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   From: trumpturmpe@excite.com   
      
   Republicans Can’t Wait to Be Putin’s Special Guest at a Biden Debate   
   That’s Never Happening   
   The GOP is all in on the Kremlin.   
      
   By Bess Levin   
   March 19, 2021   
   This image may contain Clothing Apparel Coat Overcoat Suit Tie Accessories   
   Accessory Vladimir Putin and Human   
   By Lintao Zhang/Getty.   
      
   Earlier this week, Joe Biden was asked if he considered Vladimir Putin a   
   killer, to which the president answered, “I do.” This was not a   
   controversial statement, given the many people the former KGB agent is   
   suspected of having killed, to say nothing of ones who’ve been poisoned   
   but survived (in addition to Russia’s role in Syria’s civil war and the   
   thousands killed in Ukraine since 2014). Putin apparently didn‘t like this   
   answer, though, and responded like an online troll, challenging Biden to a   
   televised debate and adding that the leader of free world should   
   apparently fly to Russia immediately to take part in this event. “I don’t   
   want to put this off for long,” Putin said. “I want to go the taiga this   
   weekend to relax a little. So we could do it tomorrow or Monday. We are   
   ready at any time convenient for the American side.”   
      
   Obviously, this debate was never going to happen for a lot of reasons,   
   chief among them being that world leaders don’t typically—or ever—debate   
   each other on TV and presidents of the United States definitely don’t drop   
   everything, hop on Air Force One, and fly thousands of miles to do so.   
   Reasonable people whose brains haven’t been completely hollowed out   
   understand this. And then there are the relatives, friends, and assorted   
   other allies of Donald Trump, whose takeaway from the last four years is   
   that Vladimir Putin is a great pal of America whose only noncrime was   
   helping the 45th president get elected in 2016 and who tried his darndest   
   to do so the last time around too. They’ve spent the last day weighing in   
   on the matter and, surprise: They’ve put their money on the Kremlin.   
      
   “Putin and Biden? It would not end like Rocky IV—I don’t think the   
   American would prevail,” Republican representative Matt Gaetz told Sean   
   Hannity on Thursday.   
      
   Hannity, obviously, agreed. “The question is this,” he said. “Why would   
   Vladimir Putin immediately call for a debate with Joe Biden with no time   
   to prepare? What have I been saying? What have some of us—half the   
   American people—been saying?” (Hannity, of course, has been baselessly   
   claiming Biden is in cognitive decline, which Republicans also swore was   
   the case before the presidential debates, and then had to pivot to   
   claiming Biden was taking performance-enhancing drugs.) “It’s getting a   
   little scary,” Hannity said earlier this month. “It’s funny because the   
   media was attacking me for saying that Joe looks weak and he looks frail   
   and he’s struggling cognitively. Well, every day now, pretty much, when he   
   speaks, when he’s allowed to speak, he’s struggling.” In fact, Biden has   
   spoken publicly numerous times since taking office, including a prime-time   
   address.   
      
   Meanwhile, the president‘s namesake and arguably dumbest child had this to   
   say:   
      
   In fact, Putin wanted Junior’s father in office because he knew just how   
   thoroughly he could manipulate him for reasons that remain unclear (though   
   will perhaps one day be revealed), and is likely worried about what Biden   
   has in store for him. That’s something he never had to be concerned about   
   when Trump was in office, as his favorite little babushka doll would never   
   even dream of crossing him.   
      
   Report: The White House is pretty uncool about weed   
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   According to a report from the Daily Beast, numerous people have been told   
   their ass is grass:   
      
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       Dozens of young White House staffers have been suspended, asked to   
   resign, or placed in a remote work program due to past marijuana use,   
   frustrating staffers who were pleased by initial indications from the   
   Biden administration that recreational use of cannabis would not be   
   immediately disqualifying for would-be personnel, according to three   
   people familiar with the situation. The policy has even affected staffers   
   whose marijuana use was exclusive to one of the 14 states—and the District   
   of Columbia—where cannabis is legal.   
      
       In some cases, staffers were informally told by transition higher-ups   
   ahead of formally joining the administration that they would likely   
   overlook some past marijuana use, only to be asked later to resign. “There   
   were one-on-one calls with individual affected staffers—rather, ex-   
   staffers,” one former White House staffer affected by the policy told the   
   Daily Beast. “I was asked to resign.”   
      
   The Daily Beast notes that rules about prior marijuana use and their   
   impact on security clearance eligibility vary by agency; for example, at   
   the FBI, an applicant cannot have partaken in the previous three years,   
   while at the NSA, it’s just one. But the White House “largely calls its   
   own shots.” For example, Alyssa Mastromonaco, deputy chief of staff for   
   operations in the Obama administration and a self-described “love[r] of   
   the ganj,” was allowed to join the administration (though she says she was   
   “randomly drug-tested pretty much once a month for the first year, and   
   regularly after that.“)   
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   In response to the report, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tweeted   
   that “of the hundreds of people hired, only five people who had started   
   working at the White House are no longer employed as a result of this   
   policy.” (As the Daily Beast notes, Psaki did not indicate how many people   
   had been disqualified for a White House gig before actually starting.) “I   
   find it absurd that, in 2021, marijuana use is still part of a security   
   clearance background check,” Tommy Vietor, an Obama administration   
   veteran, said Thursday. “To me, marijuana use is completely irrelevant   
   when you’re trying to decide whether an individual should be trusted with   
   national security information.”   
      
   ICYMI: Rep. Lauren Boebert is still all in on QAnon   
      
   The Colorado congresswoman will not sit idly by while Marjorie Taylor   
      
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