- Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy poorly dodging a question about why he seated disgraced freshman Rep. George Santos (R-NY) on committees.

New headache for the Biden administration just dropped!
 

• Lawyers for President Joe Biden have discovered additional documents with classified markings on them in a storage space in Wilmington, DE, during a review they began after finding an initial set at a Biden-affiliated think tank on November 2, 2022. In response to press questions earlier today, the president stated, “As I said earlier this week, people know I take classified documents and classified materials seriously. I also said we’re cooperating fully and completely with the Justice Department’s review.”
   

• Republicans are eager to spin this as “See? Your guy did it too!” or even “your guy is the REAL lawbreaker, not our guy!” But not so fast, you lying jackals. It’s unclear how or why classified documents from his vice presidency got commingled into his broader records, but it is actually relevant information that not only is the volume of such documents considerably smaller, Biden’s own team turned over everything right away, which was, um, not the case with President Trump. (He stole tons of highly sensitive state secrets, hid them, lied about them, and has said he’d like to have them back.)
   

• Nevertheless, Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a(nother) special counsel, former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur, to investigate the matter, raising the stakes and potential consequences. The attorney general also offered the most detailed timeline so far, stating that on January 5, the first prosecutor he assigned to review the case recommended the appointment of a special counsel. The investigation will examine whether “any person or entity violated the law,” in connection with the handling of the documents. Garland expressed confidence Hur will tackle the case “in an even-handed and urgent manner.”

This news is a gift to Republicans, who benefit anytime the media loses focus on GOP efforts to criminalize trans people, ban abortion, obstruct justice, and defund the IRS so the rich can do more tax evasion. 
 

• Republicans are, as always, abusing the credulity of mainstream media (Hillary’s emails, anyone?) and running away with it. It’s been a central theme on Fox News over the past several days, in between other hard-hitting segments like “The Woke Left wants to make Count Chocula trans and obese.” And that has bled into legacy media. While it was basically inevitable, it’s maddening to see the media portray these situations as in any way comparable or relevant to one another, and of course new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has pledged to make it an investigative priority for the lower chamber. 

• Federal law enforcement agents have interviewed multiple aides who worked for President Biden in the final days of the Obama administration as part of the review to find out how those documents ended up in Biden’s garage and a Washington office. Merrick Garland is relishing this opportunity to assert the “political independence” of his office and himself, but that won’t stop Republicans from portraying him as squarely in Biden’s pocket. While this is a matter that should be investigated, and all presidents should absolutely be held to the same standards of adhering to National Archives and Records Administration protocol, from all currently-available evidence, it seems that a few documents found their way into the mix because Biden’s VP office was packed hastily, whereas Trump intentionally took reams of classified documents to unsecured locations.

The political press deserves all the criticism it’s getting from, well, people like us, but unless and until mainstream outlets do better, the best Democrats can do is try to create media firestorms of their own. Lord knows they have no shortage of fuel.

President Biden criticized House Republicans for slashing tens of billions of dollars in funding to the IRS, which he (correctly) said would benefit the wealthy at the expense of middle class taxpayers and make inflation worse. 

Disgraced FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried wrote a bizarre blog post professing that he did not steal funds from investors, despite the fact that he pretty clearly did?

The White House criticized what it called a “backwards” bill introduced by, who else, House Republicans, that would limit presidential authority to tap the national Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which President Biden has done repeatedly in an effort to offset skyrocketing gas prices. (Republicans want gas prices to spike again.)

The Federal Reserve will raise interest rates just one-quarter of a percentage point at its next meeting as inflation continues to cool. 

A freight derailment added a staggering 20-hour(!) delay to what was supposed to be a 17-hour Amtrak ride from Virginia to Florida. 

In what is shaping up to be a crowded Democratic primary in 2024, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is exploring a bid for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).

As Russia’s war in Ukraine rages into its eleventh month, new information about the the scale of alledged torture and prisoner detentions by Russian forces in Ukraine’s Kherson region has slowly emerged. One woman, the spouse of a Ukrainian soldier who was killed in action, said that she was subjected to multiple interrogations in which her hands were submerged in boiling water, and that her Russian interrogators pulled out her fingernails and beat her in the face with rifle butts. Other methods of alleged physical torture employed by occupying Russian forces have included electric shocks to various body parts including genitals, beatings, suffocation, and starvation. These descriptions are consistent with what Ukrainian authorities and international human rights specialists have reported about the conditions and treatment used during detention. Andriy Kovalenko, the Kherson region’s chief war crimes prosecutor, said that these methods were deployed “systematically, exhaustingly” in order to obtain information about the Ukrainian military and suspected collaborators, or simply to punish dissidents. The scale of alleged crimes in the Kherson region now appears to be much greater than those surrounding the capital city of Kyiv. The Kremlin, if you can believe it, has not responded to questions about the alleged torture. 

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U.S. consumer prices fell for the first time in more than two-and-a-half years in December. 

An American Navy veteran who has been detained in Russia for almost a year was released from the Kremlin’s custody today.

A green tech startup said it successfully pulled carbon dioxide from the open air and stored it underground, in what could be a huge step forward in the fight against climate change.