“VIDEO DOMINATES DAY 2 — The second day of the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump brought the Senate to rapt attention, focused on never-before-seen video footage of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, as House managers opened their formal trial arguments. Here’s a rundown of what happened on the Hill today:
— The three stages: House Democrats said they would prove that the former president’s incitement occurred in three stages : Provoking his supporters, kick-starting the attack and sitting on his hands while the violence proliferated. ‘He told them to fight like hell, and they brought us hell that day,’ said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the lead House impeachment manager.
Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), another impeachment manager, initiated the arguments by laying out a post-election chronology of Trump’s comments and actions seeking to undermine confidence in the 2020 election results. He played a series of clips of Trump vowing to ‘never surrender’ in his fight to flip the election outcome.
— The footage: Managers unveiled new footage of insurrection, including film of Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman pointing Sen. Mitt Romney to safety and of former Vice President Mike Pence being evacuated.
The new videos, displayed next to a map of the Capitol building, underscore just how close rioters got to lawmakers during the deadly insurrection. Rioters were within 100 feet of Pence and his family and ‘just feet’ from the Senate chamber, Del. Stacey Plaskett said.
The first new video shown, presented by Plaskett of the Virgin Islands, showed one officer trying to fend off rioters breaching the Capitol near the Senate chamber. The officer tried to pepper spray a rioter entering, but a surge of rioters quickly overcame him. Some were wearing body armor and some had riot shields, while one had a baseball bat, Plaskett said. Among them were members of the Proud Boys, she said.
Another new video showed Goodman sprinting to respond to the security breach and directing Romney to leave before the mob arrived. Romney and his Senate colleagues sat solemnly at their desks, watching the video. ‘It tears at your heart and brings tears to your eyes. That was overwhelmingly distressing and emotional,’ Romney told reporters just minutes after seeing the video for the first time.
—'We’ve lost the line’: Police officers defending the Capitol were subjected to bear spray, tasers and blows from metal rods, according to testimony shared by Rep. Eric Swalwell.
Swalwell (D-Calif.) played a series of police radio calls and videos showing officers in panicked voices asking for backup as rioters breached the Capitol complex. ‘We’ve been flanked and we’ve lost the line!’ cried one Metropolitan Police officer heard in a radio recording.
— Invoking Kelly: The managers used former White House chief of staff John Kelly’s words in the aftermath of the riot as they pressed their case. The day after the insurrection, Kelly said in a CNN interview that he believed Trump willfully riled up the mob that stormed into the Capitol. ‘The president knows who he’s talking to when he tweets or when he makes statements,’ Kelly told CNN. ‘He knows who he’s talking to. He knows what he wants them to do.” Read more at POLITCO
Today in 180 seconds: Watch the key moments of Day 2 of the Trump impeachment trial.” [POLITICO]
“The trial resumes at noon today. Each side is allowed up to 16 hours, spread out over no more than two days each, to present its case, and each trial day is limited to eight hours. After the presentations are completed, senators will have a total of four hours to question both sides. Then there will be four hours divided equally between the impeachment managers and Trump’s lawyers for arguments about whether the Senate will consider motions to subpoena witnesses and documents if requested by the managers. There will be up to four hours equally divided for closing arguments, along with deliberation time if requested by the senators before the final vote takes place (Read more at NPR). The trial is expected to conclude by this weekend.” [The Hill]
“Federal authorities are still searching for suspects in the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick during the Capitol riots, and new video evidence is bringing them closer to possible charges. Investigators have struggled for weeks to build a federal murder case in Sicknick's death as they tried to pinpoint the moment he suffered his fatal injuries. It turns out, initial reports of him being struck with a fire extinguisher aren’t true, and they’re now looking at other factors, like rioters' use of bear spray, that may have led to his death. Members of the US Capitol Police plan to hold a vote of no confidence today, following claims by some officers that intelligence and operational failures left them vulnerable to the attack. The vote underscores concern within the department that current leadership is incapable of managing future incidents.” Read more at CNN
“New coronavirus cases continued their sharp decline over the past week — progress that could help the U.S. find its way out of the pandemic faster and more safely, if it keeps up, Axios Sam Baker and Andrew Witherspoon report.
An average of 108,000 Americans were diagnosed with COVID-19 infections each day over the past week.
That’s a 24% decline from the week before.
Hospitalizations were also down last week, by about 8%, and deaths fell by 3%. The virus is still killing an average of roughly 3,000 Americans per day.
Between the lines: 108,000 new cases and 3,000 deaths per day is still a very bad situation, and shouldn't be considered a sustainable level of infection.
But after the horrific winter outbreak the U.S. experienced, the only way to have a small number of cases is to keep climbing down week after week.” Read more at Axios
“Wearing a mask properly or even adding a second mask can cut COVID-19 transmission by up to 96.5%, the CDC said today.
Why it matters: This is the next-best protection for Americans who won't be vaccinated before the U.K. variant becomes our dominant strain, Axios' Marisa Fernandez reports.
Options include:
Wearing a cloth mask over a surgical mask.
Knotting the ear loops of a surgical mask and tucking in extra material.
Wearing a ‘mask fitter’ device for a closer fit.
From the CDC guidance:
‘Check for gaps by cupping your hands around the outside edges of the mask.’
‘Make sure no air is flowing from the area near your eyes or from the sides of the mask.’
‘If the mask has a good fit, you will feel warm air come through the front of the mask and may be able to see the mask material move in and out with each breath.’
The bottom line: ‘[I]t’s very clear evidence that the more of us who wear masks and the better the mask fits, the more each of us benefit individually,’ said Dr. John Brooks, who led the CDC study.” Read at Axios
“Federal authorities are investigating a massive counterfeit N95 mask operation in which fake 3M masks were sold in at least five states to hospitals, medical facilities and government agencies. The foreign-made knockoffs are becoming increasingly difficult to spot and could put health care workers at grave risk for the coronavirus.” Read more at AP
“New York, beginning on Feb. 23, will open large stadiums and arenas to people who can show a negative PCR test result within 72 hours of attendance at music shows and performances as well as baseball, soccer, football and basketball games, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced on Wednesday.” Read more at NBC New York
“The Chicago Teachers Union has approved a deal with the nation’s third-largest school district to get students back to class during the coronavirus pandemic, union officials announced early Wednesday.
The vote by the union’s roughly 25,000 members ends the possibility of an immediate teacher lockout or strike. The agreement follows months of negotiations — which had intensified in recent weeks — with plans that included more teacher vaccinations and metrics to allow school closures when Covid-19 infections spikes.” Read more at NBC News
“Europe’s oldest known person, a French nun who survived the virus, turns 117 today.” Read more at New York Times
“President Biden spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time since taking office in a call in which he said he raised issues of human rights and international security that divide the two countries while also holding open the possibility of working together on climate change and nuclear proliferation.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Prosecutors in Georgia have launched an investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the state's 2020 election results, including a phone call with the state's top elections official in which the former president asked to ‘find’ enough votes to declare he won Georgia.
Driving the news: The Fulton County District Attorney's officeon Wednesday sent letters to a number of state officials — including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who was on the other end of the call — asking them to preserve any documents related to Trump's efforts, DA spokesperson Jeff DiSantis confirmed.
The letters indicated the office is conducting a criminal investigation.
Details: ‘This investigation includes, but is not limited to, potential violations of Georgia law prohibiting the solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election's administration,’ the letters read.
The letters state the DA's office will seek subpoenas when the grand jury next convenes in March.
Other recipients of the letters include Gov. Brian Kemp, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and Attorney General Chris Carr.
The big picture: The investigation makes Georgia the second state in which Trump faces a criminal inquiry. The former president's finances are under scrutiny by the Manhattan district attorney.” Read more at Axios
“Nearly 60 percent of the people facing charges related to the Capitol riot showed signs of prior money troubles, including bankruptcies, notices of eviction or foreclosure, bad debts, or unpaid taxes over the past two decades, according to a Washington Post analysis of public records for 125 defendants with sufficient information to detail their financial histories.
The group’s bankruptcy rate — 18 percent — was nearly twice as high as that of the American public, The Post found. A quarter of them had been sued for money owed to a creditor. And 1 in 5 of them faced losing their home at one point, according to court filings.
The financial problems are revealing because they offer potential clues for understanding why so many Trump supporters — many with professional careers and few with violent criminal histories — were willing to participate in an attack egged on by the president’s rhetoric painting him and his supporters as undeserving victims.
While no single factor explains why someone decided to join in, experts say, Donald Trump and his brand of grievance politics tapped into something that resonated with the hundreds of people who descended on the Capitol in a historic burst of violence.” Read more at Washington Post
“Iran has produced a material that is banned under the 2015 nuclear accords and could be used to form the core of a nuclear weapon, as it seeks to step up pressure on the Biden administration to lift economic sanctions on Tehran.
A confidential report by the United Nations atomic agency, seen by The Wall Street Journal, said Iran had started producing uranium metal on Feb. 6 at a nuclear facility in Isfahan that is under the agency’s inspection.
The material produced was a small amount of natural uranium metal, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported, meaning it wasn’t enriched. To use uranium metal for a nuclear weapon’s core, Iran would need around half a kilogram, or slightly more than one pound, of highly enriched uranium metal, experts say.
The Iranian government in December warned that it would start producing uranium metal within five months, following a law passed in Iran’s Parliament on Dec. 1, a threat that alarmed Western diplomats.
Iran has taken a series of recent steps in breach of the 2015 nuclear accord, from which the Trump administration withdrew. Tehran has increased its production of nuclear fuel, carried out enrichment in locations it isn’t supposed to use, and earlier this year produced 20% enriched uranium, the highest purity of the material it has made since 2013.
Most of these steps involve enriching uranium, an activity that has potential civilian uses such as fuel for power-generating reactors or for medical isotopes. However, the production of uranium metal is more clearly linked to nuclear-weapons work since it has few civilian purposes. Iran was banned from producing it for 15 years under the 2015 agreement.
Iran has said it has the right to breach the nuclear accord because of the U.S. economic sanctions and the European failure to compensate Iran for Washington’s actions. Iran’s U.N. representative didn’t respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Women in the U.S. hit a milestone in February 2020 when, for the first time in history, they held the majority of non-farm payroll jobs, outnumbering men in the workforce, Axios @Work author Erica Pandey writes.
One year later, women's labor force participation is at a 33-year low.
Why it matters: Putting mothers back to work is vital to the health of the U.S. economy, experts say. There will be long tail effects that hurt working women and mothers long after the pandemic is over.” Read more at Axios
“Saudi Arabia released prominent women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul after more than 1,000 days in detention, her family said, less than a month into the administration of President Biden who has pressured Riyadh to improve its human-rights record.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“For the first time, a drug has been shown so effective against obesity that patients may dodge many of its worst consequences, including diabetes, researchers reported on Wednesday.
The drug, semaglutide, made by Novo Nordisk, already is marketed as a treatment for Type 2 diabetes. In a clinical trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago tested semaglutide at a much higher dose as an anti-obesity medication.
Nearly 2,000 participants, at 129 centers in 16 countries, injected themselves weekly with semaglutide or a placebo for 68 weeks. Those who got the drug lost close to 15 percent of their body weight, on average, compared with 2.4 percent among those receiving the placebo.
More than a third of the participants receiving the drug lost more than 20 percent of their weight. Symptoms of diabetes and pre-diabetes improved in many patients.” Read more at New York Times
“Those massive farm protests are still going strong in India. Since November, tens of thousands of farmers have been living in tents at sprawling camps outside the capital New Delhi to protest farming laws passed in September that they say will devastate their livelihoods. The Indian government has been criticized for its handling of the protests, and opposition leaders say police have been too violent in quelling the crowds. Authorities have also imposed several internet shutdowns, purportedly in the interest of public safety. So far, government leaders have failed to reach any compromise with leaders of more than 30 farmers' unions despite months of negotiations and a pledge to suspend the new laws for several months.” Read at CNN
“The US will sanction Myanmar's military leaders after last week's coup that has thrown the country into uncertainty and inspired unease among world leaders. President Biden said he will identify the targets of the sanctions this week and announced the US will also freeze assets benefiting the country’s government. He also called on the military junta to release detained protesters and civilian leaders, including Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and stop their crackdowns on demonstrators. The US State Department last week formally determined that the military takeover constituted a coup d'état, a designation that requires the United States to cut its foreign assistance to the country's government.” Read more at CNN
“The day after news broke that the Dallas Mavericks weren't playing the national anthem at home games, the NBA decreed: ‘[A]ll teams will play the national anthem in keeping with longstanding league policy.’ Read more at Axios
“Last week, actors Daniel Dae Kim and Daniel Wu announced that they were offering a $25,000 reward to anyone who could help identify the person who was caught on camera shoving a 91-year-old man in Oakland’s Chinatown. The attack came amid a sudden and massive rise in the number of hate crimes against Asian Americans across the country, a phenomenon many activists argue is not getting as much media attention as it deserves.” Read more at The Cut
“The top Republican in the Michigan state Senate has offered an apology of sorts after calling the Jan. 6 Capitol riot a ‘hoax’ that was ‘pre-arranged.’ Mike Shirkey was caught on camera peddling conspiracy theories while meeting at a diner with leaders of the Hillsdale County Republican Party last week. When asked about ‘the D.C. thing,’ Shirkey immediately said: ‘That wasn’t Trump people. That’s been a hoax from day one. That was all prearranged. It was arranged by somebody who was funding it… It was all staged.’ The Department of Justice has already charged dozens of Capitol rioters who took part in the insurrection attempt, many of whom were outspoken Trump supporters who had attended his rally earlier that day. After facing criticism for his baseless claims, Shirkey on Tuesday acknowledged that his comments were ‘not fitting for the role I am privileged to serve.’ ‘I own that. I have many flaws. Being passionate coupled with an occasional lapse in restraint of tongue are at least two of them,’ he said, apologizing for the ‘insensitive comments.’” Read more at Detroit News
“The U.S. Coast Guard rescued three people on Tuesday from an uninhabited island in the Bahamas where they had been stranded for 33 days, surviving on coconuts, conchs and rats, the authorities said.
The stranded people — two men and a woman identified as Cuban nationals — were spotted waving a makeshift flag during a routine surveillance patrol of the area on Monday, the Coast Guard said in a statement.” Read more at New York Times
“Lives Lived: Though an injury derailed her career before she could reach the Olympics, Dianne Durham became a trailblazer among Black gymnasts by winning the 1983 national championship. She died at 52.” Read more at New York Times
“Larry Flynt, one of America’s most notorious pornographers and self-proclaimed champions of First Amendment freedoms, who built his business interests on the hardcore raunch and grotesque parody of Hustler magazine, died Feb. 10 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 78.
His brother Jimmy Flynt confirmed the death but did not cite a specific cause.
Repeatedly sued, prosecuted, jailed for contempt, gagged for obscene outbursts in court and, in 1978, shot and paralyzed by a would-be assassin, Mr. Flynt thrived on controversy. After the shooting, he used a wheelchair — gold-plated and velvet-lined to his specifications.
In a grit-to-glitter saga like few others, the ninth-grade dropout from the hills of east Kentucky used street smarts, gutsy business instincts and, when necessary, his fists to parlay a string of shabby Ohio bars into a $100 million nationwide porn empire of magazines, private clubs, a swank casino in suburban Los Angeles, an online sex-toy store and other ventures.
Hustler, whose circulation peaked above 2 million in the late 1970s, thumbed its nose at sleeker skin publications such as Playboy and Penthouse. Mr. Flynt proudly offered Hustler as a blue-collar and taboo-smashing alternative with its raw frontal nudity of men and women, and crude cartoons.” Read more at Washington Post
“In the wake of Gina Carano’s controversial social media posts, Lucasfilm has released a statement Wednesday night, with a spokesperson saying ‘Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.’
Carano played bounty hunter Cara Dune on the first two seasons Lucasfilm and Disney+’s The Mandalorian, and it looked like we’d be seeing more of her. It appears not.
The actress shared a TikTok post comparing the current divided political climate in the U.S. to Nazi Germany.
‘Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors…even by children. Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views,’ she wrote.
Another photo on Carano’s Instagram story featured a person with several masks covering their face and head with the caption: ‘Meanwhile in California.’
Both posts were scrubbed from the actress’ Instagram this afternoon, but others picked it up and reposted. Other posts, including a quote saying ‘Expecting everyone you encounter to agree with every belief or view you hold is fucking wild,’ and one saying ‘Jeff Epstein didn’t kill himself,’ remained.
The hashtag #FireGinaCarano begin trending, with those on social media tagging Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau, Disney, Disney+, Star Wars and Lucasfilm.
Carano and her supporters attempted to get the hashtag #weloveginacarano to trend. Carano retweeted the post below on her account.
Carano previously stirred up the dust on social media with comments about mask-wearing and voter fraud. In November, she made fun of those using preferred pronouns on social media by listing ‘beep/bop/boop’ in her Twitter bio. The action came off as transphobic. She later walked that back, saying Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal ‘helped me understand why people were putting them in their bios. I didn’t know before but I do now. I won’t be putting them in my bio but good for all you who choose to. I stand against bullying, especially the most vulnerable & freedom to choose.’
Carano rose to fame as an MMA fighter competing in Strikeforce and EliteXC. She retired from MMA competition and segued to acting, one of her early launches being the 2011 Steven Soderbergh movie Haywire. She went on to star in Fast & Furious 6 and Deadpool, playing Angel Dust in the latter Marvel/20th Century Fox hit. Read at Deadline
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