It's Friday morning, what do we know?
What do we know in Ukraine?
Russian troops sought to consolidate control of Luhansk on Thursday, forcing Ukrainian fighters to withdraw from areas around the city of Lysychansk or risk being surrounded. Russia sent in reinforcements and concentrated heavy artillery and rocket fire in the area
Ukraine announced Thursday that U.S.-made multiple-launch rocket systems, known as High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), had arrived in the country. The weapons are part of the United States’ latest $450 million military aid package. HIMARS are medium-range, precision rocket systems that Ukraine hopes will enable them to better target Russian positions
Ukraine and Moldova officially became candidates for membership in the European Union on Thursday. Despite expedited candidacy, it will take several years for Ukraine to become a full member of the 27 nation bloc
What else do we know?
The Supreme Court struck down a New York gun law that required individuals who want to carry a handgun in public to show special need. The 6-3 decision, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, said that the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the right “to keep and bear arms” protects a broad right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense. The far reaching decision will affect gun laws in California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, all of whom have similar statutes on the books
While the New York law was struck down, a concurring decision written by Justice Kavanaugh and joined by Chief Justice Roberts, sought to limit the scope of the ruling. Kavanaugh’s concurrence pointed out that while demanding a show of special need was too open ended and subjective, states may still use more objective licensing schemes that include requirements such as background checks, firearms training, a check of mental health records, and fingerprinting. Kavanaugh’s opinion added that the Second Amendment “allows a variety of gun regulations”
Hours after the SCOTUS decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the United States Senate passed its bipartisan gun violence bill, 65-33. Though the bill falls short of what many on the left wanted, it is the first piece of meaningful gun legislation passed in the Senate in more than a decade. The House is expected to pick up the bill this morning
The House January 6th Committee
Thursday’s hearing focused on Trump’s efforts to force senior leadership at the Department of Justice to go along with his scheme to steal the election and defraud the American people
The three primary witnesses at Thursday’s hearing were former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue and Steven Engel, the former head of the Office of Legal Counsel at DOJ
In their testimony, all three witnesses recounted Trump’s bizarre entreaties, daily phone calls and other attempts to coerce them, beginning in December and persisting until January 3rd. Among the more outlandish details, Trump’s insistence that the DOJ investigate whether Italian satellites had, with the help of CIA and MI6, been used to electronically flip ballots from Trump to Biden, Trump’s efforts to enlist the Justice Department and Homeland Security to take possession of voting machines and a series of insane, hours-long meetings at the White House where DOJ leadership, White House lawyers and other counsel had to convince Trump not to do some truly deranged, illegal and unconstitutional shit. These meetings culminated with one on January 3rd, when all the leadership at DOJ threatened to quit, along with all the assistant attorneys general and prosecutors around the country, if Trump replaced Rosen with environmental lawyer Jeffrey Clark, as acting attorney general
Jeffrey Clark featured prominently in the hearing as Trump’s useful idiot at the DOJ. Clark, a nobody, came to Trump’s attention through Congressman Scott Perry, as a potential ally in the department. Together, Trump and Clark schemed to decapitate leadership at the Justice Department, install Clark, who would then send a letter to the Georgia legislature advising them–-completely without merit—that Justice was investigating credible cases of voting irregularities in the state. Their hairbrained scheme was aborted when DOJ leadership made it clear to Trump that Clark was, for all intents and purposes, a moron and totally incapable of delivering on anything he had promised to the neediest man alive
Among the other highlights at Thursday’s hearing, the list of congresspeople who requested a pardon from Trump for their actions surrounding January 6th. The list included:
Matt Gaetz (R-FL)
Mo Brooks (R-AL)
Andy Biggs (R-AZ)
Scott Perry (R-PA)
Louie Gohmert (R-TX)
Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)
The band of misfits above all asked for blanket pardons for crimes they swear they never committed, because they are all men and women of high character, not cartoon villains come to life
