-Dick Durbin, Senate Roastmaster

The Senate Judiciary Committee released a new report laying out in terrifying detail just how close we came to living in the United States of MAGArica, as the GOP issued its own informal report titled, Yeah That Would Be Fine By Us, Actually.
 

• The report by the committee’s Democratic majority provides a more complete account of a January 3 meeting about then-President Donald Trump’s plan to remove the acting attorney general and replace him with a loyalist (then-DOJ official Jeffrey Clark) who would help him overturn the election results. All that stopped him was a threat from top Justice Department officials and other government lawyers to resign en masse, with White House counsel Pat Cipollone comparing Trump’s coup attempt to a “murder-suicide pact.”
   
• The document also offers further details about Clarke’s own efforts to get the DOJ to throw its weight behind Trump’s election fraud lies, and the pressure Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) put on then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue to help sow doubt about Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania. “This report shows the American people just how close we came to a constitutional crisis,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin said in a statement. “Thanks to a number of upstanding Americans in the Department of Justice, Donald Trump was unable to bend the department to his will. But it was not due to a lack of effort.”
   
• Thanks to a few upsetting Americans in the Department of Justice, the committee’s report was not as complete as it might have been. Senior DOJ attorney Bradley Weinsheimer repeatedly blocked former officials from answering Democrats’ questions about the department’s handling of voter-fraud claims. Weinsheimer cited guidance he had issued in July that authorized former DOJ officials to testify before Congress, but limited which topics they could talk about. The Senate Judiciary Committee aides conducting the interviews said that some of the questions Weinsheimer shut down were fully relevant to understanding what Trump was trying to do.

It’s not like Trump needs any extra help from the Biden administration when it comes to shielding himself from justice.
 

• Trump has directed four top aides to defy subpoenas from the House January 6 committee, and indicated that he’ll go to court to block their testimony. Those aides are former social media director Dan Scavino—who’s already hiding from the committee’s process servers—former Pentagon official/Devin Nunes protege Kash Patel, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and former White House malevolent blob Steve Bannon, all of whom are expected to be on board with Operation Obstruction. 
   
• Meanwhile, Republicans are doing their part by maintaining residency in the alternate reality where the election was inconclusive and the insurrection never happened. During a Thursday House hearing on the GOP sham audit in Maricopa County, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) falsely claimed that “we don’t know” who won the 2020 election in Arizona. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) (and ranking Judiciary Committee Republican) is scheduled to speak at a Trump rally in Iowa on Saturday, eight months after excoriating Trump in the wake of January 6. Ah well, time heals all coups, as they say.

The country only escaped a constitutional crisis this year because a critical mass of Justice Department officials threatened to quit—not exactly a reassuring final safeguard for American democracy. That makes it all the more pressing for Democrats and journalists to be clear about the fact that Republicans are paving the way for another assault in just a few years, and not let them hide behind a veneer of normal politics.

The stakes couldn’t be higher as we head into 2022. That’s why Vote Save America is working to raise $1.5 million through our No Off Years fund. Donations will go to help voter registration efforts in places where reaching new voters will help make the difference in our ability to win next year and beyond like Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. We've raised over $200,000 so far, and are trying to hit $600,000 by the end of October so organizers can start building relationships and expanding their work to reach every last voter. To chip in, head to votesaveamerica.com/donate. 

A federal judge has temporarily blocked enforcement of the Texas abortion ban, in response to a request from the Justice Department. “From the moment S.B. 8 went into effect, women have been unlawfully prevented from exercising control over their lives in ways that are protected by the Constitution,” U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman wrote in his opinion. "That other courts may find a way to avoid this conclusion is theirs to decide; this Court will not sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right." It’s not yet clear how widely that pause will actually improve access to abortion in Texas. In anticipation of just such a ruling, Texas Republicans included a provision in the law that allows Texans to sue abortion clinics for abortions they perform during an enforcement pause, assuming higher courts would eventually lift the injunction. And Texas has already taken predictable steps to appeal the ruling to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the most conservative courts in the country.

• Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced a deal with Republicans to raise the debt limit by $480 billion, which the Senate will pass soon after this email hits your inbox.
   
• Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has reportedly told colleagues that he wants to make the caucus choose one program from among an expanded child tax credit, paid family leave, or child care subsidies, and scrap the other two from the reconciliation package.
   
• The January 6 committee has issued a new round subpoenas for the group Stop the Steal and a number of its organizers, including January 6 rally architect Ali Alexander. 
   
• Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) announced that nearly 800 Americans and Afghan allies safely left the country this week, after criticizing the State Department for delays in the evacuation efforts. 
   
• Roughly 1,400 workers at Kellogg plants across the country have gone on strike over the company’s plan to eliminate an employment tier with higher pay and better benefits. 
   
• This week in Casual GOP Coups, Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin (R-ID) went rogue and issued an executive order banning vaccine mandates in schools while Gov. Brad Little (R-ID) was out of town. Little repealed the order on Wednesday.
   
• A small contingent of U.S. troops has been deployed in Taiwan to train military forces there for at least a year, a sign of the Pentagon’s concern about China’s rising aggression against Taiwan. Reading that information in the papers is likely to make China just a little furious.
   
• New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio misused the NYPD for security during his presidential campaign and to run personal errands, like helping his daughter move out of her apartment, according to city investigators.
   
• Like any self-respecting MAGA-world slimeball, Cory Lewandowski demanded a pile of cash in exchange for his resignation from the Make America Great Again Action PAC, but did not receive it.
   
• Netflix had to edit a phone number out of Squid Game after thousands of viewers started calling the unfortunate South Korean woman it belongs to. 

A Colorado hospital system said it will deny organ transplants to nearly all unvaccinated patients, citing the “significant risk the virus poses to transplant recipients.” On Tuesday, Colorado state Rep. Tim Geitner (R) called attention to UCHealth’s denial of a kidney transplant to a woman who hadn’t gotten a coronavirus vaccine, calling the decision “disgusting” and discriminatory. But conditions on organ transplants are nothing new: Transplant centers might require patients to get other vaccinations, quit smoking, stop drinking, or commit to taking medications that reduce the chances of their body rejecting the transplant. A UCHealth spokesman said that other transplant centers around the country had instituted similar COVID vaccine policies, or were transitioning to them. Another bleak and compelling reason to get a safe, life-saving shot! We now return to your regularly-scheduled kidney discourse.

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Don’t look now, but coronavirus deaths are finally declining across the country.

Pfizer and BioNTech have asked the FDA to authorize their vaccine for kids ages five to 11.

The Biden administration announced plans to restore climate protections to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which the Trump administration had rolled back in order to speed up approvals for things like power plants, mines, and pipelines,

Los Angeles has approved one of the country’s strictest vaccine mandates, requiring residents to be fully vaccinated in order to enter just about any public indoor spaces.