment to both his predecessor as president, Barack Obama, and his then-opponent, Joe Biden.

"A month before the election, Trump tweeted, 'Where are all of the arrests?”' He added: 'BIDEN, OBAMA AND CROOKED HILLARY LED THIS TREASONOUS PLOT!!! BIDEN SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO RUN - GOT CAUGHT!!!'

"'But these people should be indicted, this was the greatest political crime in the history of our country — and that includes Obama and it includes Biden,' Trump added during an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Network the next day. "These are people that spied on my campaign."

"Trump even indicated that he had made that case directly to his attorney general, William P. Barr: 'And I say, Bill, we’ve got plenty, you don’t need any more' to indict."

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones used his InfoWars fortune to acquire a $4,000 cryogenic freezing chamber, more than $100,000 in guns and an array of luxury items, according to a report from the Daily Beast.

The details were contained in a Thursday filing in a Texas bankruptcy court. The filing revealed that Jones’ wealth includes “roughly $54,000 in watches and cufflinks and a fleet of three boats valued at more than $100,000,” the Daily Beast reported Saturday.

“But while the filing offers a glimpse into how Jones spent the millions of dollars he earned by pushing conspiracy theories, it’s not clear that it presents an accurate portrait of his wealth,” the Daily Beast reported.

“Thursday’s filing came after a judge required Jones to submit more accurate financials, revealing $4.8 million in undisclosed assets for a total wealth of $14.7 million.

“And while Jones enjoys a wealthy lifestyle through InfoWars, the disclosures don’t explain how Jones could have comparatively few assets when compared to his even larger InfoWars salary. In 2019, for example, Jones reported $36 million on his tax filing. That number grew in 2021 and 2022, with Jones reporting roughly $38 million in income each of those years.

“In his new filing, Jones claims that he doesn’t own any stocks or bonds, and has just a little more than $200,000 in bank accounts.”

But the report pointed out that “the most interesting item on Jones’ new asset list may be a CRYONiQbrand cryogenic-freezing chamber estimated to be worth $4,000. The company promises to give users “the coldest experience,” blasting their bodies with frigid temperatures.

Jones’ collection of 54 guns is valued at $101,261, the filing stated. It included an acknowledgment that he’s holding on to guns owned by two Jan. 6 Capitol riot defendants as they face prosecution.

The filing also showed that “Jones’ conspiracy theory affluence has helped him buy a number of properties, according to the filing, including multiple condominiums, a $1.75 million lake house on Texas’ Lake Travis, and a home worth $3.26 million. Jones also owns a Texas farm property valued at more than $2 million,” the Daily Beast reported.

“Add to that a number of vehicles, including four cars—two SUVs and two sports cars—valued at more than $200,000. Jones’ boat collection is worth more than $100,000, according to the filing.”

In 2022, juries in Connecticut and Texas awarded $1.487 billion in damages over Jones’ claims that the Sandy Hook school shooting had been falsified.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene used an interview on right-wing media today to "trash-talk" former South Carolina Governor and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley as a non-entity, Mediate reported.

After speaking from the stage at Trump’s ominously timed 2024 campaign rally in Waco, Texas, Greene joined attorney and fellow MAGA zealot Christina Bobb on a Right Side Broadcasting livestream.

Here's how it was reported by Mediate:

"Bobb asked MTG what the GOP would do in 2025 if the party controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House."

"Oh, that would be a dream come true," said Greene. "If we had full control that would be the greatest."

Greene then transitioned to talking about Trump versus the other candidates.

"Here's what we know about President Trump," she said. "President Trump has a list of names, and no one else has that."

"Ron DeSantis doesn’t have that. Nikki Haley, or whoever she is, she doesn’t have anything like that," Greene said. "No one else knows how to clean out the swamp like President Trump."

Ray Hartmann is a St. Louis-based journalist with nearly 50 years experience as a publisher, TV show panelist, radio host, daily newspaper reporter and columnist. He founded St. Louis alt weekly, The Riverfront Times, at the age of 24.

One of Donald Trump's most outspoken attorneys issued a mob-like warning to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis about challenging Trump for president at the latter’s Waco campaign rally today, the Daily Beast is reporting.

"I would not want to enter the octagon with Donald Trump. Nobody comes out of that and looks pretty," attorney Christina Bobb told the crowd, according to the Daily Beast. "In order for Ron DeSantis to mildly stand a chance with Donald Trump...he has to attack Donald Trump, and people who attack Donald Trump don't fare well.

"If he actually does try to enter this race, will come out a bloodied pulp."

The report added, "Neither Bobb nor DeSantis campaign spokesperson Lindsey Curnutte immediately returned The Daily Beast's request for comment on Saturday afternoon."

Bobb, a contributor to Right Side Broadcasting Network, is no stranger to bold hyperbole. As Raw Story reported, she unleashed this rant in late January:

"They are trying to take over the world and enslave everybody," she said, likely referring to liberals. "That is wrong; it's un-American, and it goes against everything our Constitution stands for."

"We will get Donald Trump back in office," she added. "At that point, I think we need an investigation into who actually overthrew the United States government to install a fake president."

Ray Hartmann is a St. Louis-based journalist with nearly 50 years experience as a publisher, TV show panelist, radio host, daily newspaper reporter and columnist. He founded St. Louis alt weekly, The Riverfront Times, at the age of 24.

An anti-abortion group in Spokane has been ordered to pay about $960,000 to Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho after its protests were found to have interfered with patient care, the Spokane Spokesman-Review reported.

The Church at Planned Parenthood was ordered to pay $110,000 in civil damages to Planned Parenthood last month after a Spokane County judge ruled that the group interfered with patient care, violating state law, the Spokesman-Review reported.

The anti-abortion group also will be required to pay attorneys’ fees totaling $850,000, it reported, citing Legal Voice, a legal advocacy organization in the state of Washington. That number was reached as part of a settlement between Planned Parenthood and the church’s insurance company.

“This is a critical victory for Planned Parenthood at a time of historical attacks on abortion access,” said Planned Parenthood's Paul Dillon.

A Mississippi man who was among the first rioters to reach the Capitol Rotunda on January 6 has been sentenced to 78 months in federal prison for assaulting police officers guarding the U.S., the Department of Justice reported.

James McGrew, 40, of Biloxi, Mississippi and Carlsbad, California, also was ordered by U.S. District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell to serve 36 months of supervised release and pay a $5,000 fine and $2,000 in restitution. McGrew pleaded guilty last May 13 to felony assault.

McGrew was on parole for a past crime when he participated in the riot, according to court records, as Raw Story reported in October. He was convicted of shoplifting in 2011 and 2013 and vehicle theft in 2016.

McGrew was identified by the FBI with the help of video that showed him lifting his T-shirt to wipe his eyes during the riot. It revealed a massive tattoo with the lettering “King James” across his stomach, according to the FBI.

On January 6, McGrew was among the early wave of rioters, entering the Capitol at 2:45, the DOJ reported. “At approximately 3:05 p.m., he pushed one officer and struck another officer who was standing before him. Two minutes later, another officer used his baton to push McGrew and others closer to the exit. McGrew struck the officer and lunged for the officer’s baton. He then engaged in an altercation with yet another officer.”

Later, another rioter “handed McGrew a wooden handrail with metal brackets attached, almost the same height as McGrew. McGrew positioned the handrail over his head and launched it into the tunnel, throwing the end with the metal brackets toward the law enforcement officers. The handrail appeared to hit the shield or visor of an officer,” the DOJ stated.

You can read the FBI statement of facts here.

A prominent conservative attorney lashed out today at House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer for trying to draw comparisons between the apparent mishandling of classified documents by Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

Andrew McCarthy, a legal analyst for the National Review and Fox News, warned Comer that “he should be an investigator, not Trump’s lawyer, in a column at National Review Online. While agreeing that “it’s not only appropriate but important” for Congress to look into Biden’s case, McCarthy strayed far from the party line that Biden’s case was comparable to that of Trump.

McCarthy took issue with Comer’s complaint of “inconsistent treatment” by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

It is not unreasonable to wonder about political bias at NARA,” McCarthy wrote. “But, that said, it is asinine for Comer to compare NARA’s handling of the Biden and Trump situations as if the two were analogous.”

McCarthy went on to show that conservative media attacks on Trump after the GOP’s midterm electoral disaster were not a one-off occurrence.

“Comer claims that NARA ‘instigated a public and unprecedented raid at Mar-a-Lago — former President Trump’s home — to retrieve presidential records.’ That is a preposterous assertion."

“In reality, NARA quietly pleaded with Trump for nearly a year over the thousands of government records he was retaining in violation of the Presidential Records Act. Trump finally agreed to surrender what turned out to be some of the documents — about 15 boxes’ worth — in January 2022, only after NARA lawyer Gary Stern, having gotten nowhere with Trump’s representatives, told them that the agency might soon refer the matter to Congress.”

And there was this zinger from McCarthy that didn’t come from the House Republican talking points:

“None of this excuses what Biden did. It is clear, though, that the incumbent president tried to mitigate the damage while Trump was mulishly combative. It is ridiculous, in any event, for Comer to portray Biden’s cooperation and Trump’s recalcitrance as equivalent situations.”

National Review Editor-In-Chief Rich Lowry borrowed a page from Donald Trump’s playbook today with an email blast seeking to cash in on an attack he made Friday against the magazine.

“He didn’t insult anyone’s wife, give us a nickname, or say that the title of our magazine somehow sounds Chinese,” Lowry wrote. He only said that we are lightweights who serve no purpose and whose publication deserves to die.”

Here’s the statement Trump posted on social media, according to the Review:

“Why does anyone read the National Review. (sic) They are so negative to Conservatives and me and are seen as being led by lightweights that couldn’t shine the shoes of Bill Buckley. They have absolutely nothing going, it is failing fast, and my only question is, who is paying for the losses — when it loses plenty of money and serves no purpose at all. People are tired of haters — let the National Review die peacefully!”

The email utilized those words to set up a financial kill shot, in Trump fashion:

“He wonders who’s funding us, and that’s an easy one — people like you who believe in our cause and who are willing to help out. There’s a reason that Mar-a-Lago wants us to die, and if you envision and hope for a better American future, you should help us live."

The email dropped any pretense of journalistic nonpartisanship in its fundraising appeal.

“We want a Republican Party that can win majorities and that doesn’t limit itself to trying to eke through with 46 percent in presidential elections,” the email stated. “We want a conservatism that is unapologetic and serious-minded and not distorted by one man’s ego or abased by ridiculous conspiracy theories.”

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was easily elected Speaker today in a 188-31 romp over Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ).

But lost in the main story was one that’s perhaps just as significant: A large chunk of Republicans cast their secret ballots for one of the weirdest-of-the-weird members of the House Freedom Caucus.

Biggs has compiled an extremist resume that few can match, even as it has flown under the radar relative to the likes of Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert. Biggs takes a back seat to no one in the clown car of wingnut world.

The fact that he got any votes for House Speaker – much less almost 15 percent of them – is a statement, however unsurprising, that certifies the freakishness of the Republicans’ right flank. Biggs, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, is off the grid.

Here are some of Biggs’ credits:

Biggs is the ultimate homophobe. Biggs voted against the 2020 COVID-19 relief bill because it “redefined family” by providing benefits for same-sex couples. He has called same-sex marriage “an affront to millions of Americans. As Arizona Senate President, he supported a bill that would have allowed business owner to refuse service to LGBT people by citing their religiously-based opposition to homosexuality or same-sex marriage. Biggs served as a policy advisor to United Families International, so virulently homophobic that it has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “hate group.” His wife, Cindy Biggs, was the treasurer of that organization, which has previously lobbied against expansions of LGBTQ rights.

He was a leading insurrectionist. Biggs was accused of having helped plan the events of January 6 by confessed organizer Ali Alexander, a conspiracy theorist and right-wing activist. Before that, an 80-second message from Biggs was played at a “Stop the Steal” rally on December 19 in Arizona.

His own brothers attacked him as “at least partially to blame” for the January 6 riot. He was among a small handle of members refusing to wear a COVID mask while Congress was locked down during the riot.

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The landmark U.S. Supreme Court 6-3 ruling today siding with a high school football coach who led prayers during school events in Washington state will evoke heated debate among legal scholars and pundits.

But there’s no handier critique than the blistering dissent author by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan. She excoriated the court majority for ignoring “overwhelming precedents establishing that school officials leading prayer violates the Establishment Clause.”

Here are some of the most quotable points in Sotomayor’s dissent:

“This case is about whether a public school must permit a school official to kneel, bow his head, and say a prayer at the center of a school event. The Constitution does not authorize, let alone require, public schools to embrace this conduct."

“This Court consistently has recognized that school officials leading prayer is constitutionally impermissible.”

“While the Court reaffirms that the Establishment Clause prohibits the government from coercing participation in religious exercise, it applies a nearly toothless version of the coercion analysis, failing to acknowledge the unique pressures faced by students when participating in school-sponsored activities.

“This decision does a disservice to schools and the young citizens they serve, as well as to our Nation’s longstanding commitment to the separation of church and state.

“Official-led prayer strikes at the core of our constitutional protections for the religious liberty of students and their parents, as embodied in both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.”

“This case is not about the limits on an individual’s ability to engage in private prayer at work. This case is about whether a school district is required to allow one of its employees to incorporate a public, communicative display of the employee’s personal religious beliefs into a school event, where that display is recognizable as part of a longstanding practice of the employee ministering religion to students as the public watched.”

“Government neutrality toward religion is particularly important in the public-school context given the role public schools play in our society.”

“The Court concludes that coercion was not present in any event because “Kennedy did not seek to direct any prayers to students or require anyone else to participate. But nowhere does the Court engage with the unique coercive power of a coach’s actions on his adolescent players.”

“This decision rests on an erroneous understanding of the Religion Clauses. It also disregards the balance this Court’s cases strike among the rights conferred by the Clauses.”

“The Court relies on an assortment of pluralities, concurrences, and dissents by Members of the current majority to effect fundamental changes in this Court’s Religion Clauses jurisprudence, all the while proclaiming that nothing has changed at all.”

“For decades, the Court has recognized that, in determining whether a school has violated the Establishment Clause, ‘one of the relevant questions is whether an objective observer, acquainted with the text, legislative history, and implementation of the [practice], would perceive it as a state endorsement of prayer in public schools.’ The Court now says for the first time that endorsement simply does not matter.”

“The question before the Court is not whether a coach taking a knee to pray on the field would constitute an Establishment Clause violation in any and all circumstances. It is whether permitting Kennedy to continue a demonstrative prayer practice at the center of the football field after years of inappropriately leading students in prayer in the same spot, at that same time, and in the same manner, which led students to feel compelled to join him, violates the Establishment Clause. It does.”

“The effects of the majority’s new rule could be profound. The problems with elevating history and tradition over purpose and precedent are well documented.”

“The Court’s history-and-tradition test offers essentially no guidance for school administrators. If even judges and Justices, with full adversarial briefing and argument tailored to precise legal issues, regularly disagree (and err) in their amateur efforts at history, how are school administrators, faculty, and staff supposed to adapt?

“How will school administrators exercise their responsibilities to manage school curriculum and events when the Court appears to elevate individuals’ rights to religious exercise above all else?

“Today’s opinion provides little in the way of answers; the Court simply sets the stage for future legal changes that will inevitably follow the Court’s choice today to upset longstanding rules.”

“Today, the Court once again weakens the backstop. It elevates one individual’s interest in personal religious exercise, in the exact time and place of that individual’s choosing, over society’s interest in protecting the separation be- tween church and state, eroding the protections for religious liberty for all.”

“In focusing almost exclusively on Kennedy’s free exercise claim, however, and declining to recognize the conflicting rights at issue, the Court substitutes one supposed blanket rule for another.”

“Today’s decision is particularly misguided because it elevates the religious rights of a school official, who voluntarily accepted public employment and the limits that public employment entails, over those of his students, who are required to attend school and who this Court has long recognized are particularly vulnerable and deserving of protection.”

“The Court sets us further down a perilous path in forcing States to entangle themselves with religion, with all of our rights hanging in the balance.”

“As much as the Court protests otherwise, to- day’s decision is no victory for religious liberty.”

You can read the full decision of the Court decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District here.

A California man who bragged to his Uber driver that he broke down a barrier at the January 6 Capitol riot was arrested last week -- with the help of the driver’s dashboard video camera.

Jerry Braun, of South El Monte, Calif., was charged by the FBI with illegal entry, disorderly and disruptive conduct and parading in the Capitol. Braun’s case stood out in the manner he was apprehended, as well as an unusual in-person interview last November at his home with FBI agents.

The FBI was tipped off by the Uber driver who picked Braun up at 7:05 p.m., after the riot. Here’s how their conversation went:

Driver: “So, has it been violent all day?”

Braun: “Well, it started around, right when I got there. I tore down the barricades.”

Driver: “You did? Why?”

Braun: “Well, because, so we could get to the Capitol.”

Driver: “Well, how’d that work out for ya?”

Braun: “Well, it looks like, uh, Biden’s gonna be our president.”

Agents were able to match Braun to the Uber video -- in which he had been identified as “Jerry LNU” for “Last Name Unknown” -- with the help of phone records and the following description:

“From the interviews with the Uber driver, I learned that Jerry LNU had a white beard, an injury near his right eye, and showed visible bleeding near the eye during the Uber ride.”

Braun: “Well, it looks like, uh, Biden’s gonna be our president.”

Agents were able to match Braun to the Uber video -- in which he had been identified as “Jerry LNU” for “Last Name Unknown” -- with the help of phone records and the following description:

“From the interviews with the Uber driver, I learned that Jerry LNU had a white beard, an injury near his right eye, and showed visible bleeding near the eye during the Uber ride.”

“Braun stated he had been analyzing politics his whole life, and went to Washington, D.C. to listen to a speech of the President. After being asked by the agents if Braun had anything he wanted to tell them before he departed the search location, Braun responded, “Guilty.” When asked what he was guilty of, Braun responded, “Everything.” Braun stated he “flew out there, listened to the speech, walked toward the Capitol, made it to the edge of the crowd.”

The FBI complaint against Braun included this description captured on police body cameras during the riot on the west side of the Capitol grounds:

“Braun is in possession of a long wood plank that appears to be about eight feet in length. Videos show Braun in possession of the wood plank, controlling the wood plank and maneuvering the wood plank towards law enforcement officers in an aggressive manner.

“In one instance captured on the videos, Braun extends the wood plank and physically strikes an individual who is wearing a helmet with the text “PRESS” displayed across the front (the photographer) and appears to be taking photographs with a camera. Braun and the photographer appear to exchange words. Braun then strikes the photographer with his left hand, and subsequently strikes the photographer once more with the wood plank.”

You can read the FBI criminal complaint here.

A Missouri couple who had boasted on Facebook of being "the first ones in" to the U.S. Capitol on January 6 has pleaded guilty to remaining unlawfully in the building they told FBI agents they hadn't entered.

Kelsey Leigh Ann Wilson -- then a first-grade teacher -- and her husband Zachary Wilson entered their guilty pleas Monday and await December 7 sentencing. Zachary Wilson had been arrested in February, but Kelsey Wilson hadn't been booked until six months later.

Here's how it was reported at the Kansas City Star:

FBI investigators interviewed Kelsey and Zachary Wilson on Jan. 18 at their home in Springfield, the documents said. During the interview, both said they had been on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6 but denied entering the building.
An FBI agent interviewed Zachary Wilson a second time at his home on Jan. 20, according to the documents. Zachary Wilson then admitted entering the Capitol building but said his wife did not go inside.

But a coworker of Kelsey Wilson who accompanied them to Washington D.C. was interviewed by FBI agents and said the two had gone into the Capitol for 30 minutes. She shared a photo of Kelsey Wilson "wearing a black, white and gold beanie, white pants, a gray long-sleeved shirt and a 'Keep America Great Again' pro-Trump flag wrapped around her body," the FBI reported.

It was Kelsey Wilson's position as a first-grade teacher that had drawn the most attention when she arrested. At the time, the attorney said she expected to lose her new job at Dayspring Christian School in Springfield, Missouri. She was put on administrative leave and, as of Tuesday, the school told reporters she was no longer employed there.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey was one of about 20 Republican governors to attack President Joe Biden's new rules on vaccines last week, but she stood apart in the historical context framing her anger.

Ivey, 76, channeled a hero of her youth, former Gov. George Wallace, famously standing in the schoolhouse doors in 1962 to block federal marshals from mandating the integration of Alabama schools.

Nearly half a century later, Ivey assumed a similar stance toward Washington D.C. But in this case, it was to resist the federal government imposing public-health measures on her sovereign state.

Ivey took to Twitter to invoke Wallace's imagery, this time to oppose Biden's OSHA-grounded requirement that employees be vaccinated or tested weekly for COVID-19 before coming to work in companies employing 100 or more. Here's her Tweet:

"You bet I'm standing in the way. And if he thinks he's going to move me out of the way, he's got another thing coming. I'm standing as strong as a bull for Alabama against this outrageous Washington overreach. Bring it on," Ivey said."

And there was this: "I encourage Alabamians to take the vaccine – have been since the beginning, but we're never going to mandate it. And we certainly aren't going to allow Washington, D.C. & this president to tell Alabama what to do. Here in AL, we don't put up with that nonsense."

That was precisely Alabama's position when Wallace was standing in those doors. Was the reference to standing in the way coincidental? The similarity wasn't lost on the Alabama Democratic Party, the website AL.com reported Sunday:

"Governor, quit playing your political games and work with Washington to find solutions to get folks to take the shot. Lives are on the line. It's time to be a leader, not a Wallace wannabe," said Wade Perry, executive director of the party.

Alabama ranks eighth in the nation in COVID-19 deaths and ninth in total cases since the beginning of the pandemic, according to statistics from the New York Times coronavirus tracker. It's death rate of 259 per 100,000 is 30 percent higher than the national average.

Perry called out Ivey for having failed to control the pandemic in Alabama:

"Now is not the time for feigned outrage or political rhetoric," Perry said. "Getting mad and throwing a tantrum is not what leaders do. We've needed real leadership throughout this pandemic and Kay Ivey has failed us. 12,552 Alabamians have died from COVID-19. For these neighbors, there will be no more birthdays, weddings, graduations, and holidays celebrated - only an empty seat at the family table for a generation."

Perry also noted the hypocrisy of Alabama's governor invoking state sovereignty while relying upon federal programs and assistance, Al.com reported.

Ivey, who is running for re-election in 2022, had made national headlines in late July by attacking Alabamans who refused to get vaccinated.

"Folks are supposed to have common sense. But it's time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It's the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down," Ivey told reporters in Birmingham. "The unvaccinated are choosing a horrible lifestyle of self-inflicted pain. "We've got to get folks to take the shot."

Ivey ducked reporters' questions about imposing state mask or vaccine mandates, CNN reported. But now she has gone full Wallace in attacking Biden for attempting to force what she called "the greatest weapon we have to fight Covid" upon the states.

Then again, that's not all that surprising, given Ivey's history. Ivey had campaigned in 1966 for Wallace's wife Lurleen -- who had been placed on the ballot by her husband as "Mrs. George Wallace" in an unabashed effort to circumvent state term limits at the time.

Ivey's bona fides as a disciple of Wallace were validated by none other than Wallace's daughter -- Peggy Kennedy Wallace -- shortly after her election as governor in 2018. Here's how the Montgomery Advertiser reported it:

"Peggy Wallace Kennedy spoke on a week that started with former Gov. Robert Bentley resigning amid a scandal that has dominated national headlines and Kay Ivey being sworn in as Alabama's second female governor. The state's first female governor was Kennedy's mother, Lurleen B. Wallace.

Kennedy said Ivey campaigned for her mother and that she's been a friend for years.

"I know that she'll put the past behind (her) and move the state forward," Kennedy said. "I think that Gov. Ivey will move us in the right direction. "(Lurleen Wallace) knew Gov. Ivey, of course, so I think she would be really proud of Gov. Ivey. I really, really do."

And certainly, George Wallace would be just as proud today of Ivey for standing in the way of Washington D.C.

To hear his attorney tell it, accused rioter Kyle Fitzsimons was merely "caught up in the frenzy of the rally and protest" when Donald Trump incited his followers to storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

It is a defense that first started getting noticed in the weeks following the insurrection. But even though Trump certainly incited the riot that day, it's not clear that it is a winning argument when it comes to the exoneration of the rioters.

Fitzsimons, 37, of Lebanon ME, was bloodied by an officer's baton on the front lines of the riot, but "lowered his shoulder and charged at the line of officers" according to the FBI. The criminal complaint against him cited multiple witnesses who told agents of his "vocal right-wing beliefs," including frequent references to firearms.

"Fitzsimons has been held without bail since Feb. 4, when authorities arrested him at his Lebanon home. He was indicted on 10 charges, including rushing at a line of officers, disorderly conduct and assault on a federal officer," the Bangor Daily News reported.

"When a judge denied him bail in April, he rejected Fitzsimons' contention that a crowd pushed him from behind into a line of police at the Capitol.

"'I saw you charge at the officers, you were beat down but then got up and went back at them,' U.S. Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey said at the time," the Daily News reported.

In court Friday, however, Fitzsimons' public defender Natasha Taylor-Smith argued for his release pending trial "due to his "minimal" criminal history that includes a drunken driving offense and "no history of substance abuse or mental health issues." She said he is not a flight risk and poses no threat to the community," the newspaper reported.

"Mr. Fitzsimons had no prior intent to enter the Capitol building or engage in violence, but the energy of the crowd that day is well-documented, and the mood shifted from one of purported patriotism to agitation," Taylor Smith said. She added that his mother has offered to open her Titusville, Florida, home to Fitzsimons, who worked as a freelance butcher in York County and has no passport.

But the Portland Press-Herald reported this:

"Federal prosecutors have a very different portrayal of Fitzsimons in their arguments to hold him in jail pending trial. Prosecutors had not yet responded Saturday to Taylor-Smith's latest request, but among the reasons they cited in earlier filings were threatening calls Fitzsimons allegedly made to the office of a member of Congress later identified as Maine's Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-District 1.

"He was reported to be very aggressive, shouting and yelling," prosecutors wrote in a motion filed with the courts in March. "Fitzsimons said that he was going to 'give it to her hard' and that 'we're coming for her' (referring to the Congressperson)."

"Fitzsimons allegedly called back the next day to say the Electoral College vote is "corrupt and total garbage. 'He urged the Congressperson to dispute the election results in January,' prosecutors wrote. "He stated that Biden is a corrupt skeleton and that this is going to be civil war." In another call, Fitzsimons identified himself as 'Kyle Fitzsimons, the man who wants to start a war' as he demanded a number for Chinese President Xi Jinping."

If they decide to make flip-flopping an Olympic sport, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley needs to hop on the next plane to Tokyo.

Hawley just attacked President Joe Biden for attacking Facebook. Yes, this excruciatingly annoying preppy man who has staked his repulsive young political career upon crusading against social media -- through the use of social media -- has decided it's not cool for Biden to get in Facebook's face. Really.

In the past week -- publicly and without apology -- the Biden administration has pressed Facebook (among other social media) to stop facilitating the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. On Friday, Biden claimed Facebook was "killing people." The company fired back with a dismissive response telling Biden "to move past the finger-pointing."

There is neither a carrot nor a stick involved in Biden's effort. His administration is trying to shame Facebook into doing its fair share to keep dangerous lies from exacerbating a pandemic that continues to rage on--especially among the unvaccinated. And the government effort has not been well-received by the social-media giant.

But even before Biden's spat with Facebook, Hawley had already advanced the bizarre conspiracy theory that since Facebook is a monopoly and the government was in communication with it, this can only mean one thing: "(social media) collusion with the Biden administration to suppress free speech." Somewhere Q is blushing.

A few truths cry out for attention. One, criticizing and colluding are different things. Two, urging and censoring are different things. And three, joining forces and fighting are different things.

Hawley is just beside himself that the administration "is in regular touch with the social media platforms" about misinformation and disinformation about related to COVID-19 and that it is "flagging problematic posts for Facebook." He finds it "shocking" that such "casual collusion" could exist.

Only in Hawley's twisted world could communication with Facebook have morphed into a plot to "censor" those who spread falsehoods for the purpose of scaring people away from getting vaccinated. Or that fighting the spread of a deadly virus is a bad thing.

It's revealing that Hawley equates conservative speech and false information on vaccines. Perhaps he has a point there. But this is the same politician who has demanded that the federal government use every tool at his disposal to punish social-media companies that he and fellow Republicans deem offensive.

Think that's exaggerated? Consider one of the first bills Hawley introduced as a freshman senator in 2018, one that Vox succinctly described at the time as a "joke." Here's how writer Peter Kafka explained Hawley's bill:

"The idea is that the federal government will strip away protections that shield those companies from being held accountable for the content their users upload and they distribute — and will only restore those protections once the companies can prove they aren't favoring one end of the political spectrum…

"On to the bill itself: Its main idea is to remove Section 230 from the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which says that big internet publishers that distribute content supplied by their users — think Twitter, YouTube, Facebook — aren't held liable for the content those users supply.

"Hawley, though, describes that protection from lawsuits as a "subsidy" given to big internet companies. And he says they should have to prove themselves worthy of that protection by convincing at least four of the five members of the Federal Trade Commission that they're not politically biased — a process they would have to repeat every two years.

"How would Twitter or Facebook successfully prove that to the satisfaction of the FTC members? Hawley's bill doesn't tell us. It just says the companies need to provide "clear and convincing evidence that the provider does not … moderate information provided by other information content providers in a politically biased manner."

Now that's what you call Big Brother government.

Kafka didn't have the benefit in 2018 of knowing that Hawley would flip to the view in 2021 that even for an administration to complain to Facebook would constitute "collusion" to impose censorship in the event Republicans were not the complaining party. But now that the uniforms have changed, everything is reversed. Forget about those tribunals calling social-media executives on the carpet to disprove the negative that they're not "politically biased."

Now that the Democrats are in power, Hawley is trying to claim it's a tyrannical act of censorship even for Biden and his administration to urge Facebook to combat the spread of misinformation about public health during a pandemic. And even as a private company, Facebook must be compelled not to "police speech…in the public square" -- even if it means saving lives.

How much more hypocritically can this political Plastic Man contort his positions with respect to social media? To be fair, it was a bit of an Olympian feat that Hawley could deliver his most recent deceits with a straight face, even in this era of unbridled shamelessness by insurrectionists such as himself.

Hawley was, after all, the guy with the iconic clenched fist on January 6 outside the Capitol. And he's never been prouder of anything. The man has no shame.

What's next, using an iPhone for a Twitter post to promote an anti-tech book on Amazon? Oh wait, Hawley just did that.

Rep. Mo Brooks, R-AL, provided a reminder this week of why intellectually challenged politicians are best served by not trying to explain their votes.

Brooks was one of just 14 Republicans to oppose the overwhelmingly bipartisan bill that made Juneteenth a federal holiday this week. When he tried to explain why, it just made matters worse.

The QAnon-friendly congressman (and Alabama U.S. Senate candidate) feebly tried to make his vote about money, as reported at Al.com:

"The Huntsville congressman…said he had fiscal concerns about the bill, noting that adding a federal holiday would cost the country $1 billion in lost productivity by giving federal workers a day off.

"The cost should have been offset by eliminating one of the other holidays so that taxpayers don't once again have to foot the bill for paying millions of people not to work," he said.

Asked which federal holiday should be cut to add one that celebrates the end of slavery, Brooks said, "I have some thoughts, but I'm not going to volunteer a holiday and get a group of folks unnecessarily mad at me unless it was going to be a trade-off."

Unfortunately for Brooks, his home-district daily newspaper, the Athens (AL) News-Courier, raised a matter even closer to home:

"A spokesman for Brooks did not respond to questions asking if the congressman had similar concerns about the cost to state taxpayers for the multiple Confederacy-related holidays in Alabama," the News-Courier reported.

Showing why local journalism stills matters, the story included this civics lesson:

"Alabama is the last state to have a legal holiday set aside solely to commemorate the birth of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Mississippi marks Davis' birthday but includes it in the Memorial Day celebration. In Texas, Davis' birthday is part of "Confederate Heroes Day" while other Southern states, including Florida, Kentucky and Tennessee, have a holiday for Davis on the books but do not give employees a day off.

"Alabama and Mississippi are also the last two states to have a combined holiday in January in observation of the January birthdays of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and Confederate Army Gen. Robert E. Lee. Legislation introduced in Alabama this year to move Robert E. Lee Day to Columbus Day did not make it out of committee."

Carey Jon Walden of Kansas City was arrested today in connection with the January 6 Capitol riot, but only after an FBI interview that resembled a middle-schooler getting questioned by his teacher about a field trip.

Walden, identified by the FBI as an ex-Marine, was identified with the help of a tip to the bureau's online portal and a photo he had posted on his Facebook page. But what made this accused rioter stand out from the rest was his unusually forthcoming discussion with the FBI.

What was truly extraordinary was the FBI description of his response to being interviewed by an agent. The highlight was Walton's claim to have "fist-bumped and devil-horned" a friendly swat line.

Here, according to the FBI criminal complaint, is how it went:

"On February 3, the FBI interviewed Walden at his residence in Kansas City, Missouri. Walden admitted to the FBI that he was present at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and that he went inside the Capitol Building that day through a broken window.

"Walden was shown a photocopy of the U.S. Capitol and asked to show where he went inside. Walden circled on the photocopy where he thinks he went into the US Capitol. He wrote on the back, 'That's where I think I was during protest.' Walden signed, dated, and placed his date of birth on the photocopy. Walden also forwarded three videos (and) four still photographs from his phone to the FBI (that he identified as coming) from his activities outside the Capitol.

"Walden was then shown two printed photos from Facebook titled Carey Jon Walden. Walden stated that the first picture was one he took and posted on Facebook prior to entering the U.S. Capitol thru a broken window. Walden confirmed also posting the second photo and then wrote on the front of the photocopy "This is from my Facebook, picture that I took."

"Walden was then asked to write in his own words his activities inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, which he did.

"I, Carey J. Walden, climbed a wall into the Capitol building on 6 Jan 21, at approx 1:00pm to 1:30pm. I took pictures and videos of where I entered. I went into a broken window, which was already broken. I walked in a 15 SQ FT, area, witch there were police in a line guarding a passage way. I took pictures and video. I did not break anything. The police were present and I was not asked to leave. I fist bumped and 'Devil horned' the swat line. I left after about 5 minutes. I walked out after I heard that someone was shot. I was wearing blue jeans gray sweatshirt, blue respirator, red chiefs beanie. Had a backpack, with all of the belongings I have. I was not armed, nor had body armor. I am not a part of any hate groups. I went with a bus of Trump supports. I am a U.S Marine (inactive) veteran. These are my recollections of that day."

The FBI complaint against Walden also showed a screen capture of Walden's self-identified video shows a breathing apparatus he was wearing prior to making entry into the Capitol building. Walden faces charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful entry.

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