Welcome to the party, pals

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol subpoenaed 10 former senior Trump Administration officials yesterday—and some of their names are very familiar. Former Press Sec. Kayleigh McEnany got served, as did senior adviser to the president Stephen Miller, both of whom helped spread false information about alleged voter fraud in the 2020 election. The committee also sent subpoenas to Ben Williamson, an adviser to then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows; Keith Kellogg, former national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence; Christopher Liddell, former White House deputy chief of staff; Kenneth Klukowski, former senior counsel at the Department of Justice; Molly Michael, a former Oval Office operations coordinator; Nicholas Luna, Donald Trump's former personal assistant; and Cassidy Hutchinson, a former special assistant. —Axios

• — "He became the deputy president." One potential witness with whom you may not be as familiar is Johnny McEntee, who initially worked as Trump's body man but ultimately landed an influential job in the White House personnel office. By 2020, his power in the administration was undeniable, as Trump knew he was the one person willing to do anything he wanted. More than almost anyone, McEntee and his enforcers made the disastrous last weeks of the Trump presidency possible, backing the president's manic drive to overturn the election and setting the stage for the violent assault on the Capitol. —The Atlantic
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• — Where did all that Jan. 6 rage go? Nowhere apparently. It's still out there, and much of it is being aimed at local public officials like school board members. Election workers have been particularly targeted, with violent threats from so-called "patriots" fighting a conspiracy they believe robbed Trump of the 2020 election. They are often regular Americans with everyday jobs and lives who have become radicalized by far-right websites that embrace the Big Lie. Almost none have been charged with crimes by the law enforcement agencies alerted to their threats. —Reuters
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• — "Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President." Thankfully, the source of much of the rage—Trump himself—won't be able to control information from the White House regarding Jan. 6 that flows to the select committee. Last night, Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court in D.C. ruled that the panel will have access to more than 700 pages of White House records leading up to and about the attack at the Capitol. Trump's legal team, of course, intends to appeal. —CNN

MORE: World apart but common paths to extremism —The Gazette

Punished for doing their jobs?

Shockingly—or not—there is a GOP effort to strip the 13 House Republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill of their committee assignments. Very little of the pushback is about what's in the bill. After all, an infrastructure package has been a bipartisan dream for years. Instead, the true sin was in handing a president of the other party a political victory. "These people voted for Joe Biden, for an infrastructure bill that will clear the way for more socialist spending that, quite frankly, gives Joe Biden a win," said former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in an appearance with, of all people, Steve Bannon. As for President Biden, he lamented that the Republicans are being "threatened with their chairmanships" for their vote. Asked about it at a virtual town hall yesterday, he said, "I've never seen it before. It's got to stop—for the sake of America." —The Washington Post

MORE: Upton receives death threats after backing bipartisan public works bill —The Detroit News

Hogan: Want to win, GOP? Then dump Trump

"[Republican victories in Virginia] should put to rest the myth that the only way to fire up the base is by alienating swing voters or swearing blind allegiance to a former president. [Governor-elect Glenn] Youngkin outperformed Donald Trump even in many rural Republican areas. … Virginia and New Jersey demonstrated again that common-sense conservatives who focus on issues and solutions can compete and win anywhere. The country is hungry for leadership. The question is whether the Republican Party is willing and able to provide it." —Larry Hogan in The Wall Street Journal

Larry Hogan is the 62nd governor of Maryland.

MORE: What moves swing voters —The New York Times

Redistricting spells disaster for Democrats

Republican-controlled states have been cranking out new congressional maps that could mean big trouble for Democrats. The North Carolina General Assembly approved a map that would leave Republicans with as many as 11 seats vs. three for Democrats, up from the current split of eight Republicans and five Democrats. In Ohio, maps would give Republicans up to 13 congressional seats, up from an already impressive 12. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project, which measures map fairness, gave an overall "F" to both. Democrats' best, and perhaps only, shot at mitigating the damage is through litigation. Attorneys have already filed redistricting-related lawsuits in Texas, North Carolina, Alabama, and other states, which means the courts could ultimately decide some states' maps for 2022. Stay tuned. —Axios

MORE: Gerrymander or no gerrymander? Committee advances Utah congressional map that split Salt Lake County across four districts —The Salt Lake Tribune

Lane: Is regulating Facebook possible?

"It is admittedly hard to imagine how government could actually mandate fee-for-service social media. Certainly, it's much easier for politicians to cry 'break up Facebook,' or for academics to moralize about everyone's responsibility to behave better. Consumers—who are also voters—instinctively love the idea of something for nothing, even if Facebook hadn't long ago conditioned them to expect it. … Meanwhile, we live out a rueful Japanese proverb. 'There is nothing more expensive,' it says, 'than something free.'" —Charles Lane in The Washington Post

Charles Lane is an author and a Washington Post columnist specializing in economic and fiscal policy.

MORE: Gettr, Parler, Gab find a fanbase with Brazil's far-right —The Washington Post

Focus on social media

Figuring out how to regulate social media in a way that preserves 1st Amendment rights while reducing the harms the technology has caused to civil society is one of the legislative quandaries of our time. A bipartisan group of House lawmakers thinks it may have one answer to the problem. They have introduced a bill that would require online platforms to let users opt out of having personal data-driven algorithms select the content they see.

• — Algorithms that personalize content on social networks can make services addictive, violate users' privacy, and promote extremism, critics and many lawmakers argue. Recent revelations about Facebook's internal research findings have given credence to these concerns, leading to bipartisan momentum on Capitol Hill. The Filter Bubble Transparency Act would require internet platforms to let people use a version of their services where content is not selected by algorithms driven by personal data. 
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• — Two of the bill's co-sponsors, Reps. Ken Buck and David Cicilline, are the bipartisan duo who successfully passed six antitrust bills out of the House Judiciary Committee in June. The Senate version of the bill, also bipartisan, is sponsored by Sen. John Thune, an influential member of Republican leadership. Buck and Thune plan to work together on tech and antitrust issues going forward, which could boost the chances of such bills passing muster with Senate Republicans.
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• — "Facebook and other dominant platforms manipulate their users through opaque algorithms that prioritize growth and profit over everything else. And due to these platforms' monopoly power and dominance, users are stuck with few alternatives to this exploitative business model, whether it is in their social media feed, on paid advertisements, or in their search results," said Cicilline. "Consumers should have the option to engage with internet platforms without being manipulated by secret algorithms driven by user-specific data," added Buck. —Axios

De la Torre: Saving democracy from populism

"Populist politicians, despite their ideological differences, thrive on polarization. They use an antagonistic discourse to position rivals as existential enemies. They identify their supporters as the only 'authentic' people in their nation and consider it their mission to save them while excluding others based on ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic, or political grounds. While in office, they follow a playbook that seeks to concentrate power in the presidency. They wage war against the media. And use the law to punish critics. When faced with political loss, they seek to delegitimize democracy with claims of rigged elections and then embrace a continuing legacy of sowing distrust in democratic institutions." —Carlos de la Torre on Newswise

Carlos de la Torre is the director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida and the co-author of the newly released book "Global Populisms."

MORE: In New Hampshire, Cheney says Trump 'at war' with Constitution —The Hill

Hear, hear, Jim V. from New York! —Fred L., Michigan

Paul Gosar does not deserve to be referred to as anything but a far-right lunatic. He and others in the Trump wing of the Republican Party are a sociopathic disease that has been allowed to spread rapidly throughout too much of the party. The cure for this cancer is to go vote these radical members out of office. By doing that we start to cure this destructive social disease that could threaten the future of our democracy. 

As a footnote, all of the Republicans who didn't have the good sense to vote for the infrastructure bill, and couldn't wait to criticize those who did, will race to the microphone/media to tell their constituents they passed this bill and how positively it will affect their voting districts. I know several Republican business-owners who couldn't wait to line up to the government 'trough' to get their Payroll Protection Plan money, which I think we'd have to say was a 'social' financial safety net to keep our business communities solvent through the initial stages of the Covid pandemic. Kind of a double standard for a lot of people when it comes to government spending. —Lee A., Utah

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