Dear friends,
The public phase of the Jan 6 hearings has begun and many of us remain aghast at the nefarious behavior of the insurrectionists inside and outside of the former Administration.
We don’t know, however, if the alarming details presented in testimony and footage from January 6 will penetrate the blanket of lies that has been spread so effectively by the former president and his minions. Watch parties may not be effective at penetrating the bubble of far right support.
Reporter Bob Woodward likened the hearings to the Army-McCarthy hearings that finally brought down demagogue Joe McCarthy in 1954. Testimony like this should matter:
Asked by [Representative Bennie] Thompson if any one memory from January 6 stood out to her, Officer Caroline Edwards, who fought to protect the Capitol, said yes: the scene of “carnage” and “chaos.” It was like a war scene from the movies, she said, with officers bleeding on the ground, vomiting. She was slipping in people’s blood, catching people as they fell. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think… I would find myself in the middle of a battle,” she said.
Jamelle Bouie makes a compelling case for the power of political theater, distinguishing between the investigation of facts, which the committee has been engaged in until yesterday, and the direct communication to the public, which takes the case to the people.
Bouie quotes an article by Josh Chafetz, a Georgetown law professor, to explain why this case might make a difference:
“In October 1973, the first votes in the House Judiciary Committee on matters related to impeachment were strong party-line votes,” [Chafetz] writes. “Nine months later, six of the committee’s seventeen Republicans voted for the first article of impeachment.” What started as a partisan issue, he continues, “became something else over time.”
Of course, our political landscape and media environment have changed a great deal since 1954 and 1973.
We’re just going to take a little bit of action today. First, we’re going to weigh in on the city budget, and then we’re going to keep the pressure on Hochul to sign the crypto moratorium.
You may have heard Mayor Adams complaining about the unfunded mandate to reduce class size in NYC schools. In general, I agree that it’s problematic for the state to require the city to make expensive changes without providing funding. In this case, however, I find his arguments disingenuous.
A spokesperson for Class Size Matters notes:
“Nearly all the goals that the mayor has for our schools, including social emotional learning and his dyslexia initiative, are far easier to achieve with smaller classes, so that teachers can connect with their students more closely, provide them with the support they need, and screen and address any reading problems.”
And it is Adams himself calling for a $215 million cut to the Department of Education’s budget. He is also pushing to hire 578 additional correction officers. Note that today is the deadline for the city’s revised plan to overhaul Rikers, after the previous plan was found excessively vague.
Let your councilmember know how you feel about cuts to education!
Here’s a fun fact: my state senator, Kevin Parker, sponsored the crypto mining moratorium bill AND says he is in favor of cryptocurrency. He owns no crypto at this time.
Parker’s major consideration is that it matters how the energy is generated:
"We made changes to the bill so that it was clear that what we were trying to do was stop the use of these peaker plants and not interfere with the cryptocurrency mining operations of the state," he said.
Hochul remains non-committal about whether she will sign the bill,
insisting that donations and support from the cryptocurrency industry would not influence her decision.
I am on the record as anti-crypto, as I don’t understand why the industry exists. Nonetheless, I share my state senator’s concern that we regulate new industries with an eye toward sound environmental.
"These are a bunch of folks who in the finance world are cowboys and they want free rein — that's not helpful in the context of trying to lower our carbon footprint," Parker said. "There are a number of crypto operations in the state of the New York, only one actually operates using these peaker plants."
Call or write the Governor to tell her to sign the moratorium! This takes 30-seconds! The action is updated. Contact her every day until she signs it!
Have a great weekend!
with love,
L