January, 2022 | últimas notícias

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney weighs in on President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s speeches given one year after Capitol riot.

House January 6 Select Committee Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., told Fox News on Thursday that the panel’s goal is not to prevent Donald Trump from seeking a Grover Cleveland-like second nonconsecutive term, while pushing back on fellow Republicans’ claims it serves no legislative purpose.

Cheney, who along with her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, were the only Republicans present for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s commemorative session in the chamber earlier in the day, told “Special Report” that there are many misconceptions about the committee and about her stature as a conservative Republican.

Cheney, the only member of the House from Cowboy State, told Fox News that she also strongly disagreed with Vice President Harris‘ claim earlier in the day that the riot of one year ago is somehow commensurate to the thousands killed at Pearl Harbor or on September 11, 2001.

KINZINGER RIPS TRUMP, DEFENDS STANDING WITH CHENEY ON 1/6 COMMITTEE

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) speaks as Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), vice-chair of the select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) listen during a committee meeting on Capitol Hill. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

“I thought that there were a number of things that [Harris and President Biden] said that I agreed with. I think when you look at… the attack that happened on January 6th … this was a mob that was summoned by and provoked by the President of the United States in an effort to stop the counting of electoral votes, which is a constitutional process,” she said.

“And so I do think the attacks are very different [than Pearl Harbor & 9/11]. I think there is a grave threat, certainly, to our system, to our constitutional institutions – And I think we have to set partisanship aside and party politics aside to get to the bottom of what happened and make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

Cheney also denied claims the January 6 probe, led by Mississippi Democrat Bennie G. Thompson, is intended to specifically prevent Trump from seeking the White House a third time.

“The goal of the committee is what I said. We are a committee of Congress. Our responsibility is legislative purpose, to determine what laws we have in place, what additional laws we might need to prevent an attack like that from ever happening again — and we need to understand what happened,” she said, when asked about the claims by anchor Bret Baier.

Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., May 2021. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
( (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta))

Baier followed up by asking about other lawmakers’ concerns about potential security failures in the run-up to the riot.

“The Architect of the Capitol, the Senate sergeant-at-arms have all turned over requested documents to the House Administration Committee overlooking the security aspect. The House sergeant-at-arms has not.”

Baier further reported that Thompson has essentially made Pelosi’s office “off-limits”, which complicates access to the House sergeant-at-arms.

In July 2020, Thompson appeared to dismiss concerns from that aspect, saying that “if you look at the charge that we have in the resolution, it says the facts and circumstances around January 6. I don’t see the speaker being part and parcel to that,” the Mississippi Democrat said.

On “Special Report”, Cheney appeared to deny Pelosi’s office being off-limits to the committee, saying there is an “entire investigative team” on the panel looking into security concerns.

“That is a really important set of issues. No office is off-limits. No issue is off-limits. We certainly need to get to the bottom of that,” she said.

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Cheney however went on to compare the idea that Capitol “security lapses” are to blame for “a mob provoked by President Trump” to blaming small business owners for their businesses being burned down by Black Lives Matter rioters in the summer of 2020.

Cheney also disagreed that Democrats should be connecting the committee’s work to a pitch for passing two major federal election overhaul bills that have otherwise unanimous Republican opposition.

She said she does not support Maryland Rep. John Sarbanes’ “For the People Act” nor Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell’s “John Lewis Voting Rights Act“.

“We need to look at things – are there reforms necessary to the Electoral Count Act? We need to look at things like – are there enhanced penalties that are necessary for a president who fails to come to the aid of Congress who fails to come to the aid of any co-equal branch of government? We need to look at things like the dereliction of duty.”

FILE – Former President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

“But that doesn’t mean that we’re going to have complete agreement or that I certainly agree with policy matters that I have not agreed with in the past.”

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Earlier Thursday, Trump pushed back on Cheney and her panel, dubbing them the “Unselect Committee of totally partisan political hacks” – and suggesting Democrats want to harp on January 6, 2020, so they can “stoke fears and divide America.”

“[L]et them have it because America sees through their lies and polarizations,” Trump said Thursday.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/media/liz-cheney-jan-6-committee-goal-not-prevent-trump-2024

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Former Biden advisers call for ‘new’ covid strategy – The Washington Post

In the articles, the advisers lay out dozens of recommendations, sometimes explicitly and often implicitly criticizing the federal response. For instance, they urge the administration to create a “modern data infrastructure” that would offer real-time information on the spread of the coronavirus and other potential threats, saying inadequate surveillance continues to put American lives and society at risk. They also suggest investments in tests, vaccines and prevention beyond what the White House has done, such as mailing vouchers to Americans that could be used to obtain free, high-quality face masks.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/01/06/biden-advisers-new-covid-strategy/

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Kamala Harris was at DNC on Jan. 6 when pipe bomb was found outside – NBC News

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Sounding alarm on China, Japan and U.S. vow to collaborate more on defence – Reuters

TOKYO/WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (Reuters) – The United States and Japan on Friday voiced strong concern about China’s growing might and pledged to work together to push back against attempts to destabilise the region, including against emerging defence threats.

The comments from the two allies, in a joint statement that followed a virtual “two-plus-two” meeting of their foreign and defence ministers, highlights how deepening alarm about China – and increasing tension over Taiwan – have put Japan’s security role in greater focus.

In their meeting, the ministers expressed concerns that China’s efforts “to undermine the rules-based order” presented “political, economic, military and technological challenges to the region and the world,” the joint statement said.

“They resolved to work together to deter and, if necessary, respond to destabilising activities in the region,” it said.

The ministers also said they had “serious and ongoing concerns” about human rights issues in China’s Xinjiang and Hong Kong regions and underscored the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

While pacifist Japan retains close economic ties to China, there is growing concern in Tokyo about a potential move by Beijing against democratic Taiwan.

“This is clearly a combined message reflecting a common concern, not a case of U.S. arm-twisting to get Japan to sign onto vague euphemisms,” said Daniel Russel, who served as the top U.S. diplomat for Asia under Obama and is now with the Asia Society Policy Institute.

“In particular, the expression of joint resolve to respond if necessary to destabilising activities comes across as a powerful expression of alliance solidarity and determination.”

Earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the two countries would sign a new defence collaboration deal to counter emerging threats, including hypersonics and space-based capabilities.

NEW TOOLS

Blinken said the U.S.- Japan alliance “must not only strengthen the tools we have, but also develop new ones”, citing Russia’s military buildup against Ukraine, Beijing’s “provocative” actions over Taiwan and North Korea’s latest missile launch. North Korea fired a “hypersonic missile” this week that successfully hit a target, its state news agency said.

Following the meeting, Japan’s foreign minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi, said Tokyo had explained its plan to revise the national security strategy to fundamentally boost defence capabilities, which he said was strongly supported by his U.S. counterparts.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in October promised to revise Japan’s security strategy to consider “all options including possession of the so-called enemy-strike capabilities”.

Kishida’s government has approved record defence spending, with a 10th straight annual increase in 2022.

Jeffrey Hornung, a Japanese security policy expert at the Rand Corporation, a U.S.-backed think tank, said while options for Japan to use force are realistically limited, a Taiwan emergency would be one potential scenario that Japan could deem as threatening its survival.

“There is no coded messaging here,” Hornung said.

“China is the challenge and they said as much, then detailed all the ways the alliance is determined to work to counter its destabilising activities.”

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/us-japan-launch-new-defense-research-development-agreement-2022-01-06/

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Kazakhstan Protests Have Russia Sending Troops as Dozens Killed in Unrest – The Wall Street Journal

MOSCOW—Russia sent paratroopers to help Kazakhstan’s leader stamp out a wave of protests as, further west, Russian President Vladimir Putin confronts the U.S. and its allies over the future of another former Soviet republic, Ukraine.

Dozens of people were killed in clashes between protesters and Kazakhstan’s security forces in the early hours of Thursday, including 18 law enforcement officers, according to Russian state media. Initially sparked by a sharp increase in fuel prices at the beginning of year, the protests quickly spiraled into a broader outpouring of frustration with the resource-rich nation’s authoritarian leaders. Protesters accuse them of squandering its wealth, including its uranium reserves, echoing the kind of uprisings that toppled one of Mr. Putin’s protégés in Ukraine in 2014 and a wave of protests against Belarus’s pro-Kremlin leader in 2020.

Source Article from https://www.wsj.com/articles/dozens-killed-in-kazakhstan-as-authorities-crack-down-on-unrest-11641462504

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No school Friday as CPS, CTU remain at odds over reopening – Chicago Sun-Times

Another day came and passed with no agreement between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union, leaving classes canceled again Friday for the vast majority of students, though a small handful of schools were expected to offer at least some activities.

The union’s disagreement with the school system over COVID-19 protocols amid the city’s Omicron variant wave meant the vast majority of CPS students wouldn’t have classes either in classrooms or online for the third consecutive day as the two sides sort out their differences.

“Bargaining sessions today started at noon and went into the evening. The sessions were productive from our perspective,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot and CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said in a statement.

President Joe Biden said this week he believes schools should remain open during the Omicron wave, and an administration source said Biden’s education secretary, Miguel Cardona, held separate phone conversations with Martinez and Randi Weingarten, president of the CTU’s parent union, in which he “underscored the importance of in-person learning.”

Cardona offered technical assistance from the Department of Education to “implement mitigation strategies to get kids back in school in person” and told them “we should all work together towards that goal of getting kids back in classrooms while protecting the safety of teachers, educators and communities.”

Meanwhile, principals throughout the city sent messages to their families Thursday letting them know whether their students would have limited opportunities to attend school Friday depending on how many teachers were expected to ignore the union’s refusal of in-person work and show up to their buildings.

“You should not plan to send your child to school, unless your child’s principal tells you that students can come to school for in-person activities,” the district told families, noting that would be the case at only “a small number of schools.”

About one of every eight CPS teachers — 12.8% of the district’s 21,600 — went to their schools Thursday, according to district officials. Some schools saw higher rates than others, such as Mount Greenwood, a Far South Side neighborhood in the city’s only Republican ward, where the elementary school said more than 90% of its staff showed up this week.

Teachers who are following the union’s labor action, which calls for remote work only, an option not currently allowed by CPS, have been locked out of their emails and other work accounts. Only those who report in person have access and can communicate with parents.

The district asked principals to submit their plans for Friday by mid-afternoon Thursday. Those who expected between 20% and 60% of their staff to report to school could hold “academic enrichment” such as computer lab activities, sports, games, art, tutoring or writing exercises but no new lessons, grades or recorded attendance, according to a memo a principal shared with the Sun-Times. Principals with 69% or more of their teachers expected to show could hold regular classes and record attendance.

An official wrote in a memo to principals in one Northwest Side network that they should “be transparent with the supports that can be offered to parents, do not over promise when you are under staffed.”

In a video message posted online, Morgan Park High School Principal Femi Skanes told families the Far South Side school won’t hold remote classes Friday but will distribute laptops from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. for students to keep until the end of the year.

“For some of our students who need to get caught up on some missing assignments or get caught up on some skills in class, you will have a Chromebook so that you can continue to do that,” she said. The devices could also be used for needs like PSAT or SAT practice, or college and financial assistance applications.

Thorp Elementary administrators told their families 33 staff members, including janitors, lunch attendants and bus aides will supervise children. The school was prioritizing special education students and children whose parents can’t work remotely for in-person attendance Friday.

But after 18 confirmed cases this week, Principal Efren Toledo wrote in an email to the school community that any student who wants to go to school Friday must be registered for the district’s COVID-19 testing program. Any CPS parents can register their children for in-school testing at color.com/readycheckgo-cps. That program is for asymptomatic people — anyone who has symptoms was asked to seek testing at a pharmacy, clinic or other medical site.

“That’s something that’s going to be a little different,” Toledo told families during an online webinar. “If they’re coming back, they will have to be registered. It’s very important that we have a solid testing protocol.” Half of Thorp students were signed up so far.

After principals met all day, Troy LaRaviere, president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, released a statement with input from school leaders that criticized the plan to let individual schools offer different levels of support to their students.

“This is a districtwide crisis and we need a districtwide strategy. It should not be an ad hoc reactionary response that creates inequities that are predictable among social and economic line,” the statement said.

Martinez had said in a news conference Wednesday that he heard from principals who wanted to offer programming for their students if they had enough staff.

More principals said they were receiving news of positive virus tests administered earlier in the week that showed more infections in their schools than before winter break. Confirmed virus cases reached record highs this week, in line with the city’s wider surge. The infections remained a small fraction of the district’s 272,000 students at non-charter schools and 40,000 employees, though many have had trouble accessing tests.

There were 433 positive cases among students and 280 in adults reported Tuesday, both more than double the previous high this school year, which came right before winter break, according to CPS records. Student cases dropped to 136 Wednesday, the first day of canceled classes, while adult infections stood at 208.

The CTU has demanded students and staff show negative test results before returning to classes and has called for increased testing capacity moving forward. The two sides are also discussing a threshold of teacher and student absences that would trigger the closure of an individual school for a few days.

Contributing: Lynn Sweet

Source Article from https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2022/1/6/22871045/cps-classes-cancel-public-schools-friday-district-teachers-union-reopening-covid-omicron

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A year after U.S. Capitol siege, Biden blasts Trump’s ‘web of lies’ – Reuters

WASHINGTON, Jan 6 (Reuters) – President Joe Biden on Thursday accused his predecessor Donald Trump of spreading a “web of lies” to undermine U.S. democracy in a speech on the anniversary of the deadly Capitol attack by Trump supporters who tried to undo his 2020 election defeat.

Speaking at the white-domed building where rioters smashed windows, assaulted police and sent lawmakers fleeing for their lives on Jan. 6, 2021, Biden said Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud could unravel the rule of law and subvert future elections.

“A former president of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He’s done so because he values power over principle,” Biden said. “He can’t accept he lost.”

Biden never actually uttered his predecessor’s name during the 25-minute speech, telling reporters afterward he was trying to focus on the threats to America’s political system instead of Trump himself.

The tone, including a poke at Trump’s “bruised ego,” was a departure for Biden, who has focused during most of his first year in office on pursuing his own agenda. Trump issued three statements in the hours following his successor’s remarks accusing Biden of trying to divide the country and repeating his false election claims.

Trump’s behavior over the past year, like his conduct in office, has been norm-shattering. Unlike other former U.S. presidents denied re-election, Trump has refused to accept the verdict of the voters and pressured fellow Republicans to somehow overturn the results, without success.

His false claims have provided cover for Republicans at the state level to pass new restrictions on voting that they have said are needed to fight fraud. Research shows such fraud is extremely rare in U.S. elections.

Biden’s fellow Democrats, a few Republicans and many independent experts have said Trump’s continued denials could make it less likely that future U.S. transfers of power will be peaceful – especially those involving closer margins than the 2020 election that Biden won by 7 million votes nationwide.

The speech illustrated that Biden and other Democrats remain wary of Trump’s political staying power. In the riot’s immediate aftermath, even some Republicans thought his grip on their party had been shaken, but since then Trump has only tightened it.

“Our democracy is very fragile, and the cult of The Big Lie is still very much in action with the help of the vast majority of our colleagues on the other side, who continue to try to rewrite or ignore history,” Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal said at an afternoon event.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led dozens of bundled-up Democratic lawmakers holding lights in a moment of silence on the steps of the Capitol, part of a candlelight prayer vigil that was the final official event of the anniversary.

Not far away, a vigil at the D.C. jail for the about 40 inmates charged in connection with the Jan. 6 assault was sparsely attended.

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U.S. President Joe Biden speaks in Statuary Hall on the first anniversary of the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 6, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

“This is not speedy justice,” said L.A. Warren, 65, who had driven to Washington from his Michigan home for the day and said he, too, had participated in the storming of the Capitol. “A year, that’s a long time, when these people – a lot of them, in my view – was trespassing.”

‘CULT OF PERSONALITY’

Just two Republicans were spotted at a House of Representatives session marking the riot’s anniversary: Representative Liz Cheney, who has been shunned by party colleagues after criticizing Trump, and her father Dick Cheney, who served as vice president under President George W. Bush.

“A party that is in thrall to a cult of personality is a party that is dangerous to the country,” Liz Cheney told reporters on her way out of the Capitol.

Dick Cheney told reporters that current party leaders do not resemble “any of the folks I knew” when he served in Congress.

America’s next federal election is in November, with Republicans favored to retake a majority in at least one of the two chambers of Congress. That could cripple Biden’s ability to advance policy and set the stage for two years of legislative gridlock before a potential 2024 Biden-Trump rematch.

According to Reuters/Ipsos polling, 55% of Republican voters believe Trump’s false claims, which were rejected by dozens of courts, state election departments and members of his own administration.

Four people died in the hours-long chaos after Trump urged supporters to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell.” One police officer died on that day after battling rioters and four later died by suicide. Around 140 police officers were injured. U.S. prosecutors have brought criminal charges against at least 725 people linked to the riot.

Trump remains highly popular among Republican voters and is working to shape the field of Republican candidates in the Nov. 8 congressional elections.

Most Republican officeholders have remained loyal to him, and some have sought to play down the riot. Liz Cheney is one of only two Republican members of a House committee investigating the riot, which in recent weeks has unearthed records showing Trump allies urging him to call off the rioters as the attack was unfolding.

Other Republicans accused Democrats of exploiting the anniversary for partisan gain.

“What brazen politicization of Jan. 6 by President Biden,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, who has reversed his position on Trump numerous times, including criticizing him after the riot and then reverting to defending him.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-call-trump-threat-democracy-us-capitol-attack-anniversary-2022-01-06/

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Harris was inside DNC on Jan. 6 when pipe bomb was discovered outside – POLITICO

The DNC bomb threat was neutralized at 4:36 p.m., according to the timeline. Another pipe bomb discovered at the RNC was neutralized at 3:33 p.m. No suspects have been arrested so far in relation to the bombs.

The FBI has described both bombs as “viable” and said they “could have been detonated, resulting in serious injury or death.” Authorities say both bombs were placed by a single suspect the night before the Capitol attack. The RNC bomb was placed in an alley behind the building, and the DNC bomb was placed near a park bench. The FBI recently issued a new call for help seeking the suspected pipe bomber, who was captured on video in the vicinity of the DNC and RNC buildings.

Harris’ DNC evacuation on Jan. 6, as authorities raced to respond to the bomb threat, has not been previously reported. She occasionally used party headquarters to conduct nongovernment business as the vice presidential nominee and later in advance of the Jan. 20, 2021, inauguration — a standard practice for elected officials in both parties. Aides had previously declined to reveal her location during the attack, citing security reasons.

Harris alluded to her absence from the Capitol during the breach as she delivered televised remarks Thursday, though she was cryptic about her location.

“I had left, but my thoughts immediately turned not only to my colleagues, but to my staff who had been forced to seek refuge in our office, converting filing cabinets into barricades,” she said.

The discovery of the pipe bombs was a crucial driver of the chaos on Jan. 6. Law enforcement leaders say it diverted a large number of already-outnumbered officers just as a mob of Donald Trump supporters was breaking through barriers at the Capitol and preparing to force their way inside. More than 140 officers were injured in the mayhem, and more than 725 members of the mob have been arrested over the past year, facing charges that range from assaulting police, conspiring to obstruct Congress and parading unlawfully on Capitol grounds.

Before Thursday’s anniversary, Harris had said little about her movements during the siege. In news reports shortly afterward, she described being at the Capitol complex for an intelligence briefing in the morning and then leaving for something previously planned. She didn’t return to the Capitol until the riot had ended and the joint session of Congress resumed.

Uncertainty about Harris’ whereabouts as a mob breached the Capitol building briefly bubbled up in a handful of criminal cases connected to the Jan. 6 insurrection. In dozens of indictments, the Justice Department had erroneously described Harris as being present inside the Capitol during the attack, and only recently discovered the error. DOJ has since issued numerous superseding indictments to correct the mistake.

Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/06/harris-was-inside-dnc-on-jan-6-when-pipe-bomb-was-discovered-outside-526695

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With Republicans absent, Liz and Dick Cheney join Democrats to mark Jan. 6 attack anniversary – CNBC

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney paid a surprise visit to the Capitol on Thursday, as Democrats in Congress solemnly marked the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

The former vice president told reporters he was there to support his daughter, Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican who is vice chair of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack. But he also wanted to come to Washington to commemorate the dark day.

“It’s an important historical event. You can’t overestimate how important it is,” Dick Cheney said before he and his daughter entered the House chamber for a moment of silence.

There, it was starkly obvious how many Republicans shared the former VP’s view of the day’s importance: Save for the two Cheneys and an aide, every seat on the Republican half of the massive chamber was empty.

Over the past year, Liz Cheney’s willingness to condemn former President Donald Trump for his role in inciting the deadly insurrection, and her refusal to downplay its significance, have made her a pariah within her party.

On Thursday, as Democrats held events around the Capitol all day, Republicans were absent.

Paper statements

No Republican senators attended a separate commemorative event held in the Senate, and Liz Cheney was the only elected member of the GOP who attended the morning session in the House.

A few Republican senators released written statements that acknowledged the tragedy of a day when thousands of Trump supporters breached the capitol in a failed attempt to prevent the Senate from formally certifying President Joe Biden’s election win over Trump.

“A year later, the sadness and anger of knowing that it was Americans who breached the center of our democracy, to thwart certification of a lawful election, remains with me,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said in a statement.

“We ignore the lessons of January 6 at our own peril. Democracy is fragile; it cannot survive without leaders of integrity and character,” read a statement by Utah Sen. Mitt Romney.

Murkowski and Romney were among the 7 Republican senators who voted last year to convict Trump when he was impeached for inciting the attack, and the only ones to release public statements on Thursday.

The other five who voted to convict were Maine’s Susan Collins, North Carolina’s Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Ben Sasse of Nebraska.

Collins and Cassidy briefly addressed the anniversary of the attack this week in interviews with local media. Sasse gave the Omaha World-Herald a statement emphasizing that the violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election had been a failure. Neither Burr nor Toomey publicly marked the anniversary.

Elsewhere, Republican leaders lambasted Democrats for the events, alleging the party was using the anniversary as a “political weapon” with which to attack Republicans.

“The actions of that day were lawless and as wrong as wrong can be,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy wrote in a letter to his caucus earlier in the week. But he also claimed that Democrats were “using it as a partisan political weapon to further divide our country.”

For the elder Cheney, who served in the House for a decade in the 1980s, much of the fault lies with GOP leaders.

“I’m deeply disappointed we don’t have better leadership in the Republican Party to restore the Constitution,” Dick Cheney said at the Capitol Thursday.

The leader of the GOP

While McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell serve as the elected leaders of the Republican party, it is Trump — who does not hold an official position — who wields the most power over the GOP caucus.

Over the past year, Trump and his close allies have worked to create a false, alternative version of what happened on Jan. 6. In this version, the marchers who beat Capitol Police officers bloody and demanded that Vice President Mike Pence be hanged are patriots and heroes, not rioters.

On Thursday, Trump echoed that view, issuing a series of statements repeating his false claims about the 2020 election, which he lost to Biden by more than 6 million votes.

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Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/06/liz-and-dick-cheney-join-democrats-to-mark-jan-6-attack-anniversary.html

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Former Biden Advisers Urge a Pandemic Strategy for the ‘New Normal’ – The New York Times

Now, with the Omicron variant fueling an enormous new surge, they wrote, the United States must avoid becoming stuck in “a perpetual state of emergency.” The first step, they wrote, is recognizing that the coronavirus is one of several respiratory viruses circulating, and developing policies to address all of them together.

To be better prepared for inevitable outbreaks — including from new coronavirus variants — they suggested that the administration lay out goals and specific benchmarks, including what number of hospitalizations and deaths from respiratory viruses, including influenza and Covid-19, should prompt emergency mitigation and other measures.

In addition to urging the administration to adopt a longer view, the authors took pointed issue with some of Mr. Biden’s current policies and stances — especially on political lightning rod issues. They called for more aggressive use of vaccine mandates, which have drawn fierce opposition from Republicans, and said the nation needed a digital verification system for vaccination — so-called vaccine passports — which Mr. Biden has resisted in the face of Republican attacks on the concept.

“Relying on forgeable paper cards is unacceptable in the 21st century,” wrote Dr. Borio, Dr. Emanuel and Dr. Rick Bright, the chief executive of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Pandemic Prevention Institute.

The most surprising thing about the articles is that they were written at all. Several of the authors said in interviews they were dismayed that the administration seemed caught off guard by the Delta and Omicron variants. Dr. Bright, who helped write two of the pieces, recalled the warning he issued when the advisory board had its last meeting on Jan. 20, 2021.

“The last thing I said,” he recalled, “is that our vaccines are going to get weaker and eventually fail. We must now prepare for variants; we have to put a plan in place to continually update our vaccines, our diagnostics and our genomics so we can catch this early. Because the variants will come, and we should never be surprised and we should never underestimate this virus.”

Mr. Biden published a pandemic strategy when he came into office, and Dr. Emanuel said the administration “executed very well on it through June,” until the Delta variant brought a new surge of cases. The president recently released a new winter strategy, just as the Omicron variant began spreading in the United States.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/us/politics/former-biden-advisers-pandemic-strategy.html

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Chicago Public Schools has canceled classes again for Friday – Chicago Tribune

As CPS and the union continued their fight Thursday, Illinois reported another record-shattering day for new COVID-19 infections, with 44,089 new confirmed and probable cases reported statewide, with a record 7,098 people hospitalized with the virus overnight Wednesday.

Source Article from https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-public-schools-covid-teachers-union-20220106-7fttwx7zbzb2hfvsaefg2nxn7m-story.html

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Companies Donated Millions to Those Who Voted to Overturn Biden’s Win – The New York Times

But many companies have restarted campaign donations, with some saying they are doing so in the spirit of nonpartisanship.

“Our employee PAC program continues to observe longstanding principles of nonpartisan political engagement in support of our business interests,” said Trent Perrotto, a spokesman for the defense contractor Lockheed Martin, which contributed $145,000 to 72 lawmakers who voted against certifying the election.

Sharon J. Castillo, a Pfizer spokeswoman, said in a statement that “following the events of Jan. 6, 2021, the company adhered to its commitment to pause political giving to the 147 members of Congress who voted against certifying the election for six months.” She added that “monitoring elected officials’ conduct and statements is a part of our governance process, and we will continue to do so as we consider future Pfizer PAC disbursements.”

CREW noted that some lawmakers who had downplayed the riot or sought to sow doubts about what happened on Jan. 6 had continued to be magnets for corporate money. Representative Madison Cawthorn, a North Carolina Republican who has blamed Democrats for instigating the violence and has called those taken into custody in connection with the riot “political hostages,” received $2,000 in donations from the National Association of Insurance & Financial Advisors and the Farmers’ Rice Cooperative Fund.

Representative Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican who has said there is no evidence that an “armed insurrection” took place, received $1,000 from the National Association of Insurance & Financial Advisors.

In the immediate aftermath of the riot, associating with lawmakers who appeared to abet it was viewed by many companies as a political liability. But in many cases, those concerns did not last.

Charles Spies, a Republican campaign finance lawyer who helped run Mitt Romney’s presidential super PAC, said that while the initial shock of the attack made corporate donors risk-averse, their thinking shifted with the politicization of the Jan. 6 congressional inquiry. Republicans have sought to downplay the attack and have accused Democrats of using the investigation to hurt the G.O.P.’s image.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/us/politics/congress-corporate-donations-2020-election-overturn.html

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Partying passengers stuck in Mexico after airlines decline to fly them home – CNN

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Biden condemns Trump as a threat to democracy in speech marking one year since January 6 attack – CNN

By Maegan Vazquez, Clare Foran and Kate Sullivan, CNN

Updated 1:09 PM ET, Thu January 6, 2022

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/06/politics/january-6-anniversary/index.html

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Biden to criticize Trump, warn of threats to democracy on Jan. 6 anniversary – NBC News

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One year after Jan. 6, signs of a nation deeper in peril – NPR

Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with then President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021.

Samuel Corum/Getty Images

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Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with then President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021.

Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Even the vigils speak to our differences.

As the nation reflects on the year since a violent mob attempted to stop the certification of election results, there will be gatherings for those who believe the attack was an attempted coup, and who are alarmed by the passage of restrictive voting rules in several states.

There will also be events for those who falsely maintain that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election, and who consider those arrested in connection to the riot “political prisoners.”

Whatever hopes Americans may have held that 2021 would be a year of healing across the political divide has turned out quite differently. Instead, surveys indicate rising alarm over a democracy in crisis, the birth of a mass movement sympathetic to insurrection, and growing support for political violence.

A “mass movement” built on a lie and violence

In the immediate aftermath of the riot, the energy behind it appeared to have been driven underground. Key voices, Trump principal among them, were removed from Twitter. Online gathering spaces such as Parler went offline. Paranoia about increased surveillance by law enforcement led groups such as the Boogaloo Boys to cancel public gatherings.

But the relative quiet was temporary.

“These movements aren’t broken in any sense, and they’ve spent the last year very diligently trying to figure out how to overcome the new hurdles that are in front of them,” said Jared Holt, Resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), which has tracked the online activity of the far right during the past year. “Many of them have been successful in doing so to varying degrees.”

Research from the DFRLab tracked how, particularly starting in the summer of 2020, far right groups refocused on a decentralized, on-the-ground approach to find new sympathizers.

Instead of organizing large, national gatherings around false claims of a stolen election, they inserted themselves into local debates over racially inclusive school curricula and school mask requirements.

According to Mary McCord, a visiting professor and executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University, the messages they spread through that grassroots approach were also reinforced at the top by many Republican leaders.

“To me, one of the most alarming developments of 2021 since the insurrection has been the effort, especially among influencers and politicians, to normalize mainstream conspiracy theories, most predominantly election denial, and to also normalize in the mainstream political, ideologically driven violence,” she said.

A recent survey from the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST) at the University of Chicago estimates that 21 million adults now fall into what it calls the “American insurrectionist movement,” characterized by the incorrect belief that Trump won the 2020 election and that use of force would be justified to return him to the White House.

“What we are facing is a significant amount of community support right across the body politic, in line with the sentiments of Jan. 6th, that has not simply disappeared,” said Robert Pape, professor at the University of Chicago and director of CPOST. “And that really is concerning for the future because what that means is there is a fairly large amount of, think of it as dry kindling in the country, that can be touched off by a spark that could then turn into another wildfire.”

The new face of extremism

As researchers have learned details about the more than 700 suspects arrested in connection with the Capitol attack, there is a growing realization that traditional tools to counter extremist violence in the U.S. may not apply.

A CPOST analysis of the suspects’ social and economic demographics shows they are older, more educated and enjoy more economic and familial stability than right-wing violent offenders who have been arrested by federal authorities in recent years.

“Over half are either business owners – they own floral shops or are CEOs – or [are] from white-collar occupations, [like] doctors, lawyers and attorneys,” said Pape. “You’d have to go all the way back to the rise of the second KKK in the 1920s to see middle-class whites engage in this kind of collective political violence. It’s really quite, quite historically significant.”

But in surveying broad community support for insurrection, Pape said research from CPOST did find a signifier that distinguishes that group from the rest of the body politic: belief in replacement theory.

“They are very concerned about the idea that the rights of whites are being overtaken by the rights of minorities, or that the Democratic Party is bringing in immigrants in order to change the demographics in the country deliberately to disenfranchise the current conservative voters,” said Pape.

Once fringe, replacement theory has increasingly crept into mainstream discourse. The readiness of some Americans to accept it points to the very weakness that led a mob to storm the Capitol based on lies about election fraud.

“We can’t monitor and deplatform our way out of this situation,” said Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a professor and director of research at American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab. “People have to have the skills and the ability to recognize that propaganda for what it is.”

Experts agree that solutions will require input and action from stakeholders that go beyond law enforcement — including faith leaders, educators and politicians. They also agree that the path toward those solutions appears unclear right now.

“Sometimes, you know, you just feel like you’ve got to get out of this mental space because it’s so depressing and distressing,” said McCord. “But I also think we have to keep talking about it.”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/01/06/1070725972/one-year-after-jan-6-signs-of-a-nation-deeper-in-peril

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Jan. 6, in their own words: Members of Congress look back and forward – POLITICO

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)

During that impeachment trial, when we saw it all knit together — in terms of the maps and the videos and the footage and saw the whole thing taking place at once — it was shocking.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.)

It was already a hard day for me. It was the one-year anniversary of my brother’s passing [former Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.)]. My whole family was gathered at my parents’ house. I wasn’t there. And they’re texting me, as I’m sitting on the floor watching the proceedings occur, saying, ‘Are you OK?’ I’m thinking, ‘They’re asking me, am I OK for the one-year mark.’ I didn’t realize they were watching television, watching the Capitol get stormed. No idea.

That was the case for a lot of us. We were getting pinged before we had any clue.

Rep. Ann Kuster (D-N.H.)

Rep. Ann Kuster was one of four lawmakers less than 50 feet from a group of rioters as they were evacuated from the House gallery: The full story has not come out on the House side. On the Senate side, we saw the video of Mitt Romney. … That for me is a part of the story that I need to convey, because I was a part of that. Every second counted.

The front of the mob was coming toward us in that hallway. You could hear them. I didn’t see them because I was fussing [with my gas mask].

A group of them had come up that staircase and come down that hallway. … That eight-and-a-half minutes, with all my colleagues still stuck inside the chamber, pinned down, calling their families to say goodbye.

I’m trying to convey how close this came in the House.

… on trying to stay safe, physically and emotionally, one year later

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)

I don’t go anywhere in Connecticut without police protection when I’m doing my official duties. That was not the case prior to Jan. 6. The level of harassment directed at my family is more significant than it was. The job is different now. These people are not well, and they come after us in a very, very different, very personal way.

Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.)

Rep. Rodney Davis was there when a gunman attacked a GOP Congressional Baseball Game practice in 2017: I’ve seen the vitriol before. I mean, I had to run from bullets on a baseball field with my friends a couple of years ago.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.)

We need to figure out a way to do security in the people’s House. … I want everybody who’s here to be safe. But I don’t want to use your safety as an excuse not to get this place back to where people can come see it. And there’s a way to do both.”

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.)

I always felt safe going into the Capitol. The only times I have not felt safe were on 9/11 and on Jan. 6. I feel safe going now, but I’ll always have that tiny little question mark in my mind.

Kuster, who’s helped develop a support group for the dozens of Democrats who were in the gallery that day: We have this text chain. And sometimes the text is, ‘Who’s bringing the wine?’ or teasing [Rep.] Jason Crow (D-Colo.) about bringing pie. And then sometimes it’s, ‘I’m really having a hard time.’ ‘Here’s a book about trauma that might help you.’

It’s an incredibly powerful support system. I’d say that at this point, we love each other. We care for each other. And it’s not so much that the story is about us. The story is about this place that we love that is so important to our country and to our future.

… on how the riot has affected relationships between the parties

Tester: I think it would be really easy to say ‘I’m never working with these guys again.’ But ultimately, in the end, I’m here to get things done and I’m here to try to move the ball forward.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.)

Especially in the House, there seems to be more evidence of [Jan. 6 affecting relationships].

Kuster: Well, [on Jan. 7], I was getting a Covid vaccine. The scene was surreal. It’s like out of a movie. I was sitting in those seats with Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and two southern Republican men.

And the two of them are sitting there, Thursday morning, bragging about how many busloads of supporters they had brought to Washington, like that they had paid for, presumably. Maybe their campaign funds. And they’re literally bragging about that, sitting right next to me.

Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.)

I will not vote for a bill that comes to the floor that’s sponsored by people who voted to overturn the election results, unless they’ve acknowledged the error of their ways. Which so far consists of [Rep.] Tom Rice (R-S.C.), and that’s it. I wouldn’t go so far as to say not work with people, because good ideas come from all corners.

Davis, one of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s original picks for the House Select Committee on Jan. 6: Nobody’s failing to work with the Democrat committee chairmen who voted to not certify George W. Bush’s election in 2004. I don’t see a push to not work with [Rep.] Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) because he was debating whether or not to certify results that came in for President Trump on the House floor in 2017.

Armstrong, another of McCarthy’s original picks for the Jan. 6 panel: I think amongst the rank-and-file, it has thawed some. I think from ideological ends, it hasn’t.

Fitzpatrick, who co-chairs the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus: If we implode on each other, if we start to erode our institutions, lose faith in our institutions, that will be the end of democracy. And I don’t think people realize how fragile democracy is, how young it is, and how susceptible it is to that.

So any time I see my colleagues attack each other on the House floor, I don’t care which party they’re from, I will tell them you’re making your adversaries very happy right now. Mind the weight of your words because they have consequences.

… on how they see the violence now

Murray: We physically had to go back into that Capitol that same night [to finish certifying the election]. And I thought that was a very important moment that said that we were not going to allow this to happen. … I think what I’m concerned about is the fragility of that moment. Everybody stood together — or pretty much everybody except for a few stood together — at that moment. I hope none of us ever forget that.

Casten: I’m not angry anymore. I’m just trying to figure out what do you do when you have been entrusted with responsibility as a member of the United States Congress — and a significant faction of your colleagues stood down when somebody tried to kill you.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.)

I think about it frequently. To me, it’s a day like 9/11. That’s a day like when John Kennedy was assassinated. You’re too young to know that date, but that date is in my mind. Both of those events had a lasting impact on me. Jan. 6 has had a lasting impact on me.

Murkowski: I was scared. And then I got really angry. And now it’s almost more of a sense of disappointment in acknowledging that, for some, they have chosen to either move the events to the back of their mind — just forget about them — or have kind of re-imagined the facts that we live through.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.)

Rep. Cheney, vice chair of the House Select Committee on Jan. 6: Whether or not we tell the truth about it, and whether or not we hold people accountable, and make sure it never happens again — it really is the moral question of our time.

… on moving forward

Armstrong: I tried not to do it before, but I’ve made a conscious effort to fight about ideas and not send the snarky tweet that you think is gonna get a bunch of clicks — and you think you’re happy — and then you look back at it 48 hours later, and you’re like, ‘Really, is that really worth it?’ … When you exaggerate something, you lose the element of the argument. And both sides do that. I wish we would do it less.

Tester: After the 6th, I think it showed the institutions are solid and they’re holding up. … When the institutions can’t be screwed up by any one person or group of people, that’s a very positive thing.

Thune: As we look to the future, the more that we get out there and talk about ideas, principles, and identify and relate to people where they’re at … the better chance we’ll have of being an electable governing majority for the future. And the more we dwell on what happened in the past, people are going to find a ceiling.

Casten: It’s, in many ways, redoubled my commitment to public service. Because I find myself incessantly thinking about that line of Lincoln’s, that ‘there was always just enough virtue in this nation to save it; sometimes none to spare, but always just enough.’

Murkowski: I had a decision to make on whether or not to run again. And for a host of different reasons … the easier thing to do would have been to say that I will not run. But I chose the harder path, I think. And I did so because I think this place is worth saving.

Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.)

We don’t pick the times that we live in. They’re here. We each individually make a decision about how we’re going to live in those times.

Photos: Associated Press

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/06/congress-members-capitol-riot-reflection-525949

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Philadelphia fire: 12 dead, including 8 children, after Fairmount rowhome fire – FOX 29 Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA – 12 people have died following a fire inside of a Philadelphia Housing Authority rowhome that officials say had no working smoke detectors. Eight children lost their lives in the Wednesday morning blaze — the city’s deadliest single fire in more than a century.

While the cause of the fire remains under investigation, sources tell FOX 29 they are looking into whether or not a Christmas tree that caught fire may have been the cause.

Firefighters responded to the three-story rowhome at 869 North 23rd Street in Philadelphia’s Fairmount neighborhood around 6:40 a.m. Wednesday. When firefighters responded to the scene they found heavy flames and smoke coming from the second floor of the home.

Fire officials say that companies began working to put out the fire, which they got under control in less than an hour. During the firefight, crews discovered that there were multiple fatalities.

Wednesday night, authorities confirmed that the fire claimed the lives of 12 people. Eight children and four adults were found dead, officials said.

Fire officials initially said 13 people died, seven of them children, but those figures were updated Wednesday evening.

Family members say the victims ranged in age from 33-year-old to 1-year-old. They also say two of the victims were sisters, ages 33 and 30, and that both of them were mothers. The sisters each had multiple children, but it’s unclear if all of them were home at the time of the fire or how many of them died.

Fairmount fire victims taken to Medical Examiner’s Office

Firefighters escort the bodies of the Fairmount fatal fire to the Medical Examiner’s Office.

Two other victims, including a child, were taken to area hospitals and listed in critical, but stable condition. Several others were able to safely evacuate the home, according to fire officials.

“This is without a doubt one of the most tragic days in our city’s history,” Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said Wednesday morning, as he called for prayers. “Losing so many kids is just devastating.”

The property is owned, operated, and inspected by the Philadelphia Housing Authority and had been split into two units and officials say 26 people were living in the building.

There were 18 people staying in the upstairs apartment on the second and third floors, and eight staying in the downstairs apartment, which included the first floor and part of the second floor, Deputy Fire Commissioner Craig Murphy said.

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Philadelphia Housing Authority officials tell FOX 29 the family lived at the address since 2011, beginning their time in the home with six people. Their family expanded, but officials said they did not ask for a larger house.

When asked if 26 people was an appropriate number to be living in that particular property, Philadelphia Housing Authority officials replied that it was not. A spokesperson for Philadelphia’s Department of Licenses and Inspections said the city does not limit the number of family members who can stay in a single unit.

The mayor said people should withhold judgment.

“You don’t know the circumstances of each and every family, and maybe there were relatives and family that needed to be sheltered,” Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said. “Obviously the tragedy happened, and we all mourn for it. But we can’t make judgment on the number of people living in the house because sometimes people just need to be indoors.”

Investigators say the home was equipped with four smoke detectors and none of them were operational. The alarms had been inspected annually, and at least two were replaced in 2020, with batteries replaced in the others at that time, Philadelphia Housing Authority officials said. Officials said the last inspection was in May 2021 and the smoke detectors were working at that time.

SKYFOX was over the scene of the deadly fire later Wednesday morning. ( )

Meanwhile, many have questioned the absence of a fire escape that could have provided an additional escape route for the victims trapped inside. The Department of Licensing and Inspection (L&I) said a two-family, three-story rowhome is not required to have a fire escape and claim the front door as its only exit.

Deputy Fire Commissioner Craig Murphy said during a briefing late Wednesday morning that only two potential exits could be identified in the building due to its configuration.

Fire officials say they are working with the Fire Marshal’s Office and ATF in order to determine the cause of the fire.

“We plan on making sure that this tremendous loss of life did not happen in vain,” said Deputy Fire Commissioner Murphy.

Murphy also called the fire one of the worst he’s ever responded to in his 35 years on the job.

“It was terrible. I’ve been around for 35 years now and this is probably one of the worst fires I have ever been to,” said Murphy.

During Wednesday morning’s press conference at the scene, city and fire officials were asked about potential issues regarding 911 calls and an inability to get through to dispatchers.

City officials clarified in their updated Wednesday night that they received 36 911 calls regarding the fire between 6:36 a.m. and 6:39 a.m. Wednesday morning. They say the first call at 6:36 was answered immediately, and the call-taker got information on the fire’s location and transferred the call to fire communications less than a minute later. Fire personnel were dispatched at 6:38 a.m. and arrived on scene two minutes later.

Residents who live nearby tell FOX 29 that they would often see children playing outside of the property and that there was a lot of activity around the home.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation, though Deputy Commissioner Murphy said that it is ‘not necessarily’ considered suspicious at this time. The Philadelphia Fire Department and Fire Marshal’s Office are leading the investigation.

A GoFundMe Page has been established “to assist the parents/grandparents with final arrangements.” The online fundraiser says leftover donations will go to resources for the two survivors.

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Source Article from https://www.fox29.com/news/philadelphia-fire-12-dead-including-8-children-after-fairmount-row-home-fire

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Biden, in Shift, Prepares Americans to See Covid-19 as Part of Life – The Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON—As Covid-19 cases climb across the U.S., President Biden and his administration are preparing Americans to accept the virus as a part of daily life, in a break from a year ago when he took office with a pledge to rein in the pandemic and months later said the nation was “closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus.”

The recalibration of Mr. Biden’s message comes as the country braces for another round of disruptions wrought by the pandemic. A growing number of schools temporarily have returned to virtual instruction and many businesses are strained by staffing shortages, in both cases due to infections triggered by the highly transmissible Omicron variant. Nearly 1,700 U.S. flights were canceled Wednesday, the 11th straight day of more than 1,000 cancellations, and many states warned that ongoing testing shortages will make it harder to return people to work and school.

Source Article from https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-in-shift-prepares-americans-to-see-covid-19-as-part-of-life-11641465004

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A year after Jan. 6, Congress more deeply divided than ever – Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A deeply divided Congress is about to show the world a very unsettled view from the U.S. Capitol: Rather than a national crisis that pulls the country together, the deadly riot on Jan. 6, 2021, only seems to have pushed lawmakers further apart.

Some members are planning to mark the anniversary of the Capitol insurrection with a moment of silence. Others will spend the day educating Americans on the workings of democracy.

And still others don’t think the deadliest domestic attack on Congress in the nation’s history needs to be remembered at all.

Where they stand on remembrance can be largely attributed to their political party, a jarring discord that shows the country’s lawmakers remain strikingly at odds over how to unify a torn nation.

The president who had been fairly and legitimately defeated, Donald Trump, told his followers to “fight like hell” to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election and said he would march with them to the Capitol, though he did not. The result was violence and mayhem that left five people dead in the immediate aftermath, hundreds facing charges and millions of dollars in property damage.

But the lack of bipartisan resolve to assign responsibility for the siege or acknowledge the threat it posed has eroded trust among lawmakers, turned ordinary legislative disputes into potential crises and left the door open for more violence after the next disputed election.

It all sets Congress adrift toward a gravely uncertain future: Did Jan. 6 bring the end of one era or the start of a new one?

“One thing that people should consider when thinking about Jan. 6 is … people should think about the fragility of democracy,” said Joanne Freeman, a professor of history and American studies at Yale, whose book “Field of Blood” chronicles violence and bloodshed in Congress in the years before the Civil War.

Seeing few historical parallels, Freeman warned, “We’re at a moment where things that people have taken for granted about the working of a democratic politics can’t be taken for granted anymore.”

The aftermath of Jan. 6 hangs heavy over snow-covered Capitol Hill, in the relationships that deepened between lawmakers who feared for their lives that day and those that have frayed beyond repair.

The Capitol, before the riot a symbol of the openness of American democracy, remains closed to most visitors in part because of the coronavirus pandemic public health concerns, but also because of the escalated number of violent threats against lawmakers. Representatives are required to pass through metal detectors because Democrats say they cannot trust their Republican colleagues not to bring firearms to the House during floor proceedings.

Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., said every time he leaves his office he scans the hallways for potential threats — a feeling he said that, as a Black American, is familiar, but one that he never expected as a member of Congress.

“The lack of freedom of movement — without fear — is not there at the Capitol. And I’m a member of Congress,” Bowman said.

Bowman has asked Biden to declare Jan. 6 a National Day of Healing.

But Sen. John Cornyn of Texas has no plans to memorialize the day, and he doesn’t think others should, either.

“This thing has already become way too politicized, and that would just further exacerbate it,” he said.

Trump’s false claims of voter fraud have continued to foment division, met mostly with silence from Republicans in Congress unwilling to contradict his version of events.

Some two-thirds of House Republicans and more than a handful of GOP senators voted against certifying the election results that night, after police had battled the rioters for hours, sometimes in hand-to-hand combat. That the Republicans would carry on with their objections, after all that, stunned Democratic colleagues. Views hardened.

Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican who went forward with efforts to block the certification after the riot, brushed off questions about it, saying he’s talked about it enough.

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said he had no second thoughts about his vote to block certification.

“I am proud of leading the effort to defend voter integrity,” Cruz said. He decried the siege as “unacceptable,” a “terrorist attack.” But he also said the insistence by Democrats and the media of no mass voter fraud “only inflamed the divisions we have.”

An investigation by The Associated Press found fewer than 475 cases of voter fraud among 25.5 million ballots cast in the six battleground states disputed by Trump, a minuscule number in percentage terms.

Unlike past national traumas — including the 2001 terror attacks — the country has emerged from Jan. 6 without an agreed upon road map for what comes next.

Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot whose New Jersey-area district recently marked the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, said people have repeatedly recalled “in these sort of bewildered tones” how united the country was that day — compared to now.

“It feels like a huge break from our history,” Sherrill said.

The result is not just a breakdown in trust among colleagues, but also a loss of common national commitment to the rules and norms of democracy.

Routine disputes over ordinary issues in Congress can quickly devolve into menacing threats — as happened when several Republican lawmakers started receiving violent messages, including a death threat, after voting for an otherwise bipartisan infrastructure bill that Trump opposed.

The two Republicans on the House panel investigating the attack, Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, face calls to be banished from their party.

Despite dozens of court cases and published reports showing no widespread voter fraud, Trump’s baseless claims have become the party standard and led to what some call a “slow-motion insurrection” as his supporters work the machinery of local elections in ways that are alarming voting rights advocates.

Democrats are redoubling efforts to approve stalled election legislation that seeks to bolster ballot access and protect election officials from harassment. But to pass the bill in the evenly split Senate, they are considering dramatic rules changes to overcome a Republican filibuster.

Many of Trump’s supporters have argued they are the ones fighting to save democracy. Two-thirds of Americans described the siege as very or extremely violent, according to an AP-NORC poll, but only 4 in 10 Republicans recall the attack that way.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the false story that the election was rigged or stolen has just continued “to be spun and spun and spun.”

She said, “The danger is when people act on it.”

Yet unlike the hundreds of Americans being prosecuted for their roles in Jan. 6, many members of Congress face no reprimand — and could be rewarded for their actions.

Hawley and Cruz are both considered potential 2024 presidential candidates.

GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, who rushed to Mar-a-Lago to patch things up with Trump after initially being critical of the insurrection, remains on track to become the next House speaker if Republicans — with Trump’s help — win control in the November election.

And GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has seen her profile — and fundraising — skyrocket as she shares Trump’s baseless theories and decries the treatment of defendants jailed for their role in the attack.

“We’re in this no man’s land, where basically anything goes, and that’s a very unsettling place to be in a legislative body,” said Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt. “And it’s really a very unsettling place for the country to be.”

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Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.

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This story has deleted an incorrect reference to Cornyn being a member of Republican leadership.

Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/jan-6-capitol-siege-congress-a7d6f4e19386b70e8126f1029c0fab3e

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Boston Marathon bomber hasn’t paid victims despite thousands deposited in his fund, officials say – NBC News

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últimas notícias

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Cheney: Jan. 6 probe not about stopping Trump from running

Paper statements

The leader of the GOP

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.)

Rep. Ann Kuster (D-N.H.)

… on trying to stay safe, physically and emotionally, one year later

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)

Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.)

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.)

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.)

… on how the riot has affected relationships between the parties

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.)

Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.)

… on how they see the violence now

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.)

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.)

… on moving forward

Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.)

Fairmount fire victims taken to Medical Examiner’s Office