Music: Hvalfugl — ‘Fremmed Land’
While holding Trump personally accountable, the January 6 committee may be letting the GOP off the hook
Ronald Brownstein writes: The congressional committee investigating the January 6 insurrection delivered a comprehensive and compelling case for the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump and his closest allies for their attempt to overturn the 2020 election. But the committee zoomed in so tightly on the culpability of Trump and his inner circle that it largely cropped out the dozens of other state and federal Republican officials who supported or enabled the president’s multifaceted, months-long plot. The committee downplayed the involvement…
Major highlights of the January 6 report
Ryan Goodman and Justin Hendrix write: What follows are highlights of the January 6th Select Committee’s final report from our initial review. Our discussion includes but is not limited to the report’s findings and treatment of issues including: Criminal misconduct in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Racism as a driver of efforts to overturn the popular vote in different parts of the country and in fueling some of the organized groups and individuals who attacked the Capitol. The…
Past cases with classified papers show legal risk for Trump, experts say
The Washington Post reports: In Kansas City, a former FBI analyst pleaded guilty in October to taking home more than 300 classified files or documents, including highly sensitive material about al-Qaeda and an associate of Osama bin Laden. She faces up to 10 years in prison. In Massachusetts, a defense contractor pleaded guilty in 2019 to removing classified national defense information from his office and storing it at home. He got 18 months. And in Maryland, Harold Martin, a former…
Trump’s world is now limited to the golf course and Mar-a-Lago
Olivia Nuzzi writes: Donald Trump was calling from Mar-a-Lago. It was a Monday afternoon in the middle of December. He was at his desk in what is known as 45 Office, a room on the second floor, above what is known as the Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom, 20,000 square feet festooned with 16 sedan-size crystal chandeliers and what he claims to be $7 million of gold leaf. Members of the Mar-a-Lago Club, who pay $200,000 initiation fees and annual…
Rep.-elect George Santos’s early life — odd jobs, bad debts and lawsuits
The New York Times reports: The polite young customer service agent at the Dish Network call center in Queens spoke English and Portuguese, so when Brazilian immigrants had trouble with their billing or their satellite dish, their calls would be routed his way. It was around 2012, and the man was George Santos, a son of Brazilian immigrants who, more than a decade later, would win a crucial election to Congress. But on the campaign trail, Mr. Santos, 34, told…
North Korea sending arms to Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group fighting in Ukraine, U.S. says
The Wall Street Journal reports: North Korea has sent a large arms delivery to the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary force whose influence and operations in Ukraine are growing, according to the Biden administration. North Korea last month shipped infantry rockets and missiles to the Wagner Group, which paid for the weaponry, John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House, said Thursday. The shipment comes as Moscow’s war in Ukraine enters another critical stage, with…
Archaeology and genetics can’t yet agree on when humans first arrived in the Americas
Jennifer Raff writes: The debate over how people first arrived in the Western Hemisphere continues to roil archaeology in the United States – and to capture public attention. Today, the scientific community is contending with significant amounts of new genetic and archaeological data, and it can be overwhelming and even contradictory. These data are coming from new archaeological excavations but also from the application of newly developed tools to re-analyse prior sites and artefacts. They’re coming from newly sequenced genomes…
Music: Hvalfugl — ‘Jeg Venter Herhjemme’
Trump and his White House ‘ethics lawyer’ accused of tampering with witness Cassidy Hutchinson
CNN reports: The final straw for former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson with her first attorney, paid through allies of former President Donald Trump, came when he told her to stop cooperating with the January 6 House select committee even if she risked a contempt of Congress charge, transcripts of her interviews and sources familiar with her testimony tell CNN. Hutchinson made the comments when she returned to the select committee in September to discuss the pressure campaign she…
IRS routinely audited Obama and Biden, raising questions over delays for Trump
The New York Times reports: The I.R.S. subjected both President Donald J. Trump’s predecessor and his successor to annual audits of their tax returns once they took office, spokespeople for Barack Obama and President Biden said on Wednesday, intensifying questions about how Mr. Trump escaped such scrutiny until Democrats in the House started inquiring. Late Tuesday, a House committee revealed that the I.R.S. failed to audit Mr. Trump during his first two years in office despite a rule that states…
Ukrainian resistance and American support prevented a wide range of horrors
Anne Applebaum writes: Had the Russian plan been carried out as it was written, Kyiv would have been conquered in just a few days. Zelensky, his wife, and his children would have been murdered by one of the hit squads that roamed the capital city. The Ukrainian state would have been taken over by the collaborators who had already chosen their Kyiv apartments. Then, city by city, region by region, the Russian army would have fought the remnants of the…
Afghanistan’s Taliban ban all education for girls
The Wall Street Journal reports: The Taliban banned girls from attending elementary school, effectively instituting a total ban on the education of girls and women and dealing one of the most dramatic blows yet to women’s freedoms since seizing power last year. In a gathering in Kabul with private-school directors, clerics and community representatives, Taliban officials on Wednesday also barred female staff, including teachers, from working in schools, closing off one of the few professions that had remained open to…
Henry Ford, Elon Musk, and the dark path to extremism
James Risen writes: Elon Musk is on his way to becoming the next Henry Ford. That is not a compliment. In his early entrepreneurial years, Ford was a revolutionary: an innovative genius who transformed the way Americans traveled, worked, and lived. Ford effectively created the modern assembly line, driving down manufacturing costs, raising productivity, and making it possible to sell cars at low prices. Ford’s inexpensive and durable Model T, introduced in 1908, brought automobiles within the reach of average…
NY Attorney General’s Office ‘looking into’ allegations against Rep.-elect George Santos
NBC News reports: The New York Attorney General’s Office said it is “looking into a number of issues” surrounding Congressman-elect George Santos, who was the subject of a bombshell New York Times investigation that questions whether the incoming Republican lawmaker fabricated much of his biography, including his education, work history and financial dealings. The office, however, did not confirm whether it had opened an official investigation into Santos and declined to comment further on the matter. A lawyer for Santos,…
As a climate change-induced drought wears on, wildlife, livestock and people face deadly consequences
Georgina Gustin writes: A wildebeest has toppled into a ditch at the edge of a dusty track, its shoe-box-shaped head twisted upward, a single gaping chomp out of its flank. Isack Marembe and Kisham Makui study the animal’s body and everything around it, doing a roadside postmortem. “A hyena,” Marembe says. But the culprit wasn’t a hyena. The hyena just happened to pass by and take a bite from the dead wildebeest’s side. The killer was—it is—an enduring drought driven…