“The United States in 2020 experienced the biggest rise in murder since the start of national record-keeping in 1960,” the New York Times reports.
“The Uniform Crime Report will stand as the official word on an unusually grim year, detailing a rise in murder of around 29 percent. The previous largest one-year change was a 12.7 percent increase in 1968.”
“Bipartisan talks aimed at overhauling police tactics and accountability have ended with no agreement, the top Democratic negotiator said, with lawmakers unable to reach a compromise in the wake of nationwide protests sparked by the killings of Black Americans by law-enforcement officers,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) said Wednesday that he called Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) to tell him the Democrats were done negotiating after Mr. Scott didn’t accept their final offer. Mr. Scott’s office didn’t immediately comment.”
A highly anticipated rally on behalf of the more than 600 people charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot drew a modest crowd of a couple hundred demonstrators Saturday, with media and security personnel far outnumbering those seeking to air grievances on behalf of defendants they call “political prisoners,” Politico reports.
“In the shadow of a fortified Capitol, a few hundred demonstrators turned up Saturday for a rally to support those charged in January’s riot, but were vastly outnumbered by the media and a heavy police presence,” the AP reports.
New York Times: The Capitol area is on high alert.
A new Annenberg survey finds that 49% of Americans said it was accurate to say that arresting those who entered the U.S. Capitol on January 6 to disrupt the certification of the presidential election violated the Constitution because they were exercising their constitutional right to petition the government for redress of grievances.
“As Donald Trump returns to Georgia later this month, criminal investigators in the state have been quietly conducting interviews, collecting documents and working to build a line of communication with congressional investigators as they aim to build a case against the former President for his alleged attempts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results,” CNN reports.
Former President Donald Trump offered his public support to those accused of joining the January 6 riot at the Capitol, claiming that suspects are “being persecuted so unfairly.”
He added: “In addition to everything else, it has proven conclusively that we are a two-tiered system of justice.”
“A grand jury working with special counsel John Durham’s office handed up an indictment Thursday of lawyer Michael Sussmann, who prosecutors have accused of making false statements to the FBI during the 2016 presidential campaign,” the Washington Post reports.
New York Times: “The charge centers on a Sept. 19, 2016, meeting with an FBI official in which Mr. Sussmann relayed concerns by cybersecurity researchers who believed that unusual internet data might be evidence of a covert communications channel between computer servers associated with the Trump Organization and with Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-linked Russian financial institution.”
Michigan state Rep. Jewell Jones (D) was charged with two felonies after prosecutors say he brought a handcuff key — taped to the bottom of his foot — into the Livingston County Jail following his court hearing Tuesday afternoon, the Livingston Daily reports.
Capitol Police arrested a California man lurking outside the DNC headquarters in a swastika-emblazoned truck with a bayonet and machete inside.
The man told police he was “on patrol” and “began talking about white-supremacist ideology and other rhetoric pertaining to white supremacy.”
A new report by Third Way concludes: “Contrary to the media narrative, overall crime decreased in 2020 compared to 2019.”
NBC News: “The study shows that homicides went up last year, but found that category to be an outlier.”
“The chief of the Capitol Police and its top intelligence officer personally approved permits for six demonstrations to be held on Jan. 6, 2021, despite signs that one of the applications was filed for an organization that didn’t exist and that five of them were a proxy for a group staging large, violent protests across the country,” BuzzFeed reports.
However, they assessed “the Level of Probability of acts of civil disobedience/arrests to occur” during the demonstration “as Highly Improbable.”
Prince Andrew has been served a lawsuit from an American woman alleging that he had sex with her when she was underage, ABC News reports.
“Law enforcement officials are bracing for potential clashes and unrest during an upcoming right-wing rally in Washington, DC, as violent rhetoric surrounding the September 18 event has increased online and counter protests are being planned for the same day,” CNN reports.
“A prominent Minnesota GOP donor who is charged with multiple counts of sex trafficking is now being sued by an underage girl who says he used her for sex acts, then offered her money to keep her from talking about it,” ABC News reports.
“The lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court alleges that Anton Lazzaro’s attorneys offered $1,000 in hush money to the girl and her parents to keep them quiet and asked them to sign a non-disclosure agreement. The girl’s father refused and instead went to law enforcement, said their attorney, Jeff Anderson.”
When asked why women who are raped and get pregnant must carry the babies to term under the new Texas law, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) pushed back saying the women still have six weeks to get abortion.
Then he further justified the law saying he was going to eliminate rape in Texas by arresting all rapists.
“Henry ‘Enrique’ Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, turned himself in to police Monday evening,” WUSA reports.
“Tarrio, chairman of the Proud Boys, an all-male organization known for pushing a far-right-wing agenda, and known for violence and neo-nazi ties, arrived at the D.C. Central Detention Facility about 9 p.m. Monday, with just hours left until the deadline a D.C. Judge gave him to self-surrender and begin serving his jail term.”
“Minnesota State Patrol officers conducted a mass purge of e-mails and text messages immediately after their response to riots last summer, leaving holes in their paper trail as the courts and other investigators attempt to reconstruct whether law enforcement used improper force in the chaos following George Floyd’s murder,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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