Trump Supporters Are The Biggest COVID-19 Spreaders

Op Ed: This is good. Nearly all MAGAts are White and among them most are male. I
Fat Bastard am a proud male chauvinist pig oink oink oink but I think a 10% reduction of

the male MAGAt population would improve society. Sure, there are a lot of female MAGAts

but we can and should have them spayed. We don't want those fat sows breeding. If some

desperate guy wants to put a clothes pin on his nose and pork one of them there is no way

he should impregnate one of them.

Trumpism is much like a virus. When the spreaders are exterminated or their ability to 

spread it is curtailed the virus dies out. MAGAts are like an infestation of ants. The best way

to end and infestation is by deploy in poisoned bait. The bait is Trumpism and the poison is

the virus.

Let hope that more and more deadly strains of the virus appear and more and more MAGAt

refuse masks and vaccines.

If you toss MAGAts out the the mix, the percentage of  Whites who wear masks will be at

or above the levels of other humans.

 

White people least likely to wear 

masks consistently, study finds

Abby Haglage

Fri, January 22, 2021, 6:18 PM

A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the virus continues to wreak havoc on the U.S., forcing schools and businesses in major cities to shutter. Now a new study from the University of Southern California is shedding light on one problem that may be contributing to the continued spread: inconsistent mask wearing.

The research, released on Thursday by USC’s Center for Economic and Social Research, comes from the group’s Understanding America Study, a nationally representative online sample of more than 6,000 respondents. While the vast majority of those polled agreed that masks are an effective way to combat COVID-19, just 51 percent said they consistently wear a mask when hanging out with people outside their household. The numbers become even more stark when divided by race.

White people, the researchers found, were the least likely of any race to wear a mask consistently, with just 46 percent reporting that they wear one while in close contact with people they do not live with. That was compared with 67 percent of Black people, 63 percent of Latinos and 65 percent of people from other races.

Dr. Uché Blackstock, founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity and a Yahoo Life medical contributor, says the statistics aren’t unexpected. “It’s not terribly surprising,” Blackstock says. “The videos that we've seen on social media and television of people refusing to wear a mask or demonstrating against it have been predominantly white.”

Anti-mask protests have indeed been dominated by white people, many of them wearing T-shirts or waving flags that bear the name of Donald Trump. The former president was openly opposed to masks early on and did not publicly wear one until late July. He consistently devalued them throughout his presidency, saying, “maybe they’re not so good” in August and asking a reporter to take one off in September.

An anti-mask protester in Austin, Texas, in April 2020. (Sergio Flores/Getty Images)

His comments spurred large anti-mask demonstrations across the U.S. over the summer, including one in Austin, Texas, led by InfoWars’ Alex Jones. While major protests against mask-wearing seem to have died down, smaller groups continue to demonstrate against them, with one marching through a Los Angeles mall two weeks ago and another group trying to shop maskless at a Trader Joe’s in Oregon last week.

The groups operate under the belief that mandates requiring masks — which have been found to reduce COVID-19 spread by as much as 80 percent — are an infringement on their rights. Blackstock says that this line of thinking isn’t often shared by Black and brown people, who have long seen their rights stripped away through systemic racism. “I think for white Americans to be in a situation where they’re being told what to do, for some of them it's very difficult to hear because that is unusual,” she explains. “Whereas for many Black Americans, I can speak for myself as a Black woman ... we're used to being told what to do, or having restrictions placed on us.”

On top of the privilege that may be fueling the disparity, Blackstock says that Black Americans and Latinos have shared experiences that lead to a strong sense of community, which may not always be true for white Americans. Experts have noted that many who refuse to wear masks are operating more from an individualism stance than one of collective responsibility. In fact, one recent study by the Brookings Institution found that 40 percent of Americans who reported not wearing a mask said they chose not to because it was their “right as an American.”

“The essential values this country was founded on are individualism and personal responsibility — and this idea of community is not something that is necessarily inherent in American culture,” says Blackstock. She believes that for this reason, many white Americans may view mask-wearing from a narrower lens. “Even though wearing a mask is something that protects you and protects people that you love and other people in your community, it’s seen as an infringement of your rights,” she says. “Instead of being seen as something that could help others, it's being seen as a threat to your [freedom].”

Despite the damage this narrative has done, she and other experts in the COVID-19 sphere seem hopeful that President Biden’s administration will ignite a collective response that embraces mask wearing. One reason she’s optimistic is an executive order that Biden signed this week requiring federal employees to wear masks while on federal grounds.

“When you are in these buildings and institutions that are part of the government, you have to wear a mask. That is an expectation, and maybe that will translate to how people feel when they are outside of those institutions in the public as well,” says Blackstock. “I think that symbolically it was important for President Biden to execute that order. Although he can’t mandate it for every state, for every American he is making this symbolic gesture of saying, ‘Masks are important.’”

COVID 19 Deaths: Texas vs South Dakota vs Texas

 

South Dakota has less than 1 million people and a very low population density. The should have a lot less infections and deaths than they do. United States Coronavirus: 25,702,125 Cases and 429,490 Deaths SD 1705 deaths and 884,659 population and 107,148 cases.

Japan has 360,661 cases 5016 deaths and a population of 125,255,761. If I had to choose who to live around, the Japanese or the North Dakotians, I’d choose the Japanese in a heart beat. Japan didn’t have to even do a lock down. President Abe asked the people to wear masks and they did while a lot of Americans, mostly Trumpers, whined about it and defied commonsense, science, and basic human decency. Now a lot of them are dead and dying. I’d be OK with that if the virus only killed them and did it quickly but they are still out putting everyone at risk and wrecking the economy.

We should not even be discussing vaccine roll outs. Had a certain large group of Americans demonstrated some basic common decency and given our population and population density and had we had a competent leader our death tolls could have been around 10,000 instead of 440,000.

South Dakota is a lovely state infested with rotten stupid people. 

Let's hope that Trumpers in the red states continue their vile and depraved behaviors and combine the with their ignorance and not get the vaccine. If this happens there could be COVID-19 hot spots all over Trumpistan.

To put this into even more perspective Texas is reporting 35,193 deaths and a population of 29 million. Texas has 7 times COVID-19 more deaths than the entire country than Japan. When we factor in the under reporting of COVID-19 deaths in Texas, the real death toll is probably 10 times higher.

Trump's Legacy

 

Send Treasonous Liar Madison Cawthorn To A Guillotine

 

The Ignominious Deceits of Traitorous Congressman Cawthorn

Representative Madison Cawthorn has misled the public about training for the Paralympics, just as he misrepresented his education and business history.

By Sara LutermanTwitter

Before January 6, 25-year-old Representative Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) was known for being the youngest member of Congress, an ardent Trump supporter, and one of the few wheelchair users in elected office. Now he is in the headlines for giving a speech at the “Stop the Steal” rally prior to the insurrection at the Capitol that left five people dead. Throughout his short but meteoric political career, Cawthorn has used his disability to tell a story of overcoming: Despite great adversity, he claims to have achieved excellence through grit and physical strength. Many of his campaign ads featured images of Cawthorn intubated and hospitalized alongside videos of him lifting weights and hurtling forward in a racing wheelchair. But his claims of sporting success—like his accounts of education and business acumen—have often been misleading.

Cawthorn became disabled after a 2014 car crash left him paralyzed from the waist down. By Cawthorn’s own telling, he was a successful business owner headed to the Naval Academy before his injury tragically reordered his life. As it turns out, neither claim is true. The Asheville Watchdog reported that Cawthorn had already been rejected from the Naval Academy before his accident. And Cawthorn’s real-estate investment firm, SPQR Holdings LLC, which he only formed in August 2019, reported no income on its tax documents, and Cawthorn was the sole employee.

But he has not only styled himself as Naval Academy material with a head for real estate. Multiple outlets reported that before he ran for office, Cawthorn was training for the 2020 Paralympic Games. There is little detail, but according to Micah Bock, Cawthorn’s campaign communications director, he intended to compete in the 400-meter dash at the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo. It would have been an incredible footnote in a politician’s biography: Paralympians are celebrated and accomplished athletes. But his hopes for the Paralympic Games, now slated for summer 2021, were allegedly dashed by his worsening disability.

Cawthorn frequently said on social media that he was “training” for the Paralympic Games. Technically, such a statement could be true—but only in the sense that I could be training for the Olympic Games. “It’s like a kid saying they want to play in the NBA when they’re on their fourth-grade basketball team,” said Amanda McGrory, a three-time Paralympian who has earned seven medals in track and field. Cawthorn stated on the Christian inspirational podcast The Heal, “I had an opportunity for the Paralympics for track and field.” He did not have that opportunity, nor does it appear he took any meaningful steps that would have led him there.

Paralympians are the best at what they do. Qualifying is a long, complicated process. In addition to being a Paralympian, McGrory is the archivist and collections curator for the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. She told me: “You have to be involved in a team, usually your college or a local club. And then from there, you establish times at qualifying races, and then from there you get scouted.” Patrick Henry College, which Cawthorn attended for a semester before dropping out, doesn’t have a disabled sports program.

In addition to not being on a team, Cawthorn does not appear to have competed in any qualifying races. Robert Kozarek, a former elite wheelchair marathoner, said he would have met Cawthorn at some point if he had been serious competition. Kozarek himself never qualified for the Paralympic Games. “The community itself is small. There’s probably 50 [elite wheelchair racers] in the entire country, and we see each other four, five, six times a year, at least.”

In addition to being on a team and establishing times at qualifying races, prospective Paralympians need to be internationally classified. “The International Paralympic Committee, the IPC, they have a registry of athletes. You have to be on it to even compete internationally,” McGrory explained. People on the list are evaluated for severity of disability and sorted accordingly, in an attempt to make athletic competitions between people with different disabilities fairer. The list is publicly available, and contains over 4,000 athletes from around the world. Cawthorn isn’t on it.

Brian Siemann, however, is on the list. He represented Team USA in track and field in the 2012 and 2016 Paralympic Games. “I’m still training for 2021,” Siemann told me during our interview. Siemann like Cawthorn, uses a wheelchair. He is passionate about athletic competition for disabled people. “I truly believe in the power of sports in helping people realize that even though you have a disability, you are capable, and there are opportunities and outlets for you.… I never want to make someone feel like it’s impossible.”

But what Cawthorn said on social media about his Paralympic training was often impossible, according to Siemann, McGrory, and multiple other former and current Paralympians. For example, in one post from May 2019, Cawthorn uses the hashtag “qualifiers.” In another post from February 2019, Cawthorn mentions that he is going to the “US Open” in June. But McGrory told me, “There were no qualifying meets in 2019.” Both she and Siemann had no idea what the “US Open” in Cawthorn’s post could possibly refer to.

McGrory remembered the first video she saw in which Cawthorn claims he is going to break the world record for the 100-meter dash while using what is, essentially, a wheelchair treadmill. He says to the camera while panting through his exercises, “Thirteen point seven six. To most of you it’s just a number. But for me, it’s all I can think about. Thirteen point seven six seconds is the world record for the 100-meter dash. So in Tokyo, August 2020, that world record’s going down.” McGrory recalled what she’d thought at the time: “Who is this guy? Why does he think he’s going to break world records? This is really weird. I don’t think he has any idea what he’s talking about.”

Siemann admitted, a little sheepishly, that he and other elite athletes were aware of Cawthorn long before he ran for office. In fact, Cawthorn’s Instagram feed was a bit of a running joke. “[My teammates and I] would share whatever posts [Cawthorn] put up and be like, ‘Look at what batshit thing he said about the Paralympics this week.… The claims he was making were just so absurd, you have to find some humor in it.”

There is one real, identifiable race Cawthorn namedrops on Instagram: The Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta, which he described as “the biggest 10K in the world, which I anticipated to win.” It does bill itself as the world’s largest 10K, but Cawthorn was not likely to win. Multiple elite racers were slated to compete, including Daniel Romanchuk, who holds the world record for fastest wheelchair marathon in history. According to Siemann, Romanchuk is “arguably the fastest man in the world.”

Despite attracting elite racers, Peachtree is a relaxed affair, and is in no way qualifying for the US Paralympic Games. “It’s a turkey trot kind of thing,” explained Siemann, who has raced Peachtree multiple times. “People get up in the morning, you run your contest, and then it’s the Fourth of July. There’s no qualifications. If you want to sign up, you can sign up.”

The Peachtree Road Race is significant, because the Shepherd Center, a rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta, partners with the race to coordinate the logistics for the wheelchair division. The Shepherd Center primarily supports people with newly acquired spinal cord injuries, some of whom have gone on to become Paralympians. “People essentially learn the basics of how to be a person with a disability [at the Shepherd Center],” Siemann told me.

Halfway through the Peachtree Road Race, after what Siemann called “Cardiac Hill,” the route passes the Shepherd Center. “What’s really cool is [Shepherd Center staff] bring a bunch of younger patients to cheer you on. It’s a great opportunity for them to see what’s possible if you work hard and train,” Siemann said.

Multiple athletes expressed frustration, not just with Cawthorn but with the general ignorance of disability and athletics. If Cawthorn had claimed to be preparing for the 400 meters in the Summer Olympics, the press would have ridiculed him, but no one in media questioned his claims of training for the Paralympics. “There is such a lack of awareness about the Paralympic Movement,” Siemann said. “[People] don’t understand the time and effort and energy that Paralympic athletes put in their training. It’s an elite sport. You can’t just get in a racing chair. That’s really not how it works.”

What Mary Trump Wants You To Know

 

Author Mary Trump says she is 'the only Trump who is willing to tell the world about the kind of man Donald is' - AP

When Donald Trump was a bratty seven-year-old, his older brother Freddy dumped a bowl of mashed potato on his head during a particularly fractious dinner. The story became a family legend, retold at many a Trump gathering – not so much to tease the man who to many had gone on to become an even bigger brat in adulthood, as to remember and honour Freddy Trump, who died of a heart attack brought on by alcoholism at 42.

The night of April 4th 2017 was no different, writes Freddy’s daughter Mary in her bestselling book, Too Much And Never Enough: How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man. Except that this family supper was the first to take place at the White House, and that boy was now President of the United States. Nevertheless when Mary’s aunt Maryanne brought up the story again, Donald was as furious as ever, listening “with his arms tightly crossed and a scowl on his face.” Even though he had made the highest office in the land, it still “upset him, as if he were that seven-year-old boy,” she says. “It was extraordinary to see what happened to him when that story was told. He clearly still felt the sting.”

Ask Mary Trump what her uncle will have felt on Biden’s inauguration day, and the 55-year-old psychologist and author is in no doubt. “As though America was dumping a great pile of mashed potato on his head,” she tells me this on a Zoom call from her New York apartment. As “the only Trump who is willing to tell the world about the kind of man he is” Wednesday, she says, was “a day for me to break out the champagne.”

It’s hard to believe they share the same DNA. Engaging and eloquent, Mary Trump is a fantastic interview and an accomplished writer, with an ability to see humor in the darkest of hours. Yet all levity disappears when she tells me how “the damage Donald has done to this country is incalculable. We’re just waiting to find out how much is irreparable.” And having described the horror she felt at sharing a name with the man responsible for that damage in the book, Mary Trump has come to a decision: “I am prepared to change my name if need be”, so worried she is about the connotations it may have in the future.

Mary Trump is the author of Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World's Most Dangerous Man

Of all the revelatory anecdotes in her book – detailing everything from the destructive family relationships that she believes shaped Trump to the casual manner in which her uncle would allegedly dismiss women as “ugly fat slobs” and men as “losers” – the mashed potato story is perhaps the most telling. That he is probably the most famous man in the world right now won’t matter to him, “because ‘losing’ in Donald’s mind is the worst thing.”

The single mother lived in fear of reprisals after publishing the book that made headlines all over the world in July. Some refused to believe her accounts, insisting she was powered by malice or ‘cashing in’, but after a temporary blocking of the book’s publication, the courts ruled that Mary Trump had the right to tell her version of events. “I hired around the clock security for a month,” she explains. “I wasn’t going to take any chances.” But nothing worse came her way beyond ‘When are your 15 minutes going to be up?’, and ‘How dare you be so disloyal to your family’”.

Donald Trump with his mother and father Mary Anne Trump and Fred Trump, in 1992 - Shutterstock

Talk of family loyalty prompts a bemused laugh. For Mary, who supported Hillary Clinton in 2016, the greater loyalty was to her countrymen. “My agenda was simply to help people understand who he is. I wanted people who genuinely thought he was a successful guy before becoming president to know the truth.” Because as his niece “it never occurred to me that anybody would take him seriously. I didn’t realise how thoroughly the truth about Donald was buried outside of New York city.”

To those who kept hoping her uncle would miraculously “become presidential” over the past four years, Mary Trump wanted to stress “how incapable of change” she believes he is.

“With Covid, for example, he would only have had to show some empathy, and wear a mask. That’s it.” Was that refusal to wear a mask pure vanity? “Oh there’s no doubt. But also about a refusal to acknowledge the seriousness of something that was bad, negative, a disease. Donald didn’t want to be associated with those things. And whilst I wasn’t surprised by anything he did – not the building of walls and cages – even I still can’t quite believe that Donald decided to politicize mask wearing.”

This week the US Covid death-toll surpassed 400,000 – that’s “as many lives in one year as America lost in all of World War II”, Biden pointed out in his inauguration speech. Trying to make sense of her uncle’s behaviours takes her readers back to his upbringing. It is both enlightening and sad. Plagued by a series of health problems, Trump’s mother “remained a bystander”, and became “increasingly distant” as her five children grew up, while his father, Fred, refused to punish him for the “selfishness, obstinacy, or cruelty” he displayed as a child, encouraging “a killer instinct” while discouraging qualities “like kindness and empathy.” “As I was writing I realised that I felt enormous amounts of compassion for those children,” she tells me. “They had a horrible childhood and suffered enormously. But do I feel compassion for my uncle now? No.”

That lack of compassion extends to Trump’s inner circle, a circle she was never a part of but has now definitively alienated herself from. “While I blame Donald for a lot of things, I blame his enablers even more, just like I blame my grandfather even more.” Ivanka Trump, whose lavish New Jersey wedding she attended in 2009 “has got where she’s got because of who she’s related to,” says Mary, who believes the U-turn Ivanka was credited with forcing her father to make after the Capitol riots was more likely "down to a team of lawyers stressing the potential legal consequences if he didn't do it." Any hope of her forging a political career now is “just adorable.”

And what of Melania? A video of the stony-faced former First Lady refusing to pose for the cameras in her Kardashian-style Gucci kaftan after touching down in Palm Beach this week has gone viral, with many speculating that it wasn’t just presidential duties she was striding away from, but their marriage. Mary Trump isn’t convinced that’s the case. Does she think he loves her though? “I don’t believe he understands affection or intimacy.”

The reality TV world that was clearly her uncle’s ‘happy place’ – and a world he should have remained confined to – may beckon him back, but not says Mary “if there is any justice in the world.”

Ask the author what she would say to Trump if he suddenly appeared before her now, and she shouts: “‘Help!’ Because he wouldn’t be wearing a mask,” before growing serious again. “No, there are just two things I’d like to say. The first, a question: ‘Donald, what movie did you go and see while my dad was dying alone in the hospital?’ And then I’d say: ‘Your father would be horrified by what a loser you turned out to be. Because for him that would be worse than anything.”

Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man is out now, published by Simon & Schuster, £20.

Traitorous Lauren Boebert Needs To Eat a Gun and So Do Her Supporters

 Gun control advocate Eileen McCarron faced blowback last year when she quipped that newly elected Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert would be heading to Washington to lead the "nut-job caucus."

Afterward, McCarron said she wondered if she had gone too far. But then she saw Boebert rail about the 2020 elections, demand to carry a handgun onto the House floor, and send incendiary tweets about 1776 ahead of the U.S. Capitol violence on Jan. 6. Now, McCarron told ABC News, she thinks Boebert "may actually be worse" than she feared.

"I think it's become clear she is a menace to our country," said McCarron, the president of Colorado Ceasefire.

Boebert, 34, is just days into her first term as a member of Congress, and already the fast-talking, gun-toting tavern owner is proving to be a provocative and disruptive force -- a reputation she says she relishes.

"I know I am exactly where I am supposed to be for this moment," Boebert told ABC News. "I'm proud to be here. I'm not slowing down. I'm not backing down."

MORE: New York man who traveled to DC with Proud Boys arrested

The Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol served as a signal event for the Donald Trump presidency, and it has proven both defining and perilous for some of his staunchest supporters -- of which Boebert is one. In the weeks since the attack, Boebert has faced suspicion from many of her new colleagues in Washington. She has endured death threats and a flood of ridicule on social media. And she has seen strong reactions from critics and even some supporters back home in Colorado.

Some of Boebert's Colorado constituents hosted a rally calling for her expulsion from Congress last week. Democrats promoted an aggressive recruiting drive to field an opponent to run against her in 2022. And a group of 60 elected officials from the Western Colorado region Boebert represents wrote an open letter to congressional leaders calling for an investigation into Boebert's conduct during the Jan. 6 insurrection, which they described as "irresponsible and reprehensible."

"We have heard overwhelmingly from our constituents, therefore her constituents, that there is deep concern about her actions leading up to and during the protests that turned into a violent and deadly mob," the letter said.

PHOTO: Rep. Lauren Boebert joins other freshman Republican House members for a group photo at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 4, 2021. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Exactly what Boebert did leading up to and during the Capitol siege remains a subject of rumors, dispute and continued controversy.

On the morning of the siege, Boebert tweeted, "Today is 1776." She was speaking on the House floor against certifying Arizona's election results as rioters swarmed the Capitol, saying "The Constitution makes it necessary for me to object to this travesty." And as extremists poured into the Capitol, she tweeted: "The Speaker has been removed from the chambers."

Some of the most combustible claims leveled by her critics -- that she secretly gave reconnaissance tours of the Capitol to extremists, that her mother was a rioter, or that her tweet about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was intended to guide the mob -- appear to be entirely unsupported and have been met with sharp denials from Boebert herself.

MORE: The symbols of hate and far-right extremism on display in pro-Trump Capitol siege

"We are getting death threats over these slanderous claims," Boebert told ABC News. "This is complete malice. They know that this is not true and they are still running with it."

But there are reasons that the otherwise obscure freshman congresswoman has remained a focus of attention both in Washington and at home.

One of the militants arrested for participating in the riot posted a photo online last week in which he posed in front of the restaurant Boebert owns in her hometown of Rifle, Colorado. Authorities said the man, Robert Gieswein, is aligned with a militia group known as the "Three Percenters," which espouses anti-government and pro-gun views. The Southern Poverty Law Center says some members are dangerous "anti-government extremists" and the Anti-Defamation League has flagged members pushing white supremacist dogma.

PHOTO: The Daily Beast reported that U.S. Capitol riot suspect Robert Gieswein posted this photo on his Facebook page showing him in front of Rep. Lauren Boebert's Rifle, Colo., restaurant. Boebert said she does not know Gieswein. (Robert Gieswein/Facebook)

Another image, taken at a pro-gun rally shortly after Boebert launched her campaign in 2019, showed her posing with local members of the Three Percenters, which was one of two organizations credited with providing security at the rally, according to published reports.

Photos of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol showed some participants waving the Three Percenters flag during the riot.

In June, Boebert tweeted the provocative statement: "I am the militia."

When asked about her views on anti-government militia groups, Boebert said their activity is sanctioned by the U.S. Constitution -- but she stopped short of offering a full-throated endorsement of their efforts. She said she doesn't know Robert Gieswein, the Colorado man who had posed in front of her restaurant and who was later charged with participating in the Capitol siege. She said the photos she has taken with Three Percenters should not be viewed as an endorsement of their actions.

"Lots of people attend my campaign events," she said. "I'm not affiliated with any groups. Lots of people come out. Lots of people take photos with me. I'm not vetting every person that comes to my events."

A recent FBI report notes that simply espousing anti-government rhetoric is not against the law, but that these types of militias represent a security threat because of their efforts to "advance that ideology through force or violence," which is illegal.

Boebert took to Twitter on Jan. 6 to condemn the attack on the Capitol, which has been proven to involve large numbers of militia members from around the country. And she refuted many of the claims circulated about her as false -- telling ABC News, for instance, that her mother did not participate in the siege and was locked in Boebert's office the entire time.

PHOTO: Rep. Lauren Boebert speaks during a House debate session to ratify the 2020 presidential election at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (congress.gov via Getty Images, FILE)

Democrats have continued to question whether any Republican members took steps to aid the rioters. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said on Thursday that "if people did aid and abet, there will be more than just comments from colleagues here -- there will be prosecutions."

"We should have a full investigation," said Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., adding that the conduct of members of Congress should "absolutely" be looked at by the FBI.

Bryson Morgan, a former investigative counsel to the House Office of Congressional Ethics, said nothing revealed so far would indicate that Boebert could face discipline.

"But we keep learning more and more about the events of Jan. 6," Morgan said. "I would expect if a member was shown to be supporting an attack on the Capitol in any way, there would be swift action."

MORE: QAnon emerges as recurring theme of criminal cases tied to US Capitol siege

Groups that monitor militia activity said they are increasingly concerned by what they have been learning about Boebert. Scott Levin, director of the Colorado chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, said his group has not been able to tie Boebert directly to any extremist or hate groups -- but he said the events of Jan. 6 generated heightened suspicion.

"The language she uses is something that people will take cues from, and that will empower them and embolden them to act," Levin said. "And that's where the real danger is."

Back in Colorado, people in Boebert's district have been following her first days in Congress with a range of reactions. Boebert said she has received positive feedback from her constituents.

"My supporters who sent me to Washington, D.C., are happy with me," she said. "My base is growing."

MORE: Horn helmet-wearing, painted face Capitol rioter should remain in custody: DOJ

Matt Scherr, a commissioner in Eagle County, said Boebert is probably correct that her conduct is not likely to siphon away support -- even though he was upset by it. He said he does believe she needs to conduct herself with more care, now that she holds elective office.

"She is clearly passionate and a patriot," Scherr said. "We were not calling for her resignation or for her to be expelled. But we would hope she learns from this and shows some contrition about what happened from the Capitol."

Others say they are increasingly concerned by what they see as combustible rhetoric.

"I know she has a lot of supporters," said John Clark, the mayor of the town of Ridgway in Boebert's district.

"I just know my friends and acquaintances aren't happy at all about what occurred on Jan. 6 and her ensuing behavior," Clark said. "So many people are believing radical misinformation and it's really hard to convince them otherwise -- and unfortunately, Lauren Boebert is doing everything she can to spur them on."

For GOP firebrand Rep. Lauren Boebert, anger and suspicion linger after Capitol riot originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

Vladimir Putin's secret $1.4 billion palace

 Op Ed: If drones can fly over it, weapons can be dropped on it. 

Drone footage shows Vladimir 

Putin's secret $1.4 billion 

palace on Russia's Black Sea

Katie Warren

Fri, January 22, 2021, 4:20 AM

Putin's alleged secret palace has 11 bedrooms, Alexei Navalny/YouTube

• A video uploaded to YouTube on Tuesday purports to show a secret $1.4 billion palace on Russia's Black Sea that allegedly belongs to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

• Alexei Navalny, the Russian politician and Putin critic behind the video, alleges Putin and his billionaire friends secretly built the mansion using illicit funds. The Kremlin denies Putin has any connection the property.

• The video, which has more than 54 million views, appears to show drone footage of a lavish mansion and expansive grounds with two helipads, an underground hockey rink, a sculpture garden, and more.

• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

A YouTube video purporting to show a massive $1.4 billion palace on Russia's Black Sea that allegedly belongs to Russian President Vladimir Putin has racked up more than 54 million views since Tuesday evening.

The nearly two-hour video appears to show drone footage of an extravagant mansion, two helipads, a guest house, and multiple other structures across a sprawling coastal property. It was uploaded by Alexei Navalny, the Russian politician and Putin critic who was nearly killed by a nerve agent attack in Germany last year.

Navalny, who's currently being held in a Moscow jail, alleges that Putin secretly had the Black Sea residence built using illicit funds from his billionaire friends.

"[They] built a palace for their boss with this money," Navalny says in the video.

The palace sits on roughly 170 acres and is worth an estimated $1.4 billion, according to Navalny. He also alleges that a much larger piece of adjacent land belongs to Russia's Federal Security Service.

Putin's office did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, but the Kremlin has denied that Putin has any connection to the property.

"This is not true. There is no palace, he is not an owner of any palace," Putin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told CNN earlier this week. "Those are all rumors, and there were some disputes between the owners of those premises, but they really have no connection with President Putin."

Insider was not able to independently verify Navalny's claims.

An 11-bedroom mansion, 2 helipads, and an underground hockey rink

Putin's alleged secret residence sits near the coastal town of Gelendzhik on the Black Sea in southern Russia, underneath a no-fly zone, according to the video.

"This is like a state within a state where one irremovable czar rules," Navalny says in the video. "It is built in a way that no one can reach it by land, sea or air, thousands of people working there are banned from bringing even a simple cell phone with a camera... but we will take a look inside."

Russia's Federal Security Service owns a much larger parcel of land surrounding the palace, the video claims. Alexei Navalny/YouTube

The video was produced by Navalny's nonprofit organization, the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). According to FBK, a subcontractor involved in the construction of the residence gave the organization detailed building plans.

The plans show that the mansion is the largest private residential building in Russia, with more than 190,000 square feet of living space, according to FBK.

An underground hockey complex is situated under a grassy dome next to the helipads, per the video. Alexei Navalny/YouTube

To get the footage, FBK employees took a boat into the Black Sea and sent a drone flying over the property. The footage, narrated by Navalny, shows not only a lavish mansion, but expansive grounds with two helipads, an underground hockey rink, a church, a sculpture garden, an incomplete amphitheater, an arboretum and greenhouse, and a 260-foot bridge that leads to a 27,000-square-foot guest house.

The main residence has 11 bedrooms, multiple living and dining areas, a private theater, a Las Vegas-style casino, a swimming pool, saunas and a hammam, a cocktail lounge, a gym, and staff quarters, according to Navalny. An underground tasting room was even built into the side of the cliff overlooking the sea, he says.

A 2014 Reuters investigation found that two wealthy associates of Putin had illegally funneled money to a company that helped build the Black Sea palace. Alexei Navalny/YouTube

Putin's alleged secret palace has been a subject of intrigue for years. In 2010, Russian businessman Sergei Kolesnikov wrote a letter to then-president Dmitry Medvedev claiming an opulent estate was being built for Putin on the Black Sea by one of Putin's longtime friends.

A 2014 Reuters investigation found that two wealthy associates of Putin had illegally funneled money to a company that helped build the Black Sea palace that allegedly belongs to Putin.

Putin's official office is the Kremlin, a fortified complex in Moscow's center that's made up of more than 15 buildings, 20 towers, and more than 1.5 miles of walls that are up to 21 feet thick.

But unlike in the US, where the president lives and works out of the White House, the president of Russia doesn't actually live at the Kremlin. Instead, Putin's Moscow home is the Novo-Ogoryevo residence, which is tucked away behind high walls patrolled by guards in Rublyovka, a ritzy suburb west of the city. The FBK's video notes that even the most luxurious homes in Rublyovka are several times smaller than the Black Sea palace.

The extent of Putin's wealth remains a mystery. The Russian president is conspicuously absent from Bloomberg's and Forbes' rankings of the world's billionaires. At a 2017 Senate Judiciary Hearing, outspoken Putin critic and financier Bill Browder estimated the president "has accumulated $200 billion of ill-gotten gains" and described him as "one of the richest men in the world."

Read the original article on Insider