Year: 2022
Report: Christian Nationalism Fueled Jan. 6 Insurrection
The report, issued by the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, details Christian nationalist rhetoric and symbols that were apparent at the Jan. 6 insurrection as well as at events that preceded the insurrection, such as the Million MAGA March and Jericho Marches that took place in Washington in December 2020 and January 2021.
Christian nationalist symbols and references were ubiquitous at those gatherings, as well as at the insurrection itself: flags with superimposed American flags over Christian symbols; “An Appeal to Heaven” banners; prayers recited by members of the extremist group Proud Boys shortly before the attack or by others as they stormed the Capitol.
Andrew Seidel, who wrote most of the 60-page report, said that if the Jan. 6 insurrectionists “decided to get a little more serious, next time we’re in more trouble.” Looking toward the 2022 midterm election and the 2024 presidential race, he said the potential for violence wrought by Christian nationalists haunts him.
“I really hope people wake up and recognize it for the threat that it is,” he said.
Manchin Wants to Raise Social Security Taxes
“You could raise it to $400,000 overnight… I’ve got the will to do it, that’s all I can tell you because I’ve got grandchildren. Ten grandchildren. We’ve got future generations depending on us to the right thing. I’m willing to do a lot of good things on climate too.”
— “Fired up by sky-high inflation prices, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said he has the political will to do the unpopular thing: lift the cap on income taxed for Social Security to $400,000 in order to sustain that program,” Politico reports.
U.S. Inflation Hits 40-Year High
7.5%
U.S. inflation accelerated to a 7.5% annual rate in January, rising to a new four-decade high, the Wall Street Journal reports. CNBC: “That marked the biggest gain since February 1982 and was even higher than the Wall Street estimate.”
Tester Rips Fellow Dems on Ignoring Riral America
“I honestly don’t think the Democratic Party can be a majority party unless we start appealing to Middle America a lot more. I’m talking about the area between the two mountain ranges, the Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains. And if we’re able to do that, I think it will provide success.”
— Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) criticized fellow Democrats in a CNN interview for not appealing to Middle America more and said Democrats need to “show up” in those places if they want to win elections.
Biden Proposes 4.6% Raise for Federal Employees, Military
4.6%
“Federal employees and military service members would receive average raises of 4.6 percent next January under the budget President Biden will propose in March, marking what would be the workforce’s largest salary hike in two decades,” the Washington Post reports.
The Ignorance of Marjorie Taylor Greene Has No Bottom
“Not only do we have the DC jail which is the DC gulag, but now we have Nancy Pelosi’s gazpacho police spying on members of Congress, spying on the legislative work that we do, spying on our staff and spying on American citizens.”
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was mocked after ranting about the “gazpacho police” patrolling the U.S. Capitol on a podcast, The Guardian reports.Greene apparently confused cold Spanish soup with the Gestapo, the Nazi-era secret police in Germany.
Why do Republicans Oppose Biden’s Promise to Pick a Black Woman for SCOTUS
As Stanford professor and FiveThirtyEight contributor, Hakeem Jefferson, tweeted, “Conservatives didn’t get upset when Trump promised to nominate a woman to the bench because the qualifier ‘white’ was simply implied.” He later added that it’s the misogynoir, or unique biases Black women experience, not the pledge, that is the problem.
Read the rest here.
