Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport @ RawStory

Why is there even a question about prosecuting Stephen K. Bannon – and other advisors to Donald Trump — for snubbing a congressional subpoena? Since when is a formal summons optional?

For that matter, why are Republican members of Congress, including House Minority Speaker Kevin McCarthy, ducking responsibilities to testify to the Jan. 6 select committee about what they did or did not do on that insurrection day?

Bannon informed the panel last week that he would defy a subpoena, in accordance with a directive from Trump. No court has definitively said whether conversations with private citizens are covered by executive privilege, quite separate from whether the conversations were about things that are outside the scope of the job, to say nothing of illegal....

Apparently, the Republican argument suggests, we should just forget about the coronavirus and ignore a disease that has killed 700,000 Americans, variously overrun our hospitals, interrupted jobs, businesses, and lives, and has spurred a strong political resistance movement.

Even as some courts have already endorsed the idea of government mandates for masks and protections against contagion, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is challenging the right of President Joe Biden to act for public health as "yet another instance of federal overreach."

It's apparently okay for Abbott to mandate against mandates not only for the state's employees but for its private businesses as well. But, by contrast, it's not okay for the federal government to tell Texas, Florida, or any state what to do about a pandemic that knows no bounds, or for companies with more than 100 employees....

The looming covid fight is about vaccinating children, and all indications are that it will be ugly.

While tens of millions of parents, likely those who got vaccines themselves, will line up their children under 12 to protect themselves and school classmates against contagion, polls, experience, and logic show that resistance to vaccination and denial of a medical emergency will make jabbing the young even more an emotional confusion than it has been with adults.

Of course, even as we say this, we're still seeing plenty of fight over mandates for adults, now sparked anew by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott throwing his state in front of the perceived federal bulldozer for mandates by companies. None of this will help anyone medically, but apparently, there is always political gain to consider as more important....

We're seeing early results of the partisan campaigns of both parties to redraw Congressional districts in their favor. It's a quick dive into the poorly lit backroom of politics that can have a lasting effect on the results.

For those hoping that a decennial Census might help inform voting districts that more fairly match changing racial and ethnic population growth, the news already looks futile. For those hoping for some rational, fair, independent attempt to straighten the curious lines of individual districts, the early developments are not promising.

Instead, the building forecast is for more entrenched political party interests at the expense of the opponent party, more districts being hardened against competition, and fewer swing districts....

There was little surprise in the disclosures this week of a Senate Judiciary Committee majority staff report detailing what amounts to a plot led by Donald Trump to overthrow last November's election.

It was neither surprising that Trump would break federal law and ethical standards to stay in office nor that his own Justice Department office would threaten to resign en masse if Trump named Jeffrey Clark, a Big Lie loyalist, as attorney general to stop the Electoral College results from being confirmed by Congress.

Nor was it surprising that Democratic-appointed staff investigators would uncover important details of what amounts to an attempted coup by Trump. Indeed, few media reports noted that it was assembled and written by the majority staff rather than by the committee as a whole – which would have meant that Republican members had signed on to fact-finding as well....