memeorandum: Harry Shearer will no longer voice black ‘Simpsons’ character (Lauren Sarner/New York Post)

10:40 AM ET, February 23, 2021

Top Items:

We identified the 125 people and institutions most responsible for Donald Trump's rise to power and his norm-busting behavior that tested the boundaries of the US government and its institutions … - Insider compiled this database of the 125 people and institutions essential to Donald Trump's rise …

Joe Scarborough / Washington Post:
No amount of disaster can shake the GOP loose from Trump

Discussion: The Week, Real Clear Politics, Esquire, Occupy Democrats, The Hill, Raw Story and Florida Politics

Douglas Schoen / The Hill:
Republicans face an identity crisis

Discussion: National Review and Liberty Unyielding

Burgess Everett / Politico:
Trump taunts don't shake McConnell's hold on Senate GOP

Discussion: The Hill

Politico:

‘A double standard going on’: Democrats accuse GOP and Manchin of bias on Biden nominations — Women's rights activists and allied Democrats are growing increasingly vocal about what they call the unfair targeting of women and people of color nominated by Joe Biden to top posts in his administration.

Discussion: Washington Post, Reason, The Guardian, Associated Press, Raw Story and CNN

Olivia Beavers / Politico:

Manchin'd — FOR JOE MANCHIN, IT'S ‘NOT PERSONAL’: The Democratic Senate has hit its first roadblock in its path to confirming President Joe Biden's nominees. But if you ask the West Virginia Democrat who seemed to have delivered the kiss of death to Neera Tanden, he professes no villainous intent toward his party.

Discussion: Bloomberg, Washington Post, CNN, Wall Street Journal and Florida Politics

Politico:
POLITICO Playbook: Scoop: Anti-Big Tech crusader poised to join Biden admin

Discussion: National Review, Bloomberg and Rolling Stone, more at Mediagazer »

NBC News:
Split-ticket districts dwindle as all politics becomes more national

Discussion: The Daily Beast and Breitbart

Washington Post:
Now Republicans are offended by mean tweets?

Discussion: Forbes, Vox, Talking Points Memo and National Review

New York Times:

Slate Suspends Podcast Host After Debate Over Racial Slur — Mike Pesca of “The Gist” said he was suspended after defending, in a Slack discussion with colleagues, the use of the slur in some contexts. — The online publication Slate has suspended a well-known podcast host after he debated …

Discussion: Althouse and HotAir

Kelsey McKinney / Defector:

Slate Podcast Host Mike Pesca Suspended Following Internal Discussion About Use Of Racial Slur — Mike Pesca, host of Slate's daily podcast, The Gist, has been suspended from the company indefinitely according to an internal memo sent to staffers late last night that has been obtained by Defector.

Discussion: spiked, HotAir, Fox News and Twitchy, more at Mediagazer »

Santi Ruiz / Washington Free Beacon:

Amazon Pulls Bestseller on Transgender Issues From Store Without Explanation — Amazon steps up censorship campaign against conservative content — Amazon pulled a bestseller on transgender issues from its online store on Sunday without explanation. — Author Ryan T. Anderson tweeted …

Discussion: The Daily Signal, Townhall and The Daily Caller

Wall Street Journal: Tech Censorship Is Accelerating

Jeremy Beaman / Washington Examiner:
Amazon: Buy anything you could ever want, except this book challenging transgenderism

Discussion: The Daily Caller

Politico:

Congress finally gets first chance for answers about the Jan. 6 insurrection — Lawmakers will get their first chance Tuesday to expose the security failures that allowed rioters to overtake the Capitol on Jan. 6 and threaten the presidential transition of power.

Discussion: CNBC, CBS News, Wall Street Journal, Washington Examiner, Washington Post, New York Times, ABC News, New York Post, WCIA-TV, UPI, Just Security, KTLA, The Guardian, IJR, Mediaite, Fox 8 Cleveland Closings …, Bloomberg and NBC 6 South Florida

CNN:
Former US Capitol Police chief to say intelligence didn't point to a riot on January 6

Discussion: WISC-TV

Luke Broadwater / New York Times:
Bipartisan Senate Inquiry on Capitol Riot Will Begin With Scrutiny of Security Failures

Discussion: Accountable.US and Daily Kos

Andrew Kerr / The Daily Caller:

Media Matters Study On Fox News ‘Misinformation’ Is Riddled With Misrepresentations, Flagged Objectively True Statements — A Media Matters study claiming Fox News pushed coronavirus misinformation an estimated 13,551 times during the pandemic is riddled with misrepresentations.

The Daily Beast:
CPAC 2021 Will Be One Big Lie Fest—and Fox Nation Is Sponsoring It

Discussion: Raw Story and Twitchy

Eric Hananoki / Media Matters for America:
Featured CPAC speaker said Judaism is a “complete lie” and referred to Jewish people as “thieving fake Jews”

Hans Nichols / Axios:

Scoop: Biden's OMB Plan B — House Democratic leaders are quietly mounting a campaign for Shalanda Young, a longtime congressional aide, to replace Neera Tanden as nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget, people familiar with the matter tell Axios.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Steven Mufson / Washington Post:

The battle over climate change is boiling over on the home front — Municipalities want new buildings to go all electric, spurning gas-fired stoves and heating systems. The gas industry disagrees — A new front has opened in the battle over climate change: The kitchen.

Discussion: NPR

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:

Donald Trump Is Extremely Mad Prosecutors Will See His Tax Returns — Donald Trump's yearslong quest to prevent the public, Congress, or law-enforcement officials from seeing his tax statements came to a resounding end with a unanimous Supreme Court ruling. He did not take the defeat in stride.

Discussion: Bloomberg, Daily Kos, Wall Street Journal, Digby's Hullabaloo, Crooks and Liars and IJR

New York Times:
Supreme Court Denies Trump's Final Bid to Block Release of Tax Returns

Discussion: CNN, The Economist, The Week, No More Mister Nice Blog, Wall Street Journal, The Intellectualist, Talking Points Memo, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Insider, Louder With Crowder, Bloomberg, CBS New York, Liberty Unyielding and BuzzFeed News

Bret Stephens / New York Times:

Woke Me When It's Over — In the humorless world of Woke, the satire is never funny and the statute of limitations never expires, even when it comes to hamantaschen. — In 2015, Bon Appétit ran an article by the food writer Dawn Perry about hamantaschen, the triangular cookies …

Julia Wick / Los Angeles Times:

Vaccine access codes for Black, Latino communities improperly used in affluent L.A. areas — A California program intended to improve COVID-19 vaccine availability to people in hard-hit communities of color is being misused by outsiders who are grabbing appointments reserved for residents of underserved Black and Latino areas.

Katelyn Polantz / CNN:

Oath Keeper now says she didn't meet with Secret Service around the January 6 rally — (CNN)Jessica Watkins, a leader in an alleged Oath Keepers conspiracy in the US Capitol insurrection, changed her story Monday about meeting with Secret Service agents in describing her actions on January 6.

Discussion: Crooks and Liars

Christopher Cadelago / Politico:

Bloomberg's 2020 aides got an unwelcome surprise in their tax forms — Nearly a year after Mike Bloomberg's $1 billion presidential campaign crashed into Super Tuesday, his staffers are still dealing with the aftershocks. — In recent weeks, aides to the former Democratic candidate started …

Discussion: HotAir

Daniel Nichanian / The Appeal:

Illinois Delays End of Prison Gerrymandering By a Decade — A hard-fought reform will stop the state from distorting political power at the expense of communities that bear the brunt of incarceration. But it won't take effect for a long time. — For years, State Representative La Shawn Ford …

Taylor Goldenstein / Houston Chronicle:

AG Ken Paxton and wife Sen. Angela Paxton went to Utah during Texas freeze — While millions of Texans languished in their homes last week without heat, many of them racking up astronomical electricity bills, the state official in charge of consumer protection left to take an out-of-state trip.

Discussion: The Hill, Insider, HuffPost, Dallas Morning News, Off the Kuff, POLITICUSUSA, Washington Examiner, The Texas Tribune, San Antonio Current, Talking Points Memo, The Intellectualist, Forbes, Houston Public Media, Texas Democratic Party, Raw Story and KXAN-TV

The Guardian:

Revealed: 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar as it gears up for World Cup … Pete Pattisson, Niamh McIntyre, Imran Mukhtar in Islamabad, Nikhil Eapen in Bangalore, Imran Mukhtar in Islamabad, Md Owasim Uddin Bhuyan in Dhaka, Udwab Bhattarai in Kathmandu and Aanya Piyari in Colombo

Discussion: The Daily Beast

Sarah Mucha / Axios:

Missing Marine sparks White House questions — The absence of a Marine sentry outside the West Wing on Monday raised questions about whether President Biden was keeping the schedule publicly outlined by his aides. — Why it matters: A sure way to tell if the president is inside the Oval Office …

Ben Casselman / New York Times:

For Women in Economics the Hostility is Out in the Open — Studies have found that the field is plagued by a singular problem of gender bias. The latest evidence comes from the types of questions posed at seminars. — A few years ago, the economists Alicia Sasser Modestino and Justin Wolfers sat …

The Bulwark:

Wisconsin Republicans Refuse To Condemn Political Violence — Nothing that might be taken as criticism of Donald Trump can be allowed. — We are long-time Republicans who have served in GOP leadership at the county, district, and state levels in Wisconsin.

Discussion: Raw Story

Silvia Foster-Frau / Washington Post:

First migrant facility for children opens under Biden — CARRIZO SPRINGS, Tex. — Dozens of migrant teens boarded vans Monday for the trip down a dusty road to a former man camp for oil field workers here, the first migrant child facility opened under the Biden administration.

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, BizPac Review, Twitchy, Townhall, Fox News and Althouse

Jacob Shamsian / Insider:

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell says he's losing $65 million over election-fraud claims and it proves he's not pushing conspiracy theories for the money — Dominion Voting Systems sued MyPillow and its CEO, Mike Lindell, seeking $1.3 billion in damages. — The defamation lawsuit claims …

Discussion: Mic, Talking Points Memo, New York Post, Raw Story, Sun-Sentinel, CBS News, CBS Miami, New York Times and Above the Law

Rich Lowry / National Review:

Andrew Cuomo Is Everything the Press Accused Ron DeSantis of Being — It never made any sense to lionize New York's governor at the expense of Florida's, except that one had a ‘D’ after his name, and the other didn't. — Throughout the pandemic, the press has been excoriatingly harsh …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and ABC News

Jeffrey M. Jones / Gallup:

Congressional Job Approval Highest in Nearly 12 Years — WASHINGTON, D.C. — Thirty-five percent of Americans currently approve of the way Congress is handling its job, a 10-percentage-point increase since January and the highest Gallup has measured in nearly 12 years.

Discussion: The Hill and Political Wire

Jonathan Swan / Axios:

Scoop: Allies worried Biden shaky on Putin's pipeline — Russia's adversaries in central and Eastern Europe are worried President Biden isn't willing to fight hard to stop the Russia-Germany gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 — one of Vladimir Putin's core priorities.

Discussion: New York Post, United States Department …, Politico and Townhall

Jonathan Easley / The Hill:

Former Trump officials eye bids for political office — Former Trump administration officials are testing the waters for political office, underscoring the former president's lasting influence on the Republican Party as it searches for a post-Trump identity.

Morgan Pehme / New York Post:

Cuomo's office terrorized me for doing my job as a journalist — It was 4:30 a.m., so I pulled the bathroom door shut in my one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment to answer the phone without waking my then-5-year-old. On the line was Melissa DeRosa, Gov. Cuomo's then-communications director, now his second-in-command.

Discussion: Gothamist and The Daily Caller

David Harsanyi / National Review:

Fauci Is Not Your God — His job is to relay information to the public, not threaten doom, or coax or trick us into doing things. — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief pandemic adviser to President Joe Biden, is a bureaucrat. He's not our parent, or our personal physician, or a shaman, or our life coach.

Discussion: AIER, The Federalist and MarketWatch

Mike Allen / Axios:

CDC meets “Deadliest Catch” — CDC partnered with Discovery Channel for a spot shot in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, using trusted voices to encourage mask use among skeptical men. — Why it matters: The PSA features the stars of “Deadliest Catch,” one of cable's top shows, with a big audience of white, conservative adults.