Music: Nils Petter Molvaer — ‘Sober’
A lone infection may have changed the course of the pandemic
Matt Reynolds writes: In each warm body it infects, the virus behind Covid-19 has the potential to change. It can become more deadly, more transmissible or more resistant to the vaccines on which we are all pinning so much hope. Mercifully, the biology of Sars-CoV-2 means that such changes happen slowly and almost always fail to catch on. But mutations, like pandemics, are a numbers game. Every new person infected provides another opportunity for the virus to adopt a new…
Member of Oath Keepers conspiracy was ‘awaiting direction’ from Trump before Capitol attack, prosecutors say
BuzzFeed News reports: Hours before day three of former president Donald Trump’s impeachment trial was set to begin on Thursday, federal prosecutors offered new evidence that a member of the alleged Oath Keepers conspiracy charged with planning an assault on the US Capitol on Jan. 6 was “awaiting direction” from Trump. Jessica Watkins, an Army veteran and, according to court papers, a member of the Oath Keepers militia group, is accused of participating in a conspiracy to assault the Capitol…
Tuberville says he informed Trump of Pence’s evacuation before rioters reached Senate
Politico reports: Sen. Tommy Tuberville revealed late Wednesday that he spoke to Donald Trump on Jan. 6, just as a violent mob closed in on the the Senate, and informed the then-president directly that Vice President Mike Pence had just been evacuated from the chamber. “I said ‘Mr. President, they just took the vice president out, I’ve got to go,’” Tuberville (R-Ala.) told POLITICO on Capitol Hill on Wednesday night, saying he cut the phone call short amid the chaos….
Military officials were unaware of potential danger to Pence’s ‘nuclear football’ during Capitol riot
CNN reports: Military officials overseeing the authorization process to launch nuclear weapons were unaware on January 6 that then-Vice President Mike Pence’s military aide carrying the “nuclear football” was potentially in danger as rioters got close during the violent Capitol insurrection, according to a defense official. The vice president is always accompanied by a backup of the “football,” which contains the equipment to carry out orders to launch a nuclear strike. It must be ready at all times and is…
Republicans warned about Trump and violence … five years ago
Steve Benen writes: As a Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump went to unusual lengths to express his comfort with violence. Indeed, as House impeachment managers were eager to remind senators today, the Republican at times seemed to encourage violence toward protesters before he became president, and echoed the rhetoric while in office. But what’s easy to forget is that Trump’s GOP rivals in the 2016 race recognized the dangers posed by his style of politics. The Washington Post‘s Dave Weigel…
Trump was sicker than acknowledged with Covid-19
The New York Times reports: President Donald J. Trump was sicker with Covid-19 in October than publicly acknowledged at the time, with extremely depressed blood oxygen levels at one point and a lung problem associated with pneumonia caused by the coronavirus, according to four people familiar with his condition. His prognosis became so worrisome before he was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center that officials believed he would need to be put on a ventilator, two of the…
Music: Nils Petter Molvaer — ‘Platonic Years’
Why thousands of Republicans are leaving the party
The New York Times reports: In the days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations. In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000…
Impeachment video reveals a true American horror story
James Poniewozik writes: Impeachment trials of American presidents are rare. They are almost by definition grave and serious. But the proceeding against former President Donald J. Trump was likely the first to include a parental advisory for graphic violence. Beginning Wednesday’s presentation, which included never-before-seen video of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, Representative Jamie Raskin, the lead House impeachment manager, began with a warning: “We do urge parents and teachers to exercise close review of what young people…
How right-wing radio stoked anger before the Capitol siege
The New York Times reports: Two days before a mob of Trump supporters invaded the United States Capitol, upending the nation’s peaceful transition of power and leaving at least five people dead, the right-wing radio star Glenn Beck delivered a message to his flock of 10.5 million listeners: “It is time to fight.” “It is time to rip and claw and rake,” Mr. Beck said on his Jan. 4 broadcast. “It is time to go to war, as the left…
Georgia prosecutors open criminal investigation of Trump phone call
The New York Times reports: Prosecutors in Fulton County have initiated a criminal investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to overturn Georgia’s election results, including a phone call he made to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Mr. Trump pressured him to “find” enough votes to help him reverse his loss. On Wednesday, Fani Willis, the recently elected Democratic prosecutor in Fulton County, sent a letter to numerous officials in state government, including Mr. Raffensperger, requesting that…
Trump Justice Department sought to block search of Giuliani records
The New York Times reports: In the final months of the Trump administration, senior Justice Department officials repeatedly sought to block federal prosecutors in Manhattan from taking a crucial step in their investigation into Rudolph W. Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine, delaying a search warrant for some of Mr. Giuliani’s electronic records, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The actions by political appointees at the Justice Department in Washington effectively slowed the investigation as it was gaining momentum last…
What if we never reach herd immunity?
Sarah Zhang writes: Let’s begin by defining our terms. Herd immunity is the hazy, long-promised end of the pandemic, but its requirements are quite specific. Jennie Lavine, a biologist at Emory University, likens it to wet logs in a campfire. If there’s enough water in the logs—if there’s enough immunity in a population—“you can’t get the fire to start, period,” she says. To be more technical about it, a population reaches herd immunity when the average number of people infected…
Build nothing new that ultimately leads to a flame
Bill McKibben writes: A couple of weeks ago, I said that the first principle of fighting the climate crisis was simple: stop lighting coal, oil, gas, and trees on fire, as soon as possible. Today, I offer a second ground rule, corollary to the first: definitely don’t build anything new that connects to a flame. It’s obvious, of course, that we’re not going to stop burning fossil fuel tomorrow: there are, for instance, 1.42 billion cars on the planet’s roads,…
Saudi release of prominent activist comes amid effort to rebrand for Biden era
The Washington Post reports: Saudi Arabia released Loujain al-Hathloul, one of the country’s most prominent women’s rights activists, from prison on Wednesday in the clearest sign yet that the kingdom’s leaders were taking steps to assuage President Biden’s complaints about human rights violations. Hathloul, 31, has been among the most visible faces of an unrelenting Saudi crackdown on human rights advocates, dissidents and civil society activists. Her imprisonment, which lasted 1,001 days, and her allegations that she had been tortured,…