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Gail: I see your point, but as ex-president Trump could also be indicted in New York, where authorities have long been investigating him for possible bank, insurance and tax fraud. For that, we would welcome him back.

Bret: I hope we never forget Jan. 6, 2021, as one of the darkest days in American history. Even though the loss of life was much less, it was, in a moral sense, worse than Dec. 7, 1941, or Sept. 11, 2001, when we were attacked by foreign enemies. On 1/6, we were attacked by domestic enemies, led by the president of the United States. He violated his oath of office. He slandered his vice president. He directed an attack on the Congress. He incited the sacking of the Capitol. He did nothing helpful while the barbarians were inside the gate, and even blew them a kiss on Twitter. He attempted to stop an election for the purposes of stealing it. He kept faith with the most despicable Americans among us: neo-Nazis, Neo-Confederates, the QAnon conspiracy lunatics and the morons in Viking suits. His followers killed a Capitol Police officer, Brian Sicknick.

the continued determination of the president's most die-hard supporters to fight what they incorrectly perceive as an unfair election has some members of Congress wondering: Will the insurrection continue? And how can they stop it?

Krishnamoorthi says he didn't anticipate how large the crowd outside the Capitol would become or that "the president would incite this mob to march on the Capitol to 'go wild' and instigate the insurrection."

The Washington Post reports that FBI agents are investigating whether some of the Capitol rioters intended not just to disrupt the certification of the Electoral College votes, but also to capture or kill lawmakers.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, warned Saturday that he was notified of a "disturbing report of a death threat" received Friday by the Iowa Democratic Party.

The likelihood of more violence is one of the reasons Twitter permanently suspended President Trump's account

Twitter was particularly concerned by a Trump tweet indicating he wouldn't attend the inauguration. That message "may also serve as encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts that the Inauguration would be a 'safe' target."

Otis, a former CIA analyst, says that extremist groups were likely encouraged by seeing how relatively easy it seemed to be to overtake the Capitol building — and how close participants were able to get to political officials whom they see as enemies.

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, told CNN that the group was seeing online "chatter" from white supremacists online who feel "emboldened" by the current moment.

In the wake of the Capitol insurrection, Florida lawmakers have proposed a measure that would increase penalties for people arrested during a violent protest.

"We are confident in our security partners who have spent months planning and preparing for the inauguration, and we are continuing to work with them to ensure the utmost safety and security of the president-elect,"

The senators have faced fierce criticism in recent days from a bipartisan group of lawmakers, as well as calls they resign. On Sunday, Cruz’s longtime friend, Chad Sweet, said the man “must be denounced” and said he could no longer support him.

“In particular, I made it clear to Senator Cruz, whom I have known for years, before the Joint Session of Congress, that if he proceeded to object to the Electoral count of the legitimate slates of delegates certified by the States, I could no longer support him,” Sweet wrote, saying he had to rise above part “to defend democracy.”

The Capitol’s attending physician notified all lawmakers Sunday of the virus exposure and urged them to be tested. The infected individual was not named.

Trump is now facing impeachment after having incited supporters who were rallying near the White House before they marched to the Capitol. The House could vote on impeachment in a matter of days, less than two weeks before Democratic President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated on Jan. 20.

Authorities on Sunday announced the death of a 51-year-old Capitol Police officer. Two people familiar with the matter said the officer’s death was an apparent suicide. Officer Howard Liebengood had been assigned to the Senate Division and was with the department since 2005. He is the son of a former Senate sergeant-at-arms.

The officer suffered from a brain injury, loss of teeth, and a head injury.

A federal appeals court allowed the suit to go forward in a decision that stunned civil liberties communities who argued that if the opinion is left on the books it would chill the speech rights of protesters and dismantle civil rights era precedent that safeguard's the First Amendment's right to protest. The Supreme Court has held that lawful protestors cannot be held liable when someone within their ranks commits unlawful activity.

"The Supreme Court has long recognized that peaceful protesters cannot be held liable for the unintended, unlawful actions of others," said American Civil Liberties Union National Legal Director David Cole, who is representing McKesson. "If the law had allowed anyone to sue leaders of social justice movements over the violent actions of others, there would have been no Civil Rights Movement. The lower court's ruling is a threat to the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans."

"The First Amendment does not condone physical violence," a group of First Amendment lawyers represented by Acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger told the court in support of McKesson. Dellinger argued that while the Constitution does not excuse the attacker's "criminal, tortious and morally indefensible conduct," it does protect the organizer who "neither committed nor incited" the illegal activity.

In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law, U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military

“In a few months’ time, you may have to choose between defying a lawless president or betraying your constitutional oath,” they wrote. “If Donald Trump refuses to leave office at the expiration of his constitutional term, the United States military must remove him by force, and you must give that order.”

The Air Force chief of staff, General Charles Q. Brown, the officials said, would also be unlikely to salute and carry out those orders.

senior leaders at the Pentagon, speaking on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that they were talking among themselves about what to do if Mr. Trump, who will still be president from Election Day to Inauguration Day, invokes the Insurrection Act and tries to send troops into the streets, as he repeatedly threatened to do during the protests against police brutality and systemic racism.

The concerns are not unfounded. The Insurrection Act, a two-century-old law, enables a president to send in active-duty military troops to quell disturbances over the objections of governors. Mr. Trump, who refers to the armed forces as “my military” and “my generals

Several Pentagon officials said that such a move could prompt resignations among many of Mr. Trump’s senior generals, starting at the top with General Milley.

Under no circumstances, they said, would the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff send Navy SEALs or Marines to haul Mr. Trump out of the White House. If necessary, such a task, Defense Department officials said, would fall to U.S. Marshals or the Secret Service. The military, by law, the officials said, takes a vow to the Constitution, not to the president, and that vow means that the commander in chief of the military is whoever is sworn in at 12:01 p.m. on Inauguration Day.

“The idea is that you are going to have a lot of kindling out there and Trump is doing nothing to keep that from getting more flammable.

led a group of about 100 former national security officials and election experts from both parties in exercises to simulate the most serious risks to a peaceful transition of power.

There was no clear result, but the exercise itself attracted sharp criticism from far-right groups, which accused the organizers of trying to undermine Mr. Trump and interfere with the election.

Education

He added: “The Pentagon plans for war with Canada and a zombie apocalypse, but they don’t want to plan for a contested election. These are huge questions that have an impact on the reputation of the institution.”

The confrontation in Lafayette Square near the White House in June crystallized for the Defense Department just how close to the precipice the military came to being pulled into a domestic political crisis. That military helicopters and armed members of the National Guard patrolled the streets next to federal agents in riot gear so that the president, flanked by Mr. Esper and General Milley, could walk across the square to hold up a bible in front of a church prompted outrage among lawmakers and current and former members of the armed forces

“It sickened me yesterday to see security personnel — including members of the National Guard — forcibly and violently clear a path through Lafayette Square to accommodate the president’s visit outside St. John’s Church,” Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George W. Bush and Mr. Obama, wrote in The Atlantic. “This is not the time for stunts.”

he urged American service members around the world during a video question-and-answer session to “keep the Constitution close to your heart.”His words were subtle, but those watching knew what he meant.

Republicans have also called for reforms to the legal shield protecting platforms for third-party speech, known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

“I’m very worried about this, especially any misinformation that could incite violence in such a volatile period like this,” Mr. Zuckerberg said.

Earlier this year, Mr. Bolsonaro lashed out at two reporters who asked about a corruption case against one of his sons. He told one he had a “terribly homosexual face” and said to another that he was tempted to smash his face in.

Mr. Cuenca saw his criticism as comparatively high-minded. He said he disdains the Universal Church, which has grown into a transnational behemoth since its founding in the 1970s, because he believes it fueled Mr. Bolsonaro’s rise to the presidency, enabling ecological destruction, reckless handling of the coronavirus pandemic and institutional chaos.“I was totally bored, distracted, procrastinating and angry over politics,” Mr. Cuenca said. “What I wrote was satire.”

Taís Gasparian, a lawyer in São Paulo who has defended several people who faced similar bursts of almost-identical, simultaneous lawsuits, said plaintiffs like the Universal Church abuse a legal mechanism that was created in the 1990s to make the justice system accessible and affordable to ordinary people.

The type of action filed against Mr. Cuenca doesn’t require that a plaintiff hire a lawyer, but defendants who don’t show up in person or send a lawyer often lose by default. Universal Church pastors began a similar wave of suits against the journalist Elvira Lobato after she published an article in December 2007 documenting links between the church and companies based in tax havens.The timing and the striking similarities among the lawsuits filed against Ms. Lobato and Mr. Cuenca make it clear they were copy-paste jobs, Ms. Gasparian said.

2. This Is Us

When we talk about accountability, we’re talking about our president, Donald Trump. That’s proper. He is the man who made the government’s decisions on how to handle the pandemic. The death toll belongs to him.

as always, it’s easy to mistake the symptom for the disease.

After 9/11, America rallied together under a single banner. Republicans and Democrats linked arms. George W. Bush’s approval rating was in the 90s. Both left and right moved out of their comfort zones: Liberals became more hawkish; conservatives began paying attention to the idea of multiculturalism. These shifts weren’t permanent, but they showed that both sides saw their blind spots and knew they had to correct for them.

these moves—call them gestures, if you’re cynical—were born of the realization that what had happened to America was important. That 9/11 mattered. And that a serious country takes serious events seriously.

Garrett Graff has a good piece in the Atlantic about how our nation’s capacity for grief today is different than it was 19 years ago and he mostly blames the pandemic itself and the ways in which it has warped our rituals

Then there’s Donald Trump. He is not just to blame for the government’s response to the coronavirus, but for trying to incite half the country into believing that the coronavirus is a hoax and that the Americans taking the virus seriously are the enemy.

But I don’t blame Trump for all of the division. Because his people—like the guy in that video—aren’t NPC’s. They have minds of their own. They chose to follow his lead. In the same way that some large percentage of Americans wanted Donald Trump, there’s a large percentage who wanted not to rally around each other, but to turn on each other. To retreat into fantasy land. To choose to be unserious.

The worst thing about this anniversary is that, for the first time in 19 years, we have been confronted with incontrovertible evidence that we are a different people than we were on 9/11. A much—much—worse people.

A police union official told the French television station BFM that witnesses had seen the assailant cutting the victim’s throat. The national police were called, officials said, and after having discovered the decapitated victim, confronted the assailant nearby, close to the school. Brandishing a large knife, he threatened the officers, and after refusing to surrender, was shot 10 times, they said.

In the video, the parent details what his daughter told him had transpired in the class.“So this week, he allowed himself to tell them, the Muslims, Muslim students raise your hands,” the parents says. “So they raised their hands, and he said, ‘right, leave the class.’ So my daughter refused to leave and asked him, ‘why?’ And he said he was going to show a photo that would shock them. And then he showed them a naked man, telling them it was the prophet.”

Another parent, Carine Mendes, 41, whose child had attended the class, offered a more nuanced view of what happened. She called the teacher “a very sweet person, in his words, in his expressions.”Ms. Mendes said the teacher had suggested to Muslim students who did not want to see the cartoon that they leave the classroom temporarily, and had asked those who remained not to tell their Muslim classmates about the cartoon in order not to offend their faith.

“He really tried to do things with respect, he didn’t want to hurt anyone,” she said.But in a second class where the teacher gave the course, a shocked student refused to leave the room and told her father about what happened. He was the father who later complained in the video posted online.

The next day, the teacher apologized to his students and the principal sent an email message to parents to try to clear up the situation. The teacher’s suggestion to leave the classroom, the principal said, had been insensitive.

“Without wanting to offend anyone, it turned out that by offering this possibility to the students, he still offended the student,” the principal’s email read

Ms. Mendes said that what happened “was awful.”“He was just giving a course on freedom of expression,” she said.

“A teacher was killed just for doing his job,” Sophie Venetitay, a teachers’ union official, told BFM.

soldiers fired on crowds of protesters, inflaming Nigerians who were already concerned about police use of violence against the demonstrators.

The catalyst seemed to be an Oct. 3 video that appeared to show the unprovoked killing of a man by black-clad SARS officers in Ughelli, a town in southern Delta state. Nigerian officials said the video, which was widely shared over social media, was fake and arrested the person who took it — inciting even more anger.Demonstrations erupted in Lagos, the nation’s biggest city, and elsewhere around the country, driven by calls from people — many of them young — demanding that the government dismantle SARS.

President Muhammadu Buhari, seeing that the protests were serious and spreading, agreed on Oct. 12 to disband SARS, calling his decision “only the first step in our commitment to extensive police reform in order to ensure that the primary duty of the police and other law enforcement agencies remains the protection of lives and livelihood of our people.”

The anger of the protesters seems to have only increased — especially after the deadly suppression of a peaceful demonstration in Lagos on Tuesday, compounded by a 24-hour curfew decree and the deployment of Nigeria’s military forces to quell further demonstrations.

The movement bears striking similarities to demonstrations in the United States this year amid the outcry over police brutality after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. But Mr. Devermont said an important difference is that the Nigerian protesters are not demanding a defunding of the police — if anything, he said, they want more resources devoted to helping improve policing in their country.

“Polls give people a false sense of security, and they think they don’t have to turn out to vote,” he said. “Is there going to be a peaceful transfer of power? That’s a big question. The big worry is that he won’t accept the results, or he’s going to incite violence.”

“I find this individual so disgusting,” said Jane Kelly-Forest, 61, who lives in a suburb of Des Moines. “You want to believe the polls, and you want to believe that people will see what’s right in front of their eyes

“You ask what a high crime and misdemeanor is under our Constitution,” Mr. Raskin told the senators at the conclusion of the video. “That’s a high crime and misdemeanor. If that’s not an impeachable offense, then there’s no such thing.”

Already, Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, has faced criticism for suggesting that Mr. Trump be given a pass for the events of Jan. 6.“Look, everyone makes mistakes, everyone is entitled to a mulligan once in a while,” Mr. Lee said on Fox News after the House managers’ arguments, using a golf term for a do-over.Senator

“I have no idea what he’s doing,” Alan M. Dershowitz, who served on Mr. Trump’s defense team during his first impeachment trial last year, said on the conservative television station Newsmax. “Maybe he’ll bring it home, but right now, it does not appear to me to be effective advocacy.”

They found that “at least 60 percent of them are white, Christian and male. Further, around half are retired, over 65 years of age, and earn at least $50K per year. Finally, roughly 30 percent have at least a college degree.” More than 50 percent were born at a time of white hegemony, before the civil rights and women’s rights movements and the sexual revolution.

whether Trump “bears responsibility for the Capitol riot.” They found that “barely 30 percent of these respondents believe Trump bears any responsibility whatsoever,” and, of those, more than half said Trump bears “a little” responsibility.

Not only are these voters partisan, the authors note, but “when we asked our respondents about whether or not they agreed with Trump’s fraud claims, 98 percent believed them valid.”

“75 percent of Americans believe that Trump bears at least some responsibility” for the Jan. 6 mob attack on Congress. Among all Republicans, “this figure declines significantly to 52 percent.”

These MAGA supporters, who were recruited after signaling sympathy for the movement on Facebook, were rock-solid Republicans, Blum and Parker found, voting at or near 100 percent for the party’s House and Senate candidates in 2018 and 2020, and for Trump last year. They are far more engaged in politics — contributing money, going to meetings and volunteering — than the average American. “By any metric, this group appears committed to the political process,” Blum and Parker wrote.

Should Trump be “charged with the crime of inciting a riot?” All adults: yes 54, no 43. Republicans: yes 12, no 84.

Along similar lines, a Washington Post/ABC News survey taken Jan. 10-13 demonstrated how the views of a majority of Republicans stand far apart from the views of a majority of Americans.

Asked if Trump has acted “responsibly” or “irresponsibly” since the Nov. 3 election, the 1002 adults polled chose “irresponsibly” by 66-30. Republicans, in contrast, chose “responsibly” by 66-29.

It would come at a cost: more government instability as potential coalition allies jockey over cabinet posts, a particular issue or a budget item. It would also give the far ends of the political spectrum continuous formal representation in the political system. The Trumps could more easily realize their goal of becoming the Le Pens of America.

Using their accusations almost as a lingua franca, a way to identify the like-minded, MAGA partisans and followers of QAnon signal one another by alleging that pedophile rings seek to wrest control of government or by alleging that school shootings were staged by leftists to win passage of gun control. They evoke a world in which unknown forces pull the levers of government, where nothing is as it seems to be. Professing your belief in claims like these attests to MAGA loyalties while expressing — in an arcane, politicized shorthand — your fervent opposition to liberalism and racial and cultural change

In contrast, they wrote, “roughly 95 percent of MAGA supporters believe Antifa — the left wing protest group — bears some responsibility for the riots,” with more than 85 percent agreeing that Antifa bears “a great deal” or “a lot” of responsibility.

Drutman wrote that he has “come to realize how much of an existential threat the current Republican Party is to the continuation of America democracy.” A two-party democracy cannot survive “for very long if one of two dominant parties gives up on the foundational institution of democracy: free and fair elections, in which all votes count equally.”

I’ve also come to appreciate how much democracy depends on a conservative party that believes in democracy, and thus how important it is to create electoral institutions in this moment that will allow the currently-marginalized small “l” liberal Republicans to separate from the MAGA wing of the party and still win some representation in the Congress.

Proportional representation, he argued “is the only way to break up the current Republican coalition and free the pro-democracy forces within the Republican Party to compete on their own.”

Representative Don Beyer, Democrat of Virginia, plans to reintroduce The Fair Representation Act, which would, if enacted, put into place many of the reforms Drutman supports. Beyer wrote on his website that the measurewould move U.S. House elections into multi-member districts drawn by independent redistricting commissions and elected through ranked choice voting. The multi-member districts would be effective in states apportioned six or more seats in the House, and would elect three to five Representatives each, depending on the size of the state. Taken together, these three measures would incentivize congressional candidates to appeal to a broader range of voters.

Pippa Norris, a political scientist at Harvard who examined different levels of dissatisfaction in democratic countries in “Is Western Democracy Backsliding?” finds evidence supportive of Drutman’s argument:Parliamentary democracies with PR elections and stable multiparty coalition governments, typical of the Nordic region, generate a broader consensus about welfare policies addressing inequality, exclusion, and social justice, and this avoids the adversarial winner-take-all divisive politics and social inequality more characteristic of majoritarian systems.

I would prefer ranked-choice voting with some multi-member districts for state and national legislatures, and proportional representation (by state popular vote, not by Congressional district which are already gerrymandered) for the Electoral College.” These, she wrote, “could all be accomplished with just legislative change, no constitutional amendments.

Stephen Ansolabehere, a political scientist at Harvard, said by email that “a PR system would be political suicide for the parties.” Why, he asked, “would either party — let alone both — want to change?”

Several political scholars and strategists argue that the fault lies in our political system, that the unique way America has combined its government structure with the mechanics of its elections serves to exacerbate conflict in a deeply polarized country. These scholars have produced a variety of proposals, many involving the creation of multi-member congressional districts and the encouragement of proportional representation to replace the current single district, winner-take-all system.

a separate 2019 survey by Echelon Insights, a survey research firm, that asked voters “Suppose the Democratic and Republican Parties were replaced by a new set of political parties. Which of these parties would you be most likely to support?”

A center-left party committed to putting “the middle class first, pass universal health insurance, strengthen labor unions, and raise taxes on the wealthy to support programs for those less well off” amassed 28 percent.A green party with a platform calling for passage of “a Green New Deal to build a carbon-free economy with jobs for all, break up big corporations, end systemic inequality, and promote social and economic justice” picked up 10 percent.

A traditional-right party, committed to “defend the American system of free enterprise, promote traditional family,” won 21 percent.A culturally liberal and globalist party with a platform committed to “advance social progress including women’s rights and LGBTQ rights, to work with other countries through free trade and diplomacy, to cut the deficit, and reform capitalism with sensible regulation” gathered 12 percent.

The firm gave respondents five choices,A nationalist-right party promising to “stop illegal immigration, put America First, stand up to political correctness” attracted 19 percent.

In appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” Mr. Cassidy said of the former president, “I think his force wanes,” and contended that more Republicans would come around in time to sharing his view of Mr. Trump’s guilt for the attack on the Capitol.

Many Republican voters still see Mr. Trump as the leader of the party; some senators see Mr. McConnell as the de facto leader, given his standing in the Senate and his ties to party donors.

Mr. Graham, for his part, suggested that it was Mr. McConnell, not Mr. Trump, who could face an uncertain future if Republican candidates suffer in 2022, noting Mr. McConnell’s speech criticizing the former president.

“I said, ‘Mr. President, they just took the vice president out, I’ve got to go,’” Mr. Tuberville recounted to Politico.

A short time later, at 3:13 p.m., Mr. Trump added a note, “I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!”

Finally, at 2:38 p.m., Mr. Trump tweeted, “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”

This was a significant new piece of information. House prosecutors used it to argue that Mr. Trump was clearly aware that the vice president was in danger and that he had a callous disregard for Mr. Pence’s safety. On Friday, Mr. Trump’s defense team had insisted that Mr. Trump was not aware of any peril facing Mr. Pence.

Ms. Trump quoted her father’s tweet when she sent out her own, telling “American Patriots” to follow the law. She quickly deleted it and replaced it when she faced blowback on Twitter for appearing to praise the rioters as “patriots.”