With just eight days left in office, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has planned to spend part of the next week jetting around Europe at taxpayer expense, seeing the sights, collecting well wishes and (did we mention?) seeing the sights.

But that all changed when the tiny Grand Duchy of Luxembourg publicly canceled its meeting with Pompeo, citing the support his boss had given to insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol last week, killing five, according to CNN.

While Pompeo’s last vacation diplomatic mission to Europe wasn’t supposed to be publicly announced in the US, many of the intended hosts apparently were balking at meeting with Pompeo.  NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sophie Wilmès, whom Pompeo also hoped to meet with, openly condemned the attack on the Capitol and the coddling of those who dismissed the outcome of the election.

PENCE writes a letter to Pelosi saying he won’t invoke the 25th Amendment pic.twitter.com/PiMAzTInzB

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 13, 2021

According to the COVID Tracking Project, the United States its second worst day for coronavirus fatalities with 4,056 deaths, just 25 fewer than the highest day five days ago.

The seven-day moving average for fatalities also reached a new high at 3,299.  The number of hospitalized with coronavirus remained elevated, with more than 131,000 patients hospitalized.

More than one quarter of the states recorded more than 100 deaths.  The number of new daily confirmed cases in the United States was nearly 350% greater than the amount of the next nation on the list, Brazil.

“Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who has bragged about her desire to carry a weapon on Capitol Hill is currently in a standoff with Capitol Police at the newly installed metal detectors outside the doors to the House Chamber” reports CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz.

Somehow, Rasmussen doesn’t believe Trump’s incitement of insurrection hurts him at the polls.

“The Constitution grants the House of Representatives the ‘sole Power of Impeachment,’ not merely as a safeguard for the nation between elections, but also in cases where the removal of the President is urgent and necessary to preserve the security of the constitutional order. The House must invoke this power now to impeach President Trump for inciting an insurrection on January 6, 2021. President Trump engaged in high Crimes and Misdemeanors when he urged his supporters to storm the United States Capitol Building and then failed to stop the ensuing violence. His actions marked the culmination of an extensive and unprecedented effort to overturn the results of the presidential election.”

“As alleged in the Article of Impeachment and described in this report, President Trump has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. His continued hold on the Office of the Presidency, even for only a few more days, represents a clear and present danger to the United States. President Trump has engaged in a prolonged effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and maintain his grip on power. He has spent months spreading disinformation about the results—falsely claiming that he ‘won by a landslide,’ that the election was being ‘stolen,’ and that the reported results are somehow fraudulent. He has stated that it would be illegitimate to accept the results of the election as certified by state officials and upheld by state and federal courts, and he has implied that accepting those results would pose an existential threat to the country, its democracy, and the freedoms of his political supporters. He has directly threatened government officials to ‘find’ lost votes or face criminal penalties, encouraged his own Vice President to unlawfully overturn the election results and, ultimately, incited his supporters to take violent action and prevent the counting of the election results” – Introduction to “Materials in support of HR 24, Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of The United States, for High Crimes and Misdemeanors”

Members of the House of Representatives would be fined up to $2,500 for refusing to wear a face mask on the floor of the House under new administrative rules that will be enacted as part of a procedural vote scheduled for next Tuesday when the House reconvenes, HuffPost reports.

Maskless members will be fined $500 for the first offense and $2,500 for subsequent infractions.  The money will be deducted from the member’s paycheck.

Also part of the procedural rules will be the requirement that members of the House will pass through metal detectors to enter the House floor, a move needed to make sure members will not carry weapons onto the floor.

New Republican members of Congress have vowed to carry concealed handguns in Washington, DC even though it’s against local law.

Liz Cheney, the No 3 Republican in the House, says she will vote to impeach President Trump on Wednesday. She joins NY Rep John Katko and IL Rep Adam Kinzinger – who hasn’t explicitly said whether he’ll vote yes, but it’s hard to see why he would vote no this time.

“What we know now is enough. The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing… There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution. I will vote to impeach the President” said Cheney in statement.

“A certain claque of Trump-right media supporters are soaking in their own flopsweat right now. Rumor has it one of the sugar daddies to far right websites is about to pull out” says Rick Wilson on Twitter, which means it’s probably not really a rumor but something that’s going to happen soon.

Any international traveler flying to the United States will need to have a negative coronavirus test from within three days of the flight, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday, USA Today reports.

All passengers must either have proof of a negative coronavirus test or proof of a positive antibody test.  If a passenger cannot produce such documentation, they will be denied boarding onto the flight.  Passengers who refuse to take an offered test at the airport will also be denied passage.

“Testing does not eliminate all risk,” CDC Director Robert R. Redfield said in a statement,“but when combined with a period of staying at home and everyday precautions like wearing masks and social distancing, it can make travel safer, healthier, and more responsible by reducing spread on planes, in airports and at destinations.”

The directive said nothing about people who have received the newly-introduced coronavirus vaccines.

“Today, we are announcing that the CNN Airport Network will end operations as of March 31.
The steep decline in airport traffic because of COVID-19, coupled with all the new ways that people are consuming content on their personal devices, has lessened the need for the CNN Airport Network. Having to say goodbye to such a beloved brand is not easy. I want to thank our friends and colleagues who have contributed to its success and to celebrate the fact that for 30 years, the CNN Airport Network has kept millions of domestic travelers informed. It also became an iconic part of the traveling experience in this country. I am sure most of IN have a story to tell about which airport we were at when we first learned of It major news event. Be proud that we had a hand in sharing some incredible stories with many millions of people over the past three decades” – Letter from CNN president Jeff Zucker.

LOL https://t.co/jddsWg7cks

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 12, 2021

A video of Democratic California Congressman Lou Correa being confronted on Friday by a continuing string of QAnon supporters at a Washington, DC airport demonstrates the violence and fervor with which these Trump supporters live.

CAUTION:  This video is definitely NSFW due to a lot of profane language.

https://youtu.be/FE7Apcn0gcU

Correa, who was flying back home after voting to accept the slates of state electors to certify the victory of President-elect Joe Biden, was verbally assaulted by a number of people in an otherwise peaceful airport.

The FBI has charged a man from suburban Chicago with threatening to commit a violent act at the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden January 20th, the Chicago Tribute reports.

Louis Capriotti, who has a history of threatening Democratic members of Congress, left a message on the voicemail of Democratic House member from New Jersey.

“We will surround the (expletive) White House and we will kill any (expletive) Democrat that steps on the (expletive) lawn,” the voicemail said. He went on to say people were “sadly (expletive) mistaken” if they think “Joe Biden will put his hand on the Bible and walk into that (expletive) White House on January 20th.”

The 45-year-old Capriotti was arrested at his Chicago Heights home Tuesday morning and charged with one count of transmitting a threat in interstate commerce.  He was set for arraignment Tuesday afternoon.

The New York Times reports that imminent Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is pleased with the Democratic efforts to impeach Donald Trump for incitement of insurrection, believing Trump is guilty of impeachable offenses.

McConnell’s motives, however, are not entirely patriotic:  impeaching Trump, McConnell believes, will purge the Republican Party of the toxic influence Trumpism has had on the GOP, with Trump animating a violent fringe element in the Party.

Additionally, the Times reports that Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a strong Trump supporter, has been quizzing Republican members of Congress and other key Party influencers to see if they feel he should ask Trump to step down in the wake of a coup attempt by Trump supporters at the Capitol. 

“The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pentagon body comprising the military’s top generals, issued a memo to the entire U.S. military on Tuesday condemning the Capitol riot and confirming Biden will become the 46th commander in chief of the armed forces on Jan. 20.

Approximately 50 armed uniformed officers from the Department of Homeland Security were on standby at a federal building nearby as insurgents stormed the Capitol and Capitol Police asked for help from federal agencies, but the DHS agents were not deployed, NBC News reports.

The failure of the Trump Administration to deploy reinforcements during a siege that ended with five American deaths harken back to conspiracy theories Republicans leveled against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton relating to the attack at the consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

The uniformed officers from the US Customs and Border Protection were at a staging area at the Reagan Building, located 13 blocks from the Capitol, at the order of the Federal Protective Service, the DHS agency responsible for the protection of federal buildings.

“Trump, speaking in front of the border wall in Texas, just referred to an “entirely preventable” tragedy. He was talking about the potential changes to border policy, not the Capitol riots” reports Reuters White House Correspondent Jeff Mason.

CNN: “PayPal is cutting ties with Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo following the January 6 US Capitol siege. The site, which the far-right extremist Proud Boys group has used for fundraising, calls itself the ‘#1 free Christian fundraising site,’ and it was used to raise funds for pro-Trump rioters who attended last week’s violent siege. ‘The account in question was closed due to a violation of our Acceptable Use Policy,’ a PayPal spokesperson told CNN Business. ‘PayPal doesn’t allow its services to be used to ‘promote hate, violence or other forms of intolerance.”