One year ago today, I watched from the window in my Capitol office as insurrectionists sent by the former President launched an assault to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Today, I’m thinking of the United States Capitol Police, the Metropolitan Police, and all of the law enforcement officers who lost their lives or were injured protecting our Capitol. We owe them all a debt of gratitude for their bravery and service.
We still need to fully understand what took place that day. It’s not enough for law enforcement to prosecute the looters and trespassers who breached the Capitol. The House’s Select Committee and the Department of Justice must follow the money.
That means investigating the ringleaders – funded by the right-wing dark-money apparatus – who spread the former President’s lies and fomented the violence on January 6th.
That night, democracy ultimately prevailed. But threats remain. Republican officials across the country are restricting access to the ballot box and attacking the integrity of our electoral system.
Congress ought to come together once again to strengthen the right to vote and end the scourge of dark money that corrupts our politics. If Republicans continue to obstruct this important work, my Democratic colleagues and I will confront these threats on our own.
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The Commission has accomplished its job of killing time for the Biden Administration while avoiding any controversy or impact. whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/w…
Unfortunately, this law school faculty-heavy commission failed to accomplish even the opening “issue-spotting” work taught in first year in law school.
If another country had given its judicial selection over to a private, partisan group, while that partisan group was taking massive anonymous private donations, we’d have something to say about the obvious dangers of that. Not here.
The major disruptor of Earth’s basic operating systems is fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions. Making the fossil fuel industry pay a carbon pollution fee is the most effective way to stop those emissions, spur energy innovation, and turn toward safety.
The supercharged greenhouse gas disrupting Earth’s operating systems is methane, which the fossil fuel industry leaks, copiously. A methane pollution fee will virtually eliminate that leakage, fast. And we’ll be safer and healthier.
By 2050, oceans will have more plastic waste than living fish. Disposable plastic items use virtually no recycled plastic. To change that path, a plastics pollution fee can give recycling a boost and industry an incentive and seas a future.
When a citizen is charged in an indictment, the indictment should confine itself to the offense charged. An indictment is a precise tool of prosecution, not an opportunity for a novella. nytimes.com/2021/09/30/us/…
DOJ’s Justice Manual instructs that “prosecutors should remain sensitive to the privacy & reputation interests of uncharged third-parties,” and extends that caution even to unindicted co-conspirators.
Uncharged, easily identified, and in a federal indictment is a tough place for these scientists to be put. Not parties to the criminal case, they have no forum to answer in.
I checked. I made seven trips to Afghanistan, the first when the accommodations for us were modified shipping containers. Others were there a lot more, and gave much more; some gave all.
As we look back, I see the fatal day as when we dropped the ball in Afghanistan to pivot to the misbegotten Bush war in Iraq.
We had popularity, momentum and success in Afghanistan then, and if we had set wise parameters for stepping back, the outcome could have been different. We would not have left a little America behind, but that should never have been our goal there.