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The Curious Jan 6 Moonwalk of ‘Team Normal’

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There he was, on tape if not in person: Bill Stepien, the very campaign manager of Donald Trump's 2020 reelection campaign, explaining calmly and matter of factly that President Trump lost, he and the candidate knew he had lost and every conspiracy theory and false claim and desperate attempt to stay in power was in the words of Bill Barr, bullshit. It wasn't even begrudging nor presented as an admission. Just matter of fact. See Also:   Ana Navarro loses it during CNN gun control panel: 'Get your a--es in gear and call your Senators!' Since polls now routinely show that Republican voters treat it as an orthodoxy that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, this was quite a thing to hear. Other than the candidate himself, a campaign manager speaks with more authority and knowledge about a campaign than anyone else. Indeed, often with considerably more than the candidate. This has been one of the most notable dimensions of the Jan. 6th hearings to date. The wi...

Important Stuff, Truly Must-See

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I mentioned a few days ago that the most compelling part of the Jan 6 committee hearings so far for me has been the description of the particulars of how the breach of the Capitol complex happened. The story is usually presented as something like this. There was a big group of angry and potentially violent Trumpers. There was a much smaller group, maybe as few as a few dozens of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers with a more focused ideology, a clearer plan of the insurrection and so forth. They were both more eager to get violent and had a lot more experience getting violent. But they were in the extreme minority of the people up there. So even though they're now the ones facing serious charges including seditious conspiracy they are only a small part of what happened. See Also:   Pelosi defends not passing a bill, claims Supreme Court Justices aren't in any danger despite assassination attempt this week… The committee did a good job of explaining that that's not at all what h...

AOC refuses to endorse Biden for 2024 as Democrats doubt his ability to win

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Left-wing congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday refused to endorse Joe Biden for another run at the White House, adding to growing anxiety in Democratic circles over the president's ability to run in and win the 2024 election. See Also:   Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dodges on whether she'll support Biden in 2024, focuses on midterms: 'That's not a yes' The powerful progressive New Yorker said she could not commit to supporting Biden during an appearance on CNN's State of the Union, saying she was more focused on trying to preserve Democrats' congressional majority in November's midterms. See Also:   NBC Washington Correspondent Yamiche Alcindor and former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade join Andrea Mitchell to discuss key challenges facing the January 6 Committee ahead of their primetime hearings this week: getting a "distra...

Ocasio-Cortez won't commit to backing Biden in 2024: 'We'll cross that bridge when we get to it'

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New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday would not commit to backing President Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election, saying instead that "we'll cross that bridge when we get to it." See Also:   Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dodges on whether she'll support Biden in 2024, focuses on midterms: 'That's not a yes' "I think if the President has a vision, then that's something certainly we're all willing to entertain and examine when the time comes," Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat who wields a significant amount of influence over the party's progressive wing, told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union" when asked if she plans to support Biden in his 2024 reelection bid. See Also:   Sara Haines asked Sen. Chris Murphy if the Republican Party is going further right during Tuesday's episode of "The Vi...

Verdict on Reform Prosecutors More Mixed Than Headlines Suggest

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I consider myself middle of the road on police and criminal justice reform issues. As I said in the  new episode of the podcast  just out this afternoon, high crime rates will snuff out criminal justice reform as surely as night follows day. I'd reiterate a point I've made at other points over the years: no one has a greater interest in low crime rates than liberals and progressives because high crime rates spawn conservative politics. They don't just turn the tide against more humane criminal justice policies. They shift the whole political universe in a more authoritarian, conservative direction. Again, just an observable fact. See Also:   "The View" co-host Joy Behar said Wednesday that gun laws would change "once Black people get guns in this country." But with all this said, the narrative emerging out of yesterday's primaries that voters sent a big rebuke to Democrats over law and order politics or that it was a rejection of criminal justice r...

Understanding ‘Mass Shootings’

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On the long list of excuses and deflections gun rights activists use to shut down any talk of gun regulation, one critical angle comes down to numbers. Mass shootings, school shootings, gun massacres —  whatever you want to call them  — only make up a tiny percentage of the number of people killed every year by guns in the United States. That's true. Relatedly, AR-15s, the mass shooters' firearm of choice, account for only a tiny percentage of overall firearms deaths in the United States. That's true. Indeed, some noted that the 10 African-Americans murdered in a Buffalo supermarket on May 14th may not even have been a majority of the African-Americans killed by firearms on that single day. Using these very real numbers, gun rights activists portray supporters of assault weapons bans, bans on high capacity magazines and the rest as reactive and innumerate. It's similar to the way that gun activists sometimes try to shut down restriction conversation by noting how people...

A Few Thoughts on the Hearings

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I wanted to share a few quick thoughts with you before tonight's hearings. See Also:   Joy Reid accuses Republicans of thriving on 'demographic panic,' says GOP wants no one to feel 'safe' One very minor point is that for some time I've heard complaints to the effect of, "what has the committee been doing all this time? Most of what we've found out about January 6th has been from the media." This is mostly a misunderstanding. The great majority of reporting you've seen over the last six months revealing texts and other material about the insurrection originated with the committee's investigation. So this isn't an either/or. The committee investigation has almost certainly been the primary generator of new information even though very little of it has come officially from the investigation. See Also:   Sara Haines asked Sen. Chris Murphy if the Republican Party is going further right during Tuesday's episode of "The View....