RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel is expected to pay Trump a visit at Mar-a-Lago early next week. My look at how GOP figures, particularly Lindsey Graham, are handling Trump and trying to shape the party going forward:

https://twitter.com/jdawsey1/status/1363229710768037890

Hours after a violent mob ransacked the Capitol last month in support of President Donald Trump, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham vowed he had seen enough.

“Count me out,” Graham (R-S.C.) said in an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, adding that he was sad to see his journey with Trump end this way. In an interview two days later, Graham said “he’d never been so humiliated and embarrassed for the country” and spoke in palpable frustration over how his longtime ally handled the riot.

Just weeks later, he is singing a different tune. Graham is set to visit the former president’s gilded Mar-a-Lago Club on Sunday to spend two days golfing and dining with Trump. He has spoken to the former president nearly daily since Jan. 6 — more frequently than any of his Republican colleagues in the Senate — and served as an informal adviser to Trump’s defense team during his Senate impeachment trial this month.

Meanwhile, Graham said he has not spoken with President Biden, a longtime friend from the Senate, since his Jan. 20 inauguration.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/lindsey-graham-donald-trump/2021/02/20/178afc0a-72ca-11eb-a4eb-44012a612cf9_story.html

Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg broke multiple barriers this month when he was sworn in as President Joe Biden’s transportation secretary. He became the first openly gay Cabinet member to win Senate confirmation and the youngest person, at 39, to lead the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“You can really feel the history swirling around us when the vice president was swearing me in with my husband, Chasten, at my side,” Buttigieg said in an interview with NBC News’ Snapchat show “Stay Tuned.” Vice President Kamala Harris, like Buttigieg, made political history this year: She is the first woman and first Black and South Asian person to hold the country’s second-highest office.

Buttigieg, who served in the military under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, noted that it was not long ago that someone like him would have been explicitly prohibited from holding any government job.

“There have been times in living memory where you couldn't have any job in the federal government if you were gay. Thousands of people lost their jobs, lost their livelihoods because of that kind of discrimination,” he said. “So it's a really encouraging sign about the change that can happen but also a reminder that we've got a long way to go.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/buttigieg-could-feel-history-swirling-when-kamala-harris-swore-him-n1258378

Tiffany’s announced they will not be renewing their $7 million dollar annual lease with The Trump Organization. That will leave them with an empty ground floor retail location located around the corner from its marquee Trump Tower.

Vice President Joe Biden give Champ the stuffed animal to Alahy Cerrillo, 5, of Evans, Colorado at the FEMA Disaster Recovery Center in Greely, Colorado, Sept. 23, 2013. More than 15,600 people have applied for FEMA aid so far in response to the flooding, at $19.6 million and rising. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/photos-and-video/photo/2013/09/vice-president-joe-biden-give-champ-stuffed-animal-alahy-cerrillo-5

Right now: Boogaloo activists in Atlanta, Georgia prepare weapons ahead of an anti-ICE protest they’re about to hold in front of the immigration court here.

I’ll be livestreaming shortly.

https://twitter.com/FordFischer/status/1363185114302345219

Part one of an ongoing series on right-wing extremism and the radicalization of the Michigan Republican Party.

Two months before Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, an angry mob descended on the basement of the TCF Center in downtown Detroit.

Shouting "Stop the count!" and "Let us in!" they pounded on the windows of a large conference room, where workers were counting absentee ballots for the general election. A prayer circle broke out, and some held signs that read "No Reason for Treason" and "Christians for Trump."

Police scrambled to stop them from getting inside as election workers looked on in fear.

At the center of the chaos were state State Rep. Matt Maddock, R-Milford, and his wife, Michigan Republican Party co-chair Meshawn Maddock — an antagonistic, Trump-loving power couple whose influence is growing as the state GOP shifts further to the right.

https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/how-a-michigan-couple-radicalized-the-states-gop-and-emboldened-insurrectionists/Content