California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) explained in the Los Angeles Times why he denied parole to Sirhan Sirhan, Robert F. Kennedy’s killer.

Said Newsom: “I have determined that Sirhan has not developed the accountability and insight required to support his safe release into the community. I must reverse Sirhan’s parole grant… The most glaring proof of Sirhan’s deficient insight is his shifting narrative about his assassination of Kennedy, and his current refusal to accept responsibility for it.”

“From the founding of the United States until long after the Civil War, hundreds of the elected leaders writing the nation’s laws were current or former slaveowners,” the Washington Post reports.

“More than 1,700 people who served in the U.S. Congress in the 18th, 19th and even 20th centuries owned human beings at some point in their lives.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) claimed that “this failed Democratic radical agenda” has pushed the nation into “the most dangerous times since the late ’30s,” The Hill reports.

Said Graham: “We’re not a socialist country… What Democrats are trying to do is tear up the constitution. They are trying to change the balance of power in this country… This is the most radical approach to our constitutional checks and balances in my lifetime, and maybe ever. There’s going to be a backlash in 2022.”

Daniel Gullotta: “Since he left office, former President Donald Trump has not receded into quiet retirement as most of his predecessors did. The activity and boisterousness with which he has continued to champion the Big Lie with which he incited the Jan. 6th insurrection bears comparison to only one other ex-president—one who also became president under a cloud of uncertainty, ignited calls for impeachment, alienated many both in opposition and within his own party, failed to win re-election, and fell into post-presidential ignominy: the tenth president, John Tyler…”

“Tyler’s retirement years have not been the source of much scholarly interest. But given his role in the secession of Virginia and his support for the Confederacy, Tyler’s role as a seditious former president is worth another look.”

FiveThirtyEight: “Political science has offered a number of explanations for what’s going on under the hood, all of which may contribute at least in part to the presidential party’s midterm curse.”

“These can largely be grouped into three categories: a midterm ‘reversion to the mean’ after presidential elections, a ‘surge and decline’ in voter turnout that changes the electorate from presidential years to midterm years and a broader ‘presidential penalty’ where the party in the White House gets punished regardless of how the country is doing.”

A new PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist poll finds that 49% of U.S. adults say an insurrection took place that threatened democracy, and about as many say Donald Trump is to blame for those events.

However, 25% say it was a political act of free speech and 19% say it was an unfortunate event, but it’s in the past.

A new ABC/Ipsos poll finds an overwhelming majority (72%) of Americans believe the people involved in the attack on the Capitol were “threatening democracy,” while 1 in 4 Americans believes that the individuals involved were “protecting democracy.”

Broken down by party identification, Democrats are nearly unanimous (96%) in believing that those involved in the attacks were threatening democracy. Republicans are more split, with 45% saying it was a threat and 52% saying those involved in the riot were “protecting democracy.”

“Our Founding Fathers wouldn’t recognize the America we live in today. They would be horrified, and rightfully so.”

— Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), on Twitter.

From a New York Times editorial:

“Our political life seems more or less normal these days, as the president pardons turkeys and Congress quarrels over spending bills. But peel back a layer, and things are far from normal. Jan. 6 is not in the past; it is every day.”

“It is regular citizens who threaten election officials and other public servants, who ask, ‘When can we use the guns?’ and who vow to murder politicians who dare to vote their conscience. It is Republican lawmakers scrambling to make it harder for people to vote and easier to subvert their will if they do. It is Donald Trump who continues to stoke the flames of conflict with his rampant lies and limitless resentments and whose twisted version of reality still dominates one of the nation’s two major political parties.”

“In short, the Republic faces an existential threat from a movement that is openly contemptuous of democracy and has shown that it is willing to use violence to achieve its ends. No self-governing society can survive such a threat by denying that it exists. Rather, survival depends on looking back and forward at the same time.”

Stephen Marche: “Talk of secession is still mostly just talk, but wouldn’t it be a civilized way to deal with the deep divisions in the country? Wouldn’t it beat, say, the civil war that a restive segment of the population hungers for?… Secession, surely, is preferable to that alternative.”

“But in ways secession-curious Americans may not appreciate, it’s also almost impossible.”

Jon Ralston has a must-read obituary of Sen. Harry Reid:

“He just didn’t have time or the temperament for social niceties or for the self-editing mechanism most politicians have. But the caricature of Harry Reid – the former boxer who was not afraid to land a low blow, the ruthless tactician who would do anything to win, the charismatically challenged curmudgeon – is so one-dimensional.”

“All humans are complex, but some are more complex than others. Reid was as kind in private to people, important and not, as he was dismissive, even nasty to foes in public. He engendered – and still does even in death – deeper loyalty from his staffers and others than any pol I have encountered. And his six-decades-plus love affair with his wife, Landra, is one for the ages.”

“If Harry said he would do something, he did it. If he gave you his word, you could bank on it. That’s how he got things done for the good of the country for decades.”

— President Biden, in a statement about the passing of Sen. Harry Reid.

Former Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) — who rose from abject poverty in rural Nevada to become one of the most influential state and national leaders — died today, the Nevada Independent reports.

New York Times: “Even by the standards of the political profession, where against-the-odds biographies are common and modest roots an asset, what Mr. Reid overcame was extraordinary. He was raised in almost Dickensian circumstances in tiny Searchlight, Nevada: His home had no indoor plumbing, his father was an alcoholic miner who eventually committed suicide, and his mother helped the family survive by taking in laundry from local brothels.”

Washington Post: “Mr. Reid was never a commanding presence before a crowd or on television. Sometimes he was barely audible, and he tended to litter his speeches with awkward pauses. But he was the consummate inside player, exercising his political and legislative skills behind the scenes.”

John White: “The U.S. Constitution is the sacred text of American government and civic life. But it’s time to face facts: The document, written in 1787, isn’t working.”