Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Right wing coups aren't just an American thing
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Conspiracist charged over alleged French coup plot
Rémy Daillet is accused of forming an extremist group to plan a series of attacks against the French state.
French reports say he allegedly recruited soldiers for an attempt to seize the presidential palace in Paris.
Mr Daillet’s lawyer denied the allegations and called him a “political prisoner”.
Once a regional leader of a centrist political party, Mr Daillet, 54, has become an influential figure in French conspiracy circles.
The Frenchman was already being prosecuted for allegedly organising the abduction of an eight-year-old girl at her mother’s request in eastern France in April.
Aaron Blake/WaPo:
The most shocking new revelation about John Eastman
He and Trump were not just pressing forward despite the mob; they apparently were trying to leverage it.
“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump told House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), as relayed by another GOP lawmaker.
The comment is characteristically Trumpian. It was suggestive that maybe McCarthy might heed what the mob was trying to tell him, even if Trump didn’t say so explicitly. And thanks to Trump’s efforts to block disclosures to the Jan. 6 committee and the tight lips of McCarthy and other Republicans who spoke with Trump during the riot, we don’t know much about what Trump was saying or doing that day.
But new revelations from The Washington Post on Friday night reinforce that there was indeed an effort to leverage the mob — quite explicitly.
Madeline Holcombe/CNN:
Gen Z is growing up during a pandemic. They have a message for the rest of us
Many young people told CNN they felt helpless while others worried about their mental health. “This pandemic has brought me self-reflection and analysis, but it also was a test on the world and this country, and I fear we are failing,” said Ella Stromberg, a 17-year-old from Vancouver, Washington.
Young Americans may not have autonomy over how they attend school, if their families get vaccinated or the policies elected officials implement, but they are observing the victories and pitfalls of those who do.
Covid Shots Are a Go for Children, but Parents Are Reluctant to Consent
Vaccinating 5- to 11-year-olds could be a big step toward returning to normal life in the U.S., but even parents who got the shot are worried about how it might affect their kids.
But a report this month from researchers at Northeastern, Harvard, Rutgers and Northwestern universities found that parental concerns around the Covid vaccination had increased “significantly” from June through September. Chief among them, researchers said, were the newness of the vaccine, whether it has been sufficiently tested, efficacy, side effects and long-term health consequences.
According to a survey released Thursday by Kaiser Family Foundation, scarcely one in three parents will permit their children in this newly eligible age group to be vaccinated immediately. Two-thirds were either reluctant or adamantly opposed. An Axios-Ipsos poll found that 42 percent of parents of these children said they were unlikely to have their children vaccinated.
Glenn Kessler/WaPo:
The repeated claim that Fauci lied to Congress about ‘gain-of-function’ research
But we see no reason to change the Two Pinocchio rating we awarded [Senator Rand] Paul. There is a split in the scientific community about what constitutes gain-of-function research. To this day, NIH says this research did not meet the criteria — a stance that is not an outlier in the scientific community. Indeed, it appears as if EcoHealth halted the experiment as soon as it seemed to veer in that direction.
Meanwhile, [Senators] Cotton and Cruz are spinning the letter as confirming what it does not say. They are welcome to offer an opinion about its meaning. But, so far, it’s not a fact that NIH has admitted funding gain-of-function research. So they also earn Two Pinocchios.
Subpoenas are a real worry for lawmakers facing Jan. 6 questions
Lawmakers who may have been involved with the planning of rallies on Jan. 6 are coming under renewed scrutiny over their roles, teeing up questions of whether the committee investigating the attack on the Capitol may take the historic step of subpoenaing sitting members of Congress.
A Sunday story from Rolling Stone didn’t directly tie Republican lawmakers to the violent assault, but two sources who are cooperating with the committee instead detailed multiple meetings with members of Congress to coordinate contesting the election results and plan the rallies that preceded the attack.
What the polls agree on about Biden’s approval rating
Notably, however, the polls provide a much narrower range in their estimates of how many people disapprove of Biden — all seven of those surveys put Biden’s disapproval rating somewhere between 48% and 52%. Instead, a good chunk of the variation has to do with the share of Americans who say they aren’t sure. Two of Biden’s worst recent polls, the Quinnipiac and Grinnell surveys, both found 12% saying they’re unsure about Biden’s job performance, or declining to offer an opinion. In the CNN, CBS and AP-NORC polls, by contrast, 1% or fewer didn’t weigh in.
EJ Dionne/WaPo:
Take the win, Democrats, and don’t look back
But however it turns out, the Virginia contest should force Democrats to confront the imperative of shifting the terms of the political debate. In a state Biden carried by 10 points, Youngkin managed to dominate the campaign’s final weeks with a shameful focus on critical race theory — which is not taught anywhere in the state — and the suppression of challenging books in high school curriculums.
Youngkin’s trafficking in racial backlash could work as well as it did, because Democrats have fallen short in fulfilling one of the most important aspirations of the Biden era. They hoped that politics could be defined more by how government can get useful things done and less by manufactured issues that promote moral panic among conservatives and sharpen divisions around race, immigration and culture.
Passing Biden’s program and defending it successfully offer all wings of his party the best opportunity they will have to push the day-to-day dialogue toward the tangible and the achievable.