Women detail drug use, sex and payments after late-night parties with Gaetz and others  —  ‘Bombastic, antagonistic, unapologetic’: A look at Gaetz's political career  —  Orlando, FL (CNN)The first thing some of the women were asked to do when they got to the house parties in the gated community …

Capitol Police Told to Hold Back on Riot Response on Jan. 6, Report Finds  —  Despite being tipped that “Congress itself is the target” on Jan. 6, Capitol Police were ordered not to use their most powerful crowd-control weapons, according to a scathing new watchdog report.

POLITICO Playbook: ‘A gaslighting chamber of insanity’: Moderate Republicans seethe at Biden  —  DRIVING THE DAY  —  “It's a f—ing nightmare.”  —  That was the lament of a staffer working for one of the members of the so-called G-10, the group of 10 Republican senators who insist they're itching …

Hundreds of Companies Unite to Oppose Voting Limits, but Others Abstain  —  Amazon, Google, G.M. and Starbucks were among those joining the biggest show of solidarity by businesses over legislation in numerous states.  —  Amazon, BlackRock, Google, Warren Buffett and hundreds of other companies …

Republican U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady will retire from Congress at the end of his term  —  The Montgomery County Republican has served in Congress for more than two decades.  —  Copy link  —  WASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, announced Wednesday morning that this will be his last term serving in the U.S. House.

Democrats signal limited patience for GOP opposition to Biden infrastructure package  —  They are warming to the idea of using budget ‘reconciliation,’ which would allow them to bypass Republicans but could carry other risks  —  Top Senate Democrats on Tuesday signaled they may have no choice …

Why Pause The J&J Vaccine?  An Expert Explains The Decision  —  A former FDA official talks about how the agency makes these decisions and what it means for the fight to end the COVID-19 pandemic.  —  The decision by two key federal regulatory agencies to recommend a “pause” …

Going grifting via Black Lives Matter  —  Co-opting a serious social issue, leftist groups exact virtue-signal payments — but don't tell Twitter  —  ANALYSIS/OPINION:  —  “How to Become Rich Using Marxism, For Dummies” could have been the alternative title for Karl Marx's famous screed …

Bernard Madoff, Architect of Largest Ponzi Scheme in History, Is Dead at 82  —  His enormous fraud left behind a devastating human toll and paper losses totaling $64.8 billion.  —  Bernard L. Madoff, the one-time senior statesman of Wall Street who in 2008 became the human face of an era …

DeSantis wants voters' signatures to match.  Would his pass the test?  —  If the Florida governor gets his way, mail-in ballot signatures would have to match the most recent signature on file with the state.  His own signature history shows how autographs evolve.  —  Updated Just now

Bad news for journalists: The public doesn't share our values.  But there's hope.  —  Ask almost any group of journalists to name the core values of their profession, and they'll probably deliver a list like this:  —  Oversight.  We're the watchdogs keeping an eye on government officials and other powerful people and institutions.

Get Ready to Rumble With Big Business  —  Woke corporations aren't our friends and we should stop acting like they are.  If they want to play games with our rights, we should beat them like rented mules when it comes to their bottom line.  —  Serious question: Who died …

Trump didn't bring White working-class voters to the Republican Party.  The data suggest he kept them away.  —  White working-class voters had been moving to the Republican Party for years.  Trump stopped the trend.  —  Republican leaders have been hailing a class realignment of the parties.

McAuliffe Has Commanding Lead in Primary  —  PPP's newest Virginia poll continues to find Terry McAuliffe with a strong advantage in the primary for Governor.  McAuliffe is at 42% with the rest of the Democratic hopefuls in single digits.  Jennifer Carroll Foy and Jennifer McClellan each get 8% …

The veteran air force pilot hoping to oust scandal-hit Republican Matt Gaetz  —  Bryan Jones will challenge the congressman, who is under investigation for alleged sex trafficking, in the next primary  —  A veteran air force pilot is laying the groundwork to challenge the scandal-hit congressman Matt Gaetz …

China Smears Former Xinjiang Residents Who Testified About Abuses in the Region  —  Among the 13 is an RFA Uyghur Service reporter Beijing says is on a ‘terrorist watchlist.’  —  China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has denounced more than a dozen former residents of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region …

The Soul of Bravo A year of national reckonings on race and inequality has tested how real the Housewives should be.  —  In 2020, Leva Bonaparte considered a job opportunity.  Bravo had been pursuing the hospitality executive for years in an attempt to get her to join the cast of Southern Charm.

Welcome to the New Progressive Era  —  Washington in the first days of the Biden administration is a place for double takes: A president associated with the politics of austerity is spending money with focused gusto, a crisis isn't going to waste, and Senator Bernie Sanders is happy.

Self-identified Antifa members arrive in Twin Cities area as Brooklyn Center protests continue  —  ‘I saw leaf-blowers out there, different kinds of ... makeshift shields and things,’ said Mike Tobin.  —  FOX reporter Mike Tobin: Some rioters identified themselves as Antifa

A minor investigation into the Bidens' Major problem  —  The Goldwater Rule prohibits mental health professionals from diagnosing presidents from afar.  It does not, however, apply to their pets.  And so we must respectfully ask: What's the deal with Major Biden?

The FBI wanted to unlock the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone.  It turned to a little-known Australian firm.  —  Azimuth unlocked the iPhone at the center of an epic legal battle between the FBI and Apple.  Now, Apple is suing the company co-founded by one of the hackers behind the unlock.

“I Felt Hate More Than Anything”: How an Active Duty Airman Tried to Start a Civil War  —  Steven Carrillo's path to the Boogaloo Bois shows the hate group is far more organized and dangerous than previously known. … Co-published with FRONTLINE.  —  The Insurrection  —  The Effort to Overturn the Election

Court Vindicates Black Officer Fired for Stopping Colleague's Chokehold  —  Cariol Horne acted to keep a white officer from using what she saw as excessive force.  Fifteen years later, a judge said her firing was wrong.  —  It was a cold November day in Buffalo when Officer Cariol Horne responded …

There's no vaccine for hypocrisy  —  The latest battle in the COVID-19 culture wars involves “vaccine passports,” with some Republican leaders taking a surprisingly anti-business and pro-regulation stance.  Despite the term's ubiquity, there is no one official vaccine passport …

What Was America Doing in Afghanistan?  —  The soldiers living in the concrete maze of Combat Outpost (COP) Michigan treated the Taliban fire that poured in from the mountains as though it were weather: Bursts of machine-gun bullets were akin to drizzle, volleys of rocket-propelled grenades more like heavy rain.

All US states ranked from best to worst, according to Americans  —  There are endless rankings of the US states: whether they are the best places to live, the best places to do business, how much fun they are.  Such judgements are made by economists, companies, and journalists - but what do Americans themselves think?

New Target for New York's Ascendant Left: Rep. Carolyn Maloney  —  Justice Democrats, a left-wing group that fueled the rise of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is backing Rana Abdelhamid's primary bid.  —  Nearly three years ago, a little-known left-wing organization helped engineer …