Category: National Issues

‘Helmet boy’ Capitol insurrectionist demands plea deal in ‘off the rails’ hearing: ‘Can I get an offer?’

Raw Story Logo

The Capitol insurrectionist who became known as “helmet boy” — after being captured on video using a riot helmet to smash a window to the Speaker’s Lobby during the Jan. 6 riot — demanded a plea bargain from prosecutors during an “off the rails” court appearance on Wednesday.

Zach AZach Alam, who remains in jail, spoke over his attorney and demanded to represent himself, at one point directly asking a federal prosecutor assigned to the case, “Can I get a deal?” according to a live report from Scott MacFarlane, an investigative reporter for Washington, D.C.’s NBC affiliate.

Alam said he was making an “offer” — for prosecutors to drop all charges — before demanding, “Make me a counteroffer.” Continue reading.

McCarthy yanks all GOP picks from Jan. 6 committee

The Hill logo

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has decided not to participate in the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot on the Capitol, yanking all of his GOP picks in protest of Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s (D-Calif.) decision to reject two top Republicans.

“Unless Speaker Pelosi reverses course and seats all five Republican nominees, Republicans will not be party to their sham process and will instead pursue our own investigation of the facts,” he said in a statement.

A Pelosi spokesman quickly shot down the possibility that Pelosi might reverse course. Continue reading.

Doctor reveals what she tells dying COVID patients who beg for a vaccine after thinking the pandemic was a hoax

Raw Story Logo

An Alabama doctor has revealed heartbreaking details about her recent conversations with patients dying from COVID-19, amid a surge in cases caused by the Delta variant in the state with the lowest vaccination rate in the nation.

“I’m admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very serious COVID,” Dr. Brytney Cobia wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday. “One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.

“A few days later when I call time of death, I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same,” Cobia added. “They cry. And they tell me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn’t get as sick. They thought it was ‘just the flu’. But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can’t. So they thank me and they go get the vaccine. And I go back to my office, write their death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives.” Continue reading.

See How Wildfire Smoke Spread Across America

New York Times logo

Wildfire smoke from Canada and the Western United States stretched across the continent this week, covering skies in a thick haze and triggering health alerts from Toronto to Philadelphia. Air quality remained in the unhealthy range across much of the East Coast on Wednesday morning as the haze pushed southward.

In recent weeks, a series of near-relentless heat waves and deepening drought linked to climate change have helped to fuel exploding wildfires. In southern Oregon, the Bootleg Fire grew so large and hot that it created its own weather, triggering lightning and releasing enormous amounts of smoke. But more than 80 large fires are currently burning across 13 American states, and many more are active across Canada.

Now, the effects are being felt thousands of miles from the flames. Continue reading.

Mike Lindell offers $5 million election ‘bounty’ in desperate attempt to hype ‘cyber symposium’

Raw Story Logo

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell claimed on Wednesday that he will pay $5 million to anyone who attends his cyber symposium and can prove that data in his possession did not come from the 2020 election.

During an appearance on Real America’s Voice, Lindell presented strict rules for winning the $5 million bounty. He said that participants would need to be invited to his August “cyber symposium” in Sioux Falls to be qualified.

“I want it to be the most-watched event ever,” he told host Steve Bannon. Continue reading.

Paul Gosar was a beloved dentist. Now he’s a MAGA congressman. His former patients need a spit bowl.

Washington Post logo

Coreen Anderson didn’t want to see the dentist.

She hadn’t had her teeth cleaned for the better part of a decade, and was “super fearful” of the experience. But there was a guy in town who came highly recommended, and she decided to go see him.

Sure enough, the dentist took fantastic care of her. “He was amazing, just amazing,” said Anderson, who works as a nurse in Flagstaff, Ariz. “He was so kind, and gentle. And not at all judgmental about how I hadn’t been to a dentist in so long. He was just like, ‘Well, you’re here now, it’s going to be okay.’ ” Continue reading.

Pelosi rejects Jordan, Banks for Jan. 6 committee

The Hill logo

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday rejected two of the Republican picks — Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Jim Banks (Ind.) — for the Jan. 6 select committee.

Both GOP lawmakers are staunch allies of former President Trump, and both had voted in January against certifying President Biden‘s election victory.

In a statement, Pelosi said Democrats in her caucus had raised specific objections to Jordan and Banks “and the impact their appointments may have on the integrity of the investigation.” Continue reading.

How Thomas Barrack’s alleged illegal lobbying shaped Trump’s policies in the Gulf

Washington Post logo

Writing in Fortune magazine two weeks before the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s old friend and fundraiser, Thomas J. Barrack, outlined a new U.S. policy for the Middle East. The “best hope” for America and the Arab world, he said, was U.S. support for the new, “brilliant young leaders” in places such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Barrack, who would soon become head of the president-elect’s inaugural committee, was already acting on behalf of one of those leaders, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed, the de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates, according to a federal indictment unsealed against him in California on Tuesday.

Charged with failing to register as a foreign agent and lying to the FBI, Barrack allegedly used his close relationship with Trump to push UAE-sought actions on both the campaign and during the first two years of the administration. The Fortune op-ed was the product of direct input from Emirati officials, the indictment alleges. Continue reading.

Lawmakers spend more on personal security in wake of insurrection

The Hill logo

In the months after she voted to impeach former President Trump for his role in inspiring the Jan. 6 insurrection against Congress, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) went to Costco to buy a security system. 

Rep. Richard Hudson (N.C.), one of the majority of Republicans who voted against impeaching Trump, also purchased a security system for his home.  

Herrera Beutler and Hudson did not respond to requests for comment. But they were hardly alone: A review of campaign finance reports made with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) last week shows an unprecedented rise in spending on security for members of Congress.   Continue reading.

COVID-19 recession: One of America’s deepest downturns was also its shortest after bailout-driven bounceback

The Conversation Logo

Thanks to a roaring economy, plunging joblessness and a consumer spending spree, it probably won’t come as a surprise that the COVID-19 recession is officially over.

We didn’t know this, formally, however, until July 19, 2021, when a group of America’s top economists determined that the pandemic recession ended two months after it began, making it the shortest downturn on record.

As an economist who has written a macroeconomics textbook, I was eagerly waiting to know the official dates. This is in part because I recently asked my Boston University MBA students to make guesses, and we all wanted to know who was closest to the mark. While many of my students ended up nailing it, I was off by a month. Continue reading.