POLITICO Playbook: Democratic impeachment managers feeling muzzled  —  DRIVING THE DAY  —  Democrats who've struggled for years to hold DONALD TRUMP accountable are at a crossroads again: Do they go all out to convict Trump by calling a parade of witnesses to testify to his misdeeds?

Rep. Ron Wright dies after battle with COVID-19  —  Reelected in November, the Republican lawmaker had been fighting cancer. … U.S. Rep Ron Wright of Arlington died Sunday night after a battle with COVID-19.  He was 67.  —  His family and spokesperson confirmed Wright's death Monday morning.

Republican Sen. Richard C. Shelby announces he will retire in 2022  —  Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), a fixture of the Senate who chaired the powerful Appropriations Committee, announced Monday that he will retire when his term ends in 2022.  —  Shelby, 86, was first elected to the House …

The 3 Worst Things About That Terrible Jeep Super Bowl Ad  —  How could a major corporation not see how propagandistic it comes off to suggest that when Republicans win a national election, that's divisive, but when Democrats win one, that's unifying?  —  In a generally weak year …

Inside Bidenworld's plan to punish the GOP for opposing Covid relief  —  Democrats are plowing forward with plans to pass a massive Covid-19 relief package.  And if Republicans don't join them, they won't forget it.  —  Already, there's talk about midterm attack ads portraying Republicans …

The Republican Party is radicalizing against democracy.  This is the central political fact of our moment.  Instead of organizing its coalition around shared policy goals, the GOP has chosen to emphasize hatred and fear of its political opponents, who—they warn—will destroy their supporters and the country.

Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen, once foes, talk Trump  —  NEW YORK (AP) — When he was Donald Trump's attorney, Michael Cohen was hellbent on silencing Stormy Daniels, even arranging a hush-money payment to the porn actress that landed him in federal prison.

His Biz Is Shunned, She Resigned, and Everyone Is Being Sued: What Became of Trump's Election Dead-Enders  —  BIG MISTAKE.  HUGE.  —  Much of the current ruin of Trump's hardcore election dead-enders came as a direct result of their decisions to become major players in Trump's failed endeavor to cling to power.

In America's ‘Uncivil War,’ Republicans Are The Aggressors  —  In his inaugural address, President Biden described America as in the midst of an “uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal.”  His invocation of a civil war and the American Civil War was provocative.

The MyPillow guy made a movie of lies about the election.  These corporations beamed it into millions of homes.  —  Mike Lindell, the founder and CEO of MyPillow, created a two-hour movie that uses discredited conspiracy theories to claim that Trump was the real winner of the 2020 election.

AP-NORC poll: Few in US say democracy is working very well  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — Only a fragment of Americans believe democracy is thriving in the U.S., even as broad majorities agree that representative government is one of the country's bedrock principles, according to a new poll …

Trump legacy: Personal responsibility is for suckers and GOP means ‘Grievances On Parade’  —  Trump's Senate impeachment trial and fake victims Josh Hawley and Marjorie Taylor Greene symbolize the Republican descent into whiny entitlement.  —  It seems like every day is Festivus in today's Republican Party.

Hygiene Theater Is Still a Huge Waste of Time  —  Six months ago, I wrote that Americans had embraced a backwards view of the coronavirus.  Too many people imagined the fight against COVID-19 as a land war to be waged with sudsy hand-to-hand combat against grimy surfaces.

Jared and Ivanka made up to $640 million in the White House … Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump reported between $172 million and $640 million in outside income while working in the White House, according to an analysis of financial disclosures by CREW.  It is impossible to tell the exact amount …

The Neoracists  —  A new religion is preached across America.  It's nonsense posing as wisdom.  —  2 hr ago  —  [Excerpt from his new book, The Elect: Neoracists Posing as Antiracists and their Threat to a Progressive America]  —  One can divide antiracism into three waves.

Our Animal Farm  —  The Left's 1960s dream is America's 2021 nightmare.  —  George Orwell published Animal Farm in August 1945, in the closing weeks of the Pacific War.  Even then, most naïve supporters of the wartime Soviet-British-American alliance were no longer in denial …

What We Know About Lauren Boebert's Campaign Payments To Herself For Driving 38,000 Miles … Congresswoman Lauren Boebert's campaign paid her $22,259 in mileage reimbursements, effectively claiming that Boebert had driven 38,712 miles during the course of her campaign in 2020.

The Dangers of the Derp State  —  How we became a nation of so many dupes and fools is a matter at least as complicated as the causes of Donald Trump's presidency.  —  1 hr ago  —  One of the aphorisms of our populist era goes that Donald Trump is more of a symptom than a cause.  Fair enough.

The Forces That Stopped Obama's Recovery Will Not Stop Biden's  —  Joe Biden assumed the presidency confronting an economic crisis reminiscent of the one that faced him when he and Barack Obama took office 12 years earlier.  But it is already apparent that the political atmosphere surrounding Biden is unrecognizable.