A Black police officer used himself as bait to an angry mob who breached the Capitol on Wednesday attempting to stop the Senate from certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s election win. That officer, Eugene Goodman, is rightfully being hailed as a hero after Huffington Post reporter Igor Bobic tweeted footage of the cop diverting insurrectionists. That footage has been viewed more than 9 million times on Twitter. “His name is USCP Officer Eugene Goodman. Remember his name,” CNN reporter Kristin Wilson tweeted. “He almost certainly saved lives on Wednesday.My thanks, Officer Goodman. THANK YOU.”
At one point in Bobic’s video, the lead terrorist wearing a QAnon t-shirt over a gray sweatshirt looked over his right shoulder toward the entrance to the Senate before continuing to follow the officer in the opposite direction, Bobic said in a tweet. “This happened at 2:14,” the reporter added. The Senate was sealed at 2:15 p.m., according to a Washington Post reporter’s notes. The difference is mere seconds.
“Just now realizing how much of a close call it was in the Senate,” Bobic tweeted. He told “Good Morning America” Thursday he was covering what is normally a routine procedural step of Congress certifying electoral votes from the presidential election when he heard “a commotion” and “yelling.” “And I ran downstairs to the first floor of the Senate building, where I encountered this lone police officer courageously making a stand against the mob of 20 or so Trump supporters who breached the capitol itself and were trying to get upstairs,” Bobic said.
Goodman didn’t pull his gun out, and he wasn’t wearing tactical gear. Still, he shoved the mob leader to bait him and ran to grab a baton, Bobic’s video showed. Members of the mob chased Goodman at times and paused to yell at others. “They were yelling ‘Traitors. We want justice. This is our America. If we don’t stop this now, we won’t get justice. Trump won,’” Bobic told “Good Morning America.”
One more detail about the chase up the Senate steps by a mob carrying a Confederate flag: it happened in front of portrait of Sen. Blanche Kelso Bruce, a Mississippi Republican who was the first Black senator to serve a full term, during Reconstruction pic.twitter.com/qaOtvl7bka
They managed to get onto the Senate floor after it was sealed and senators were taken to safety. “One man eventually got onto the dais where Vice President Mike Pence was preceding only minutes earlier to take photos and to say ‘Trump won this election,’” Bobic said. “It was surreal, surreal and sad, sad day.”
Doug Jensen, the Iowa man that led the charge into the Senate as seen in this video, has been arrested and put into jail https://t.co/0dwpViHMO4
Bobic identified the man leading the mob as Doug Jensen, of Iowa. He was arrested Saturday on five federal charges, according to jail records ABC-affiliated WOI-DT obtained. Jensen, 41, faces charges of knowingly entering a restricted building without lawful authority; disrupting the orderly conduct of government business; disorderly conduct and violent entry in a capitol building; “parading, demonstrating or picketing” in a Capitol building; and “obstructing a law enforcement officer during a civil disorder”, WOI reported.
Jensen worked as a laborer for the masonry company Forrest & Associate Masonry in Des Moines but has since been fired, CEO Richard Felice told KCCI. Jensen dismissed the news station as “Fake News” when a reporter reached out to him for his comment via Facebook. Jensen had earlier been quite active on the social media site, identifying himself facing off with officers and posting a photo of himself near the Washington Monument in the same QAnon t-shirt he was pictured in at the riot, according to the Des Moines Register. In a Facebook post dated Jan. 7, Jensen said the “Storm” was coming, a reference to the day QAnon conspiracy theorists believe Trump will “reveal the truth and arrest high-ranking Americans involved in the fake conspiracy,” the newspaper reported.
He also formerly pleaded guilty to criminal trespassing, domestic assault, and disorderly conduct in unrelated incidents, the Des Moines Register reported. His older brother, William Routh, told the newspaper his brother is a “good man,” a “family man” influenced and “confused” by the internet. “When I talked to him, he thought that maybe this was Trump telling him what to do,” Routh said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi laid out the week’s efforts to dislodge Donald Trump from the Oval Office in a Sunday letter. The House will be in a pro forma session Monday, during which Majority Leader Steny Hoyer will introduce a resolution directing Vice President Mike Pence to “convene and mobilize the Cabinet to activate the 25th Amendment to declare the President incapable of executing the duties of his office.” Since Pence hasn’t even bothered to return her phone call from Thursday, they do this with no expectation that he will act.
They are also doing it with the expectation that a Republican will reject Hoyer’s request for unanimous consent to bring up the resolution. The plan as of now is for the resolution to be brought to the floor Tuesday for a vote, giving Pence 24 hours for a response. Which they won’t get but which would trigger the impeachment vote. “In protecting our Constitution and our Democracy, we will act with urgency, because this President represents an imminent threat to both,” Pelosi wrote. “As the days go by, the horror of the ongoing assault on our democracy perpetrated by this President is intensified and so is the immediate need for action,” she continued.
The impeachment vote is expected by Wednesday, and as of Sunday night there were 210 Democrats, out of 222 in the caucus, who signed on to one of the impeachment resolutions. The impeachment resolution asserts that Trump would “remain a threat to national security, democracy, and the Constitution” if he is not removed. It will charge him with inciting an insurrection. “In all this, President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government,” the resolution says. “He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.”
House members have been instructed to return to D.C. by Tuesday, and leaders are working with the Federal Air Marshal Service and Capitol police on a plan to keep members safe as they return to D.C. and move back into the Capitol and their offices after Wednesday’s attack.
In her letter, Pelosi also announced a Caucus call for Monday, during which she expects to discuss “the 25th Amendment, 14th Amendment Section 3 and impeachment.” It’s that middle bit—the 14th Amendment Section 3—that is significant:
“No Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
That’s how the Congress expels insurrectionists, which is now the majority of House Republicans and eight Senate Republicans who voted to overturn election results even after Trump’ mob invaded and vandalized the People’s House, intent on hunting down and assassinating congressional leadership. Freshman Democratic Rep. Cori Bush will introduce a resolution to expel those members Monday.
The first order, however is getting rid of Trump, Rep. Jim Clyburn said on Fox News Sunday. “If we are the people’s house, let’s do the people’s work and let’s vote to impeach this president. … The Senate will decide later what to do with that—an impeachment.” What happens after that vote isn’t entirely clear. Clyburn argued on CNN, also on Sunday, that the Senate should wait until after President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. “Let’s give President-elect Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda off and running,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader (for the next 10 days or so) Mitch McConnell hasn’t spoken about plans, but his former chief of staff Josh Holmes, who also runs his PACs, tweeted Sunday “The more time, images, and stories removed from Wednesday the worse it gets. If you’re not in a white hot rage over what happened by now you’re not paying attention.” Whether or not that translates into McConnell acting, who knows.
The third branch of government, the courts, have also weighed in—or more aptly declined to do so. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied a motion from Trump to fast-track consideration of the multiple lawsuits he has seeking to overturn the election. The court is not going to hear his cases before the inauguration, if ever, making this the 63rd time Trump has lost in court.
Not too many people were wondering “Where does Melania Trump stand on her husband’s incitement of a coup attempt?” But if you were one of them, here you go. Melania is out with a lengthy statement, the first paragraph of which is about COVID-19. Which, to be fair, remains a very significant problem! But is still an odd choice for opening a statement about a coup attempt incited by one’s husband.
Paragraph two: “As your First Lady, it has been inspiring to witness firsthand what the people of our great Nation will do for one another, especially when we are at our most vulnerable.”
Uhhh … well, there have also been some less inspiring things to witness the people of our great nation doing over the past week. Anything to say about that?
Paragraph four: “Most recently, my heart goes out to: Air Force Veteran, Ashli Babbit, Benjamin Philips, Kevin Greeson, Rosanne Boyland, and Capitol Police Officers, Brian Sicknick and Howard Liebengood. I pray for their families comfort and strength during this difficult time.” Note that the woman who was shot by police as she was part of a violent group attempting to enter a secured area comes first on this list. Interesting choice there.
Continuing on, “I am disappointed and disheartened with what happened last week.” Disappointed? Really? Some deep feeling there. “I find it shameful that surrounding these tragic events there has been salacious gossip, unwarranted personal attacks, and false misleading accusations on me—from people who are looking to be relevant and have an agenda.”
I’m sorry … what? A short paragraph for fatalities, a sentence of disappointment, and boom, it’s all about me. And salacious gossip? Speaking as a heavy consumer of news, the only thing I’ve seen about Melania in relation to the coup attempt is that she was involved in a photo shoot at the time. Salacious it’s not. Also, as she noted a paragraph earlier, people are dead. The feelings of one highly privileged person are not the story here.
”Our Nation must heal in a civil manner,” her statement continues. “Make no mistake about it, I absolutely condemn the violence that has occurred on our Nation’s Capitol. Violence is never acceptable.” You know one way to ensure that there’s no mistake about it? Lead with that. Don’t wait until the sixth paragraph to condemn violence.
Three paragraphs later, she kinda sorta acknowledges what the violence she’s condemning was about: “It is inspiring to see that so many have found a passion and enthusiasm in participating in an election, but we must not allow that passion to turn to violence. Our path forward is to come together, find our commonalities, and be the kind and strong people that I know we are.”
Oh, it’s inspiring, is it? Her husband’s refusal to admit that he lost an election fair and square led directly to a violent mob of domestic terrorists storming the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from formalizing the election results and the word “inspiring” somehow enters into her response in a way other than “I condemn those responsible (cough cough) for inspiring this violence.”
Blah blah blah more gauzy language about how wonderful and supportive of each other the American people are. Somehow she managed to write 600 words in which armed insurrection felt like an afterthought to “salacious gossip” about herself. But hey, she’s a Trump. What else can we expect?
Last Wednesday’s storming of the U.S. Capitol looked really, really bad as it was happening. Over the weekend, as more videos and information came out, it looked worse and worse. From video of the Trump-supporting terrorists beating a police officer with flag poles and crushing an officer in a door to the authorities’ refusal to hold a briefing to tell the nation what they know about what happened, how many people are injured, and what they’re doing to prevent this from happening again, the assault on the Capitol increasingly looks like an organized and serious coup attempt with some level of complicity in Congress and at the Pentagon. That’s one reason it’s so important for the House to impeach Donald Trump now, first, right away—because there’s good reason to believe other shoes are going to drop. When that happens, Democrats need to be ready to move.
House Democrats are planning to introduce an article of impeachment Monday morning: “incitement of insurrection.” That’s good—but it would have been better to do it over the weekend, in line with the urgency of the moment. We know now how close we came to members of Congress being publicly beaten to death by a mob whipped up by Trump. Even allowing for the trauma members of Congress are dealing with, that’s not a “take a weekend off” situation.
Wednesday we saw pictures of bros milling around giving thumbs up and grinning as they put their feet on a desk in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office or carried away a lectern. Since then, we’ve seen more evidence of how many were wearing tactical gear and moving in coordinated ways, of members of hate groups in the Capitol, of preparation for serious violence.
“That was a heavily trained group of militia terrorists that attacked us,” a Black officer who has been in the Capitol Police for more than a decade told BuzzFeed. “They had radios, we found them, they had two-way communicators and earpieces. They had bear spray. They had flash bangs … They were prepared. They strategically put two IEDs, pipe bombs, in two different locations. These guys were military trained. A lot of them were former military.”
Every detail that emerges shows how serious this was, and how seriously the government should be taking it. That is not what’s happening, with Trump-appointed Pentagon officials giving the coup a name that actively downplays it and—it cannot be emphasized enough—law enforcement not having given one briefing of the sort that would be absolutely standard after any significant event.
One Republican member of Congress who did condemn the coup attempt claimed some of his Republican colleagues voted to overturn the election results out of fear for themselves and their families. “One of the saddest things is I had colleagues who, when it came time to recognize reality and vote to certify Arizona and Pennsylvania in the Electoral College, they knew in their heart of hearts that they should’ve voted to certify, but some had legitimate concerns about the safety of their families. They felt that that vote would put their families in danger,” Rep. Peter Meijer said.
But even if that’s true, it’s a reason to act firmly now, before things get worse. They won’t have less to fear if they allow Trump’s insurrection to continue growing.
The weekend also brought news of yet another attempt by Trump to coerce an official into overturning Georgia’s election results. But one amazing thing about this weekend was that, following Trump’s permanent Twitter suspension on Friday night, we didn’t get a blow by blow of Trump’s moods and whims all weekend. It’s kind of weird and disorienting, to be honest, but also freeing and wonderful.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Matt Booker, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
●Pres-by-CD: The next stop in our 50-state tour to calculate the results of the 2020 presidential election by congressional district is Kansas, which saw Donald Trump turn in the weakest performance by a Republican since 1992. While his 56% share of the vote was the same as it was four years ago, the toplines mask what is by now a familiar story: Suburbs that had once reliably voted for the GOP continued to march to the left, while a weaker showing by third-party candidates helped boost Joe Biden’s take. As always, we’ve brought you county-by-county data, as well as a a large-scale map of the results.
The ongoing transformation in suburbia was best demonstrated in the 3rd Congressional District, located in the Kansas City area, which just eight years ago supported Mitt Romney by a 54-44 margin. Hillary Clinton then flipped the district in 2016, winning by a narrow 47-46 spread, but Joe Biden blew it open in November, romping to a 54-44 win—the same margin as Romney, and a 20-point cascade in under a decade.
Against this backdrop, Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids was able to wrest this seat from Republicans in the 2018 blue wave; they did little to try to win it back last year. The deep-pocketed outside groups that spent hundreds of millions of dollars to return the House to GOP hands completely ignored Davids’ re-election bid, in which she defeated Republican Amanda Adkins 54-44, matching Biden’s performance.
Elsewhere in the state, which by and large is much more rural, Trump won comfortably. While Democrats had hoped to compete in the open 2nd District, where they narrowly fell short in the midterms, Trump’s solid 56-41 win wasn’t much different from his 56-37 victory four years earlier, and Republican state Treasurer Jake LaTurner defeated Democrat Michelle De La Isla, the mayor of Topeka, by a similar 55-41 margin. The other two districts, the “Big” 1st and the 4th, both went for Trump by even wider margins.
Republicans could fight back against Democratic gains in the suburbs, however, by further locking in minority rule through gerrymandering. In fact, Kansas Republicans openly campaigned against Democrats’ efforts to roll back the GOP’s legislative supermajorities last year, with their state Senate president at the time saying, “I guarantee you we can draw four Republican congressional maps [sic]”—she meant districts—so that they could “take[] out” Davids.
The plot worked, as Democrats in the legislature fell just short of winning the seats they’d need to be assured of upholding vetoes by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly. That means if Republicans can remain unified, they can ram through a new map that splits up the Kansas City region and leaves Davids with a much redder district—but that’s a big “if.” The Kansas GOP has for the longest time been bitterly divided between conservative and more moderate factions, and while the latter bloc has been decimated in recent years, Republican leaders are likely to have a hard time enforcing perfect discipline.
Part of the problem is that raw partisan politics often take a back seat to parochial interests in redistricting. For instance, if an influential Republican lawmaker with a base in the KC area is eyeing a challenge to Davids in 2022, they may not want to see the 3rd District carved up too aggressively, lest such a map usher in too many unfamiliar voters—and open the door for another ambitious politician to seek a promotion.
This, of course, is purely hypothetical, but it’s reflective of many dramas we saw play out in redistricting a decade ago. If she’s lucky, then, Davids may therefore be saved by a combination of GOP disunity and individual self-interest.
P.S. If you haven’t done so yet, you’ll want to bookmark our complete data set with presidential results by congressional district for all 50 states, which we’re updating continuously.
In response to Fetterman’s new comments, former Republican Rep. Ryan Costello engaged in some Twitter trash-talk, declaring, “If I ran I would smoke Fetterman in the suburbs.” We double-checked and can confirm he did not mean he would spark a joint with the lieutenant governor in Lower Merion. We also double-checked and can confirm that Costello is the last person who should be talking smack, because in 2018, he huffily abandoned his bid for re-election after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court undid the GOP’s gerrymander and made his 6th Congressional District bluer.
The butt-hurt Costello loudly whined at the time that the new maps were “1,000 percent partisan,” a Democratic gerrymander in “disguise,” and even “racist” (!). He not only demanded that the justices be impeached (they weren’t), he quit his campaign after the filing deadline, leaving his fellow Republicans just with a random weirdo on the ballot (he lost). Costello may not be planning to fire up a blunt down at the Galleria, but given the bridges he’s burned, he’s not liable to smoke anyone—or anything—any time soon.
House
●MD-01: Former Democratic Del. Heather Mizeur threatened to challenge Republican Rep. Andy Harris next year after he almost incited a fist-fight on the floor of Congress during Wednesday night’s certification of the Electoral College vote, which he twice voted against. Mizeur’s warning came after Maryland Democrats demanded that Harris resign over his role in egging on the terrorist mob that ransacked the Capitol earlier that same day, saying that he and his fellow Republican instigators “have blood on their hands.”
Mizeur was last seen on the electoral scene in 2014, when she ran a creditable race for the Democratic nomination for governor, casting herself as the most vocally progressive option and narrowly finishing third behind two much better-known and better-funded rivals. However, Harris, the lone Republican in the state’s congressional delegation, would be almost impossible to defeat under the state’s current map, since his 1st District, based on the Eastern Shore, is dark red.
But Maryland, which sends seven Democrats to the House, is one of the few states where Democrats will have unfettered control over redistricting, and HuffPost’s Kevin Robillard reported that one party operative sent him a text following Wednesday’s tragic events that included a tweet about Harris’ near-brawl and read simply “8-0.” Indeed, as map-making aficionados well know, Democrats could easily draw new lines that would create eight solidly blue districts, with boundaries that look much neater than the hideous mess they crafted a decade ago. The only obstacle to maximizing their advantage is the parochial self-interest of current Democratic incumbents.
●MD-06: Former Del. Aruna Miller has filed FEC paperwork for a bid in Maryland’s 6th Congressional District, but she’s not planning to challenge Rep. David Trone, a fellow Democrat. Rather, she explains, she’s preparing for the possibility that Trone might run for governor, something he’s reportedly considering, which would once again create an open seat. Miller ran here the last time this seat was open in 2018 and finished second in the primary, losing 40-31 to the self-funding Trone.
●NM-01: Victor Reyes, who serves as legislative director for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, announced Friday that he’d seek the Democratic nomination if Rep. Deb Haaland is confirmed as Joe Biden’s secretary of the interior. Reyes would be the state’s first LGBTQ member of Congress.
Chief of the Mayor’s Office Health and Human Services Marty Martinez
State Rep. Aaron Michlewitz
State Rep. Jon Santiago
Suffolk County Sheriff Steve Tompkins
State Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz and City Councilors Ricardo Arroyo and Ed Flynn were also mentioned, but they’ve each said they won’t run. Boston Magazine‘s David Bernstein additionally writes that former City Councilor Josh Zakim, who lost the 2018 secretary of state primary, didn’t quite rule out running, though he sounded unlikely.
Tompkins did confirm his interest to Boston Magazine‘s David Bernstein, saying, “I think that this race calls out loudly for a male of color with executive experience who knows how to run a big operation.” City Councilors Andrea Campbell and Michelle Wu, who are the only notable candidates currently in the contest, are both women of color. So is City Council President Kim Janey, who would become acting mayor if Walsh is confirmed by the Senate.
Both Campbell and Wu announced bids last year when politicos expected Walsh to run for a third term, and they made it clear Thursday that they’d be continuing their campaigns. It remains to be seen if Janey would run in her own right if she’s elevated to the mayor’s office, though unnamed friends told the Boston Globe‘s Milton Valencia that they’d be surprised if she didn’t at least consider.
Just as Francis Scott Key wrote The Star Spangled Banner after watching the bombing of Fort McHenry, so too did America’s #1 political musical parodist put quill to parchment as he watched the Republican gooberstapo revolt at the Capitol. With a little more cowbell, it could be our new national anthem until Hair Twitler flees to Russia…
Percent of registered voters polled by YouGov who say the terrorist invasion of the U.S. Capitol was wrong (with 45% of Republicans saying it was fine): 71%
Average number of thunderstorms, floods, and tornadoes, respectively, in the U.S. every year: 10,000 / 5,000 / 1,300
Percent of presidentially-declared disasters for which weather events are responsible: 90%
Rank of San Francisco, Portland OR, and Washington DC among the best cities for a carless lifestyle, according to data crunched by Lawnstarter: #1, #2, #3
Rank of Shreveport LA, Montgomery AL, and Little Rock AR among worst cities for a carless lifestyle: #1, #2, #3
CHEERS to your morning reality check. Let’s zoom out and see if World War Trump has destroyed the planet yet:
Hey, look at that! Still in one piece. Good! Then again—[Looks at watch]—it’s early.
CHEERS to a historic two-fer. Democrats in the House could introduce an article of impeachment today against President Donald J. Trump. But instead of nailing him for trying to steal an election by extorting “a favor, though” from Ukraine, today the charge is—[checks notes]—trying to steal an election by inciting an insurrection among his mentally-deranged cult at the U.S. Capitol who, among other things, wanted to find and hang his own vice president:
There is more backing within the House Democratic caucus for impeaching Trump now than there was in 2019 when Trump was first impeached, [Speaker] Pelosi said, according to multiple sources on the call. “The President chose to be an insurrectionist,” Pelosi said, according to one source said. “How we go forward is a subject for this caucus.” […]
Saddle up, Congressman Schiff. It’s go time. Again.
As Pelosi and her leadership team ran through their options Thursday night, the overwhelming sentiment was that impeachment was the way forward, according to multiple sources.
Regardless of what the Senate does, Trump will be the first president in our 245-year history to be such a human cesspool of corruption and unrepentance that he had to be impeached twice by the House. And he never even broke a sweat.
CHEERS to the not-so-artful dodger. Happy 258th birthday to Alexander Hamilton. He was one of our country’s youngest Founding Fathers, but he wasn’t very good at avoiding controversy (adultery, skullduggery in the 1800 election) or ye olde musket ball. And here’s something for the pootie diaries:
People today still name their tomcats after Alexander Hamilton in deference to his infamous many extramarital affairs. Martha Washington was the first as she named her large carousing tomcat ‘Hamilton.’
— Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (@stem_feed) January 6, 2021
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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JEERS to the worst tote board in the world. Insurrection or no insurrection, the coronavirus pandemic rages on. And with President Trump distracted by the worst crisis in world history—the loss of his Twitter account—the virus is in complete control at the moment. Worldwide there are now 90 millioncases—over 20 percent of them in the U.S. Here are this week’s numbers for the C&J historical record, courtesy of the most depressing tote board in the world, as our death toll now roughly equals the population of America’s 53rd-largest city Cleveland, Ohio:
6 months ago: 3.4 million confirmed cases. 138,000 deaths.
3 months ago: 8 million confirmed cases. 219,000 deaths
President Biden’s covid task force leaps into action in 9 days.
1 month ago: 17 million confirmed cases. 305,000 deaths
This morning: 23 million confirmed cases. 382,000 deaths
As for that super-easy-to-spread variant of Covid-19, The New York Times says it’s absolutely here and it’s gonna kill all the grandmas, but NBC News says no, no, no, not so fast, that’s not true, but the New York Times is all like, yuh-huh, we got that directly from Dr. Deborah Birx, but NBC News says you dingleberries are so dopey, the CDC says it’s not true and what the hell are you doing listening to anything that freaking Deborah Birx has to say, after she got caught nodding her head when Donald Freaking Trump said people might consider injecting bleach “almost like a cleaning.” So glad we cleared that up.
CHEERS to clearing the air….and the lungs. Speaking of health menaces, 57 years ago today, in 1964, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issued the first government report saying smoking may be hazardous to your health. (This came as quite a shock to some of tobacco’s most fervent supporters, like doctors and Ronald Reagan.) The report had quite the impact:
The landmark Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health stimulated a greatly increased concern about tobacco on the part of the American public and government policymakers and led to a broad-based anti-smoking campaign. …
Surgeon general Luther Terry with his landmark report.
The report was also responsible for the passage of the Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965, which, among other things, mandated the familiar Surgeon General’s health warnings on cigarette packages.
If you’re in the process of quitting or thinking of quitting, go for it. Your lungs and your bank account will thank you.
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 11, 2011 (aka 1/11/11)
JEERS to a really bad weekend. First, the big picture: A federal judge, a little kid, and four others were killed Saturday afternoon and a dozen were wounded when a lily-white—wild guess here—”loner” with a paranoia fetish tried to assassinate Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was at one point falsely declared dead by the media. Doctors are cautiously optimistic that Giffords will pull through, although the extent of the brain damage is far from known. It might not be terribly out of line for me to point out the irony of a massacre taking place in front of a sign that says “Safeway.” But then again it probably is.
1/11/21 Update:
.@GabbyGiffords — Your perseverance and immeasurable courage continue to inspire me and millions of others. I pledge to continue to work with you — and with survivors, families, and advocates across the country — to defeat the NRA and end our epidemic of gun violence. https://t.co/zN5J5YjXUM
CHEERS to bitchy jokesters. January 10, 1982 was a dark day for my little (pop. 15,000) birth hamlet of Mount Vernon, Ohio. Our most famous son, Paul “Center Square” Lynde, was found dead of a heart attack at 55—the age I turned two years ago, so I can officially tell you that’s young—in his Beverly Hills home, and our town just froze for the day (in fairness, it was the middle of January). It’s no longer a secret that most of the jokes Lynde got credit for on Hollywood Squares were created by professional writers with a real knack for double entendres. But Paul’s campy gift for timing elevated them to comedy hall-of-fame material:
Peter Marshall: Paul, the state flag of Alabama is all white with one very distinctive feature. What is it? Paul Lynde: Eye holes.
Lynde as an imperial officer in a Star Wars sketch during a Donny & Marie special.
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Peter Marshall: Paul, in what famous book will you read about a talking ass who wonders why it’s being beaten? Paul Lynde:The Joy of Sex.
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Peter Marshall: Will a newborn baby learn anything by the time he’s 5 days old? Paul Lynde: Yes, we should avoid each other when we’re drinking.
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Peter Marshall: According to the French Chef, Julia Child, how much is a pinch? Paul Lynde: Just enough to turn her on.
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Peter Marshall: Paul, Poe’s The Raven said, “Nevermore.” What did Gilbert and Sullivan’s Dickie Bird say? Paul Lynde: “Let’s not wallow in Watergate.”
His lasting legacy: Hollywood Squares and Bewitched.
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Peter Marshall: In the The Wizard of Oz, the lion wanted courage and the tin man wanted a heart. What did the scarecrow want? Paul Lynde: He wanted the tin man to notice him.
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And the classic that put him on the map:
Peter Marshall: Paul, why do Hell’s Angels wear leather? Paul Lynde: Because chiffon wrinkles too easily.
You’ll find tons of clips and info at the official Lynde fan siteand here. He was an interesting—and frustrating—transitional figure on the LGBT timeline of the 60s and 70s. Even though his lips never said “I’m gay,” his demeanor—including as Uncle Arthur on Bewitched—screamed it. But scores of homophobic female fans never figured it out, and their adoring fan mail, including marriage proposals, never stopped filling his mailbox. Peter Marshall famously said, “Paul made the world safe for sissies.” And I admit, it’s nice not having to lock my door at night.
Have a tolerable Monday. Floor’s open…What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today’s Shameless C&J Testimonial
“So how is the 2021 Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool so far? Pretty OK? No different? Colder?”
The big question for the GOP going forward is how last week’s events will reorder Republican politics. Specifically, how much power will Trump wield after he leaves office?
Republicans, at least the ones I spoke with, are unanimous in the view that Trump’s role in inciting his diehards has undermined his influence. The question is how much. Some say that we’ve lived through plenty of Trump scandals that haven’t loosened his grip on the party.
But before the election, Trump had a claim to a series of accomplishments Republicans could tout — from overseeing the confirmation of hundreds of new federal judges and three Supreme Court justices to defying conventional wisdom on the Middle East and China in ways that are likely to endure, at least in the GOP.
That won’t be his legacy. Rather, I suspect any accomplishments will be entirely overshadowed by his unwillingness to concede and his decision to incite a mob. As a practical matter, his role in losing the Republican Senate majority demonstrated that there can be a political cost for standing with Trump.
I have absolutely zero patience for any Trump enabler calling for unity. It is akin to Bernie Madoff calling for better stock regulations and compliance.
Talk-radio owner orders conservative hosts to temper election fraud rhetoric
After months of stoking anger about alleged election fraud, one of America’s largest talk-radio companies has decided on an abrupt change of direction.
Cumulus Media, which employs some of the most popular right-leaning talk-radio hosts in the United States, has told its on-air personalities to stop suggesting that the election was stolen from President Trump — or else face termination.
A Cumulus executive issued the directive on Wednesday, just as Congress met to certify Joe Biden’s election victory and an angry mob of Trump supporters marched on the Capitol, overwhelmed police and briefly occupied the building, terrorizing lawmakers and leading to the deaths of five people
Bad news for Parler: They’ve gotten ditched by Apple, Google, Amazon, text message services and email providers. Other bad news: Their lawyers left, too https://t.co/I4w6CD8Uy9pic.twitter.com/tahsBaohCU
I spent the last election cycle immersed in the metastasizing paranoia behind Wednesday’s assault on Congress. Nobody should be surprised by what just happened.
There is one thing that connects these movements: Both were born out of deception. Republican leaders convinced the grassroots of 2009 and 2010 that they could freeze government spending and reform entitlement programs and repeal Obamacare. Trump convinced the grassroots of 2015 and 2016 that he, too, could repeal Obamacare, while also making Mexico pay for a border wall and overhauling the nation’s infrastructure. The key difference is that the Tea Party slowly faded into obscurity as voters realized these promises politicians made were a scam, whereas the MAGA movement has only grown more intensely committed with each new con dangled in front of them.
Extraordinary message:
My message to my fellow Americans and friends around the world following this week’s attack on the Capitol. pic.twitter.com/blOy35LWJ5
A historian of fascism and political atrocity on Trump, the mob and what comes next.
In this sense, the responsibility for Trump’s push to overturn an election must be shared by a very large number of Republican members of Congress. Rather than contradict Trump from the beginning, they allowed his electoral fiction to flourish. They had different reasons for doing so. One group of Republicans is concerned above all with gaming the system to maintain power, taking full advantage of constitutional obscurities, gerrymandering and dark money to win elections with a minority of motivated voters. They have no interest in the collapse of the peculiar form of representation that allows their minority party disproportionate control of government. The most important among them, Mitch McConnell, indulged Trump’s lie while making no comment on its consequences.
Yet other Republicans saw the situation differently: They might actually break the system and have power without democracy. The split between these two groups, the gamers and the breakers, became sharply visible on Dec. 30, when Senator Josh Hawley announced that he would support Trump’s challenge by questioning the validity of the electoral votes on Jan. 6. Ted Cruz then promised his own support, joined by about 10 other senators. More than a hundred Republican representatives took the same position. For many, this seemed like nothing more than a show: challenges to states’ electoral votes would force delays and floor votes but would not affect the outcome.
It is not about one speech or public statements. We need to know Trump’s role in delaying National Guard, and to investigate months of behind the scenes efforts of Trump to pressure officials to violate their oaths to overturn election https://t.co/I1gjV1rQUT
A foreseeable fire: A steady diet of red meat turned the Tea Party into Trumpism
I could have joined my colleagues and survived, even thrived, in the Tea Party era. But instead I lost an election rather than fan the flames.
A House Republican colleague returned to Washington circa 2009 to tell us how he was going to survive the Tea Party. He was just back from holding a series of Obamacare town halls in his deep red part of Georgia. He said that he had learned how to handle the rabble-rousing crowd from a meeting that had gotten off to a bad start. The people were mad at him and mad at the world. Halfway into the meeting he found a pivot. He told the crowd that he got it — that they just want him to go to Washington and ‘raise some hell.”
The crowd roared their approval. He became an active Tea Partier that day and, subsequently, a full-throated Trumper.
Perhaps I should have learned from my friend’s example. It might have saved my seat in the United States Congress. I had had one of those raucous meetings. A man had risen in great anger to tell me that, President Barack Obama is so unpatriotic, he doesn’t put his hand over his heart when the national anthem is played or the Pledge of Allegiance is recited. (Apparently, he’d been surfing on some isolated internet island.)
Standing there in front of that crowd, I knew what I could have said, “What do you expect from a secret Muslim … non-American … socialist?” Any one of those responses would have done just fine at that moment.
“That’s our Bob!” the deep red crowd would have said.
I couldn’t do it. I thought of my five kids and wouldn’t do it. “I have been with President Obama,” I said to the man, “I have seen him put his hand over his heart. What you’ve just said is simply not true.”
TOOMEY on Meet the Press says Trump should resign: “I would certainly hope and I actually do believe that the president has disqualified himself. I don’t think he’s a viable candidate for office ever again because of the outrageous behavior in the post-election period.”
A scholar of American anti-Semitism explains the hate symbols present during the US Capitol riot
One of the many horrifying images from the Jan. 6 rampage on the U.S. Capitol shows a long-haired, long-bearded man wearing a black “Camp Auschwitz” T-shirt emblazoned with a skull and crossbones, and under it the phrase “work brings freedom” – an English translation of the Auschwitz concentration camp motto: “Arbeit macht frei.”
Another image, more subtle but no less incendiary, is of a different man whose T-shirt was emblazoned with the inscription “6MWE” above yellow symbols of Italian Fascism. “6MWE” is an acronym common among the far right standing for “6 Million Wasn’t Enough.” It refers to the Jews exterminated during the Nazi Holocaust and hints at the desire of the wearer to increase that number still further.
These and related images, captured on television and retweeted on social media, demonstrate that some of those who traveled to Washington to support President Donald Trump were engaged in much more than just a doomed effort to maintain their hero in power.
As their writings make clear to me as a scholar of American anti-Semitism, some among them also hoped to trigger what is known as the “Great Revolution,” based on a fictionalized account of a government takeover and race war, that, in its most extreme form, would exterminate Jews.
In response to those who have asked, LBJ, with his gift for invective, might have called Pence a “squealing worm” or “piss-ant.” The latter is defined as “an inconsequential, irrelevant, or worthless person, especially one who is irritating or contemptible.”
I’ve received several DMs from friends asking what do to about parents/family members who believe misinformation regarding the election, vaccines and COVID. Here’s a research-based thread to help explain the roots of these beliefs and how to (and how *not* to) address them.
One of the things we are wrestling with in the misinformation/conspiracy theory research is that counter-information (“corrective info,” EMPIRICALLY TRUE FACTUAL EVIDENCE) has VERY LITTLE effect on people’s beliefs when those beliefs are rooted in political/social identity.
In other words, for many of these folks, the evidence, the science, the facts… really don’t matter.
For example, if your parents trust Trump and they distrust science/media/courts as institutions, and they identify w people/groups who think of themselves as “in the know” and “have the real truth,” then using information and argumentation and evidence is unlikely to move them.
This is so so frustrating.
It’s crazy-making.
It’s worse than banging your head against the wall.
This admin began w/an attack on our democracy. It ended w/an attack on our democracy. In between, there were many other attacks on our democracy. Throughout, whether the enemies were foreign or domestic, there were two constants: Trump led the attacks & the GOP excused them.
The edifice of Trumpism has collapsed. It was rotten from the very beginning.
One can argue endlessly about whether this was an attempted coup. It was, in the sense that a group of people — egged on and encouraged by a president who wanted to stay in office despite losing his bid for reelection — used force to try to prevent the certification of legitimate election results, presumably with the intent of reversing them.
On the other hand, neither they nor the president had any remotely plausible plan for undoing Joe Biden’s victory and allowing Trump to stay in power. This wasn’t Napoleon III failing to secure another presidential term in France in 1851 and staying in power through a “self-coup” supported by the military. (By contrast, on Wednesday, the acting secretary of defense, Christopher Miller — whose abrupt appointment by Trump on November 9 was seen by some as a possible prelude to a coup — essentially left Trump out of the chain of command, activating the D.C. National Guard after conferring with Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.) If anything, the actions of the pro-Trump thugs undercut the (doomed and performative) challenges to the election certification in Congress by prompting some GOP Senators to withdraw their objections in the wake of the violence.
You could call it a clown coup. (Klown Koup?) But the fact that violent thugs invaded and trashed the Capitol with the purpose — however unrealistic— of preventing the legitimately elected next president from taking power is an absolute outrage and an embarrassment to the nation.
Trump’s GA speech didn’t attract as much attention as his incendiary remarks in Washington on Wed, which fueled the riot and led to calls for his removal. But Trump’s GA remarks showed how deeply apocalyptic imagery has pervaded GOP electoral strategy: now its Flight 93 forever https://t.co/Rwj8OtXkVy
Editorial: Resign, Senator Cruz. Your lies cost lives.
In Texas, we have our share of politicians who peddle wild conspiracy theories and reckless rhetoric aiming to inflame.
Think U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert’s “terror baby” diatribes or his nonsensical vow not to wear a face mask until after he got COVID, which he promptly did.
This editorial board tries to hold such shameful specimens to account.
But we reserve special condemnation for the perpetrators among them who are of sound mind and considerable intellect — those who should damn well know better.
Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week
10 DAYS UNTIL JOE BIDEN AND KAMALA HARRIS TAKE THE OATH OF OFFICE
Hannah Giorgis at The Atlantic writes—D.C. Statehood Is More Urgent Than Ever. “The real fraud is that we call ourselves a democracy yet deny the people of our capital political representation.”
Less than six months before a mob of the sitting president’s supporters would descend upon the United States Capitol, a more solemn crowd gathered at its steps. Among those who arrived to pay their final respects to the late Representative John Lewis were Washington, D.C., residents who appreciated his unwavering support of statehood for the district. As they waited in line for the public viewing, a small group of Black women raised their fists in honor of the Georgia lawmaker known as the conscience of Congress, who saw their city’s struggle as the very kind of “good trouble” that defines his legacy. Lewis had backed the symbolically named House Resolution 51 since Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s nonvoting delegate, first introduced it nearly three decades ago. In 1993, Lewis declared, “It is not right that there is still an America where there is still some taxation without representation.”
At a D.C. rally on Wednesday, President Donald Trump called on his supporters to march to that same Capitol and confront legislators, repeating false claims that the 2020 election had been stolen from him. Within hours, many of his embittered followers invaded the halls of Congress. In the days since, area residents, lawmakers, and those watching from other parts of the world have asked how such a breach of security could’ve taken place. But this week’s calamity wasn’t a logistical misstep or simple law-enforcement blunder. It was just one logical outcome of Trump’s twin passions: provoking his base with antidemocratic falsehoods and exerting authoritarian control over populations he deems disposable. In this case, the District had no real voice in the Capitol and no real autonomy to defend its own streets without federal approval.
Many local advocates saw Wednesday’s attempted coup—which left five people dead, including a police officer—as further evidence that D.C. should be a state. The attack at the Capitol was carried out by “people fooled by political leaders that there was fraud in the election, [but] what they were fighting against is mythical fraud,” Josh Burch, a co-founder of Neighbors United for DC Statehood, told me. “The real fraud is that we call ourselves a democracy yet deny the people of our capital political representation.” Now, following a day of mayhem and fear, all Americans have a clearer window into the stakes of granting D.C. statehood. […]
THREE OTHER ARTICLES WORTH READING
The New Progressive Left Shows How to Deal With Sedition, by Alexander Sammon. The Squad, both old and new, immediately drafted a series of steps to deal with Republican insurrectionists directly, rather than hoping they’d just be nicer.
“I am heartened that our police and Guardspeople were able to get control. I’m upset that 706,000 residents of the District of Columbia did not have a single vote in that Congress yesterday despite the fact their officers were putting their lives on the line to defend democracy.” ~~Muriel E. Bowser, mayor of Washington, D.C., Jan. 8, 2021
To see the Confederate flag marched through our Capitol by a seditious mob is to realize, once again, that the bloody injustices which sparked our Civil War have not been fully reckoned with by this nation. Not by a long shot.
At Daily Kos on this date in 2020—Gov’t reports 145,000 new jobs created last month. If typical, nearly half of them pay low wages:
A low level of unemployment is a good thing. At the very least, it reduces some suffering. So the fact that the past three years have seen a continuation of what began under President Barack Obama as a difficult climb out of a deep hole isn’t anything to be unhappy about just because Donald Trump now occupies the White House. But the situation is a lot more nuanced than can be revealed about the well-being of the labor force by a tally of who worked at least one hour during the survey period. […]
A key nuance is: How many of those millions of workers are earning decent money in those now-plentiful jobs, part-time or full-time?
The bureau reported that average wages for all workers rose in December by 3 cents an hour, and wages for production and nonsupervisory workers rose by 2 cents an hour. Last month, it reported that from November 2018 to November 2019, real (that is, inflation-adjusted) average hourly wages had increased 1.7%. This was combined with a decrease in the average workweek, which meant real average weekly earnings over this period fell 0.6%, resulting in a 1.1% increase in real average weekly earnings year over year. Weak by any measure. Especially in an economy we are told nearly every day is booming. Moreover, average wages skew reality, since higher earners lift the average and make prosperity seem broader than it actually is.
A Brookings Institution report released in November noted in its analysis that 53 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 64 qualify as “low-wage.” That is 44% of all workers. Their median hourly wage? $10.22. Median annual earnings? About $18,000. Well above the $7.25 federal minimum that hasn’t changed in a decade, and whose value has fallen to $6.05, which in no way is a living wage in most parts of the country.
Monday through Friday you can catch the Kagro in the Morning Show 9 AM ET by dropping in here, or you can download the Stitcher app (found in the app stores or at Stitcher.com), and find a live stream there, by searching for “Netroots Radio.”
In the world of nutrition (or even the world of cooking in general) frozen food tends to get a bad reputation. Frozen vegetables, specifically, tend to be regarded with a shudder. In an ideal world, would we all have access to locally grown, farm-to-table fruits and vegetables? Yes. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for many of us who live in food deserts or simply can’t afford fresh produce. An excellent and unappreciated alternative? Frozen vegetables.
Growing up very low-income, there were vegetables I literally did not try fresh until I reached my twenties. Even today, I still reach for frozen vegetables more often than not. First of all, I know how to prepare them. Second, they never contribute to food waste (at least in my home). Third, they’re almost always most cost-effective. But how do you make them taste good? Let’s explore what’s worked for me below, and some reasons why frozen vegetables are actually useful to a lot of people.
First of all, we all know that produce goes bad at a disappointing rate. If you’re able to make frequent trips to the store (surely a unique luxury in the days of the pandemic) and cook most of your meals at home, you may use your produce up without waste. That’s great! But many people need to shop in bulk, which can be tricky when it comes to buying fresh fruit and vegetables unless you’re feeding a good number of people. Frozen fruit and vegetables stay good for a long time, which is also great if you find your meal prepped meals wilting in the back of your fridge because you don’t actually like the same food on day four. Especially during the pandemic, it can also give peace of mind to know you have a number of options for different palates or preferences available in the freezer, potentially sparing you another trip to the store at the last minute.
Second, frozen vegetables are pretty nutritious. Frozen vegetables are usually flash-frozen at their peak level of ripeness, and studies show they actually have about the same or similar level of nutrition as their fresh counterparts.
In addition to nutrition and lasting power, frozen vegetables take out a lot of the burden of, well, actually preparing vegetables. If you live with certain disabilities, it may be difficult—if not impossible—for you to actually separate, chop, and clean fresh produce. Frozen options make the process quicker and easier. For anyone, frozen vegetables minimize the time between starting and ending a meal, and generally cuts down on clean-up time, too. If you’re someone who loves to spend time in the kitchen, that’s probably not a selling point for you, and that’s okay. If you’re someone (like me) who really just wants a hot bowl of food in front of you, you’ll likely find the frozen options a relief.
So, how to prepare them? Steaming or microwaving are the two most obvious options, and they’re perfectly fine. Yes, these are the options that ring closest to the stereotypical soft, initially flavorless preparations that tend to give frozen vegetables a shudder response. Seasonings like salt, pepper, onions, garlic, cayenne, cumin, red pepper flakes, and oregano can do a lot of quick work. Oils and sauces can do a lot of good, too, like peanut, olive, sesame, chili, buffalo, and pesto. I’ve found that when I go for steamed frozen vegetables, they’re best stirred into a comfort dish—pasta, rice, or quinoa are easy bases for stirring in some steamed broccoli, for example.
If you have a little more time, you can, in fact, roast your frozen vegetables. This method of preparation is what tends to give you a result closest to the fresh stuff. Because frozen vegetables generally have more moisture to them, that may affect your final product. But if you’re okay with that for the ease and convenience, roasting frozen vegetables is a pretty simple way to add more flavor and texture to your meal. Here are two great guides on the specifics of how to approach different frozen vegetables in the oven.
At the end of the day, food is food. In a diet-obsessed culture, it’s tempting to assign moral value to food, but really, no judgment is inherent in what we choose to eat. As budgets tighten, the coronavirus roars, and people stay home during the holiday season, consider giving yourself a break and embarking into the easy world of frozen produce.
