Andy Borowitz: Hannity Sent Texts Warning Trump That Capitol Riot Was Helping CNN’s Ratings

The Fox News host Sean Hannity sent a series of urgent texts on January 6, 2021, warning Donald J. Trump that the attack on the U.S. Capitol was boosting CNN’s ratings.

In the texts, released by the House select committee investigating the attack, Hannity described a doomsday scenario in which the insurrection helped lift CNN over Fox in the cable news ratings contest.

“CNN will get better numbers out of this than we will,” Hannity warned Trump. “A lot of our viewers can’t watch because they’re busy rioting.”

The texts showed Hannity pleading with Trump to beseech the rioters to prevent CNN from reaping ratings gold.

“You and I are on the same page as far as undermining democracy goes, but we need to think big picture here,” Hannity wrote. https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/

Bloomberg: Biden’s Economic Performance Has Proved Unbeatable

U.S. financial markets are outperforming the world by the biggest margin in the 21st century, and with good reason: America’s economy improved more in Joe Biden’s first 12 months than any president during the past 50 years notwithstanding the contrary media narrative contributing to dour public opinion. https://democrats.org/news/icymi-bloomberg-bidens-economic-performance-has-proved-unbeatable/

Republicans’ belief in Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ holds steady as confidence in U.S. elections dips

Just over a quarter of Republicans accept President Biden as the winner of the 2020 election, according to a new survey that underscores the instability of American democracy and the growing partisan divide over the legitimacy of elections.

“There was a hope there would see growing acceptance of Biden’s victory over time, as people moved away from the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement after Jan. 6. Instead, we saw the numbers stay in place,” said Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth political scientist and one of the founders of Bright Line Watch, an organization that monitors the health of U.S. democracy.

Sinking confidence in election outcomes appears to have been fueled by former President Trump’s “Big Lie” — his continued claims of voter fraud in key states, even though such allegations were repeatedly discredited in numerous lawsuits and audits. The fallout of such lies was especially evident on Jan. 6, when thousands of Trump supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol in a brazen attempt to halt lawmakers’ certification of Biden’s victory. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-12-16/republicans-belief-in-trumps-big-lie-holds-steady-as-eroding-confidence-in-u-s-elections-wanes

State legislators gear up to pass a 'tidal wave' of voting restrictions ahead of crucial 2022 midterms

The push to impose voting restrictions at the state level is poised to continue next year as Republicans drive forward with an array of new proposals -- ranging from legislation that would eliminate ballot drop boxes to bills that would establish new ID requirements to vote.

In Georgia, for instance, state Sen. Butch Miller, a Republican and president pro tempore of the state Senate, this month introduced legislation that would ban the use of ballot drop boxes in a state that already passed a law this year dramatically restricting their use. In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, wants to establish a new law enforcement office to investigate election crimes. In Arizona, another battleground state, one bill would establish new voter ID requirements.

Lawmakers in four states already have pre-filed at least 13 bills for the 2022 legislative sessions that would make it harder to cast a ballot, according to an analysis released Tuesday from the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's law school. https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/21/politics/gop-state-officials-prepare-new-wave-of-voting-restrictions/index.html

Pelosi announces plans for ‘solemn observance’ of first anniversary of Jan. 6 insurrection

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has indicated there will be a “full program of events” to mark the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection, in which a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to stop the confirmation of President Biden’s electoral college win, a siege that resulted in five deaths and left some 140 law enforcement officers injured.

“Already, preparations are underway for a full program of events, including a discussion among historians about the narrative of that day; an opportunity for Members to share their experiences and reflections from that day; and a prayerful vigil in the evening,” Pelosi wrote. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/12/20/nancy-pelosi-jan-6-insurrection-anniversary/

Omicron Threatens Red America

In the U.S., partisanship is the biggest factor determining vaccination rates. If Democratic voters made up their own country, it would be one of the world’s most vaccinated, with more than 91 percent of adults having received at least one shot. Only about 60 percent of Republican adults have done so.

This vaccination gap has created a huge gap in death rates, one that has grown sharply during the second half of the year. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/17/briefing/omicron-spread-red-america.html

Manchin’s opposition to Build Back Better bill undercuts Biden’s climate agenda

President Biden’s climate agenda suffered a massive setback Sunday after Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) pulled his support from Democrats’ spending bill, potentially dooming the legislation amid warnings from scientists that the world is running out of time to prevent climate change’s most catastrophic effects.

Manchin’s comments on “Fox News Sunday” put at risk a $555 billion package of tax credits, grants and other policies aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions that would rank as the largest clean-energy investment in U.S. history. The legislation’s passage would have helped Biden meet his goal of cutting America’s greenhouse gas emissions in half compared with 2005 levels by 2030. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/12/19/manchin-climate-build-back-better/

Texas AG Paxton’s $2.2M voter fraud unit closed three cases in Texas in 2020, GOP lawmakers still boosted its budget.

Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton has been one of former President Donald Trump’s most reliable allies in spreading the myth of widespread voter fraud, Donald particularly in the 2020 election, and frequently boasts that few states are as vigilant.

His office’s election integrity unit added two lawyers to the team in the last year, bringing it up to six staffers total, and worked more than 20,000 hours between October 2020 and September 202Its budget, meanwhile, ratcheted up from $9 to $2.2 million during that time.

Yet records from the office show that the unit closed just three cases this year, down from 17 last year, and opened seven new ones. That includes the newly created unit focused on the 2021 local elections, which has yet to file a single case….

Paxton’s office has not uncovered any evidence of voter fraud in 2020 beyond isolated incidents affecting a handful of votes in an election in which more than 11 million Texans cast ballots. https://electionlawblog.org/?p=126369

Dallas QAnon Cultists Are Drinking Toxic Chemicals from A Communal Bowl, Family Says

The family of a Dallas' QAnon cult member is sounding the alarm.

Multiple members of the Leek family confirmed that their relative, who left her husband and children behind in Delaware to follow a fringe QAnon cult leader to Dallas last month, has been drinking a chemical cocktail containing chlorine dioxide, an industrial disinfectant, among other substances. 

People posing as medical professionals continue to sell chlorine dioxide-based products online. They found an especially eager consumer base amongst QAnon followers, who think that the COVID-19 vaccine is part of a malicious government conspiracy. https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/dallas-qanon-cult-members-are-drinking-toxic-chemicals-en-masse-13038506

Kanye West’s ‘Independent’ Campaign Was Secretly Run by GOP Elites

New documents show Kanye West’s doomed White House campaign—styled as an “independent” third-party effort—appears to have disguised potentially millions of dollars in services it received from a secretive network of Republican Party operatives, including advisers to the GOP elite and a managing partner at one of the top conservative political firms in the country.

Potentially even more alarming? The Kanye 2020 campaign committee did not even report paying some of these advisers, and used an odd abbreviation for another—moves which campaign finance experts say appear designed to mask the association between known GOP operatives and the campaign, and could constitute a violation of federal laws.

At the heart of Kanye’s political operation was Holtzman Vogel, one of the most powerful and well-connected law firms serving major Republican political and nonprofit organizations today. And weaved throughout his campaign, whether the multi-platinum rapper realized it or not, were Republican operatives who may have been less interested in seeing a President West than in re-electing President Donald Trump. https://www.thedailybeast.com/kanye-wests-independent-campaign-was-secretly-run-by-gop-elites

Far-right using COVID-19 theories to grow reach, study shows

"The Jews own COVID just like all of Hollywood,” the accompanying text says. “Wake up people.”

The post is one of many that white supremacists and far-right extremists are using to expand their reach and recruit followers on the social media platform Telegram, according to the findings of researchers who sifted through nearly half a million comments on pages — called channels on Telegram — that they categorized as far-right from January 2020 to June 2021.

The tactic has been successful: Nine of the 10 most viewed posts in the sample examined by the researchers contained misleading claims about the safety of vaccines or the pharmaceutical companies manufacturing them. One Telegram channel saw its total subscribers jump tenfold after it leaned into COVID-19 conspiracy theories. https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-business-health-race-and-ethnicity-europe-1952ea369c0f4afdb6d23c7706aaadc8

Dominion Defamation Suit Against Fox News Can Proceed

Fox News probably had enough information after the 2020 presidential election to know a conspiracy theory claiming Dominion Voting Systems Inc. rigged the contest was false, a judge said in denying the network’s request to dismiss a defamation lawsuit.

Delaware state court Judge Eric M. Davis on Thursday ruled Dominion had presented enough factual allegations against Fox for the $6 billion lawsuit to proceed. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-17/dominion-defamation-suit-against-fox-gets-go-ahead-from-judge

R.N.C. Agrees to Pay Up to $6 Million of Trump’s Personal Legal Bills

The Republican National Committee has agreed to cover up to $6 million of Donald Trump’s personal legal bills, in an unusual arrangement under which the party is paying to defend the former president from ongoing investigations that focus on his private business practices. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/16/us/politics/rnc-trump-investigations.html

Trump White House made 'deliberate efforts' to undermine Covid response

The Trump administration engaged in “deliberate efforts” to undermine the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic for political purposes, a congressional report released Friday concludes.

The report, prepared by the House select subcommittee investigating the nation’s Covid response, says the White House repeatedly overruled public health and testing guidance by the nation’s top infectious disease experts and silenced officials in order to promote then-President Donald Trump's political agenda. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/trump-white-house-made-deliberate-efforts-undermine-covid-response-report-n1286211

Jan 6 investigators believe Nov. 4 text pushing 'strategy' to undermine election came from Rick Perry

Members of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol believe that former Texas Governor and Trump Energy Secretary Rick Perry was the author of a text message sent to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows the day after the 2020 election pushing an "AGRESSIVE (sic) STRATEGY" for three state legislatures to ignore the will of their voters and deliver their states' electors to Donald Trump, three sources familiar with the House Committee investigation tell CNN.

A spokesman for Perry told CNN that the former Energy Secretary denies being the author of the text. Multiple people who know Rick Perry confirmed to CNN that the phone number the committee has associated with that text message is Perry's number.

The cell phone number the text was sent from, obtained from a source knowledgeable about the investigation, appears in databases as being registered to a James Richard Perry of Texas, the former governor's full name. https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/17/politics/rick-perry-jan-6-text-mark-meadows-nov-4/index.html

Meadows and the Band of Loyalists: How They Fought to Keep Trump in Power

The lawmakers — all of them members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus — worked closely with the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, whose central role in Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn a democratic election is coming into focus as the congressional investigation into Jan. 6 gains traction.

The men were not alone in their efforts — most Republican lawmakers fell in line behind Mr. Trump’s false claims of fraud, at least rhetorically — but this circle moved well beyond words and into action. They bombarded the Justice Department with dubious claims of voting irregularities. They pressured members of state legislatures to conduct audits that would cast doubt on the election results. They plotted to disrupt the certification on Jan. 6 of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.

There was Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the pugnacious former wrestler who bolstered his national profile by defending Mr. Trump on cable television; Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, whose political ascent was padded by a $10 million sweepstakes win; and Representative Paul Gosar, an Arizona dentist who trafficked in conspiracy theories, spoke at a white nationalist rally and posted an animated video that depicted him killing Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/15/us/politics/trump-meadows-republicans-congress-jan-6.html

William Saletan: The chilling lesson of Mark Meadows’ text messages.

The more we learn about what Donald Trump and his aides heard and did on Jan. 6, the more clearly we understand his corrupt intent. The latest revelations come from newly disclosed text messages sent to Mark Meadows, Trump’s then-chief of staff, that afternoon. The messages show that Trump’s family, his media allies, and people inside the U.S. Capitol begged him to call off the attack but were ignored for most of the day. And they confirm that Meadows, who has refused to testify in the Jan. 6 investigation and now faces possible indictment for contempt of Congress, was at the center of what unfolded that day.

But the messages also clarify a standoff that took place in the middle of the afternoon. Shortly after 2:30, Trump sent out a tweet urging his followers to “stay peaceful.” That tweet has been cited as proof that he tried to end the crisis. But the texts, combined with other evidence, show that trusted figures in Trump’s orbit were asking him to do more. They wanted him to tell the rioters to leave the Capitol and go home. On the surface, this looks like a small difference. But Trump refused to do it. Why?

The simplest answer is that, as his prior behavior demonstrated, he saw the mob as leverage in a last-ditch effort to overturn the election. He had summoned his followers to Washington to pressure Congress to halt the certification of the election, and the pressure had succeeded. If he were to disperse the mob—not just ask it to curtail its violence—he would lose his leverage. So, for nearly two hours, he held out. That’s what the texts are showing us: that the president was being asked to make a specific concession, and that he refused to do so. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/12/the-chilling-lesson-of-mark-meadows-january-6-text-messages.html

Majority in U.S. Supports Biden COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates

Americans generally support vaccination mandates, including for air travel, attendance at crowded events, and other activities. The latest poll also finds 63% of U.S. adults in favor of vaccination requirements for teachers and staff in K-12 schools, something the New York and Los Angeles school districts, among others, have adopted.

Biden clearly has the backing of his fellow Democrats, with more than nine in 10 favoring all four elements of his plan that were tested in the survey. Independents' opinions are mixed, while Republicans oppose all four proposed actions. Both independents and Republicans are more likely to favor vaccination mandates for workers at hospitals receiving federal funds and paid time off for employees who get vaccinated than the other two mandates. https://news.gallup.com/poll/354983/majority-supports-biden-covid-vaccine-mandates.aspx

Susan Collins is open to a revived push to overhaul an expiring child tax credit

Republicans including Collins have been in lockstep against Democratic stimulus plans in 2021, the Maine senator said a revived tax-credit push led by Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, is among “a number of proposals worthy of consideration” on that issue. While she stopped short of backing it outright, it could signal a bipartisan willingness to make a narrower deal, though the plan still faces obstacles.

“I am open to proposals that would support working families and reduce childhood poverty and look forward to working with colleagues of both parties on bipartisan solutions,” Collins said in a statement.

The U.S. has had a child tax credit since the late 1990s. It was expanded in former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax-cut package, but many lower-income families were prevented from getting the full benefit because they did not earn enough.

Roughly 90 percent of Maine children are in families that qualify for the credit and it was expected to reduce child poverty here by 50 percent, the liberal Maine Center for Economic Policy said. https://bangordailynews.com/2021/12/21/politics/susan-collins-is-open-to-a-revived-push-to-overhaul-an-expiring-child-tax-credit/

The DAILY GRILL

"And I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can't. I've tried everything humanly possible. I can't get there. This is a no on this legislation. I have tried everything I know to do. And the President has worked diligently. He's been wonderful to work with. He knows I've had concerns and the problems I've had and, you know, the thing that we should all be directing our attention towards the variant, a Covid that we have coming back at us in so many different aspects in different ways, it's affecting our lives again.” -- Sen. Joe Manchin

VERSUS

"On Tuesday of this week, Senator Manchin came to the White House and submitted—to the President, in person, directly—a written outline for a Build Back Better bill that was the same size and scope as the President's framework, and covered many of the same priorities. If his comments on FOX and written statement indicate an end to that effort, they represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the President and the Senator's colleagues in the House and Senate.” -- White House press secretary Jen Psaki