Sleepless Nights:  The 18-year-old woman who shot the 9 minute, 49 second video of George Floyd dying at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer testified yesterday that she’s had sleepless nights over what she saw.

  Darnella Frazier said, “It’s been nights I stayed up apologizing and apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting and not saving his life.” Referring to the defendant Derek Chauvin she said though, “But it’s like, it’s not what I should have done, it’s what he should have done.”

  In his second day on the stand witness Donald Williams, who had been present during the incident, said he called 911 even though police were already on the scene.  He told prosecutor Matthew Frank, “That is correct. I did call the police on the police.”

        Frank: All right. Why did you do that?

        Williams: Because I believe I witnessed a murder.

        Frank: And so you felt a need to call the police.

        Williams: Yeah, I felt the need to call the police on the police.

  In his call to 911, Williams told the operator that Chauvin “just pretty much just killed this guy that wasn’t resisting arrest. He had his knee on the dude’s neck the whole time, officer 987. The man went and stopped breathing.”

  Defense lawyer Eric Nelson tried to paint Williams as part of an angry mob that had Chauvin distracted from paying proper attention to what he was doing. Nelson quoted Williams calling Chauvin, “tough guy,” “a real man,” “such a man,” and “bogus.” Nelson said, “You called him a bum at least 13 times.”

  The lawyer asked, “Those terms grew more and more angry, would you agree with that?” Williams answered, “They grew more and more pleading for life.”

Blind Hatred: Amidst rising incidents of hate crimes against Asians in the US, an incident in New York captured on video has brought the phenomenon into focus. A petite 65-year-old Filipino woman walking in Manhattan was abruptly knocked to the ground and stomped by a man the size of an NFL linebacker who shouted “You don’t belong here.”

  Video from inside an apartment building shows three men doing nothing to help and the security guard closing the front door as the woman struggled to get up.

  From the video, police identified the assailant as Brandon Elliot, 38, who lives in a nearby hotel that serves as a homeless shelter. He’s on parole after serving time for killing his own mother. 

Building Back: President Biden is scheduled to travel to Pittsburgh today to unveil his eight-year $2 trillion infrastructure plan. It includes 20,000 miles of re-built roads and fixing the 10 most important bridges in the country.

  Biden’s plan would bring federal investment in the economy to its highest level since the 1960s. He would pay for it, in part, by raising the corporate tax rate from 21 to 28 percent.

Jail Bait: Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Republican with ambition and  a vocal supporter of Donald Trump, is under investigation for the possibility that he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and paid for her travel to be with him, The NY Times Reports. The paper cites three unnamed sources.

  Under federal law it’s illegal to help or induce a minor to cross state lines to engage in sex for pay or something of value. 

  The relationship is believed to have occurred two years ago. Information about Gaetz’s activities appears to have turned up during the investigation of the Seminole County tax collector, who’s now charged with sex trafficking of a child and financially supporting people, one old them an underage girl, in exchange for sex.

  Gaetz tweeted last night that he’s the target of a scheme saying, “Over the past several weeks my family and I have been victims of an organized criminal extortion involving a former DOJ official seeking $25 million while threatening to smear my name.”

Trumpification: Fox News seems to be betting that the future is Donald Trump. The network announced that Trump’s odious former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany will host a daytime show called “Outnumbered” along with Harris Faulkner.

  This  comes on top of the announcement that Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, will be a paid commentator on the network. 

  Fox has been trying to get back in #45’s graces after accurately calling Arizona for Joe Biden on election night, sending the then president into a rage. 

The Obit Page: G. Gordon Liddy, the lawyer who plotted the bungled Watergate break-in that led to the downfall of President Richard Nixon, has died at age 90 in Mount Vernon, Virginia.

  As the leader of the infamous White House “Plumbers Unit,” Liddy was a conspiracy-minded adviser to Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign. He hatched bizarre schemes never carried out involving honey traps with prostitutes and kidnappings.

  But along with former CIA agent E. Howard Hunt. Liddy organized a team that twice broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington’s Watergate complex to plant bugs and photograph documents.  The second time, the team was caught.

  Liddy never talked and went to jail without ratting out any of his accomplices. Nixon resigned in disgrace.

Buzzer Beaters: The NCAA men’s basketball tournament is narrowed down to Baylor v. Houston and Gonzaga v. UCLA. In the women’s, it’s Stanford v. UConn and South Carolina v. Arizona. 

The Spin Rack: Two Capitol police officers are suing former President Donald Trump for their injuries in the January 6^th insurrection. — The National Football League is adding a 17^th game to the season. More games, more money. — President Biden’s German Shepard “major” has bitten someone for the second time in a month, the White House reports. A spokesman for First Lady Jill Biden said, “Major is still adjusting to his new surroundings.” 

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