Greene Sidelined: The House of Representatives, with just 11 Republicans joining the Democrats, last night voted to remove conspiracy-minded Georgia freshman Marjorie Taylor Greene from her assignments to the education and finance committees.

  It strips Greene of any power to influence legislation.

  Greene had espoused theories that school shootings were staged, a terrorist-piloted jet never crashed into the Pentagon, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi should be executed.  

  Earlier, wearing a mask with “Free Speech” printed on it, Greene spoke claiming victimhood and that she stopped believing in QAnon conspiracies back in 2018. As if she’s not an agent of free will, Greene said, “I was allowed to believe things that weren’t true.” She allowed herself, is what happened.

  She said, “And if this Congress is to tolerate members that condone riots that have hurt American people, attack police officers, occupied federal property, burned businesses and cities, but yet wants to condemn me and crucify me in the public square for words that I said, and I regret a few years ago, then I think we’re in a real big problem, a very big problem.” 

The Trump Defense: Donald Trump’s lawyers quickly spurned a request by House impeachment managers to have the former President testify next week at his Senate impeachment trial.

 In a letter to Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the lead House manager prosecuting the case, the lawyers called the request a “public relations stunt.” The newly-retained lawyers, Bruce L. Castor Jr. and David Schoen, wrote that, “Your letter only confirms what is known to everyone: you cannot prove your allegations against the 45th president of the United States, who is now a private citizen.”

  Raskin had written to Trump that because Trump is denying the facts of his article of impeachment charging him with inciting the Capitol insurrection, “If you decline this invitation, we reserve any and all rights , including the right to establish at trial that your refusal to testify supports a strong adverse inference regarding your actions ( and inaction ) on January 6, 2021.”

Real Money: The Senate yesterday by a vote of 51-50 approved President Biden’s $1.9 trillion bailout bill by a vote of 51-50. It will likely pass the House.

Deep Pockets: The election technology company Smartmatic has filed a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News and several of the network’s most prominent commentators, claiming they “decimated” the company’s business by falsely accusing it of helping to steal the election from former president Donald Trump.

  Dominion Voting Systems has filed similar suits.

  Smartmatic says it identified “100 false statements and implications” about its services made on Fox programs, pointing the finger in particular at  Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro. 

Teacher Says: Teacher unions in major cities are fighting efforts to send them back to classrooms without getting vaccinated for the coronavirus. The Biden administration, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, as well as other state and federal officials have said it can be done safely. 

  But in Chicago, for instance, teachers refuse to return despite an effort to get them vaccinated. Only about 10 percent of  Chicago’s 37,000 public school employees have been vaccinated or been offered one. They don’t say how many have actually gotten the shots. 

  Nonetheless, “There is increasing data to suggest that schools can safely reopen, and that safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated, ” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the new director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a briefing of the White House COVID-19 response team.

  The teachers don’t believe it.

Viral News: AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine might not only cause immunity but could reduce transmission of the virus for as much as three months before patients can get their second dose, British researchers say. The theory is that getting the first shot into more people and delaying the second will help quash the pandemic.

   The normally recommended time between doses has been four weeks.

   America scientists, including infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, aren’t buying it. he says the US will “go by the science” of initial trials and stick to three and four week intervals between shots.

Cleanup: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin this week announced plans plans for military-wide stand-downs to attack the problem of white supremacy in the ranks. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said, “We don’t know how we’re going to be able to get after this in a meaningful, productive, tangible way.”  But, he said, the January 6^th Capitol insurrection “had an electric effect here at the Department of Defense in terms of the notion that anybody active duty, let alone in the veteran community and active duty could be involved in that.”

  The US military has a million members and screens half a million people a year to pick 200,000 new recruits. Heather Williams of RAND Corporation wrote for Defense One that, “We need to recognize that the military cannot fully eradicate a scourge that is breeding and expanding around it. The military has a growing extremism problem because America does.” 

To the Right of Crazy: The leader of a private paramilitary group that provided security last fall for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said he has formed alliances with other far-right groups to advocate for Georgia’s secession from the union, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. following the arrests of participants in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

  Justin Thayer, head of the Georgia III% Martyrs, said in a text exchange with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution this week that as a result of arrests in the January 6^th insurrection, “The way patriots are now being hunted down and arrested by fellow men and women who have taken the same oath has disheartened any faith I had in the redemption or reformation of the USA as one entity” 

Deep Thoughts: Former Vice President Mike Pence signed on to work with the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, which seems to believe he can think.

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