J Michael Luttig / Bulwark (statement by the committee):
Democracy on a knife blade
Luttig: “The hour is late. God is watching us. “
Honorable members of the House of Representatives Selection Committee –
On January 6, 2021, a stake was driven into the heart of American democracy, and our democracy is on the cutting edge today.
America fought on that fateful day, but not against foreign power. She fought against herself. We Americans fought with each other for our democracy.
Tim Millers / Bulvorks:
Watch The Damn January 6 Hearing
Millers: Here’s Lisa Cheney explaining it all.
Rep. Lisa Cheney (R-WY): All Americans need to keep this fact in mind. . . On the morning of January 6, President Donald Trump intended to remain President of the United States, despite the legitimate results of the 2020 elections and in violation of his constitutional duty to relinquish power. For several months, Donald Trump oversaw and coordinated the exquisite land to overthrow the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power.
Former President Trump: And if you do not fight like hell, you will no longer have a state. We will stop stealing!
J6 participant: Better run the cops!
J6 participant: This is our capital!
Robert Hubble’s link from above (Changing the Trump Talk) is a very good summary of some of the great links.
Walter Shapiro / Roll Call:
Egad! It is a roadmap for mid-2022
Democrats should pay attention to this simple acronym
Egad is one of those angry words that associates you with Dr. Watson in the secret of Sherlock Holmes or PG Vodehaus, who mocks the British aristocracy. However, when used as an acronym for EGAD, it becomes a convenient guide to the mid-term elections in 2022.
With just four months to go before serious early voting begins, election problems are in the spotlight. And they write the letters EGAD – economy, weapons, abortion and democracy.
…
An evaluation of the Jeffrey Jones and Lydia Such Gallup poll was released on Tuesday. He concluded: “Americans ‘poor assessments of the president, Congress, the economy and the country’ s progress suggest that the typical pattern of the presidential party losing ground in the mid – term elections will continue this year.”
This, of course, means that 2022 will be a normal political year. But if the Democrats hold on to November 8, despite Baiden’s polls, you know how to explain it. Just say “EGAD”.
Toms Nikols / Atlantic:
The dangerous will of the tramp
Check out the ambitious mediocrity that almost destroyed American democracy.
Donald Trump, a small and small man, is still a social worker. Investigating his attack on our election is like looking at the light in the light: it is unpleasant, it does not reveal much and it is temporarily blind to everyone around you.
However, on 6 January, the committee deserves great praise for shedding light on the dangerous mediocrity that Trump relied on in his atrocities – men and women who were convinced that their time had finally come. These people – call them the Third Series – thought they would finally go to the show and burn the Constitution if it was needed to stay there.
Thomas Zimmer / Guardian:
An elephant in the room will not be recognized at the January 6 court hearings
The committee’s main task is to investigate the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January and, of course, what led to it. However, anyone who believes in democracy must acknowledge that, in a very specific sense, the uprising is far ahead of Trump.
The Committee’s strategy, which is based almost entirely on the testimony of the people of Trump, the Republicans and the Conservatives rather than the Democrats, is certainly effective if the aim is to prove the non-partisan nature of the process. However, there is a risk that too many people will be released from the hook, except for Tramp. The story is that there was an “ordinary team” in and around the White House that was moving away from Trump as he got off the rails, isolating him and leaving him with only the “Crazy Team” and the allegedly drunk Rudy Julian. , a quite unrestrained Sydney Powelland right-wing lawyer John Eastman, who seemed perfectly prepared to devise pseudo-legal reasons to justify the coup attempt.
New Yorker:
“We need to get out of this phase”: Ashish Jha on the future of the pandemic
President Biden COVID tells the story of his public health philosophy, his Twitter threads, his unlikely journey to the White House and where we are going from here.
Many experts believe that this is more or less our new norm: new variants, periodic increases, breakthrough infections boosters from time to time, offices become empty as the number of cases increases –covid not as an emergency, but also something we cannot forget. Is that how you see things? Are we destined to repeat the recent past for the foreseeable future?
No no no. Will we have to deal with it for another six months or a year? Of course. But will we live like this in three or five years? Definitely no. We have hundreds of thousands of Americans getting infected every day. We still have a few hundred people dying covid daily. I don’t think any of this is acceptable in the long run. First of all, it is very disturbing. Secondly, we do not fully understand for long covid, but the thought of people getting infected again and again and again is just not great. Third, it only continues to promote more options.
So who will change that?
What is currently driving new options is their ability to evade immunity. As we gain more complex immunity – this means that some people are immune to the original vaccines, others are immune to newer vaccines, others are immune to infections with Delta and Omicron – you are building a population that is becoming more and more immune to the virus. more difficult. break through. I think there is a limit to how much the virus can continue to escape.
Reuters:
In the run-up to the abortion ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court is setting up barricades for the public
No members of the public have been admitted to the courthouse since the precautionary measures in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic were introduced in March 2020. The scene in court has escalated following protests and threats against some of the nine judges caused by the leak of the bill, which was leaked in May. an opinion stating that they intend to set aside the important judgment of Roe v Wade, who legalized abortion across the country. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority.
The 8-foot (2.4-meter) high fence was erected a few days after the spill, with the court stepping up security measures.
While the rest of the official Washington area, including other government buildings, including the White House and Capitol House, has at least partially opened its doors to the public following the tide of the pandemic, the US Supreme Judicial Authority remains closed. mentality, even if it has a huge impact on public policy.