Quinta Jurecic, The Atlantic: “Until the day that a violent mob stormed the Capitol building, it seemed possible that Donald Trump would be able to shuffle into post-presidential life without facing any real consequences. President-elect Joe Biden had indicated his anxiety over a potential prosecution of the former president. Commentators muttered about the political divisiveness of pursuing Trump after he left office. Better, perhaps, to look forward, not backward, as President Barack Obama famously said of potential lawbreaking under the Bush administration. Then, after being egged on by the president on January 6, pro-Trump rioters broke into the Capitol and terrorized staffers and members of Congress. The House of Representatives impeached Trump a second time – setting in motion a process that, if successful, could bar him from seeking the presidency in 2024. The overwhelming mood of Democratic politicians and activists lurched toward support for investigations, prosecutions, and other forms of accountability. As law enforcement continued searching for rioters, the very same Republican politicians who had earlier been stoking chaos frantically backpedaled, issuing statements calling for ‘unity’ and ‘healing.'”

“The country does deserve unity and healing following the Trump presidency, but they won’t come from ignoring the destruction that has transpired. Accountability – a public reckoning for Trump and those who enabled his abuses – is the way forward. One path is prosecution, which can provide punishment to perpetrators. But another, complementary approach is truth commissions, which center on the voices and experiences of victims. Imagine a commission convened to investigate family separations and the administration’s policies forcing people seeking asylum in the United States to wait in dangerous, squalid conditions in Mexico. This investigation could seek not only to hear testimony from the victims, but also to understand how the recent history of American immigration law and policy enabled these horrors. The value of a truth commission, in part, would be in establishing a common public understanding of the Trump administration and the damage it caused, without which the nation will not be able to move in a new direction.”

“The Justice Department has taken its first major step under President Joe Biden to reverse the Trump administration’s resistance to expansion of rights accorded to LGBTQ Americans. Greg Friel, the lawyer just named to oversee the Justice Department’s civil rights division on a temporary basis, issued a directive Friday revoking a 22-page memorandum a Trump appointee released earlier this week taking a cramped view of a major Supreme Court decision last year that longstanding federal law protects LGBTQ individuals from discrimination at work.”

“In withdrawing the parting-shot memo from the prior administration, Friel said the stance taken in the memo conflicted with a first-day executive order Biden issued promising a vigorous battle against discrimination based on ‘gender identity or sexual orientation.’ ‘I have determined that this memorandum is inconsistent in many respects with the E.O.,’ Friel wrote to civil rights division colleagues. ‘I plan to confer with Department leadership about issuing revised guidance that comports with the policy set forth in the E.O. As part of that process, we will seek the input of Division subject matter experts.’ The unexpected, 6-3, Supreme Court ruling last June in Bostock v. Clayton County concluded that a half-century-old prohibition on sex discrimination in employment applies equally to discrimination against gay and lesbian workers as well as those who are transgender” – Politico.

“An Oklahoma lawmaker has filed a bill to create a hunting season for Bigfoot. In a press release announcing the bill filing, Humphrey said his intent is to bring more tourism to the state. ‘Establishing an actual hunting season and issuing licenses for people who want to hunt Bigfoot will just draw more people to our already beautiful part of the state,’ according to the release.”

“‘We use science-driven research, and we don’t recognize Bigfoot in the state of Oklahoma,’ Micah Holmes of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation said. The wildlife department noted that the bill would create a whole new season and license – all for something they don’t believe in. ‘Uh, surprised we haven’t heard that proposal before,’ Holmes said Humphrey doesn’t intend for people to kill Bigfoot. Instead, his bill proposes to offer a bounty of $25,000 to anyone who captures the creature” – KOCO.

Click here for video of arrest.

“With profound sadness, Ora Media announces the death of our co-founder, host, and friend Larry King, who passed away this morning at age 87 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. For 63 years and across the platforms of radio, television and digital media, Larry’s many thousands of interviews, awards, and global acclaim stand as a testament to his unique and lasting talent as a broadcaster. Additionally, while it was his name appearing in the shows’ titles, Larry always viewed his interview subjects as the true stars of his programs, and himself as merely an unbiased conduit between the guest and audience.”

“Whether he was interviewing a U.S. president, foreign leader, celebrity, scandal-ridden personage, or an everyman, Larry liked to ask short, direct, and uncomplicated questions. He believed concise questions usually provided the best answers, and he was not wrong in that belief. Larry’s interviews from his 25-year run on CNN’s ‘Larry King Live,’ and his Ora Media programs ‘Larry King Now,’ and ‘Politicking with Larry King’ are consistently referenced by media outlets around the world and remain part of the historical record of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Ora Media sends our condolences to his surviving children Larry, Jr., Chance, Cannon and the entire King family. Funeral arrangements and a memorial service will be announced later in coordination with the King family, who ask for their privacy at this time” – Statement from Ora Media.

“Police detained more than 350 people across Russia on Saturday and broke up rallies around the country as protesters defied bitter cold and a ban by authorities to demand the release of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. Navalny had called on his supporters to protest after being arrested last weekend as he returned to Moscow for the first time since being poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent in August. Navalny had been treated in Germany. In central Moscow, police detained at least 100 people before the protest had even begun, bundling them into nearby vans. Around 1,000 people had gathered before the rally was due to start at 1100 GMT.”

“Some chanted ‘Putin is a thief’ and ‘Disgrace’ as police swept people off the streets. Video footage from Vladivostok showed riot police chasing a group of protesters down the street, while demonstrators in Khabarovsk, braving temperatures of around -14 Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit), chanted ‘Bandits!’ Police in Siberia’s Yakutsk, one of the coldest cities in the world where the temperature was -52 Celsius on Saturday, grabbed a protester by his arms and legs and dragged him into a van, video footage from the scene showed. The OVD-Info protest monitor group said that at least 369 people, including 67 in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, had been detained so far. It reported arrests at rallies in nearly 40 towns and cities. Opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov said the scale and sweep of the protests in the regions was unusual. ‘Everyone must be really fed up with the stealing and lies if the regions have risen up like this without waiting for Moscow. Hundreds and thousands even in small cities,’ he wrote on Twitter” – Reuters.

Washington Post: “President Biden’s pitch for bipartisan unity to defeat the coronavirus and resurrect the economy is crashing into a partisan buzz saw on Capitol Hill, where Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on ground rules for running the Senate – let alone pass a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill. Biden’s relief package is being declared dead on arrival by senior Senate Republicans, some of whom say there has been little, if any, outreach from the Biden team to get their support. Liberals are demanding the president abandon attempts to make a bipartisan deal altogether and instead ram the massive legislation through without GOP votes. And outside groups are turning up the pressure for Biden and the Democrats who control Congress to enact economic relief quickly, even if it means cutting Republicans out of the deal.”

“In the face of these competing pressures, Biden may discover he can get a big covid-19 stimulus bill or a bipartisan deal – but not both. The path Biden chooses with his first major piece of legislation could set the tone for the remainder of his first term in office, revealing whether he can make good on his promise to unify Congress and the country.”

Republican North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn sees to like to exaggerate his achievements.  Claiming he was going to go to the Naval Academy before a car crash that left him paralyzed from the waist down.  (He had his application to Annapolis rejected.)  His claim that he ran a successful real estate business.  (He formed it just as he started his campaign in 2019 and it had zero revenue and only himself as an employee.)

Now comes word that his claimed glory in the Paralympics–where he boasted he would compete in the 400-meter dash at the 2020 Games in Tokyo–was another load of hooey to add to the pile.

The Nation reports that no one in the world of serious parasports has ever heard of Cawthorn or seen him at any qualifying events necessary to join a national team and make it to compete in the Paralympics.

The United States averaged more than 3,000 per day in the last seven days, as 21,400 people died in the nation due to the coronavirus, and another 1.26 million people had new confirmed cases of the virus, according to the COVID tracking project.

There were some positive signals, however:  the number of people hospitalized with coronavirus has dropped about 12% over the last ten days, with the Friday seeing the largest single day drop, to 116,264.

Also, CNN reports that more than 1.6 million people received the coronavirus vaccination Friday, the most getting it on one day, increasing the total inoculated to 19 million.  While states struggle with obtaining inventory of doses, increased production, more vaccinations in the foreseeable future, and lowering hospitalizations portend a reduction in cases.

It was bound to happen.  No administration can go without a scandal, and Joe Biden is no different.  But compared to the last four years, this is downright quaint.

A New York Times report notes that President Biden wore a Rolex Datejust watch, which retails for $7,000, during his inaugural.  Apparently, the Times reporter thinks is just un-Democratic (capital D) and garish.

Of course, we just survived the previous office holder, who thought this was normal. 

First Lady Dr. Jill Biden took time out of her schedule Friday to deliver a small token of thanks “for keeping me and my family safe” to the National Guard troops guarding Washington, DC, the Associated Press reports.

Dr. Biden delivered baskets of chocolate chip cookies to troops stationed at various locations around the city, joking that she couldn’t say that she baked them herself.

“I just want to say thank you from President Biden and the whole, the entire Biden family,” she told a group of Guard members at the Capitol. “The White House baked you some chocolate chip cookies,” she said.

Noting that she is a National Guard mother herself, with her late son Beau having been an officer in the Guard, she was particularly grateful for them leaving their homes to guard the Capitol.  “I truly appreciate all that you do,” the first lady said. “The National Guard will always hold a special place in the heart of all the Bidens.”

• I’m slowly learning to no longer cringe whenever a news alert pings on my phone.
• For people who don’t think a Democratic administration can do better than Trump on vaccine rollout, the economy, civil rights, and… well… *everything*….  Just remember Trump’s inauguration celebration collected the most money in history (more than $100 million) and featured a parade of tractors as one of the highlights.  Biden’s inaugural started with Bruce Springsteen and never waned from there.  
• Every day in January from the 20th through the 29th this year will a palindromic date:  1-20-21, 1-21-21, 1-22-21, etc.
• The lights placed around the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial for the inaugural should be made a permanent memorial to the people who died of coronavirus.  

Dr. Deborah Birx, the Coronavirus Response Coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said that she “always” thought about quitting the Trump team due to the management issues of the administration, Politico reports.

“I mean, why would you want to put yourself through that every day?” Birx said in an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “Colleagues of mine that I had known for decades — decades — in that one experience, because I was in the White House, decided that I had become this political person, even though they had known me forever.”

Birx’s most infamous moment was when Trump suggested from the podium of the White House briefing room that people could possibly inject disinfectants to kill the coronavirus, looking over at her for confirmation that that was a strategy for fighting the coronavirus.

#HankAaron's tragic death is part of a wave of suspicious deaths among elderly closely following administration of #COVID #vaccines. He received the #Moderna vaccine on Jan. 5 to inspire other Black Americans to get the vaccine. #TheDefenderhttps://t.co/vbuHt22bJz

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) January 22, 2021

Reuters: “German researchers have enabled mice paralyzed after spinal cord injuries to walk again, re-establishing a neural link hitherto considered irreparable in mammals by using a designer protein injected into the brain. Spinal cord injuries in humans, often caused by sports or traffic accidents, leave them paralyzed because not all of the nerve fibers that carry information between muscles and the brain are able to grow back. But the researchers from Ruhr University Bochum managed to stimulate the paralyzed mice’s nerve cells to regenerate using a designer protein.”

“‘The special thing about our study is that the protein is not only used to stimulate those nerve cells that produce it themselves, but that it is also carried further (through the brain),’ the team’s head Dietmar Fischer told Reuters in an interview. ‘In this way, with a relatively small intervention, we stimulate a very large number of nerves to regenerate and that is ultimately the reason why the mice can walk again.’ The paralyzed rodents that received the treatment started walking after two to three weeks, he said. The team is investigating if the treatment can be improved.”

“Rudolph W. Giuliani, former President Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer, conceded on Friday night that an associate had sent an email to campaign officials asking that Mr. Giuliani be paid $20,000 a day for his work after the Nov. 3 election, but he insisted he was unaware of it at the time. Mr. Giuliani acknowledged in a brief phone interview that his associate, Maria Ryan, had sent the email shortly after Election Day. But he maintained that she consulted with another associate, Larry Levy, about what Giuliani should ask for from the campaign while Giuliani was out of town. A copy of the email, reviewed by the Times, showed that she sent it from a Giuliani Partners email account.”

“When the Times asked about the fee request in November, Mr. Giuliani denied it. He has continued to maintain it was a ‘lie’ that he requested such a fee from the president, saying it as recently as Friday afternoon on his radio show. ‘I did not do that,’ he said. In the phone interview on Friday night, after the Times asked his spokeswoman about Ms. Ryan’s email, Mr. Giuliani said that he told both the White House chief-of-staff, Mark Meadows, and Mr. Trump, of the $20,000 amount, ‘It’s ridiculous, I don’t want to be paid.’ Mr. Giuliani said he did not recall precisely when he had that conversation. And it was unclear whether he was aware that Ms. Ryan had sent the email when the Times first asked him about the fee request. ‘I never had a single expectation of being paid a penny,’ Mr. Giuliani said, adding that he’s had a few expenses reimbursed but nothing more. He faulted Mr. Trump’s other advisers and blasted them as ‘incompetent’ in the lead-up to the election. ‘I feel extremely bad that I’m portrayed as some kind of money-grubbing ambulance chaser,’ Mr. Giuliani said” – New York Times.

New York Times: “The Justice Department’s top leaders listened in stunned silence this month: One of their peers, they were told, had devised a plan with President Donald J. Trump to oust Jeffrey A. Rosen as acting attorney general and wield the department’s power to force Georgia state lawmakers to overturn its presidential election results. The unassuming lawyer who worked on the plan, Jeffrey Clark, had been devising ways to cast doubt on the election results and to bolster Mr. Trump’s continuing legal battles and the pressure on Georgia politicians. Because Mr. Rosen had refused the president’s entreaties to carry out those plans, Mr. Trump was about to decide whether to fire Mr. Rosen and replace him with Mr. Clark.”

“The department officials, convened on a conference call, then asked each other: What will you do if Mr. Rosen is dismissed? The answer was unanimous. They would resign. Their informal pact ultimately helped persuade Mr. Trump to keep Mr. Rosen in place, calculating that a furor over mass resignations at the top of the Justice Department would eclipse any attention on his baseless accusations of voter fraud. Mr. Trump’s decision came only after Mr. Rosen and Mr. Clark made their competing cases to him in a bizarre White House meeting that two officials compared with an episode of Mr. Trump’s reality show ‘The Apprentice,’ albeit one that could prompt a constitutional crisis. The previously unknown chapter was the culmination of the president’s long-running effort to batter the Justice Department into advancing his personal agenda. He also pressed Mr. Rosen to appoint special counsels, including one who would look into Dominion Voting Systems, a maker of election equipment that Mr. Trump’s allies had falsely said was working with Venezuela to flip votes from Mr. Trump to Joseph R. Biden Jr.”

The saga of the civil complaint seeking to invalidate essentially the entire government of the United States continues with this gem: “After considering Plaintiff’s Motion for Temporary Restraining Order against Defendants, who illegitimately and unlawfully hold the mantles of office in both the legislative and executive branches of government, and due to the excessive nature of the executive orders activity of the unlawfully confirmed ‘President’ Joseph P. Biden, and due to the economic stability of the nation, to temporarily restrain the effects of their illegal acts and restore the status quo ante, on the pleadings, declarations, expert reports, and other documentary evidence in support thereof, the Court FINDS as follows:”

“1. Plaintiffs will likely suffer the following immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage in the following manner: (1) loss of the ability to a government by consent of the governed by virtue of being deprived of the fundamental right to legally vote in federal elections; (2) imminent transformation of the United States into an oppressive police state that persecutes those with political views differing from those in control of government, and (3) severe financial harm without the ability to collect damages because of the risk that the United States will cease to be safe haven for the capital assets of investors and that the economy is likely to experience severe instability if controlled by an illegitimate government. 2. This injury is irreparable because it would be impossible to calculate an appropriate amount of monetary damages to compensate Plaintiffs for the loss of the right to a government by consent of the governed and the financial harm that would ensue with no clear way to recover monetary damages in the face of economic volatility.”

MyPillow founder and martial law enthusiast Mike Lindell has hired the lawyer who oversaw the case that destroyed Gawker to sue the Daily Mail over a story about a reported affair with actress Jane Krakowski, saying it “damaged my integrity as a Christian,” according to the Daily Beast.

(Editorial note:  Personally, I would encourage any rumor that I was dating Jane Krakowski ’cause she’s not a bag of hammers, to say the least… and I would think that undermining our democratic process by promoting martial law was far more damaging to his integrity as a proclaimed “christian” or otherwise.)

“Charles Harder is the attorney,” Lindell confirmed in a brief interview on Friday evening. “I never met this lady in my life and have never been to West Village and the Hamptons, where they said I was in the hit piece,” said of the 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt actress.

Colorado Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (Q-Rifle) has introduced a bill to nullify President Joe Biden’s executive order requiring the wearing of masks on all federal grounds, according to Congress.gov.

HR 375, titled “To provide that no person may be required to wear a face covering on Federal property or while traveling in interstate commerce, and for other purposes,” was sponsored by Boebert alone.

On Wednesday, Biden signed an executive order mandating mask-wearing on federal grounds and in vehicles of public transportation like interstate buses.  It was his first measure in promoting 100 Days of Mask Wearing to slow the spread of the coronavirus.