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WASHINGTON – With the U.S. House and U.S. Senate out this week on a Memorial Day break, the town had the feeling of a calm before the storm.
When lawmakers return to the Capitol next week, they will face votes on tough gun measures in the U.S. House and the start of Jan. 6 hearings; both events certain to increase partisan rancor.
Televised hearings on the Jan. 6 insurrection are set to begin on June 9, with at least two expected to be held in prime time for maximum exposure. After that, the special committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans will report its findings sometime before the midterm elections on Nov. 8.
The two Republicans that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi named to the panel, Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, are both Trump critics who have become regular targets of attacks from the former president and members of their own party.
The hearings aim to tell a more complete story about what happened the day of the storming of the U.S. Capitol and what sparked the violence and lawlessness as a crowd of Trump supporters tried to stop Congress from certifying the result of the presidential election.
Former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies continue to call the probe a witch hunt focused on scoring political points.
Like most of the rest of the members of Congress, Minnesota’s lawmakers are expected to split along party lines on the findings of the hearings.
Meanwhile, as families in Uvalde, Texas, buried the young victims of a mass shooting at an elementary school, Democrats in Congress took two very different approaches to try to curb gun violence. In the Senate, a bipartisan group is trying to win agreement on a modest proposal, likely aimed at inducing states like Minnesota that don’t have red flag laws to adopt them.
Red flag laws, known also as “extreme risk protection orders” and “risk warrants” allow law enforcement and family members to temporarily remove firearms and ammunition from a person who is believed to present a danger to himself or herself or others. Congress cannot force states to adopt red flag laws — 19 states and the District of Columbia have done that on their own. But it can offer grant money and other incentives to states to adopt red flag laws.
The Senate legislation would also include new school safety and mental health programs.
Meanwhile, the House is planning a series of votes next week on several gun bills, including one similar to the Senate’s legislation, that would establish a federal red flag law. Another bill would ban the sale of semiautomatic rifles like the ones that killed the children in Uvalde earlier this month and was used in the shooting death of four people in Tulsa, Okla., this week.
But the center piece of the House Democrats’ effort is the “Protecting our Kids Act,” that will also be voted on next week. The legislation, would do a number of things, including barring the sale of semiautomatic rifles to anyone under 21, ban high-capacity ammunition magazines, prohibit the sales of “ghost gun” kits, boost penalties for illegal “straw purchases” of guns and require gun owners to store their weapons safely, especially when minors are present.
At a contentious hearing Thursday on the Protecting our Kids Act, Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee pleaded for support of the gun measures.
“God knows we need action,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas.
Meanwhile, Republicans on the panel said the Democratic efforts would impinge on Second Amendment rights and do nothing to stop what’s become a steady beat of mass shootings.
Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the committee, chastised Democrats for rushing to take up the package, calling it “regretful” and an act of “political theater.”
High employment, rising prices and a boost to farmers
The Federal Reserve issued its latest report on the economic health of the nation this week, saying the Minneapolis sector’s economy “grew moderately since mid-April.”
“Demand across sectors remained strong, but higher input and labor costs put downward pressure on profit margins,” the Federal Reserve said. “Construction and real estate contacts reported some slowing due to interest rate increases. Demand for credit among minority- and women-owned business enterprises was down amid uncertainty about the economy.”
The nation is divided into 12 Federal Reserve districts. The Minneapolis Fed covers Minnesota, Montana, North and South Dakota, 26 counties in northwestern Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
In its latest report, the Minneapolis Fed said employment grew strongly in the region since the last report, issued in April and labor demand in the sector was also expected to accelerate in coming months.
It said that labor costs in the hospitality, manufacturing and construction industry rose by at least 5 percent. The report also said a large Minnesota manufacturer said turnover in low-skilled jobs “is very high.”
“They keep chasing wages and don’t show up for their job. It’s hard to keep a low-skilled job filled for one year,” the unnamed manufacturer said.
The report also said inflation continues to plague consumers and businesses in the sector. But the good news was the report said that “district agricultural conditions remained strong.”
“According to the first-quarter (April) survey of agricultural credit conditions, 87% of respondents reported increased farm incomes relative to the same period a year earlier. Farmland values increased briskly. However, due to an exceptionally cold and wet spring, crop planting and progress were well behind schedule in much of the district, except for Montana and western portions of the Dakotas, where drought conditions were rampant,” the report said.
Phillips, Craig seek more money to recruit police
Democrats have come under attack because the progressive wing of the party demanded the nation “defund the police” after the death of George Floyd at the hand of Minneapolis police two years ago. Most of these progressive Democrats want demilitarize police departments and funding reallocated from uniformed officers to trained mental health and social workers in the hopes of fostering better community relations and preventing abuses.
Still, GOP attacks that paint Democrats as soft on crime are expected to proliferate this campaign season.
Two Minnesota Democrats with GOP challengers this year are backing a different approach from the “defunders.” They want to provide more funding recruit police officers that are in short supply in many police departments across the nation, including those in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Rep. Dean Phillips, D-3rd, has introduced the Pathways to Policing Act, which would set up a new $50 million program in the Justice Department that would help state and local law enforcement agencies recruit new officers through a national marketing campaign modeled after the one the Defense Department uses to recruit soldier, sailors and airmen.
The bill would also provide another $50 million to police departments that establish Minnesota-styled “Pathway to Policing” programs that provide financial assistance to potential police recruits and local recruiting efforts.
Priority for the grants to states, local governments and law enforcement agencies under this program will be given to applicants seeking to build a diverse police force that represents the communities they serve.
Rep. Angie Craig, D-2nd, is one of the nine sponsors of the bill, some of whom are Republican.
“In order to create a pathway toward more effective policing, we must ensure that our local police departments have the resources and support to enlist well-trained members of our own local communities,” Craig said.
The bill has been introduced late in the congressional session and, like most bills introduced by members of Congress, may not move forward. But it has the backing of several Minnesota police groups and a national police chiefs organization.
A delayed memorial
Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s dad, Jim Klobuchar, died at age 93 a year ago. But COVID-19 prevented the Democratic senator and her family from holding a memorial for Jim Klobuchar, who worked as journalist for decades in Minnesota. But for the Klobuchar family the waiting is over, the long-delayed memorial is planned for Friday at the Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis.
“My dad went from that hardscrabble mining town of Ely, Minnesota, to travel the world, interviewing everyone from Mike Ditka to Ginger Rogers to Ronald Reagan,” Amy Klobuchar said. “He used his words to stand up for people. But he also stood up for me, from urging me on to finish a father/daughter 10-day, 1100-mile bike trip from Minneapolis to Jackson Hole, to believing that a woman could actually win a Minnesota U.S. Senate seat.”
Grab your popcorn for the narrative spin that will be Prime Time hearings about Jan 06, in which we can guarantee we will not see any of the many videos floating around of the Capital Police stepping aside and letting the mob in, or the “we can’t answer” the question that the FBI had people in the mob fomenting violence.
As for gun control, the one thing that will not be discussed, will be the fact that nine out of 10 mass shooters are on one or more anti-depressants, because the “mental health” response is likely to mean more pharmaceuticals.
It’s not much of a surprise that the FBI “can’t answer” absurd conspiracy theories about Trump’s Insurrection, theories along the same lines as “9/11 was an inside job!”
As for the claim that 90% of mass shooters are on anti-depressants, what report has found that? I would think that our Repubs (who are so concerned about the mental health of the nation) would be making this point every day.
Video of the FBI refusing to answer that question…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DZQRetozhSY
A nice talk about antidepressants and violence.
https://youtu.be/0051hkjB9po
There are plenty of links in the video. Here are two more links. This doctor has also covered Covid vaccines extensively.
https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/the-evidence-for-antidepressants?s=r
https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/how-the-fda-buried-the-dangers-of?s=r
And we should trust a doctor who refuses to provide their name why?
https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/
Because any doctor who questions Covid Policy or Pharma or the CDC, FDA and NIH gets fired and may lose their license.
Yes, people failing to perform the job they are paid for tend to be fired.
Who wouldn’t want that in a doctor, someone who cannot question Phizer, Moderna, Johnson&Johnson, the CDC, FDA, NIH and Fauci & Co, or the increasing private equity owners of Health Care, on fear that they will no longer be able to practice medicine.
That you think docs think their job is to second-guess those organizations and “do their own research” into the efficacy of, say, vaccines just shows how absolutely ignorant you are about any of these topics.
Irresponsible game-playing is all you are doing.
Scott Jenson still has his medical license, despite his eccentricity on COVID.
TL;DNW.
All I wanted was some quote by someone referencing the 90% claim. And what I get is some links to the newest timewaste, You-tube. Sheesh, what is this society coming to?
Come now, instigatory trollery is HARD work! One cannot be expected to provide ACTUAL sources for nonsense, how can one be expected to get anything done if actual research is required?
Well, youtube hasn’t censored those videos so they must be worthy.
And also, snark without watching is of no value.
If I give you all the talking points you use as fact, will you give me that together they are unimportant in the arguments being made?
Source?
Speaking of substantive offers, if Dems insist that anyone who does not repeat whatever NPR, CDC, FBI, NYT and the Dem elite say is Truth, Dems are increasingly outnumbered going into the 2022 election.
That would certainly be the view of a committed Repub at this point, WHD.
That and a few ten millions of Americans who do not care for the republican party but have had enough of current Dem ideology.
Your comment is too cryptic to mean anything to me.
But to the extent it says that the Dems tend to agree with the views of the CDC on the pandemic, and the FBI on Trump’s Insurrection and prior collusion with Russia, and with sensible fact-based reporting by NPR, then clearly that shows the openly anti-democratic Repub party is the Lesser-of-Two-Evils for the Informed Independent in 2022.
Yes, let’s turn today’s Repubs loose on the CDC, FBI, NPR and (more ridiculously) the NYT. That’ll turn the country around! Trump really had the answers!
Sheesh, almost unbelievable…
You forgot the TVA, the FAA, and the NGS.
“Hats by Reynolds Wrap.”
Democrats desperately need these “hearings” to distract from the complete failure of the Biden administration.
Hey, at least he has not had a storming of the Capital with dead cops to this point. Must be doing something right…
It’s ironic yet instructive that the so-called “Protecting our Kids Act,” doesn’t include any provisions for hardening the schools they spend most of their day in. In fact, none of the provisions have anything to do with kids at all, but simply deal with the sales of rifles and magazines purchased by law-abiding adults.
Also, red flag laws allow law enforcement and family members to temporarily remove firearms and ammunition from a person who is BELIEVED to present a danger to himself or herself or others. That’s unconstitutional. It violates the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. Also, once they confiscate your weapons, how do you prove to the judge you’re no longer a “danger?”
Um, these laws require a fair and unbiased judicial hearing in which the gun owner has a right to argue that his continued possession isn’t a danger to society. That’s the only “process” that the 14th Amendment requires. You do understand how laws against, say, drunk driving work?
Unless the democratically-illegitimate “conservative” Supreme Court majority wants to declare that every person has an unqualified right to own weapons, in all circumstances, no matter how mentally ill they may be. Which is always a possibility with this reckless and illegitimate Repub court!
What, exactly, was that bill supposed to say about kids directly? I’m curious. All these attempts to ‘harden’ the schools seem fruitless and counterproductive. If someone is intent on a mass shooting, why not simply head to a softer target. Say, a grocery store. Or a nightclub. Etc. Oh wait, those things happen, too. Is it really gun activists goal to ‘harden’ everything in sight and have all of us packing heat to keep some semblance of safety? Or could there be an alternative? Just asking.
“Is it really gun activists goal to ‘harden’ everything in sight and have all of us packing heat to keep some semblance of safety?”
Yes. Especially if you substitute “gun manufacturers” for “gun activists”.
As a gun owner who reads your stuff regularly, Mr. Tester, and one with whom your upbringing included gun safety classes widely attended, I ask you and Joe (who hunts grouse up north)– How can we “harden schools” when we don’t even give them enough money for instruction, special ed., and have buildings that are functionally obsolete?
Both of you have spoken out for less spending on schools.
Show your math work, please.
The second amendment essentially takes weapons policy out of the hands of government. But that isn’t the same thing as saying we have a policy against weapons. Let’s turn the matter over to the private sector. Let’s boycott the assault weapons industry in all it’s forms. Let’s use all legal, non governmental methods to persuade these companies that the assault weapons business is a bad business to be in.
Much like the “insurrection “ on January 6th, the committee will adjourn for dinner. Only insurrection in history that stopped for dinner and was attempted without guns. If America wasn’t in the midst of a recession, soaring gas prices, soaring heating bills, can’t feed babies, historic lows in people in the workforce, southern border disaster, foreign powers testing our strength, it would be entertaining to see elected officials try to pin an insurrection on 65 year olds.
Luckily for Democrats, Biden is going on Kimmel this week to blame everyone but him for this mess.
That the “conservative” movement is desperate to try to whitewash and downplay Trumpolini’s Insurrection makes clear that there is some concern on the right over the matter. They don’t really know how to play it now as the determined planning of the anti-democratic rebellion by the Trumpites is revealed.
But hey, stick with the “Ancient Insurrectionists” nonsense, Joe!
Ya, put “insurrection” in quotation marks. Anything to minimize the actions of everyone from yahoos to traitors on January 6th. It’s just too bad there is all that video and testimony and those inconvenient guilty pleas.
“Five members of the Proud Boys street gang — including their leader, Enrique Tarrio — were indicted Monday on seditious conspiracy charges for their role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., returned the rare indictment, which charges that Tarrio and four other members of the Proud Boys — Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola — played an outsize role in the planning and execution of the insurrection. A sixth Proud Boy, Charles Donohoe, wasn’t included because he’d already pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in a plea deal that will force him to testify against his fellow gang members.”
Meantime, keep putting the spotlight on Hunter, lack of baby formula, those darn gas prices, and foreign powers led by geniuses testing us. Things are a mess now, but the biggest threat to our nation is the cult worshippers brainwashed by Fox and such. They’ve convinced too many to be willing to give up the democracy we have just as long as those evil radicals don’t win.
You say “insurrection” (by which you condone what happened on January 6 and the real reasons why it happened), some say domestic terrorism. And wonder why the GOP continues to aid and abet terrorists…
Likewise. Minnpost can do better.
Was hoping someone would say it. That this qualifies as “entertainment” instead of abject horror, illustrates how much the conservative “movement” has degraded our status as a society.
Well Democrats did hire a former ABC producer to stage this show, so I’ll cut Minnpost some slack.
Those pesky Gopers at Minnpost
Their penchant for cutesy headlines failed this time.
I missed the part where I labeled anyone a Republican? More like the punditry class that views this as sport, rather than the utter destruction of our society, and the installation of a fascist one. Fun and games for the folks who desire it, I guess.
I expect the forthcoming hearings will set forth the damning evidence of what Liz Cheney called yesterday a “well organized conspiracy” to overthrow the government and institute an authoritarian, fascist regime. The election this Fall will not be about competing policies- the GOP has no vision or ideas-it will be about who are the traitors who were and still are trying to undermine democracy in this Republic.
And of course the most critical issue of all: that there is simply no doubt that if the Repub party controls the Congress in 2024, it absolutely will refuse to certify the election of a Dem president, or will allow Repub states legislatures to overrule certified election results that go against the Repub candidate.
A that will be the Reichstag Fire moment for America.
Not sure that the 2022 election will be about traitors, but we’ll see in a few months. We can do word counts of “inflation”, “mask mandates”, “Afghanistan withdrawal”, “crime”, and “border security”, and see if “traitors” isn’t last.
What the 2022 election will be about and what it should be about are two different things, unfortunately.
True. But we have commentor Kingstad’s thoughts on record now for future reference. I’ll guess, for the same record, that Representatives Craig and Phillips will be running against Donald Trump. Let us examine the campaign literature and TV ads in the next few months and see who his more correct. And remember that the word “traitors” gets double the points than “Trump” just to give you leftists a chance. To be fair.
If those Reps do, it will be quite sensible and legitimate, given that (unlike every ex-president of the Modern Era), Trump has refused to leave the political scene, giving dozens of “speeches” to conservative groups and at rallies. Indeed, Trumpolini has doubled down on his “stolen election” Big Lie. He remains in control of the Repub party (with almost mo voices of dissent) and is the odds on favorite to be the Repub nominee in 2024.
So of course every Dem running for Congress should continue to talk about this anti-democratic monster. It almost sounds like you think Trumpolini is a liability for the Repub party…
I doubt the families of the 13 dead service members have forgotten the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Minimizing this failure dishonors their sacrifice.
Well organized?? Vile as it was, I wouldn’t call anything Well organized.
Maybe there will be further evidence presented, but what I saw was a mob let by crazy people with a ton of moron followers who got up in the frenzy.
I assume you’ll approach the evidence with an open mind, then.
But do you think a rightwing crowd looking to “Stop the Steal” just spontaneously gathered in DC on the day Congress was to certify the election? How did a bevy of
“stolen election” speakers, culminating somehow with the (usually quite busy) President, who then harrangued them for his usual 90 minutes that drastic action was needed if they were to “take their country back” and then said he “would lead them to the Capitol”, magically appear? Then, how did a (now indicted) rightwing militia group quickly lead the crowd through police barricades, breaching the obviously closed-off Capitol in a clearly violent fashion, scattering the nation’s legislators as they met to count the electoral votes? With the president mysteriouly dawdling for hours watching the mob stop the certification before calling out the National Guard?
Forgive me if I say that appears to be a well organized and broadly based conspiracy to me. That the conspiracy failed spectacularly doesn’t mean it wasn’t well organized and intentionally planned.
The law doesn’t require the people heading the conspiracy to be good at insurrection in order to be guilty. You can be incompetent and still break the law.
Coming this June! Calling all channels! “America’s Dumbest Insurrectionists” seven p.m. Central., starting June 9.
A “mob let by crazy people with a ton of moron followers who got up in the frenzy” is the best one-sentence description of the Trump administration we will likely ever see.
A seditious conspiracy conviction just requires an agreement to commit the underlying offense. There is no requirement that it be a well-thought-out, or competently executed, agreement.
Reading the comments in this thread, I am reminded that one of the most common mistakes people make is the idea that the will to violence and authoritarianism is only a problem of the Other.
Willfully ridiculous, anti-factual Both-Siderism.
Got it.
A very good point.
Although, you will have to jog my memory when 600 angry liberals stormed the capital, ending a constitutional process, killing a few cops in the process while breaking windows and doors and smearing feces on the wall.
Sometimes “whataboutism” just runs out of gas and the facts on the ground need to be addressed…
I replied with some facts about the trend among Dems toward authoritarianism, to answer your quiry, that I guess are a little to close to the truth, so it will have to suffice to say that repeating “bothsiderism” and “whataboutism” to any criticism of Dem ideology is just another sign proving my point.
If that’s what you think then it’s clear you don’t really know what “authoritarianism” means. Also, there is such a thing as the weight of the evidence.
On any number of topics, from Covid to the war in Ukraine, our Federal Government working with corporate fact checkers, Twitter, Youtube and Facebook, are deciding what we are allowed to talk about, with the general support of liberal democrats. This government even wishes to institute a kind of Ministry of Information, to declare from on high what can and cannot be discussed, to the general support of liberal democrats. This government is trying to create a new war on terror in America, making a “potential terrorist” of anyone who is critical of government, economics, Covid Policy, War, etc.
All of which is by definition, authoritarianism.
Totally and willfully false on every single point. Aggressively so.
1. As poisonous as most of those social media platforms are, they hardly determine what news (and topics) “we are allowed to talk about.” This is extreme hysterical hyperbole, even if one considers that those platforms have banned hate speech, and obvious lies about the 2020 election, and whether vaccines will kill you. This is the way the First Amendment has been interpreted for around 200 years. You personally can say anything you want; but perhaps not on these private platforms.
2. The government has no power “to declare on high what can and cannot be discussed”. Again, First Amendment 101. (You may wish to take a class on the subject; I’m sure you would find it enlightening.) Apparently you object to the federal government identifying total fabrications about such things as election results for the information of the citizenry. Again, that was how the “marketplace of ideas” was supposed to function under the First Amendment and how it is manifestly failing in the age of social media.
3. Simply being publicly critical about any of those topics would not make anyone a “potential terrorist”; if you’ve been told that you are being presented with rightwing disinformation.
What especially comical about thinking that any of these information-focused topics demonstrate “authoritarianism” in lib’rul America is that we are being presented with the spectacle of an ACTUAL Hitlerite state-controlled media in Putin the Terrible’s authoritarian regime. Try comparing any of your “concerns” to the information freedoms currently being experienced by the Russian people right now. It will be a revelation to you, apparently!
“Totally and willfully false on every single point. Aggressively so.”
Such ideas are common from within the hegemon, looking out.
That is but a mere opinion. Everyone has an opinion.
All opinions with time are eventually sorted out into reality or delusion. It is also a particular delusion of the current way of things that assumes equity of opinion.
Yeah, because pleading with Fascists has always been productive. Stop pleading, kill the filibuster, and get this done. They don’t want to kill the filibuster to create a national health care system, or defend women’s rights, or save lives… but they think we won’t notice and we’ll vote for them in a few months. Just keep blaming a procedure you can end any time you want and pretend there’s nothing anyone can do… right.
My immediate reaction as well. Turning politics into a spectator entertainment, where there’s no actual meaning for the world our children will live in, and the maneuvers and haymakers of the competing sides is all there is, is how the mainstream media have made half the population oblivious to the chasm’s edge on which national and global aspirations toward humane and democratic societies teeter. Both Sides all the way down.
Ken, my only objection is to your verb tense. This “is” an attempted coup. Since January 6, the interests that drive the Republican agenda have only accelerated their efforts, everywhere and by every means, to dismantle the nation’s democratic mechanisms so that the will to power of stateless wealth no longer may be structurally contested.
Maybe it is appropriate that we put them same amount of time and energy into investigating the events of January 6 as we did for Benghazi?
A big difference is that unlike the GOP congressional cowards, Hillary stepped up and answered every question in an 11 hour examination. How is that possible that a woman disparaged by the right at every opportunity has the cojones to answer when called upon? 11 Hours!
How can the congressional cowards be given any credence. How can we empower the likes of Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Greene when they are now telling us that after they take power and they have the power of subpoena they will get to the bottom of their conspiracies in short order.
Why would anyone feel compelled to answer a difficult question from a congressional committee ever again?