Crooked Media - What A Day: The twice is right

Donald Trump has become the first president in American history to be impeached twice, an achievement he may not be enjoying in the moment, but can hopefully reminisce about fondly in prison one day. 
 

• Ten House Republicans joined 222 Democrats in voting to impeach Trump for “incitement of insurrection,” which sure feels like one of those unanimously impeachable offenses, but double digits is something. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy acknowledged that Trump “bears responsibility” for inciting the mob that violently attacked the Capitol hours before he personally voted to throw out the election, but argued that such a whoopsy-daisy didn’t merit, like, immediate consequences. The White House reportedly pressured GOP members to stand with Trump, and a number of Republicans said they wanted to vote to impeach but were afraid for their lives. In other words, they succumbed to terrorism. Congress actually has this neat, little-known feature for members who are too scared to do their jobs—it is called Resignation, and it’s available at any time!
   
• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would not consent to immediately reconvene the Senate under his emergency authorities, meaning the impeachment trial won’t begin until after Joe Biden takes office. That doesn’t make the trial purely symbolic; if senators convict Trump, they can then vote to disqualify him from holding office again. The outcome will likely depend on how McConnell votes, and while McConnell is cultivating an ~air of mystery~, he confirmed he’s considering a possible vote to convict: “While the press has been full of speculation, I have not made a final decision on how I will vote.” 
   
• Members of the National Guard had to surround the Capitol on Wednesday, creating surreal images like these ones, and lawmakers were directed to walk through new magnetometers on their way to the House floor (with...limited success), in response to concerns that some GOP members—who have said things like “I am going to bring my gun”—might bring their guns. A number of Republicans have lost their entire minds over that new security feature, whining about the “atrocity” of an obstacle to voting (lmao) and shoving past the Capitol Police officers who risked their lives to protect them from the mob they incited just a week earlier. Blue Lives Matter, Until I Am Personally Experiencing a Minor Inconvenience.

Republicans’ obnoxious refusal to walk through a metal detector is no small problem, given the chilling, growing evidence of possible congressional involvement in last week’s attack.
 

• Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who got into a standoff with Capitol Police on Tuesday night after setting off the metal detectors and refusing to let security look in her bag, has been facing calls to resign after tweeting about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s location during the riot. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) said she saw (unspecified) lawmakers leading groups on “reconnaissance” tours of the Capitol on January 5, and Alexander Ali, a “Stop the Steal” organizer, has claimed that three intensely pro-Trump House members were involved in planning the January 6 rally:  Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Mo Brooks (R-AK), and Paul A. Gosar (R-AZ). 
   
• It seems like we’ve still only caught a glimpse of what actually happened in the Capitol last week. In an Instagram Live on Tuesday evening, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said she had a “very close encounter” during the attack in which she thought she would die, but couldn’t disclose further details out of security concerns. Ocasio-Cortez said she didn’t feel safe going to the same secure location as her colleagues because of “frankly, white supremacist members of Congress,” whom she feared “would create opportunities to allow me to be hurt, kidnapped.” Sarah Croh, who serves as chief of staff for Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), recounted searching for the office’s panic buttons, only to discover that the whole unit had been inexplicably ripped out before the mob arrived. 

Impeaching Trump for inciting a deadly insurrection is a bare-minimum response, so obviously necessary that even a GOP member who voted nay said he’d probably regret it later. (Bless his heart.) But the threats Trump exacerbated are nowhere near resolved, and Democrats’ next steps should include the investigation and expulsion of any members who conspired with extremists, and knowingly endangered their colleagues’ lives. 

In an all new Speechwriters React, Jons Favreau and Lovett explain what goes into writing an inaugural address and what they'd like to hear Joe Biden say in his historic address next week. Check it out and subscribe→  youtube.com/crookedmedia

More than 4,400 people in the U.S. died from coronavirus on Tuesday, an appalling new single-day record, and a function of the post-holiday surge that health experts predicted. The coronavirus isn’t doling out any breaks here: Researchers in Ohio said they’ve discovered two new strains that likely originated in the U.S., one of which quickly became the dominant strain in Columbus, OH. That strain has an identical mutation to the variant first identified in the U.K., and is likewise more contagious—it just happens to be homegrown. There’s no data to suggest that either new strain will impact vaccine effectiveness, but with ICUs reaching capacity all over the country, the prospect of further accelerated spread is disturbing enough on its own. One bright spot in the hellscape: Vaccination rates seem to have finally begun to pick up.

• A Secret Service bulletin warned of additional potential violence in Washington, DC, before and after the Inauguration, from the Boogaloo Bois in particular. What better time than the middle of an ongoing insurrection to turn the page, move on, and hug it out with the guy in a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt?
   
• (Touches earpiece) It seems the guy in a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt has been arrested. Also arrested: The fur-draped son of a Brooklyn judge, and an Olympic gold-medalist swimmer who is, in a major upheaval of the Dumbass Swimmer Rankings, not Ryan Lochte.
   
• Ayanna Pressley’s husband, Conan Harris, has tested positive for coronavirus after he sheltered in the Capitol with Pressley in the same room as anti-mask Republicans last week. 
   
• A DC federal prosecutor said his office is looking into possible seditious conspiracy charges, which makes some sense when you’re investigating a seditious conspiracy.
   
• Proud Boys supporter Eduard Florea was arrested in Queens, NY, after federal agents found over 1000 rounds of rifle ammunition in his home. Florea had made a series of threats on Parler, including a death threat against Rev. Raphael Warnock. 
   
• Iran has taken another big ol’ step towards producing nuclear weapons. Another resounding victory for the Trump administration’s foreign policy. 
   
• New York City has moved to end its business relationships with the Trump Organization. This is the Orwellian world we live in, where a man cannot incite a single insurrection without losing his right to operate the Central Park Carousel. 
   
• The communications director for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has resigned, the chair of the committee on homeland security has called for him to be put on a no-fly list, Democratic senators want to censure him, and his beard still makes him look the Animorph stage halfway between man and catfish. Not a bad week for Ted Cruz!
   
• The CDC will require a negative coronavirus test from all air passengers entering the U.S. Air passengers traveling within the U.S. are still welcome to crawl aboard gasping for breath and die mid-flight.
   
• Airbnb will cancel all reservations in the DC area during inauguration week, under sustained pressure from DC residents. 
   
• Large Adult Son vibe check: Eric Trump quietly hung up the phone when a journalist asked whether daddy incited last week’s riot, while Don Jr. has some very hot, non-cocaine-fueled business ideas for Elon Musk.
   
• After a week of being bombarded with images of antisemitic symbols inside the U.S. Capitol, please know that Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) showed up to Trump’s impeachment with a Zabar’s bag containing a babka and the Constitution. Nature is healing. 

The Epoch Times, a pro-Trump propaganda outlet, has become the most popular Apple newspaper app in the country. This Atlantic piece is a great deep dive into what exactly the newspaper is and how it came to peddle right-wing conspiracies. It was founded in 2000 by a follower of Falun Gong, the Chinese spiritual-movement-slash-cult that’s also behind the ubiquitous Shen Yun dance troupe, and still appears to be run entirely by Falun Gong adherents. The Epoch Times was more or less irrelevant until 2019, when it suddenly wound up all over social media. Its anti-communist bent aligned perfectly with right-wing efforts to blame China for the pandemic, and other conservative outlets massively amplified its coverage. The paper can now be found at the center of just about every deranged right-wing conspiracy theory, and its popularity isn’t likely to wane with Trump’s exit from office. 

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Census officials have halted work on Trump’s plan to exclude undocumented immigrants from redistricting data.

House Democrats’ updated federal voting-rights bill includes online, automatic, and same-day voter registration mandates, and would restore voting rights to anyone who isn’t currently incarcerated. 

The Illinois General Assembly has passed a sweeping criminal justice overhaul that would end cash bail and eventually require every police officer in the state to wear a body camera. 

Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA) will introduce a bill to abolish the death penalty, which would make Virginia the first southern state to end capital punishment.