Kristoffer Tripplaar/Sipa USA via AP

Navient, a student loan company that had been accused in a nationwide lawsuit of misleading borrowers about the availability of cheaper repayment plans, has reached a $1.85 billion settlement with 39 state attorneys general. Per the terms of the settlement, Navient will pay 350,000 federal loan borrowers approximately $260 each. Navient will also cancel $1.7 billion worth of private student loans made to students at for-profit colleges.

The lawsuit accused Navient of misleading federal student loan borrowers about alternatives to what is know as forbearance. When student borrowers are unable to make payments on their loans, they are supposed to have multiple options, including switching to income-driven repayment plans, which set payments based on a borrower’s income and can be more affordable. Forbearance, by contrast, can be more expensive, because while borrowers are temporarily able to stop making payments, interest continues to accrue. Navient announced in September that it would exit the federal student loan servicing business.

Navient was also accused of improperly originating private loans to for-profit colleges with low graduation rates, resulting in borrowers being unable to pay off their debts. Navient allegedly did this so that it could gain access to the more profitable business of originating federal loans for these for-profit colleges, according to the lawsuit. Navient has denied the allegations, and it did not admit to wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

“Navient repeatedly and deliberately put profits ahead of its borrowers—it engaged in deceptive and abusive practices,” said Pennsylvania state Attorney General Josh Shapiro in a statement Thursday. “Today’s settlement corrects Navient’s past behavior, provides much needed relief to Pennsylvania borrowers, and puts in place safeguards to ensure this company never preys on student loan borrowers again.”

Un-PAC members during their December hunger strikeAiden Duffy/Un-PAC

A group of youth activists did not eat for 15 days last month to get Congress to push voting rights reform to the top of its agenda. Now, they’re forgoing food once again in a last-ditch effort pressure the Senate to enact rules reform and pass the Freedom to Vote Act with a simple majority by January 17, Martin L. King, Jr. Day.

As I wrote last month:

The bill, an updated version of the For the People Act, would institute automatic and Election Day voter registration, make Election Day a federal holiday, and ban partisan gerrymandering, among other measures. It is a centerpiece of the Democratic agenda, but it has been stalled by Senate rules that effectively require a 60-vote supermajority to pass legislation.

I know what you’re thinking. If the bill has no realistic chance of passing—thanks to opposition to Senate rules reform from Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va,), and others—what’s the point in striking?

“It’s a desperate moment that we’re in, for sure,” said Shana Gallagher, co-founder and executive director of Un-PAC, the group leading the strike. “If that doesn’t work, then we hope that our hunger strike will grow so big that it can’t be ignored.”

The organization has already joined forces with a group of faith leaders and doubled its ranks of DC hunger strikers from 20 to 40. Gallagher said that more than 150 people from across the country joined a virtual organizing call last night—many of them inspired by TikTok—and that more than 100 have signed up to take part in the strike in D.C. if the vote fails. 

“We’re not going to let this campaign fade into the night,” Gallagher said. “We really feel that this is an existential moment, so we are committed to continuing to strike until the bill passes.”

J. Scott Applewhite/AP/Pool

Another Senate hearing on Covid, another spat between Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases. But, this time, the nation’s top infectious disease expert wanted the senator to see the human toll of his personal attacks.

Paul used his time at the hearing to hit on his usual talking points, accusing Fauci of conspiring with other scientists to shut down the lab leak theory—which posits that the virus originated not in an animal but in a research lab—and tarnish the careers of those who disagreed with him. “It’s the epitome of cheap politics,” Paul said, “and it’s reprehensible.”

Another Senate hearing on Covid, another spat between Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Dr. Anthony Fauci. But watch as Dr. Fauci dismantles Sen. Paul's Covid-19 agenda in real-time: pic.twitter.com/6fZwMCiMAY

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) January 11, 2022

Fauci retorted that Paul’s false accusations not only distracted from the pandemic response, but led to attacks on his life. “What happens when he gets out and accuses me of things that are completely untrue is that all of a sudden that kindles the crazies out there,” he said, “and I have threats upon my life, harassment of my family and my children with obscene phone calls because people are lying about me.” (Police recently arrested a man at a traffic stop who had a hit list of government officials and politicians, including Dr. Fauci. The man also had an AR-15 style rifle and ammunition in his car.)

Fauci came prepared with a printout of Rand Paul’s website, which showed donation buttons next to an invocation to “Fire Dr. Fauci.” Fauci told Paul that he was using “a catastrophic epidemic for your own political gain.”

To me, though, the most striking part of the exchange isn’t Fauci’s slick rebuke of the Kentucky senator, but the baselessness of Paul’s argument in the first place. Paul brought up a series of recently released emails between Fauci and National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins over the Great Barrington Declaration, an October 2020 statement from epidemiologists at Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford arguing that people at low risk for the coronavirus ought to go on with their lives as normal until society reaches herd immunity. (Read the Wall Street Journal opinion piece on the debacle if you dare.)

Paul, brimming with sarcasm, said at Tuesday’s hearing, “Apparently, there’s a lot of fringe epidemiologists at Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford.”

Uh, yeah?

Elite institutions can and do foster fringe ideas—and the fact that the professors who wrote the Great Barrington Declaration continue to be employed at their prestigious universities is evidence against the cancel culture Paul so frequently decries. The Great Barrington Declaration was sponsored by a libertarian think tank and has been criticized as scientifically unsound by the World Health Organization and by a group of scientists including scholars from, yes, Harvard and Oxford. I’m not a scientist, so I can’t opine on the merits of one Covid response over the other. But I can say for certain that wasting the Senate’s time to bicker over the response to a widely discredited statement made by a small minority of epidemiologists isn’t getting us any closer to ending this pandemic for good.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty

Roughly a year ago, Donald Trump was banned from Twitter and most other social media apps, including YouTube and Facebook. In the wake, there’s been cries of tech censorship. Some of it is worth considering; other times—like when Richard Grenell said that the real attack on our democracy wasn’t people storming the Capitol but Trump’s ban—it’s pablum.

But an interesting note, tucked into a piece on the anniversary within the Wall Street Journal, is those within Trump’s orbit have appreciated the ban. “I don’t know a single person in Trump world who regrets that this has happened—not a single one,” a Trump adviser told the Wall Street Journal.

It’s pretty simple why: The more time Trump is on Twitter, the more journalists (also, let’s be honest, way too much on Twitter) report on the crazy things he says on Twitter. It makes him look bad. The numbers show this. At the time Trump was kicked off social media, which followed his role in inciting the January 6 insurrection, Trump’s approval rating hovered around 38.6 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average. Now 43.3 percent of Americans view him favorably, a bounce-back his advisers attribute to the social media ban. Take that causality with a grain of salt, but it’s not nothing.

The thing is it is not as if Trump has truly ceded power. The lack of a social media footprint has not dented Trump’s fundraising or his influence over the Republican Party, which still de facto controls as the presumptive frontrunner for the presidential nomination in 2024. 

Trump’s main asset is a massive email list, which the Journal pegs at “about 50 million emails.” Trump has tapped that list repeatedly for donations. (In just the past two days, I’ve received no less than eight emails from Trump and his political action committee.)

The Trump team’s effort to flood the zone has paid off to the tune of “more than $56 million in online donations during the first half of 2021, and about as much in the second half,” according to sources who spoke to the Journal. 

For Trump, the disgrace of being exiled from social media may have been what it is for any of us brave enough to leave Twitter: a blessing in disguise. He not only is more popular and reaching his followers on a massive scale, but the specter of Big Tech censorship can remain a useful political cudgel as he continues to raise money. (Already, in July, Trump sued major tech companies alleging censorship.)

And even though his short-lived attempt at starting a blog went up in flames, he still is planning to roll out his own social media network, Truth Social. The latest listing has its launch date as February 21, which in case you have forgotten, is Presidents Day. 2024 gets closer and closer. 

Eduardo Parra/Contacto/Zuma

We know that there’s no better way to prevent severe illness and death from the rapidly spreading Omicron variant than getting boosted. Receiving a booster after being fully vaccinated for five months, according to one study, reduced mortality by 90 percent.

Yet booster shot outreach efforts are facing a big problem: We don’t know exactly who is getting boosted. The data is, frankly, a mess. And that stops public health workers on the state and local level from taking the actions they need to combat the coronavirus.

One of the most glaring issues is that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn’t publicly report racial and ethnic information on booster shot recipients under age 65, even though it does so for people fully vaccinated people and those who have received at least one dose. No word yet from the CDC on why that is. But for a disease that has killed and infected Black, Indigenous, and Latino people at higher rates than Asian and white people, this lack of granular data is particularly glaring.

Good data allows states to use targeted outreach to address disparities in vaccine access. Take, for example, Michigan, which collects detailed demographic data on vaccine uptake. It then uses that information to close the gap between Black and white vaccine access by placing testing and vaccination sites in vulnerable communities and engaging trusted messengers, like faith leaders, to spread the word about the benefits of vaccines. “We’ve really been able to look at who are trusted community leaders and how can they message to populations where we’re seeing lower vaccine uptake,” Alexis D. Travis, from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, explained.

Eleven other states are recording racial and ethnic data for booster recipients under age 65, but their racial categories aren’t standardized—Mississippi, for example, has a distinct category for Pacific Islanders, while Michigan groups Pacific Islanders in with Asians and Native Hawaiians. “That makes it challenging to compare the data across states,” Samantha Artiga, director of the Racial Equity and Health Policy Program at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said, “in addition to only having a limited universe of states reporting the data.”

The lack of data isn’t a new problem: Even for initial doses of the vaccine, the CDC has not linked ethnic data to age, as my colleague Edwin Rios has reported, making it difficult to single out specific groups like Black kids or Latino adults. But the addition of a third (or, for Johnson & Johnson recipients, second) shot to the vaccine regime has further muddied already murky water. Someone who became fully vaccinated last week wouldn’t be eligible for a booster, so while states can estimate the amount of fully vaccinated people who have been boosted, it’s harder for them to asses booster uptake among fully vaccinated people who are eligible for additional doses.

Without this sort of data, the job of outreach becomes increasingly difficult, and measuring success becomes a guessing game. Worse, sometimes the data we do collect gets it wrong.

The CDC has been grappling with its own booster-related data issues. In some cases, the agency has accidentally recorded people’s booster shots as initial doses and consequently skewed estimates of initial doses higher. “We currently are still seeing a lot of gaps and limitations in the data that prevents us from being able to assess whether there is equity in receipt of the booster doses and also in vaccination uptake among children,” Artiga said. In other words, we can barely get accurate numbers on booster doses for different age groups, which we’re trying to collect nationally, let alone ethnicities, which we are not.

So, what do we know?

Booster uptake among white people age 65 and older at the national level is generally similar to prior vaccine uptake, according to a December analysis by KFF. The shares of Black and Hispanic booster dose recipients age 65 and older are smaller than their shares of fully vaccinated people, but there has been an uptick in recent weeks.

Unsurprisingly, older Americans are more likely to have gotten boosters than younger ones, with 59.1 percent of adults 65 and older boosted, compared to 49.5 percent of the population 50 and over, and 37.7 percent of the population 18 and over, according to the CDC.

Michigan, for its part, is still seeing disparities in booster uptake, but they’re “not unexpected,” Travis said. Statewide, 46.2 percent of fully vaccinated people have gotten a booster, Joe Coyle, director of the state’s Bureau of Infectious Disease Prevention, said. Among non-Hispanic Blacks, it’s 35.5 percent, and for Hispanics, it’s 33.2 percent.

But all ethnicities see increasing booster uptake with age. “They had a little bit longer to get vaccinated,” Travis said, “but they also understand they’re one of the highest risk groups for complications and deaths related to Covid-19. And what we’ve seen is that risk perception doesn’t necessarily translate to the younger age groups.”

That’s handy information at the state level. But for the nation as a whole, “given the limitations in the data, it’s really difficult to draw any strong conclusions about whether there are any disparities in take up a booster doses so far,” Artiga said.

Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris began the first anniversary of January 6th on an appropriately solemn note, condemning Donald Trump for his election lies, honoring the Capitol police harmed, and urging the legislative branch to re-establish endangered voting rights protections. 

But then something that could be described most kindly as “weird”—and more accurately as a solid r/nottheonion entry—happened.

Before a commemorative conversation between historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Jon Meacham, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced Lin-Manuel Miranda and the cast of Hamilton to sing a piece from the musical to emphasize the importance of democracy. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi begins reflection on 1/6 by tossing to pre-recorded remarks from Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Pelosi quotes Hamilton: “If we lay a strong enough foundation, we’ll pass it on to you.” pic.twitter.com/jdYyloImen

— The Recount (@therecount) January 6, 2022

“May his beautiful words be an inspiration to us,” Pelosi said.

There are caveats here. This was not an official Democratic event but, instead, a discussion hosted by the Librarian of Congress; Pelosi simply introduced this stuff, who knows who actually wanted Hamilton sung quarantine-karaoke style as part of a January 6th remembrance; and some people, like librarians, actually like the musical. But, still…not good!

Are we trying to commemorate an attack that struck at the core of our democracy? Or are we running a Democratic pledge drive? Because it feels like Hamilton belongs at one and not the other.

In the future, when it comes to insurrection remembrance: Please don’t cringe. It’s important.

Rod Lamkey/CNP/Zuma

On the anniversary of the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called on the Senate to pass voting rights reform legislation to ensure “that our country’s destiny is determined by the voice of the people, and not by the violent whims of lies.”

Schumer warned that Donald Trump, and others who have attempted to downplay the severity of last year’s events, pose a threat to the Republic. “Democracy could—God forbid, God forbid, horror of horrors—vanish,” he said from the Senate floor. 

The speech was tinged with the personal, too. Schumer recalled a police officer grabbing him by the collar and ushering him into a safe room, but not before he passed within 30 feet of the rioters. “I was told later that one of them reportedly said, ‘There’s the big Jew, let’s get him,'” he said.

.@SenSchumer: "The warnings of history are clear. When democracies are in danger, it often starts with a mob. That's what happened a year ago here in this building, a mob attack." pic.twitter.com/o500UMLw6T

— CSPAN (@cspan) January 6, 2022

“January 6 was an attempt to reverse, through violent means, the outcome of a free and fair election,” he said. “An insurrection, call it what it is.”

And it’s not something that we can just move past, he said, because its effects are ongoing. He pointed out that a minority of Americans—but a majority of Republican voters—believe Trump won and that the 2020 election was rigged. “What if a majority of this country, because of these pernicious actions, start believing it?” he said. “I can’t predict the details, but I can predict that it will diminish the greatness of this country in small and even large ways.”

The only way to move forward, he said, is to remember what happened that day and pass legislation to ensure that it never happens again. Schumer called Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s suggestion of reforming the Electoral Count Act “the bare minimum” and insisted instead that Congress pass the sweeping John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. He didn’t mention, however, that passing those laws would require Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) to throw their weight behind filibuster reform, which seems increasingly unlikely. (Schumer is plenty aware that the filibuster can have political benefits; along with Senate Democrats in the early 2000s, he used it against President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees in a way that, some argue, laid the groundwork for its unhinged use by Republicans now.)

“Let the anniversary of January 6 forever serve as a reminder that the march to perfect our democracy is never over,” he said, “that our democracy is a precious, sometimes fragile gift, purchased by those who struggled before us, and that all of us now must do our part to keep the American vision going in the present and into the future.”

Carolyn Kaster/AP

On the eve of the first anniversary of the January 6 Capitol riot, Attorney General Merrick Garland urged Congress to safeguard elections by giving the Justice Department new powers to protect voting rights. 

“The Department of Justice will continue to do all it can to protect voting rights with the enforcement powers we have,” he said in an address delivered Wednesday afternoon. “It is essential that Congress act to give the department the powers we need to ensure that every eligible voter can cast a vote that counts.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland just pledged to hold all Jan. 6 perpetrators "at any level" accountable under the law: "We follow the facts. Not an agenda or an assumption. The facts tell us where to go next." pic.twitter.com/Ofyx0uRNoM

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) January 5, 2022

In his speech, Garland referenced the Supreme Court’s decision in the 2013 case Shelby County v. Holder, which gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act and eliminated the provision barring historically discriminatory jurisdictions from altering voting laws without preclearing those changes with the DOJ. Without new legislation to restore those powers, Garland implied, the department lacks the proper tools to protect the right of every American to vote. 

Garland’s remarks were delivered as Democratic politicians prepare to mount a new push to pass voting rights legislation in response to widespread Republican efforts to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning minorities, gerrymander congressional maps, and lay the groundwork to contest close election results. Parts of his speech echoed the claims of top Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who have attempted to draw comparisons between the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol and the Republican officials who have seized on Trump’s election lies to enact anti-democratic legislation. 

“Many of those enactments have been justified by unfounded claims of material vote fraud in the 2020 election,” Garland noted. “Those claims, which have corroded people’s faith in the legitimacy of our elections, have been repeatedly refuted.” 

Garland also addressed, albeit with his trademark sobriety, the growing chorus of criticism from the left that his department is not acting quickly or aggressively enough to prosecute the insurrectionists and those who instigated them, including ex-Trump officials and even the former president. Garland did not go into detail about what future cases the DOJ plans to bring, but he promised that the feds would seek to hold all January 6 perpetrators “at any level” accountable—“whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.”

“We understand that there is broad public interest in our investigation,” he said. “We understand there are questions about how long the investigation will take and about what exactly we are doing. Our answer is and will continue to be the same answer we would give with respect to any ongoing investigation: As long as it takes, and whatever it takes for justice to be done, consistent with facts and the law.”

SMG/Zuma

New York Attorney General Letitia James is ramping up her civil investigation into the Trump Organization’s business practices. On Monday, court filings showed New York is subpoenaing two of Donald Trump’s children, Ivanka and Donald Jr.—who have already said they won’t comply. The filing also confirmed James had subpoenaed Trump himself, which was reported a month ago.

NEW YORK (AP) — New York attorney general subpoenas former President Donald Trump, two eldest children in probe of the family's business.

— Jonathan Lemire (@JonLemire) January 3, 2022

As my colleague Russ Choma wrote in May, James’ investigation has been ongoing since 2019. The probe, he wrote, “included questions of whether Trump had fraudulently inflated or deflated the values of his properties when seeking loans or tax breaks.” Another Trump son, Eric, already sat for a deposition relating to the case in October 2020.

But Ivanka and Donald Jr., who have both been heavily involved in the Trump Organization, aren’t handing over any documents without a fight. The two have filed already filed motions to end the subpoenas, ABC News reports.

Because this is a civil investigation, James could file a lawsuit if she finds sufficient evidence, but she could not press criminal charges. However, James’ office is also involved in a criminal probe, spearheaded by former Manhattan DA Cy Vance, of potential tax fraud by Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg. Vance, who left office last week, is leaving the investigation to his successor, Alvin Bragg.

Lynne Sladky/AP

Back in 2012, a group of 200 fast-food workers in New York City walked off the job to demand a $15 minimum wage and a union. Their protest seeded what has become known as the “Fight for 15” movement, which has spent the last decade working to raise the minimum wage across the country.

Now in its 10th anniversary year, this movement will see record success in 2022 as 25 states and 56 local jurisdictions increase wage floors for workers, according to a report from the National Employment Law Project released at the end of last month.

Twenty-one of those states raised wages on New Years Day, along with 35 cities and counties. The remaining increases will take effect later in the year, and the majority of these wage hikes will reach or exceed $15 per hour for some or all employers.

“Since the first Fight for $15 protest in 2012, the movement has grown tremendously, accelerated by the pandemic’s exposure of stark inequities and hazardous work conditions,” Rebecca Dixon, the executive director of NELP, said in a December statement. “Underpaid workers, especially Black and brown workers, have been mobilizing to demand higher wages, safer workplace conditions, and dignified jobs—and they’re succeeding.”

For many years, some politicians and the business lobby framed the push for a $15 minimum wage as a long-shot and an economy-hurting proposition. By requiring higher wages, the argument went, policy makers would force businesses with slim profit margins to lay off workers, essentially eliminating wages for some in order to raise them for others.

But as the pandemic made a number of frontline low-wage jobs particularly unappealing—from retail to grocery stores to restaurants—many employers in those industries have begun to offer higher wages, suggesting that “despite previous claims about the unaffordability of higher wages, many employers have always been able to pay more but chose not to do so,” note the NELP report’s authors.

Now this change has become permanent in broad swathes of the country. In his 2020 campaign for the presidency, Joe Biden also promised to raise the federal minimum wage to $15—a move that would push pay up in the 20 states that refuse to raise wages above this federal floor, which currently stands at $7.25 per hour. Democrats included the $15 change in early versions of Biden’s stimulus bill last year, but it was removed from that legislation in order to garner enough Senate votes for passage, and the effort is now stalled at the federal level. The administration did, however, increase minimum hourly pay for federal contractors nationwide to $15 with an executive order this past April, and the change went into effect in November.

Graeme Sloan/AP

Rep. Liz Cheney, the top Republican on the House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot, said on Sunday that the findings of her committee have led her to believe that Donald Trump is “unfit for future office” and that if he were to win a future presidential election, it could destroy American democracy.

“We entrust the survival of our republic into the hands of the chief executive,” Cheney told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on This Week. “And when a president refuses to tell the mob to stop, when he refuses to defend any of the coordinate branches of government, he cannot be trusted.”

On CBS’s Face the Nation, Cheney delivered a similar message about Trump. “This is a man who is simply too dangerous ever to play a role again in our democracy,” she said.

Cheney’s conclusions, she said, stemmed in part from the findings of her committee about Trump’s actions on January 6, 2021. She explained that her committee had testimony showing that while armed rioters invaded the US Capitol building, threatening violence in service of the conspiracy theory that the election was stolen, Trump sat in the dining room next to the Oval Office watching the riot on television. According to Cheney’s summary of testimony given to the January 6 committee, he initially ignored pleas from his staff, his daughter Ivanka, and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy that he issue a message to the insurrectionists asking them to stop.

Rep. Liz Cheney, the top Republican on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, says former Pres. Trump is "clearly unfit for future office, clearly can never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again." https://t.co/zo7wSq6hc1 pic.twitter.com/Q8v97iEqcY

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) January 2, 2022

“The president could have, at any moment, walked those very few steps into the briefing room, gone on live television, and told his supporters who were assaulting the Capitol to stop,” Cheney said on This Week. “He could have told them to stand down. He could have told them to go home—and he failed to do so. It’s hard to imagine a more significant and more serious dereliction of duty than that.”

It wasn’t until 4:17 pm that day—two hours after the rioters first entered the Capitol building—that Trump tweeted a video calling on the mob to “go home,” while also falsely claiming that the election was “fraudulent.”

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Marjorie Taylor Greene, the first-term member of Congress from Georgia, styles herself as a warrior for free speech. In recent years, she has issued hate-filled tweets, encouraged violence on social media, and promoted QAnon conspiracies. In response, lawmakers quickly stripped Greene of her House committee assignments, and Twitter temporarily suspended her account several times.

But on Sunday, Twitter finally suspended her personal account, @mtgreenee, for good, following what the company said were “repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy.” In a statement to the New York Times, Twitter added: “We’ve been clear that, per our strike system for this policy, we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations.”

Twitter’s action came after Greene published a 19-tweet thread on New Years day lamenting the status of unvaccinated people as a “subclass” and falsely claiming that “extremely high” numbers of Covid vaccine deaths are being ignored. She concluded the since-deleted thread with a call to arms: “Before Covid, We were free. After Covid, We are no longer free. The question is will the people break free from covid psychosis before it’s too late.”

Earlier this year, Greene claimed on Twitter that her Crossfit exercise routine would protect her from Covid. She also argued that schools and businesses should not shut down to prevent Covid spread, since cancer kills a comparable number of people. (This is a logically flawed argument for a host of reasons, not the least of which being that unlike Covid, cancer is not spread through human contact.)

Twitter’s decision does not extend to Greene’s congressional Twitter account, @RepMTG, which is still active. 

Greene responded to Twitter’s suspension on GETTR, a conservative social media platform run by a former adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns.

“Twitter is an enemy to America and can’t handle the truth,” she wrote. “That’s fine, I’ll show America we don’t need them and it’s time to defeat our enemies.”

Sarah Rankin/AP

Yesterday, crews who were working to remove the base of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, made an exciting discovery beneath the monument: a copper box from 1887 believed to contain dozens of pieces of historic memorabilia.

As I write this, conservation experts in the state’s capital are opening and examining the time capsule’s contents, which turn out to be slightly waterlogged but in surprisingly good condition. The artifacts uncovered thus far include a small Bible, Confederate money, a book entitled Minutae of Soldier Life, a Civil War bullet called a Minié ball, and a printed image from an 1865 issue of Harper’s Weekly depicting someone grieving over Abraham Lincoln’s grave.

This isn’t the first time this month that the same team of conservators has opened a container beneath the Lee monument, which departing Gov. Ralph Northam had ordered taken down in September. Last week, they pried open a lead box found in the pedestal, but the box did not match historical descriptions of the formal time capsule. It contained few artifacts and was likely placed by the people who erected the monument.

As lead conservator Kate Ridgway prepared to slice open the side of the copper box to free its waterlogged contents today, she had some advice for anyone considering creating one. “Next time capsule,” she said, “maybe not so much stuff in it.” 

Check out the livestream here.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

It’s official. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said this morning on Fox News that he won’t support the Build Back Better bill, effectively killing the Democratic Party’s $2 trillion sweeping domestic policy proposal. “I tried everything humanly possible. I can’t do it,” he said. “This is a no on this legislation. I have tried everything I know to do.”

Manchin has been hinting for months that he wouldn’t support the centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s agenda, raising opposition to its overall price tag as well as measures that would have extended a poverty-busting child tax credit and paid family leave, imposed a methane fee on emissions from fossil fuel producers, and expanded Medicare to cover hearing aids for the elderly. 

Democrats responded on Sunday with outrage and despair. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Manchin “will have a lot of explaining to do to the people of West Virginia, to tell him why he doesn’t have the guts to take on the drug companies, to lower the cost of prescription drugs, why he is not prepared to expand home healthcare.” Sanders suggested that Democrats bring the bill to the Senate floor for a vote to force Manchin to put his “no” vote on the record. “Let Mr. Manchin explain to the people of West Virginia why he doesn’t have the guts to stand up to powerful special interests,” he told Tapper. “If he doesn’t have the courage to do the right thing for the working families of West Virginia and America, let him vote no in front of the whole world.”

"If he doesn't have the courage to do the right thing for the working families of West Virginia and America, let him vote no in front of the whole world." Sen. Bernie Sanders reacts to Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin saying "no" to Biden's Build Back Better Act. #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/oEQaD19tAd

— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) December 19, 2021

The bill is loaded with extremely popular provisions designed to shore up the “care economy” to support families from birth to death, with expanded child care assistance, universal preschool and help for people caring for aging family members. The bill set aside money for pandemic prevention and would also devote $550 billion to combatting climate change. Most of it would be paid for with higher taxes on the ultra-wealthy. Read here to see just five of the good things you probably didn’t know were in the bill and which are now probably never going to happen, not because of Joe Manchin but because this is America, a failed democracy, where not a single Republican senator will support any legislation that would actually make people’s lives a little better. 

Activists took the abortion pill in front of the Supreme Court while justices heard arguments for the Mississippi abortion case. Chip Somodevilla/ Getty

The Food and Drug Administration announced on Thursday that it will loosen restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone, allowing people to receive the pill via mail or pharmacy instead of having to appear in person at a clinic or hospital. 

The decision comes while the Supreme Court deliberates over a Mississippi ban on abortion after 15 weeks. The court is widely expected to use the case to roll back nearly a half century of abortion rights. The court ruled last week that an abortion restriction in Texas could remain in effect.

For almost 30 years, the FDA restricted the use of mifepristone through its drug safety program, even though the drug has long been known to be safe and effective. The new change “will allow many patients to access care earlier with fewer burdens and costs,” ACLU attorney Julia Kaye told the Washington Post. 

Misoprostol, the second pill needed in medication abortion, has long been accessible at a pharmacy with a prescription. Earlier this year, the Biden Administration temporarily lifted the restriction on mifepristone to ensure abortion access continued despite the challenges of the pandemic. 

According to the FDA, the restriction was modified in order to “reduce burden on patient access and the health care delivery system and to ensure the benefits of the product outweigh the risks.”

Yet the change won’t mean a whole lot in much of the country. Nineteen states, including Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama (which recently introduced a “heartbeat bill” similar to Texas’) restrict the use of telemedicine for abortion. People across the South and the Midwest will have to travel to sanctuary states like California or New York for telemedicine appointments and to receive the medication.

Bloomberg/Getty

In North Carolina’s largest newspapers today, the News & Observer, an editorial ran calling Mark Meadows—who rode a wave of “extreme gerrymandering” to Congress; said he wanted to “send Obama home to Kenya“; co-founded the Freedom Caucus; helped shut down the government in 2013; groveled to become Trump’s chief of staff; convinced Trump to not institute a mask mandate; cast aside COVID-19 protocols himself; helped abet Trump’s attempt to retain power; pushed the Department of Justice to challenge the election’s integrity; drove us toward the insurrection; texted with Fox News hosts on Jan. 6, who were freaking out when they realized it had gone too far; lied about his role in all of that in his book; and was held in contempt last night by the House—an “embarrassment” and a “disgrace.”

Well, hard to argue with that. I agree.

So, congratulations, Mark Meadows. You’ve long embarrassed me personally as a fellow North Carolinian. But I’m glad to see so many others finally see how you’re up there with former North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms—the harbinger of all the “racist, divisive, pro-government (when it favors the wealthy), and anti-democratic” lawmakers to come—as the worst of the worst.

You can read the full editorial here. 

Court TV/AP

Months after Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison for the murder of George Floyd, the former police officer on Monday pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights violation, likely extending the time he’ll spend behind bars by two and a half years.

Chauvin admitted that he had violated Floyd’s constitutional rights to be free from unreasonable seizures. Federal prosecutors will ask a judge to sentence Chauvin to 25 years in federal prison, to be served concurrently with his murder sentence. That means that even if Chauvin were to successfully appeal his murder conviction, he would still be on the hook for civil rights violations.

Chauvin also pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights violation for an unrelated 2017 case in which he hit a then-14-year-old boy in the head with a flashlight and knelt on his neck. Chauvin had pleaded not guilty to that case in September.

Chauvin may serve the remainder of his sentence in federal rather than state prison, which is typically safer. Legal experts, according to the New York Times, said the federal case could have resulted in a life sentence.

Floyd’s brother Philonise and the victim in the 2017 incident were both in the courtroom today. After the hearing, Philonese reportedly said, “It’s a good day for justice.”

Evan Vucci/AP

Due to his refusal to cooperate with the congressional committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot, Mark Meadows, a former representative for North Carolina and Donald Trump’s final chief of staff, was held in contempt late Tuesday night by the legislative body in which he once served. 

Meadows initially seemed to cooperate with the January 6 committee, supplying it with thousands of documents and signaling that he would sit for a deposition. At the time, Meadows’ relatively conciliatory approach cut a sharp contrast with the pugnacious attitude of Trump guru Steve Bannon, who chose to rebuff the committee at every turn. But Meadows has now joined Bannon as the second Trump associate referred to the Department of Justice for possible criminal contempt charges for refusing to comply with the committee’s investigation. Last month, the DOJ obtained an indictment against Bannon.

Meadows’ tenuous relationship with the committee collapsed when he cited a legally dubious argument that executive privilege allowed him to withhold select documents. Due to the disagreement, Meadows ceased cooperating and failed to show up for a deposition, although he told the committee that he would answer select questions in writing. In a letter to Meadows’ lawyer, committee chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) asserted that Meadows had failed to state which specific areas of inquiry he considered to be covered under executive privilege and announced that the panel would vote to recommend that the House charge him with contempt. The House echoed the committee’s recommendation Tuesday evening in a 222–208 vote, with every Democrat and two Republicans—Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.)—voting in favor. 

Some of the documents Meadows did agree to hand over have already shed new light on Trump’s frantic and unprecedented efforts to overturn the 2020 election. In its referral to the House, the January 6 committee unveiled new information that it had gleaned from Meadows’ emails and personal text messages, including a chilling PowerPoint reportedly created by conspiracy theorist Phil Waldron that urged Trump to declare a national security emergency, proclaim all electronic voting invalid, and ask Congress to decide on a path forward. In addition, the document recommended that Vice President Mike Pence reject electors from “states where fraud occurred” or replace them with Republicans. Meadows’ lawyer told the New York Times that the former chief of staff had received the PowerPoint but had done nothing with it. 

The material Meadows turned over to the committee also included a message in which Meadows informed someone that the National Guard would stand by to “protect pro Trump people”; a message in which an organizer of the January 6 rally asked Meadows for “some direction” because the situation had gotten out of hand; and an email discussing a ploy to appoint alternate slates of electors to keep Trump in power.

In a dramatic twist on Tuesday night, Rep. Cheney revealed to the committee a string of text messages sent to Meadows by Republicans, Fox News hosts, and even the former president’s own son, Don Jr., imploring the White House to take stronger action to quell the mob.

The Department of Justice will now have to decide whether to enforce Congress’ vote and seek an indictment of Meadows for contempt of Congress. If convicted on such a charge, he could face up to one year in prison.

Julie Jacobson/AP

On Monday, the House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol released text messages sent to Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, on January 6. These messages contained a deluge of concern from every stripe of Republican that the riot had—to quote a text that Donald Trump Jr. sent to Meadows—“gotten out of hand.”

Interesting.

Since then, we have not heard much of that from Republicans. In fact, we’ve been told it was not that bad, a “normal tourist visit.” And even if it was a semi-coup… maybe it was antifa? The FBI? And wait, sorry, it also was not really that bad—it was maybe even good.

Yet, on the day, the texts painted a different picture. They show three hosts from Fox News—Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Brian Kilmeade—asking for Trump to do something to stop the attack. They show Trump administration officials freaking out.

And they show Meadows—who has been on a media tour to promote his new book, even as Congress moves to hold him in contempt—agreeing he needs to get Trump to do something (“I’m pushing it hard,” he messaged) about the harsh reality that the lie the administration spread about a stolen election had sparked a violent attempt to overthrow the government.

All of this was put forward by Republican Liz Cheney as part of her statement in front of the committee. You can read all the messages, and her comments, here.

Ingraham text 2 Meadows on 1/6 (per Cheney):

“[Trump] needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy."

Ingraham that night:
-Leads w/ antifa
-Suggests provocateurs
-Suggests it was just 3 dozen ppl (McCarthy corrects her) pic.twitter.com/144lUoFdB7

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) December 14, 2021

It makes something clear. For a moment, the reality pierced through to Fox News, Republicans, and Trump administration officials that they had been trying to wreck democracy—and would even have to live with those consequences.

Everyone was in Meadows’ messages. They were sort of atoning and trying to fix it. Because it got too real.

Kilmeade requested Trump “get… on tv” to stop the insurrection. In the almost year since, Kilmeade has been on TV himself. In fact, he was on Fox & Friends this morning, but he didn’t bother to mention the texts today.

The same goes for Sean Hannity, who on January 6 asked Meadows if Trump could “make a statement” and “ask people to leave the Capitol.” Since then, Hannity has made a practice of soft-pedaling the insurrection to such a degree that compatriot Geraldo Riveria has said he is “gaslighting” viewers about it.

Laura Ingraham—who texted Meadows that day to say that Trump “needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home”—spent a good deal of time making clear that what happened on January 6 was not good. It was wrong, she repeatedly said. But then, in her explanation, she made sure to mention antifa could be involved. She added that maybe the election was rigged.

And, in that vein, for the past year or so, Republicans, and Fox News, have downplayed the seriousness of what happened on January 6.

But let’s remember the energy.

America watched as people rushed the Capitol in an attempt to overthrow an election to keep in power an unelected official—or, in his parlance: a loser!

Since then, they’ve tried to rewrite January 6 in whataboutisms. Any mention of the horror has to be sprinkled with a mention that antifa could’ve been involved and that the security should have been better. It can be a full out denial (Tucker Carlson) or an attempt to mention a few caveats (Ingraham), but in each case acknowledging January 6 was evil requires distancing themselves from what happened.

Because to fully explain it—without lying—would require all of them to acknowledge they fueled an attempt to topple democracy.

Emergency workers search what is left of the Mayfield Consumer Products Candle Factory after it was destroyed by a tornado in Mayfield, Kentucky, on December 11, 2021.John Amis/Getty

A deadly and rare December tornado outbreak killed dozens and left a trail of devastation across the Southeast and Midwest Friday night, with one twister suspected of ripping through four states and flinging debris over 30,000 feet in the air, the height flown by commercial airplanes. Between 70 and 100 people are estimated to have died in Kentucky alone, according to Gov. Andy Beshear, who said the storm was “the most devastating tornado event in our state’s history.”

In Mayfield, Kentucky, much of the town was leveled and a candlemaking factory was ripped apart, trapping some of the building’s 110 occupants:

This pretty much sums it up in :19. #Mayfield #MayfieldTornado #KyWx #WX pic.twitter.com/IcPL4XGtPS

— WxChasing- Brandon Clement (@bclemms) December 11, 2021

In Edwardsville, Illinois, an Amazon warehouse partially collapsed, sending a wall the size of a football field and a section of roof tumbling. At least two people were killed there and others were trapped, with some still unaccounted for as of early Saturday morning.

Drone footage shows Amazon warehouse destroyed by tornado https://t.co/st8aD39z3m pic.twitter.com/9AvzxwP7aN

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) December 11, 2021

In Monette, Arkansas, the storm destroyed a nursing home, leaving one dead and others injured.

Monette Manor nursing home in Monette, AR drone footage tonight as first responders conduct search and rescue. 2 confirmed fatalities at this location as of earlier with numerous injures as well. @weatherchannel #tornado #arwx #firstresponders pic.twitter.com/gfDPlvbJlI

— Charles Peek (@CharlesPeekWX) December 11, 2021

While there were several tornadoes in the cluster, the National Weather Service is investigating whether a single twister—which is being called the “quad-state tornado”—traveled more than 230 miles as part of the storm, through Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky. If confirmed, it would set a record for the longest continuous tornado in US history, according to NBC News.

Tornado frequency is increasing in the Mississippi Valley, and research indicates that may be due to climate change, as “Tornado Alley”—the belt across the central US belt where these storms have traditionally been most common—shifts eastward. The storm formed as a cold front slammed into unusually warm weather in the region, a meteorologist explained to the New York Times. While tornadoes in December are not unheard of, a storm system this powerful normally occurs in April or May. “These are the ingredients for big storms in the spring, but not in mid-December,” Dan Pydynowski, a senior meteorologist for Accuweather, told the Times. 

Around 250,000 homes in the region were without power as of Saturday morning.