Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., pictured during a hearing in July 2020, is suing former President Donald Trump over the Capitol riot after Trump was acquitted by the Senate over an incitement charge.

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Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., pictured during a hearing in July 2020, is suing former President Donald Trump over the Capitol riot after Trump was acquitted by the Senate over an incitement charge.

Anna Moneymaker/Pool/Getty Images

Updated at 2 p.m. ET

Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson is suing former President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and two far-right groups — the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers — for allegedly conspiring to incite the deadly violence on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol.

The lawsuit, filed on Thompson’s behalf by the NAACP and the civil rights law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, accuses Trump and the other defendants of violating the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act by trying to interfere in Congress’ certification of the Electoral College count. The legislation was part of a series of Enforcement Acts at the time intended to protect the enfranchisement of Black citizens from violence and intimidation.

The suit is the first against Trump since the Senate acquitted him Saturday in his second impeachment trial. Seven Republicans broke with Trump and voted for his conviction on the charge of inciting an insurrection, but the tally still fell short of the 67 needed to convict him.

After the vote, the Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, delivered a scathing speech in which he blamed Trump for the violence on Jan. 6 but said he voted to acquit because he believes a former president can’t be tried by the Senate. McConnell also said Trump can be held liable in the court system.

Thompson’s lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., and seeks compensatory and punitive damages, aims to do just that.

“I am privileged to partner with the NAACP to have my day in court so that the perpetrators of putting members of Congress at risk can be held accountable,” Thompson told reporters Tuesday.

The main sweep of allegations, as well as many of the details, presented in the lawsuit mirrors those made by House managers in Trump’s impeachment trial. The lawsuit alleges that Trump spent months pushing baseless claims about election fraud, primed his supporters with lies and ultimately directed them Jan. 6 at the Capitol.

It claims that Trump, Giuliani, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers conspired to incite a mob, march on the Capitol and, through force, intimidation and threat, prevent Congress’ counting of the Electoral College votes.

“The insurrection at the Capitol was a direct, intended, and foreseeable result of the Defendants’ unlawful conspiracy,” the lawsuit alleges. “It was instigated according to a common plan that the Defendants pursued since the election held in November 2020.”

The lawsuit accuses the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers of spearheading the assault on the Capitol while Trump and Giuliani, his lawyer, incited the mob. Several members of both of the far-right groups are facing federal charges — including conspiracy — in connection with their actions on Jan. 6.

The lawsuit lists Proud Boys International, a Texas limited liability company with chapters around the U.S., as a defendant. The Oath Keepers, meanwhile, is a militia organization that is incorporated as a nonprofit in Nevada.

Thompson, who represents Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District, was at the Capitol when the mob overran the building. The lawsuit says he was in Gallery C of the House chamber to certify the Electoral College ballots when the attack began.

Thompson heard rioters pounding on the doors of the House chamber, it says, and saw security guards blocking the door with furniture.

“Plaintiff Thompson heard a gunshot, the source of which, at the time, was unknown to him, although he later learned that it had killed one of the rioters who had forced her way into the Capitol lobby,” the suit says.

Thompson and other lawmakers were told to lie on the floor and put on gas masks. Eventually, he and his colleagues were able to leave the gallery. They sought shelter in a room with some 200 to 300 others, including lawmakers, staff and family.

“During this entire time, Plaintiff Thompson reasonably feared for his physical safety,” the lawsuit says. “While trapped in the building, during the siege by the rioters that Defendants unleashed on the Capitol, Plaintiff Thompson feared for his life and worried that he might never see his family again.”

The lawsuit notes that this all took place during the coronavirus pandemic and that Thompson, who is in his 70s, is at high risk for severe COVID-19. After the siege ended, it says, two lawmakers who sheltered in place with Thompson tested positive for the coronavirus.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2021/02/16/968374210/house-democrat-sues-trump-giuliani-and-2-far-right-groups-over-capitol-riot

Certain essential workers in Los Angeles County, including teachers, will become eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccinations starting March 1, but will probably face competition as supplies are expected to remain limited.

The next pool of eligible Angelenos includes educators and child-care workers; food and agriculture workers, which include grocery store employees; and law enforcement personnel and other emergency responders.

“We anticipate opening up many different sites and setting up special, what we call closed sites for all these sectors on March 1,” L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said during a briefing.

More than 1.3 million people fall into those groups. About 2.2 million people in L.A. County who work in healthcare, live in long-term care facilities or are 65 and older are already eligible to be vaccinated.

Given the sheer number of people who need to get their shots, “we’re all going to still need to have a lot of patience here,” Ferrer said.

That’s especially the case as L.A. County, like the state and nation, continues to run into frustrating limits in terms of vaccine supply.

Last week, L.A. County received 219,700 doses — its largest shipment to date, but still a relative drop in the bucket for a county of about 10 million people.

Both available vaccines, one from Pfizer-BioNTech and the other from Moderna, require two shots, given three and four weeks apart, respectively.

In the face of tight supplies, the county has had to limit how many people can receive initial doses to ensure that they can get their second shots on time.

But Ferrer said the county will be able to work though much of that queue by early next month.

“That will allow us to take doses that are now going for a second-dose appointments and put them back into the community for first-dose appointments,” she said. “And that allows us to have many more doses available as we expand the eligibility for who’s able to get vaccinated.”

So far, more than 1.5 million vaccine doses have been administered in the county, according to the California Department of Public Health.

Roughly 38% of L.A. County residents 65 and older — about 537,895 out of more than 1.4 million people — have received their first vaccine dose, county Supervisor Hilda Solis said Tuesday.

“Right now, our greatest constraint happens to be the supply of vaccine,” she said. “And as we move forward, more residents become eligible to be vaccinated. It is critical that the county receive more vaccines to meet that significant demand.”

L.A. County isn’t alone in contending with vaccine shortages, or having to hoard available supplies for second doses. Health officials throughout the state have run into similar limitations.

That issue is expected to continue this week.

“Our city has the tools, the infrastructure and the determination to vaccinate Angelenos swiftly and safely — we simply need more doses,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement Monday.

San Francisco was forced to temporarily pause operations at its Moscone Center and City College vaccination sites because of diminished supplies, according to a public health statement Sunday.

And the pool of those eligible to be vaccinated is set to further widen next month. Starting March 15, people ages 16 to 64 who are disabled or at high risk for morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 will be able to receive vaccinations in California — expanding the total number of residents who can get the shots to 17 million to 20 million.

But officials warn that actually getting a shot will be challenging until more supplies are available.

Times staff writer Colleen Shalby contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-02-16/covid-19-vaccine-essential-workers-teachers-eligible-los-angeles-county

While analysts are still working to untangle all of the reasons behind Texas’ grid failures, some have also wondered whether the unique way the state manages its largely deregulated electricity system may have played a role. In the mid-1990s, for instance, Texas decided against paying energy producers to hold a fixed number of backup power plants in reserve, instead letting market forces dictate what happens on the grid.

On Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott called for an emergency reform of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the nonprofit corporation that oversees the flow of power in the state, saying its performance had been “anything but reliable” over the previous 48 hours.

In theory, experts said, there are technical solutions that can avert such problems.

Wind turbines can be equipped with heaters and other devices so that they can operate in icy conditions — as is often done in the upper Midwest, where cold weather is more common. Gas plants can be built to store oil on-site and switch over to burning the fuel if needed, as is often done in the Northeast, where natural gas shortages are common. Grid regulators can design markets that pay extra to keep a larger fleet of backup power plants in reserve in case of emergencies, as is done in the Mid-Atlantic.

But these solutions all cost money, and grid operators are often wary of forcing consumers to pay extra for safeguards.

“Building in resilience often comes at a cost, and there’s a risk of both underpaying but also of overpaying,” said Daniel Cohan, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University. “It’s a difficult balancing act.”

In the months ahead, as Texas grid operators and policymakers investigate this week’s blackouts, they will likely explore how the grid might be bolstered to handle extremely cold weather. Some possible ideas include: Building more connections between Texas and other states to balance electricity supplies, a move the state has long resisted; encouraging homeowners to install battery backup systems; or keeping additional power plants in reserve.

The search for answers will be complicated by climate change. Over all, the state is getting warmer as global temperatures rise, and cold-weather extremes are, on average, becoming less common over time.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/climate/texas-power-grid-failures.html

We work with our marketing teams all the time to look at that, whether it’s preparing for summer, preparing for winter, preparing for extreme conditions. So absolutely, this is what we’re in the business of doing, and when we are unable to get power to people in a situation like this, we want to find ways to get back in a situation where people are at full power in Texas.

Source Article from https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/we-have-seen-nothing-like-this-ercot-ceo-says-agency-still-cant-predict-when-texas-power-outages-will-end/287-6fb9564b-fd08-4ec6-acf5-a022971720ad

In theory, experts said, there are technical solutions that can avert such problems. But they can be costly to install, and the difficulty is in anticipating exactly when and where such solutions will be needed.

Wind turbines, for instance, can be equipped with heaters and other devices so that they can operate in icy conditions — as is often done in the upper Midwest, where cold weather is more frequent. Gas plants can be built to store oil on-site and burn the fuel if needed, as is often done in the Northeast, where natural gas shortages are more common. Grid regulators can design markets that pay extra to keep a fleet of backup power plants in reserve in case of emergencies, as is often done in the Mid-Atlantic.

But all of these solutions cost money, and grid operators are often wary of forcing consumers to pay extra for safeguards if they don’t think they will be needed.

“Building in resilience often comes at a cost, and there’s a risk of both underpaying but also of overpaying,” said Daniel Cohan, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University. “It’s a difficult balancing act.”

In the months ahead, as Texas grid operators and policymakers study this week’s winter storm, they may start to ask how and whether the grid might be bolstered to handle extremely cold temperatures. Is there aging infrastructure in dire need of repair? Would it make sense to build more connections between Texas’ power grid and other parts of the country to balance out electricity supplies — a move the state has long resisted? Should homeowners be encouraged to install costly backup battery storage units or more efficient heat pumps that use less electricity? Should the state’s electricity markets be tweaked to keep additional power plants in reserve?

One difficulty is that climate change is making it harder to prepare. Overall, the state is getting warmer as global temperatures rise, and cold-weather extremes are, on average, becoming less common over time.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/climate/texas-power-grid-failures.html

The NAACP and Rep. Bennie ThompsonBennie Gordon ThompsonKrebs, other officials urge Congress to take strong action to tamp down cyber threats Katko calls for bipartisanship on cyber issues as threats intensify New cyber panel chair zeros in on election security, SolarWinds hack MORE (D-Miss.) are suing former President TrumpDonald TrumpMichigan Democrat Dingell on violent rhetoric: ‘I’ve had men in front of my house with assault weapons’ McConnell doesn’t rule out getting involved in Republican primaries 75 percent of Republicans want Trump to play prominent role in GOP: poll MORE, alleging that Trump incited the Capitol riot on Jan. 6 in violation of a Reconstruction Era law commonly referred to as the Ku Klux Klan Act.

Filed Tuesday in the federal District Court of Washington, D.C., the civil complaint comes after the former president was acquitted over the weekend by the Senate in his second impeachment trial which was also focused on the events of Jan. 6.

The lawsuit also names Trump lawyer Rudy GiulianiRudy GiulianiBartiromo, Pirro, Dobbs file to dismiss Smartmatic lawsuits Trump DOJ officials sought to block search of Giuliani records: report Lincoln Project unveils mid-impeachment trial ad targeting Republicans over Capitol riot MORE and two white extremist groups, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.

“You cannot move forward if you don’t address the illegality of what took place, the treasonous act,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson told The Hill. “If you try to move forward without holding people accountable, you only set yourself up [for] future activity that could possibly be successful in toppling our democracy. For African Americans, we see a long history of people not being held accountable … and if we don’t hold people accountable, there becomes this entitlement that it’s OK to cause harm and violate the law.”

Johnson said that the insurrection of the Capitol was steeped in white supremacy, something that can’t be allowed to fester.

“We also must recognize that if we allow these groups to become mainstream they won’t be extremists anymore, but part of our reality,” Johnson said. “That’s not a reality that this country can survive.”

Thompson, in a statement, described Trump’s support of the rioters as “gleeful.”

Jason Miller, a spokesman for Trump, cited the former president’s recent acquittal in the Senate impeachment trial and said Trump did not incite acts of violence. 

“President Trump has been acquitted in the Democrats’ latest Impeachment Witch Hunt, and the facts are irrefutable. President Trump did not plan, produce or organize the Jan. 6th rally on the Ellipse,” Miller said in a statement. “President Trump did not incite or conspire to incite any violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6th. Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiPelosi says 9/11-style commission to investigate Capitol breach is ‘next step’ Biden calls for ‘commonsense gun law reforms’ on anniversary of Parkland shooting Pelosi rules out censure after Trump acquittal MORE and Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel BowserMuriel BowserTrump World stunned by move to call witnesses Union alleges safety protocol violations at DC school where teacher died of COVID DC delegate to introduce bill banning permanent fencing around Capitol MORE must answer questions as to why they rejected additional security and National Guard assistance in the run-up to Jan. 6th.”

White extremist and hate group activity spiked during the Trump presidency, a concerning trend that the NAACP and other civil rights organizations have consistently warned against.

The Southern Poverty Law Center said that in the first three years of Trump’s presidency, they noted “historically high hate group numbers.”

“Trump, of course, acts as a partial explanation,” the Southern Poverty Law Center said recently in its annual “Year in Hate and Extremism” report. “He undoubtedly emboldened the far right and, importantly, created heightened expectations.”

The Ku Klux Klan Act, passed in 1871, was the third law in a series of legislation created by Congress to slow the violence against and intimidation of Black Americans at the hands of the white hate group following the Civil War.

While much of the law has since become obsolete, several parts have become codified as a statute, including 42 U.S.C. 1985(1) — the provision listed in the lawsuit.

The statute specifically safeguards against conspiracies meant “to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person from accepting or holding any office.”

Now a private citizen, Trump faces numerous legal challenges in addition to the newly filed suit.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellMcConnell doesn’t rule out getting involved in Republican primaries McConnell defends acquittal in WSJ op-ed but blasts Trump’s ‘unhinged falsehoods’ Biden pledges action on guns amid resistance MORE (R-Ky.) acknowledged this in a speech Saturday shortly following Trump’s Senate acquittal in his second impeachment trial.

“We have a criminal justice system in this country,” McConnell said. “We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being accountable by either one.”

According to the NAACP, additional lawmakers, including Reps. Hank JohnsonHenry (Hank) C. JohnsonHouse Judiciary Democrats ask Pence to invoke 25th Amendment to remove Trump Five things to watch during Electoral College battle Hoyer says Trump Georgia call likely criminal, wants ‘serious’ investigation MORE (D-Ga.) and Bonnie Watson ColemanBonnie Watson ColemanFallen Capitol Police officer to lie in honor in Rotunda Over 40 lawmakers sign letter urging Merrick Garland to prioritize abolishing death penalty Biden scolds Republicans for not wearing masks during Capitol attack MORE (D-N.J.), are expected to join the lawsuit in the coming days.

Updated at 12:23 p.m.

Source Article from https://thehill.com/homenews/house/538969-naacp-rep-bennie-thompson-sue-trump-giuliani-over-capitol-riot

The eviction moratorium remains in effect through March but was not included in the actions announced Tuesday.

The departments of Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs and Agriculture will work together to enact the actions, according to the announcement from the White House. Resources for homeowners will be consolidated on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s website.

The White House announcement also pushed for quick passage of Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package, arguing the bill would provide states with $10 billion to assist homeowners with mortgage and utility costs. The Biden administration said Tuesday that 2.7 million homeowners are enrolled in the Covid-19 mortgage forbearance program, which remains available to an additional 11 million government-backed mortgages.

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/16/foreclosure-moratorium-mortgage-forbearance-extension-469111

When asked if there were any talks of planned power outages, an ERCOT spokesperson said, “At this point in time, we don’t know if they’re already planning for any outages. No, I don’t have that information.

Source Article from https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/how-ercot-prepared-for-the-winter-storm-in-texas/285-26b1e608-d852-4476-a74f-124d96915735

Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/02/16/deadly-winter-storm-texas-tornado-north-carolina/6761409002/

POLITICO Dispatch: February 16

Biden promised to “follow the science” throughout his campaign. But now he’s learning the hard way that — from school reopenings to wearing masks — politics and science don’t always mesh.

“President Biden isn’t going to rest until students are back in school five days a week, and if Republicans agree, they should match their words with action and support the president’s Rescue Plan, which will get schools the resources they desperately need to reopen safely,” said Michael Gwin, a White House spokesperson.

But parents aren’t only impacted by the tens of millions of children who have gone nearly a year without an in-person education. Millions of unemployed Americans — many with children living under their roof — have been forced to stay home as businesses close and suffer. Women are leaving their jobs in alarming numbers. The childcare industry, which unlike public schools relies extensively on tuition and direct payments from parents, faces an existential crisis as families continue to shoulder much of the load.

And child poverty, which existed for generations, is being amplified by the virus across a vast array of demographic groups.

“For so long, the public looked at Washington and said, ‘We’re on our own. These folks don’t care a lick about us and what’s going on’” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the chair of the House Appropriations Committee. She has spent years working on paid family and medical leave policies.

“They now believe that the federal government and Joe Biden want to do something, and they’re waiting for that. So, there is pressure on the administration,” DeLauro acknowledged. “But it’s pressure that they are aware of and they are talking about it.”

Democrats point to their push to expand the child tax credit, which officials say would cut child poverty in half, and a new call for a child allowance, as the types of policies that could particularly help their standing among disheartened parents. From there, they note a host of other proposals ranging from boosting paid leave to helping offset childcare expenses to an expansion of healthcare benefits.

“The work of parenting, the work of raising children, has now been visible in a way it has not been in professional circles in a long time,” said Katie Connolly, a Democratic pollster. “People feel more comfortable in a government that invests in what is a good, which is raising our children.”

Connolly said the pandemic and resulting policies present an opportunity for Biden and Democrats to solidify their standing with suburban women and parents across the board, continuing to attract voters who migrated to the party in droves during the Trump years.

Other Democrats, meanwhile, argued that Republicans have little standing to push a new message on schools and family assistance given their unwillingness so far to support Biden’s relief bill and their failure to help ensure there was a national vaccine distribution plan under the Trump administration.

“They have no message to parents. It is all shallow,” said John Anzalone, a top Biden adviser and campaign pollster. Families, Anzalone added, won’t feel like their needs are being met unless they see movement from the government. “They want action.”

Republicans had previously supported five bills totaling some $4 trillion in pandemic-era spending. However, they are once again hinting at taking a well-worn path that worries some Democrats.

During Barack Obama’s presidency, McConnell and his party thrived in down-ballot elections after moving to stymie or altogether block the White House’s agenda at all turns. The GOP could do the same to Biden and face little blowback from voters if his plans stall or if the bills that do pass fail to reverse the dire situation parents are facing.

“They think that good politics is saying ‘no,’” a Democrat close to the Biden administration said of the GOP, stressing the importance of coming bills to generate longer-term growth. “And they bank on the fact that most Americans have a hard time attributing the ‘yes’ and the ‘no’” votes.”

School closures have come to serve as a rare point of unity for a Republican Party that’s been roiled by Trump’s impeachment and outrage over explosive comments from members like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). But Republicans say that spending concerns are real among their constituencies too, particularly as some schools still haven’t opened to in-person learning after their districts spent millions of dollars on safety upgrades.

“One of the issues we’re seeing and thinking a lot about are the folks who don’t have kids and how they perceive the current educational environment,” said Paul Bentz, an Arizona-based Republican pollster, who described retirees frustrated by taxes they paid going to shuttered schools.

Bentz said in his survey research, when likely voters who don’t have kids at home are asked about Covid-19 and classrooms, “there is almost unilateral belief that kids need to get back into the classroom [so that they] aren’t learning from behind a screen.”

Democrats like Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, who ran in one of the highest-profile races in the country last year, could face the wrath of voters when he’s up again in two years if Biden doesn’t act more aggressively to reopen schools, Bentz said.

Trump’s presence or absence on the political scene will have an impact on Biden’s parent trap, too. Kelly and other Democrats across the country likely avoided more penetrating attacks from the GOP on the school closures last fall because so much attention was paid to the former president’s overall handling of the pandemic.

Republicans focused on House races said they were surprised to find in extensive polling last cycle that voters were about evenly split on whom they held responsible for school closures, according to operatives involved in the effort. The findings, they believed, were a direct result of Trump’s lack of credibility on the pandemic and the school issues specifically.

Trump had frequently called for schools to be reopened without conditioning his remarks on safety measures. Candidates across the country were also dealing with surges of the virus that overwhelmed local hospitals.

“The president’s messaging was so toxic to your average suburban voter that we didn’t feel like we were getting anywhere with it,” said one GOP strategist who worked on the races in 2020. “What we needed and wanted was somebody who was saying ‘the risks are low. Let’s reopen schools safely with proper precautions.’ Trump wasn’t capable of saying anything that nuanced.”

“But,” the person added, “if you asked people, ‘do you think we should safely reopen schools?’ the numbers were better.’”

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/16/gop-pandemic-parent-voters-biden-469107

  • Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands) was a House manager in Trump’s second impeachment trial.
  • She told CNN some Senate Republicans privately told her she “made the case” for conviction.
  • But she said they already planned to acquit Trump and didn’t want to “stand out on a limb” by convicting.
  • Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.

A House impeachment manager says Republican senators told her privately that she “made the case” to convict former President Donald Trump, but they still voted to acquit him. 

Del. Stacey Plaskett, a Democrat from the Virgin Islands, told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Monday about the interactions she had with unnamed Republican senators during Trump’s second impeachment trial last week.

“I had senators, even after we presented, who stopped me in the hallway, Republicans, who said that we had made the case, but yet they were going to vote to acquit the president,” Plaskett said.

Plaskett said she tried to win these senators over by saying they could vote to acquit Trump, but not vote to disqualify him from holding office in the future — a vote which would have taken place after conviction, and only requires a simple majority.

“The response was, ‘Well, I don’t think you’ll get to 17, so I’ll never get to that second disqualification vote and I don’t want to stand out on a limb by myself,'” Plaskett recalled, referring to Democratic senators’ needing 17 Republicans to vote with them in order to convict Trump.

Read more: 7 yuuge reasons Donald Trump isn’t going away

Plaskett has in recent days also defended her decision not to call witnesses during the trial.

“We had no need to call any witnesses at the end of the trial because, as all Americans believed at that moment, the evidence was overwhelming,” Plaskett told NPR on Sunday.

She also told CNN in a separate Sunday interview: “I know people are feeling a lot of angst and believe that maybe if we had this, the senators would have done what we wanted, but listen, we didn’t need more witnesses, we needed more senators with spines.”

Trump was acquitted at his second impeachment trial on Saturday, with 57 votes to convict and 43 votes to acquit. A two-thirds majority vote is required to impeach a president. Seven Republican senators voted to convict, joining all 50 Senate Democrats.

Among the Republicans who voted to convict is North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, who is retiring after this term. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close confidante of Trump, said Burr’s vote in the trial paves the way for Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to run for his seat. 

While Plaskett didn’t get the outcome she was looking for in Trump’s second impeachment trial, she said it was necessary for the country, and it may work to stop Trump from running for office in the future. 

“I believe that January 6 [Capitol riot] was a second kind of Civil War and it was necessary for us to have a reckoning and for those individuals who made war against our democracy be brought to justice, they needed to be held accounted for,” Plaskett told CNN’s Cuomo on Monday.

“And so that’s what I saw as my duty and my service to my country. I believe that we were on the front lines to save our union and our republic,” she added.

“I do believe, even though we lost that case, that we have shown who Donald Trump is, we’ve shown the enemy that was among us, that was attempting to lead us, that was using us for his own greed and power, and that he will not have the same power that he had, should he ever attempt to run again.”

Source Article from https://www.businessinsider.com/stacey-plaskett-republicans-privately-said-made-the-case-convict-trump-2021-2

ALBANY, N.Y.—New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s job approval rating has dropped 10 points since January, a poll released Tuesday showed, amid bipartisan criticism of his administration’s reporting of the number of nursing-home residents who died from Covid-19.

A Siena College Research Institute poll of 804 New York voters found the Democratic governor’s overall job approval fell to 51-47, down from 55-41 in January. When asked if they approved of how Mr. Cuomo had made public information about nursing-home deaths, 39% said they approved compared with 55% who didn’t.

State officials now say more than 15,000 residents of nursing homes and assisted-living and adult-care facilities were confirmed or presumed to have succumbed to the coronavirus since March of last year—a tally that is around 50% higher than earlier figures released by the state. For months, the state didn’t answer requests from lawmakers and journalists asking for the number of facility residents who died in hospitals.

Democratic and Republican state lawmakers criticized the delay as well as a statement last week by the governor’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, that the state held off releasing the fuller count in August because of fear that former President Trump’s administration would politicize the information.

Democrats who control both the state Assembly and Senate said they held private discussions over the weekend about rolling back a state law, enacted in March, that gave Mr. Cuomo unprecedented powers to unilaterally issue directives needed to manage the pandemic. The governor has used his authority to close schools and set rules for the operation of businesses.

Source Article from https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-gov-cuomo-slips-in-polls-as-criticism-mounts-over-nursing-home-deaths-11613471402

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a move that Democrats described as a blatantly partisan effort to deflect responsibility for the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol from former President Donald Trump, Ohio’s Rep. Jim Jordan and three other top U.S. House Republicans on Monday questioned whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bears some responsibility for security failures that allowed rioters into the building where 2020 presidential electoral votes were being tallied.

Jordan, who is the House Judiciary Committee’s top Republican, joined his counterparts on the House Administration, Intelligence and Oversight and Reform committees in a letter that asked why a Capitol Police request for National Guard support during the protest was denied several days before before the incursion where five people died. The letter also asked what security guidance was provided by Pelosi and her staff.

Citing published reports that the House Sergeant at Arms denied the request for National Guard support “because the ‘optics’ of having the National Guard on site were not good and the intelligence didn’t support the move,” Jordan’s letter suggested that was done on Pelosi’s behalf — something a spokesman for Pelosi said was not true. The letter also said Democrat-appointed House officers haven’t provided information that Republicans requested about the incident so they can “properly conduct oversight on the January 6th events.”

“Five weeks have passed since the January 6th attack on the Capitol building, and many important questions about your responsibility for the security of the Capitol remain unanswered,” said the Champaign County Republican’s letter. “As you are aware, the Speaker of the House is not only the leader of the majority party, but also has enormous institutional responsibilities. The Speaker is responsible for all operational decisions made within the House.”

Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill dismissed the letter as effort to deflect responsibility for the riot from Trump. He observed that Jordan and another signer of Monday’s letter “voted to overturn the results of a fair election, just hours after the Capitol was sacked by an insurrectionist, right-wing mob,” when the two opposed accepting electoral votes from states Trump contested. Hammill also questioned the four Republicans’ commitment to security at the Capitol in light of their votes last month against impeaching Trump for his role in “inciting the mob.” On Saturday, impeachment advocates failed to get the two-thirds majority vote they needed in the U.S. Senate to find Trump guilty of inciting insurrection.

Hammill said Pelosi is taking action to ensure accountability for the riot and enhance the Capitol’s security. Several officials responsible for security at the U.S. Capitol – House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving, Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger and Capitol Police Chief Steve Sund – were removed from their positions after the incident. Hammill said Irving has acknowledged he did not ask House leaders for a National Guard presence before the riot.

Hammill said that when the committees that oversee Capitol Hill security were briefed before the Jan. 6 incident, Sund and Irving told them “the Capitol Complex had comprehensive security and there was no intelligence that groups would become violent at the Capitol during the certification of electoral votes.” After the insurrection, Hammill said Pelosi asked retired Gen. Russel L. Honoré to “lead an immediate security review of the U.S. Capitol Complex and has called for a 9/11-style commission to investigate, with legislation creating such a panel to be introduced in the coming days. The USCP is also conducting an internal security review.”

“With this transparently partisan attempt to lay blame on the Speaker, who was a target of assassination during the insurrection fueled by the lies of House Republicans, the Ranking Members are trying to absolve former Police Chief Sund, former Sergeant at Arms Stenger and the leader who appointed him, Mitch McConnell, of any responsibility,” said Hammill. “We look forward to these Ranking Members asking these same questions of former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.”

When asked last week why the Capitol wasn’t better prepared for potential violence on Jan. 6 and why the National Guard wasn’t called in advance, Pelosi told a press conference “the interagency cooperation, or lack thereof” is being reviewed. She also suggested it would be beneficial if District of Columbia authorities could be empowered to “call out the National Guard, without getting the permission of the federal government,” as state governors are allowed to do.

“Everything has to be subjected to the harshest review to make sure this doesn’t come again,” Pelosi continued. “We couldn’t be in better hands than General Honoré, who has such experience and commands so much respect in this regard.”

The GOP letter also faulted Pelosi for not consulting Republicans on her decisions to fire Irving, demand Sund’s resignation, and appoint Honoré to lead the security review.

“To the General’s credit he has reached out to several Republicans to brief on his work to date,” the letter said. “We are hopeful his review will result in beneficial recommendations that are not influenced by political motivations. However, it is easy to understand why we and our Senate counterparts remain skeptical that any of his final recommendations will be independent and without influence from you.”

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Early Monday, ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas), the agency that oversees the state’s electric grid, declared the state of Texas at the highest energy emergency level because of lower power supply and high demand due to extremely low temperatures during the winter storm.

Source Article from https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/houston-power-outage-map/285-022a8dc6-6243-4484-abdc-f6b69c0c8fd2

Of the seven, only Mr. Burr and Senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, who is also retiring, will not face voters again. Mr. Toomey was rebuked by several county-level Republican officials in his state in recent days.

Neither senator was particularly vocal in criticizing Mr. Trump while he was in office.

In 2019, Mr. Burr, then the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, subpoenaed testimony from Donald Trump Jr. as part of his work conducting the only bipartisan congressional investigation into Russian election interference. The former president’s son responded by starting a political war against Mr. Burr, putting him and the Intelligence Committee on their heels.

On the day of the vote in the impeachment trial, Mr. Burr laid out his rationale for his guilty vote by saying that the president “bears responsibility” for the events of Jan. 6.

“The evidence is compelling that President Trump is guilty of inciting an insurrection against a coequal branch of government and that the charge rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors,” he said. “Therefore, I have voted to convict.”

The chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, Michael Whatley, released a statement the same day calling Mr. Burr’s vote to convict “contradictory.”

“North Carolina Republicans sent Senator Burr to the United States Senate to uphold the Constitution and his vote today to convict in a trial that he declared unconstitutional is shocking and disappointing,” Mr. Whatley said.

Mr. Burr’s impeachment vote added fuel to speculation that Lara Trump, Mr. Trump’s daughter in-law, will seek the North Carolina Senate seat that Mr. Burr will vacate after the 2022 election. Ms. Trump, who is married to Eric Trump, grew up in the state and has been floating herself as a possible Burr successor for months.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/us/politics/richard-burr-censure-impeachment.html