Politics and American Democracy – Page 120

I’m homeless in California. And I have an easy, cost-free solution to homelessness

The Sacramento Bee – Opinion

I’m homeless in California. And I have an easy, cost-free solution to homelessness | Opinion

Lydia Blumberg – January 8, 2023

I and my fellow residents of Wood Street Commons, an unhoused community in Oakland, believe politicians pushing sweeps of homeless encampments are only making things worse.

One thing that would dramatically improve the lives of unhoused people in California could be done today, wouldn’t cost taxpayers any money and would require no effort by politicians or city workers. It’s as simple as a governor or mayor uttering three words: Stop sweeps now.

Each time a homeless camp is dismantled, people’s lives are destroyed. All the effort we put into creating a home — we do not actually consider ourselves homeless because our camp is our home — is wiped away. Our worldly possessions, including identification, medical records, family heirlooms, clothing, electronics, furniture, instruments, bedding, tents, tools and other items that we use to earn income, are literally thrown into garbage trucks. Our handmade shelters are smashed by giant machines as we watch.

Opinion

How is this acceptable? How can the people who order and carry out sweeps live with themselves?

Each time a homeless camp is dismantled, its residents face more obstacles to overcoming what put them on the street in the first place. We create camps as a way to create stability, cultivate community, and accrue needed resources to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Destroying camps pushes us down and forces us to start over, with nowhere to go and often with nothing but the clothes on our backs.

Any politician who pledges to end homelessness in one breath and then pledges to rid the streets of encampments in the next — looking at you, Gov. Gavin Newsom — is completely out of his mind.

The billions spent “helping” the homeless are profoundly undermined by the daily aggression of sweeps, which many unhoused people experience several times a year. Take it from us, the real experts on this issue: Sweeps make homelessness more entrenched.

Sweeps are also an enormous waste of taxpayer money. A 2021 sweep in Los Angeles’ Echo Park, where which roughly 200 people were removed in a violent show of police force, cost an estimated $2 million. That’s nearly $10,000 per person! These are people whose lives were destroyed at an expense that could have housed them for months.

Yet city leaders declared the Echo Park sweep a rousing success, claiming nearly everyone from the camp was placed in temporary housing. But UCLA studies conducted a year later found that only a dozen or so of them remained in temporary housing. Of the rest, four were placed in permanent housing; seven died; and most returned to the streets.

Large cities routinely sweep one or more camps per day, meaning this cruelty is repeated thousands of times each year across the state and country. Sweeps don’t get rid of camps; they just move them around, causing chaos and wasting millions in the process.

A growing body of research illustrates why we should not only keep camps intact; we should actually encourage and celebrate them. That may sound crazy to many readers, but it couldn’t be more logical.

First, the idea that camps equal crime is a myth that has been dispelled. Researchers have in fact found that clearing homeless camps is associated with an increase in overdoses, hospitalizations and mortality.

In a review of research on the topic, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development noted that emergency shelters are unavailable, inaccessible or inhospitable to many unhoused people.

“Encampments may be the best alternative among a limited set of options,” the HUD report said.

It’s important to consider why people choose camps over other alternatives. Most temporary shelter facilities, and many of the permanent housing options designed to house the unhoused, come with a long list of rules that make them a little too much like prison. Among the most common rules are those limiting guests, spouses, pets, cooking, decorations and more possessions than can fit in a suitcase.

Tiny homes and sheds — the latest trends — are often placed like barracks on asphalt lots, surrounded by barbed wire and staffed by rude security guards. Would you give up your freedom to move to one of these places?

Humans need more than food, water and shelter. Autonomy and a sense of belonging are equally important to survival — and are actually the keys to recovery for people who have had a hard time in life. The impersonal facilities that we’re asked to move into are not designed with this in mind.

But autonomy and belonging are the essence of what camps are about. We camp together because it is essential to our physical and mental survival.

Our community on Wood Street in Oakland has recently been subjected to devastating sweeps. Caltrans has cleared an enormous section of the camp.

But the part that remains is stronger than ever. We cook for each other, distribute clothing and bedding, build our own tiny homes, play music, help each other heal, and host cultural events that have been attended by hundreds of housed residents. We see ourselves as part of a movement redefining the identity of American cities for the better: an identity based on an ethos of interdependence rather than the cult of independence that defines the world of the housed.

The last bit of land that we occupy on Wood Street is slated for clearance on Monday. We’ve been trying to work with Oakland officials to find a place where we can set up a new community and begin to rebuild yet again, but they refuse to cooperate. The city loves to tell us where we can’t be but has yet to tell us where we can be.

We do not accept this, which is why we’re taking matters into our own hands. We recently rode our bikes to the Capitol in Sacramento to speak with lawmakers there, and we will continue to press the case at City Hall. We will not be denied the essential human right to exist and exert our free will.

This piece was authored by Lydia Blumberg and other residents of Wood Street Commons, a settlement of unconventionally housed residents in West Oakland founded on the idea of “homeless helping the homeless.”

Come to the ‘war cry party’: How social media helped drive mayhem in Brazil

The Washington Post

Come to the ‘war cry party’: How social media helped drive mayhem in Brazil

Elizabeth Dwoskin – January 8, 2023

Supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro clash with police during a protest outside the Planalto Palace in Brasilia on Sunday. (Eraldo Peres/AP)

In the weeks leading up to Sunday’s violent attacks on Brazil’s congress and other government buildings, the country’s social media channels surged with calls to attack gas stations, refineries and other infrastructure, as well as for people to come to a “war cry party in the capital,” according to Brazilian social media researchers.

Online influencers who deny the results of the country’s recent presidential election used a particular phrase to summon “patriots” to what they called a “Festa da Selma” – tweaking the word “selva,” a military term for war cry, by substituting an “m” for the “v” in hopes of avoiding detection from Brazilian authorities, who have wide latitude to arrest people for “anti-democratic” postings online. “Festa” is the Portuguese word for “party.”

Organizers on Telegram posted dates, times and routes for “Liberty Caravans” that would pick people up in at least six Brazilian states and ferry them to the party, according to posts viewed by The Washington Post. One post said, “Attention Patriots! We are organizing for a thousand buses. We need 2 million people in Brasilia.”

That online activism culminated in busloads of people landing in the capital Sunday, where they stormed and vandalized three major government buildings, reportedly setting fires and stealing weapons in the most significant assault on the country’s democratic institutions since the country’s 1964 military coup.

Brazilian analysts have long warned of the risk in Brazil of an incident akin to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. In the months and weeks leading up to the country’s presidential election in October – in which leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated the right-wing incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro – social media channels were flooded with disinformation, along with calls in Portuguese to “Stop the Steal” and cries for a military coup should Bolsonaro lose the election.

On TikTok, researchers found that five out of eight of the top search results for the keyword “ballots” were for terms such as “rigged ballots” and “ballots being manipulated.” At the same time, Facebook and Instagram directed thousands of users who plugged in basic search terms about the election toward groups questioning the integrity of the vote. On Telegram, an organizing hub for Brazil’s far right, a viral video taken down by authorities called for the murder of the children of leftist Lula supporters.

In the days following the final election tally on Oct. 30, Bolsonaro supporters who rejected the results blocked major highways across the country. These blockades morphed into demonstrations in dozens of cities, where supporters camped out in front of military bases for weeks. Some held signs saying “Stolen Election” in English, a testament to the close ties between right-wing movements in both countries.

Though Lula’s inauguration last week took place largely without incident, calls for violence and destruction have accelerated online in recent weeks, said researcher Michele Prado, an independent analyst who studies digital movements and the Brazilian far right.

“For years now, our country has been going through a very strong process of radicalizing people to extremist views – principally online,” she said. “But in the last two weeks, I’ve seen ever-growing calls from people incentivizing extremism and calling for direct action to dismantle public infrastructure. Basically, people are saying we need to stop the country in its tracks and generate chaos.”

Posts demanding a coup, along with common pro-Bolsonaro hashtags claiming “election fraud,” and “stolen election,” have circulated on all social media services. The most violent rhetoric as well as the most direct organizing has taken place on the largely unmoderated messaging service Telegram.

Researchers in Brazil said Twitter in particular was a place to watch because it is heavily used by a circle of right-wing influencers – Bolsonaro allies who continue to promote election fraud narratives. Several influencers have had their accounts banned in Brazil and now reside in the United States. Bolsonaro himself was on vacation in Florida on Sunday.

Billionaire Elon Musk, who completed his acquisition of Twitter in late October, fired the company’s entire staff in Brazil except for a few salespeople, said a person familiar with the firings who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive matters. Among those fired in early November included eight people, based in Sao Paulo, who moderated content on the platform to catch posts that broke its rules against incitement to violence and misinformation, the person said. The person said they were not aware of any teams actively moderating rule-breaking content on Twitter in Brazil.

Criticism specifically targeting Alexandre de Moraes, a judge at the Superior Electoral Court and the Supreme Federal Court who is despised by Bolsonaro supporters because he has blocked many prominent right-wing leaders from posting online, have also stepped up since the election, Prado and others said.

Footage circulating on social media from Sunday’s demonstration showed rioters pulling a chair from a government building, upon which they placed the seal of the Brazilian republic. One rioter shouted, “Look everyone, it’s Big Alexander’s chair!,” using a derogatory nickname for Moraes. Expletives followed, according to the video. It could not be confirmed if the chair had been taken from Moraes’s chambers.

Despite their seeming similarities, Brazilian researchers said, Bolsonaro supporters are careful not to draw too many comparisons to Jan. 6 in the United States because doing so could trigger arrest for inciting anti-democratic acts, a crime in Brazil. If Jan. 6 is referenced, as it was in a handful of posts this week, the utterances appear in code, said Viktor Chagas, a professor at Fluminense Federal University in Rio de Janeiro state who researches online, far-right movements.

Still, Chagas said, Sunday’s riot was “a clear attempt to emulate the invasion of the U.S. Capitol, as a reproduction of Trumpist movements and a symbolic signal of strength and transnational connections from the global far-right.”

Chagas noted that Jan. 9 is an important nationalist symbol in Brazil, marking the day the country’s first ruler, Emperor Dom Pedro I, declared that he would not return to Portugal, in what is popularly known as “I Will Stay” Day.

“It is as if Bolsonarists were equating Bolsonaro with D. Pedro I, and indicating that the former government will remain,” he said. Some posts have also referenced “I will stay day,” indicating that the demonstrations would probably continue through Monday, he added.

In a tweet on Sunday, Bolsonaro – a prolific social media user who has been relatively quiet since his election defeat – denounced the attacks: “Peaceful demonstrations, by law, are part of democracy,” he tweeted, hours after the assault began. “However, depredations and invasions of public buildings as occurred today, as well as those practiced by the left in 2013 and 2017, were outside of the law.”

Brazilian researchers said that among Bolsonaro supporters, a counternarrative had begun to circulate Sunday, blaming the Lula government and people from Lula’s party for infiltrating peaceful, democratic demonstrations to turn the country against supporters of Bolsonaro. The counternarrative also had echoes of the Jan. 6 insurrection, in which many Trump supporters blamed left-wing activists for the violence.

The mayhem Sunday was “a disaster,” said Paulo Figueiredo Filho, a presenter for the right-wing channel Jovem Pan who lives in Florida and has had his social media accounts canceled by Moraes. “It is Moraes’s wet dream.”

Kevin McCarthy ‘won’ the House speakership. Now the country will pay the price

Los Angeles Times

Column: Kevin McCarthy ‘won’ the House speakership. Now the country will pay the price

Mark Z. Barabak – January 6, 2023

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 04: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) touches the arm of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on the floor of the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol Building on Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023 in Washington, DC. After three failed attempts to successfully vote for Speaker of the House, the members of the 118th Congress is expected to try again today. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) — Newly minted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, seen with Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, made so many concessions to win the post he will spend his tenure living on a razor’s edge. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

For years, Kevin McCarthy wanted to be speaker of the House in the worst possible way, and that’s precisely what he accomplished by winning the leadership post after 15 humiliating rounds of voting and days of give-away-the-store negotiations.

McCarthy may have once dreamed of striding boldly forth to claim the mantle of a robust Republican majority.

Instead, with the GOP barely in control and the chamber in chaos, McCarthy crawled into the speakership early Saturday on his hands and knees.

He ceded so much to foes — effective veto power over must-pass legislation, greater say over committee assignments, allowing a sole dissident to trigger a vote on his ouster — that McCarthy will spend his shaky tenure, as long as it lasts, balanced on a razor’s edge. One nick and he’s gone.

Far more troubling, McCarthy’s cowardly concessions leave the country hostage for the next two years to an extreme fringe of far-right zealots, who threaten to turn the normal operation of government and such typically routine business — like raising the debt ceiling to avoid default and economic catastrophe — into a cliffhanging drama.

The deep humbling of McCarthy could be seen as cruel, a snub by fellow lawmakers whose power was made possible by the Bakersfield Republican’s years of hard work as grand strategist and campaigner in chief for the House GOP. But the drip-drip torture of prolonged balloting was so egregiously self-inflicted, so glaring in the making and so abundantly well-deserved that it is impossible to muster even the slightest bit of sympathy.

The fecklessness of McCarthy has been well chronicled, and a further accounting needn’t go on at length. One example stands out: The outrage he expressed at then-President Trump for instigating the Jan. 6 riot quickly melted not just into acceptance but utter capitulation, as McCarthy hastened to Mar-a-Lago to beg forgiveness for having, ever so briefly, dared hold the Oval Office tyrant to account.

There are marshmallows made of sterner stuff.

But McCarthy has long been guided by one thing, and one thing only: the acquisition of power (by whatever means necessary) and ascension to the leadership post that very nearly exceeded his grasp.

Policy has never been McCarthy’s forte. There is no landmark legislation that bears his thumbprint, no law that flowed from the wellspring of his intellect. Campaigns and elections have been his sole skill set and personal relations his great specialty: the backslapping, glad-handing hail-fellow bonhomie that made the nine-term congressman likable enough to fellow Republicans, but not someone they particularly respected.

Though there is nothing wrong with that — you can’t accomplish a great deal in politics without making friends and winning elections — there has never been much more than that. McCarthy has proven a man unworthy of trust, his spine bendable, his values pliable, his beliefs open to barter.

There are weather vanes with more firmly fixed positions.

As a lawmaker in Sacramento when moderate Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was in charge, McCarthy fought to keep GOP extremists at bay. As a member of Congress, and major recruiter of Republican candidates, he embraced the GOP fringe, starting with the far-right “tea party” movement and continuing under the QAnon-embracing Trump.

McCarthy helped bring a fire-spitting breed of anti-government, anti-establishment radicals into the GOP tent, and then almost lost his end of the bargain when they turned against him.

The blandishments McCarthy might have offered to horse trade his way to the speakership — fancy titles, perks, a fundraising appearance — meant little to those Republican holdouts who would like nothing more than to burn Washington to the ground.

In the end, a willingness to neuter himself was the price McCarthy was forced, and proved sadly willing, to pay.

There is an epithet thrown at those in the GOP deemed less than 100% pure: Republican in name only. McCarthy, eagerly stepping into a straitjacket of his own design, has earned himself the dubious distinction of becoming speaker in name only.

His rudderless soul and ham-fisted miscalculation stand in notable contrast to his most recent predecessor, Nancy Pelosi.

While the San Francisco Democrat never ruled her caucus as the googly-eyed liberal of popular parody, she was guided by a bone-deep set of left-leaning convictions that helped yield a series of triumphs, including passage of Obamacare after many in her party had given up. Not least, a firm set of guiding principles also helped marshal the unruly cadre on her side of the aisle.

All McCarthy managed to prove in his clumsy reach for power was a bottomless capacity to get pushed around and capitulate to extortion. He won with scarcely a vote to spare.

At bottom, McCarthy had to struggle to claim the prize he long sought because he was too transparently ambitious and too blatantly transactional — which is saying something in an institution fueled by ambition and where mutual backscratching has been elevated to a high art form.

“Kevin McCarthy is not a conservative,” Virginia Rep. Bob Good, one of the original and most fervent of the never-McCarthy Republicans, told Politico in the run-up to the speakership vote. “He kind of just floats with whatever’s politically expedient.”

McCarthy cashed out his integrity a long time ago.

Sadly, the country will now have to pay the price.

Joe Biden Wants to Change Social Security: Will the New Congress Help With Reform Efforts?

Motley Fool

Joe Biden Wants to Change Social Security: Will the New Congress Help With Reform Efforts?

By Sean Williams – January 7, 2023

KEY POINTS

Social Security is facing a $20.4 trillion funding shortfall through 2096 that, if left unattended, could lead to sweeping benefit cuts.
Prior to his election as president, Joe Biden unveiled a four-point plan to reform Social Security.
Despite a new Congress taking shape just days ago, altering Social Security is highly unlikely.

Social Security is in trouble, and President Biden believes he has the ideal plan to fix it.

In November, nearly 66 million Americans, many of whom are aged 62 and over, received a Social Security benefit. For the 48.5 million who are retired workers, these payouts are widely viewed as a necessity to cover their expenses.

But despite providing a financial foundation for our nation’s retirees, America’s top retirement program finds itself in deep trouble. President Joe Biden believes he has the solution that can resolve what ails Social Security, but he’s going to need the help of newly elected lawmakers to fix it. President Joe Biden delivering remarks in the East Room of the White House.

PRESIDENT BIDEN DELIVERING REMARKS. IMAGE SOURCE: OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY ADAM SCHULTZ.

Retired workers could be less than 12 years away from having their benefits cut

For each of the past 83 years, the Social Security Board of Trustees has released a report that’s examined the financial status of the program over the short term (the next 10 years) and long term (75 years following the release of a report). The Trustees Report effectively acts as Social Security’s balance sheet and allows anyone to see how revenue is collected and where those dollars end up.

In addition to backward-looking financial data, the Trustees Report factors in changing macroeconomic and demographic factors to determine the financial health of Social Security.

The 2022 Trustees Report showed that Social Security had dug its largest hole yet: an estimated $20.4 trillion funding shortfall through 2096. For what it’s worth, every Trustees Report since 1985 has projected a long-term funding shortfall.

Social Security’s increasingly dire financial footing is primarily a result of demographic shifts. Examples include historically low U.S. birth rates, a near-halving in net immigration into the country over two decades, and growing income inequality, among other factors. With these changes weighing on the worker-to-beneficiary ratio, it would appear the program’s financial foundation will only worsen.

Based on last year’s projections, the asset reserves for the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund (OASI) are expected to run out in 2034. The OASI is the Trust responsible for paying benefits to 48.5 million retired workers each month, as well as nearly 5.9 million survivors of deceased workers. If this excess cash were to be exhausted within the next 12 years, the Trustees believe an across-the-board benefit cut of 23% would be necessary to sustain payouts through 2096. For context, a 23% benefit cut would reduce the average Social Security check by roughly $420 per month (In January 2023 dollars), or $5,000 per year.

While Social Security is in no danger whatsoever of becoming insolvent, the size of Social Security checks paid to retired workers 12 years from now is very much in question. A Social Security card wedged between a fanned assortment of cash bills.

IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.

Joe Biden has proposed sweeping reforms for Social Security

In 2020, prior to his election as president, then-candidate Joe Biden released a plan he believed would strengthen Social Security for decades to come. Although there are four Social Security changes Biden is seeking, two stand out as key to shoring up the program.

This biggest Social Security change proposed by Biden would tackle income inequality head-on and generate a lot of extra revenue.

In 2023, Social Security’s 12.4% payroll tax is applicable to earned income between $0.01 and $160,200. “Earned income” means wages and salary but not any sort of investment income. Approximately 94% of all working Americans earns less than the maximum taxable earnings cap (the $160,200 figure). For the other 6% of workers, earned income above this $160,200 level is exempt from the payroll tax.

Joe Biden’s proposal would create a doughnut hole between the maximum taxable earnings cap and $400,000 where earned income would remain exempt, as well as reinstate the payroll tax on earned income above $400,000. Since the maximum taxable earnings cap tends to rise over time with inflation, this doughnut hole would eventually close decades down the line. This immediate increase in payroll tax revenue should push back the asset reserve depletion date of the OASI.

The other notable Social Security change President Biden is seeking is the replacement of the program’s measure of inflation.

Since 1975, the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) has been used to determine Social Security’s annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). Unfortunately, as its name implies, this is a price-measuring index focused on the spending habits of “urban wage earners and clerical workers.” In other words, people who generally aren’t receiving a Social Security benefit.

Biden would like to see the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E) used to calculate COLA instead of the CPI-W. The CPI-E specifically tracks the spending habits of older Americans, which would likely provide a larger annual cost-of-living adjustment.

Is a new Congress the recipe Biden needs to reform Social Security?

The challenge for Joe Biden — and frankly, every other president for more than three decades — is that he needs the support of lawmakers in Congress to amend the Social Security Act. Just a few days ago, the 118th Congress officially took shape.

The big question is: Will this new Congress work with the president to effect Social Security reform? If I were to give the Magic 8 Ball a shake, the “All signs point to no” answer would almost assuredly pop up.

Whereas the previous Congress featured a razor-thin majority in the U.S. Senate for Democrats, as well as a modest majority in the House of Representatives, the new Congress features a shift to a slight majority in the House for Republicans.

Democrats and Republicans both agree that Social Security needs attention. However, they’ve approached their respective fixes from completely different viewpoints. Whereas Biden’s proposal seeks to raise additional revenue from high-earners and boost benefits for low-earning workers, the Republican solution aims to increase the full retirement age and shift the inflationary measure to the Chained CPI. Without getting too far into the weeds, the GOP plan focuses on reducing long-term outlays to save Social Security money. In short, both parties have solutions that work, albeit on very different timelines and with ideologically opposite approaches.

The other challenge for Biden is getting the necessary votes in the Senate to amend Social Security. In the upper house of Congress, 60 votes are needed to amend America’s top retirement program. Since neither party has controlled at least 60 votes in the Senate since 1979, it means all legislation proposing to alter Social Security would require bipartisan support. Garnering that support has proved virtually impossible for every president since Ronald Reagan.

Though a new Congress has taken shape, Biden’s Social Security changes are extremely unlikely to find legislative support.

Warning about aquifer’s decline sets up big fight in Kansas

Associated Press

Warning about aquifer’s decline sets up big fight in Kansas

John Hanna – January 6, 2023

Lee Reeve poses for a photo at the cattle feedyard and ethanol plant operated by his family Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023, near Garden City, Kan. Reeve sees language by the Kansas Water Authority on controlling groundwater use in western Kansas as "toxic,"as the Kansas Legislature looks to take up ways to address depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer in the upcoming session. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel) — Lee Reeve poses for a photo at the cattle feedyard and ethanol plant operated by his family Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023, near Garden City, Kan. Reeve sees language by the Kansas Water Authority on controlling groundwater use in western Kansas as “toxic,”as the Kansas Legislature looks to take up ways to address depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer in the upcoming session. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

A discarded couch litters the dry bed of the Arkansas River Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023, near Garden City, Kan. The river in western Kansas is mostly dry after decades of extensive groundwater use and periodic droughts. Lawmakers are looking to take up groundwater issues in western Kansas in the upcoming session as the Kansas Water Authority is urging stricter usage measures to try to slow the steady decline of water levels in the Ogallala Aquifer. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Kansas Geological Survey field research technician Connor Umbrell measures water levels in an irrigation well Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023, near Marienthal, Kan. Lawmakers are looking to take up groundwater issues in western Kansas in the upcoming session as the Kansas Water Authority is urging stricter usage measures to try to slow the steady decline of water levels in the Ogallala Aquifer. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas water experts are sounding an alarm decades in the making: Farmers and ranchers in the state’s western half must stop pumping more water out of a vast aquifer than nature puts back each year or risk the economic collapse of a region important to the U.S. food supply.

That warning is setting up a big and messy fight for the annual session of the Kansas Legislature set to open Monday.

The Kansas Water Authority is telling lawmakers that Kansas needs to break sharply with its decadeslong policy of slowing depletion while still allowing water levels to drop in the Ogallala Aquifer. The aquifer covers roughly 175,000 square miles (453,000 square kilometers) in the western and Great Plains states of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming and South Dakota.

Most of those states have areas where depletion is a problem, but the call in Kansas to “halt” the declines has farmers, ranchers and politically influential agriculture groups preparing to battle proposals that would give them less control over water and possibly could force them to cultivate fewer acres, buy expensive new equipment or turn on a dime to grow different crops.- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html

Imposing the Water Authority’s policy means agribusinesses that drive the region’s economy would have to consume less water — perhaps as much as 30% less in some areas. Lawmakers also would have to decide whether local officials would keep driving conservation efforts or if the state would be in charge.

“The easy part was making the statement. That didn’t cost anybody anything,” said Clay Scott, who farms in southwestern Kansas. “We’re going to have to start paying for it, and we have to decide how that gets divvied up.”

Kansas produces more than 20% of the nation’s wheat and has about 18% of the cattle being fed in the U.S. The western third of Kansas, home to most of its portion of the Ogallala, accounts for 60% of the value of all Kansas crops and livestock. That’s possible because of the water.

The recommendation on the Ogallala from the water authority, a planning and advisory commission, is a response to data showing that since widespread pumping began around 1940, much of the Ogallala has lost at least 30% of its available water and more than 60% in places in western Kansas. The Kansas Geological Survey had a team in western Kansas this week to measure well depths for updated figures.

“There are wells that are starting to run dry already, so this isn’t a distant problem in some areas,” said Tom Buller, executive director of the Kansas Rural Center, a nonprofit that promotes sustainable agriculture and family farming. “There isn’t a lot of time to solve the problem.”

The Water Authority’s recommendation comes as much of the western U.S. continues to suffer through a megadrought fueled by climate change. Parts of Kansas have had drought conditions for a year, and more than half the state has been in extreme drought since mid-September.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is currently working on a plan to cut water use from the Colorado River in western states by 15%, and Arizona is restricting large-scale farming. Nebraska last year launched a $500 million canal project to divert water from the South Platte River in Colorado.

“We are told that the future, due to climate change, is going to get warmer and drier in western Kansas,” said Connie Owen, director of the Kansas Water Office, which oversees long-term plans for preserving water. “That is making things worse, which is all the more reason that we have to deal with this now.”

There’s broad agreement, including among powerful agriculture groups and nervous farmers and ranchers, that Kansas needs to extend the aquifer’s life.

But the path forward isn’t yet clear for Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and the Republican-controlled Legislature.

In a pre-session interview, Kelly promised only to get affected parties together to negotiate a comprehensive solution. She added that following her narrow reelection in November, “I’ve got some political capital to spend to deal with what will be a very contentious issue.”

Depletion of the Ogallala was one reason that in the Kansas House, the Water Committee last year considered a 283-page bipartisan proposal to set aside $49 million a year for conservation efforts and other programs. The measure also would have reorganized those programs and made the official who grants rights to use water independent of the state Department of Agriculture. In addition, it would have curbed the power of big irrigators in local districts that manage groundwater use, including from the Ogallala.

Opponents included the Kansas Farm Bureau and the Kansas Livestock Association. Nothing ultimately passed after critics accused supporters of drafting it largely in secret. The committee’s chair later retired.

The new Water Committee chair, Republican Rep. Jim Minnix, a southwestern Kansas farmer, said he hopes to work on incentives for local officials to be more aggressive about water conservation.

The state allows local districts to set restrictions, and one in northwest Kansas gets high marks from water experts and officials for cutting water use. In one area of 99 square miles (256 square kilometers), it set water-use rules, sought to cut consumption 20% and reduced it 35% over the past decade, according to Manager Shannon Kenyon.

Kenyon prizes local control but said the state should take charge where local officials haven’t pursued enough conservation.

If local officials allow the water dry up, she said, “They are going to kill the economy in the state of Kansas,” Kenyon said.

Some western Kansas farmers argue that the state’s best move is to ramp up education about ways to conserve water and provide incentives to help farmers adopt them. Several of them, as well as local water officials, said agriculture has become more careful with water over the past several decades through new technology, new crop varieties and better farming practices.

Lee Reeve, whose family has farmed near Garden City in southwest Kansas for more than 100 years and now operates a cattle feed yard and ethanol plant, sees the Water Authority’s language on halting depletion as “toxic,” noting that farmers already are suspicious of government programs.

“There’s just enough of this scare stuff out there that it’s hard to get through to people that, ‘Hey, there are things we can do,’” he said.

Crazies taking over the asylum: Ginni Thomas Leaps Into House Speaker Battle Against Kevin McCarthy

HuffPost

Ginni Thomas Leaps Into House Speaker Battle Against Kevin McCarthy

Mary Papenfuss – January 5, 2023

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, has jumped squarely into the battle against Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s bid to become speaker of the House.

The in-your-face activism comes in the wake of stinging criticism of Thomas’ high-profile support of extremist right-wing politics even as her husband continues to rule in support of some of the same issues, raising serious conflict-of-interest concerns.

“Conservative organizations and the millions of grassroots conservatives … are united in our support of the 20 courageous members of Congress seeking to change the status quo in Washington,” said an open letter published Wednesday by the Conservative Action Project organization and signed by Thomas and about 70 other right-wing activists and organization officials.

“We stand behind them and beside them in their courageous efforts to find a Speaker of the House who will represent the interests of conservatives,” the letter added.

Most of the 20 “courageous” lawmakers, as they’re referred to in the letter, who have voted against McCarthy in his repeated bids to become speaker had denied the results of the 2020 presidential election, despite no evidence of their claims of widespread voter fraud.

Thomas backed the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionists, even though she testified to members of the House select committee investigating the U.S. Capitol riot that she had no evidence of election fraud.

Text messages previously released by the committee revealed how Ginni Thomas relentlessly pushed Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to do what he could to subvert the 2020 election results and keep Trump in power.

Thomas was joined in signing the letter by Cleta Mitchell, the controversial attorney who was on the phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffesnperger after the 2020 election when the then-president demanded that Raffensperger “find” just enough votes to change his loss to Joe Biden into a victory. That phone call is now at the center of a Georgia grand jury investigation.

Mitchell plotted with the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council to challenge the election in the event Trump lost months before a single vote was cast. Lisa Nelson, the CEO of ALEC, announced to members in early 2020 that the organization had been working with Mitchell on “action items that legislators can take to question the validity” of the election, according to a recording obtained by the watchdog group Documented.

Thomas has been the target of stinging criticism for her role in extremist right-wing politics even as her husband rules on issues dear to her heart.

Supreme Court justices were divided over 2020 election issues but ultimately refused to accept Trump’s claims of election rigging. Clarence Thomas, however, stood out for emphasizing ballot fraud in sympathy with those who, like his wife, refused to accept the results.

He has also stood apart when other justices refused to block the work of the Jan. 6 committee, even while his wife was affected by the decision. Federal law requires all federal judges to recuse themselves from cases in which they cannot be impartial.

Norman Orenstein, emeritus scholar of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, has called it a massive “scandal” that Clarence Thomas continues to rule on issues his “radical insurrectionist” wife is involved in.

“The wife of a Supreme Court justice is a radical insurrectionist. Her husband has refused to recuse himself from any of the cases in which she has been deeply and actively involved. This is a scandal of immense proportions.”

As for McCarthy, the House adjourned until Friday after he lost an 11th vote to become speaker.

Related…

Why Does Kevin McCarthy Even Want to Be Speaker at This Point?

Daily Beast

Why Does Kevin McCarthy Even Want to Be Speaker at This Point?

Charlotte Clymer – January 5, 2023

Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero / The Daily Beast / Getty

As the overhead lights dimmed in the House chamber on Wednesday evening, beckoning those present to begin their commutes back to apartments scattered across D.C., Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy put on a brave face and chatted amiably with colleagues.

It had been a brutal two days. After six ballots and six nominating speeches by oblivious colleagues and six opposing anti-McCarthy speeches that wouldn’t have seemed out-of-place in a Parks and Recreation town hall, McCarthy had failed to gain any movement against a bloc of far-right conservatives who seemed determined to end his dream of becoming Speaker of the House.

The California Republican looked about as lost as Donald Trump in a public library. I’m sure he thought it wasn’t supposed to be this way, but given who we’re talking about, it was inevitable. When it comes to leadership, Kevin McCarthy has always been a resumé in search of a reason.

Kevin McCarthy’s Speaker Battle Shows Newt Gingrich’s GOP Is Truly Dead

In 2010, McCarthy published the book Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders, along with co-authors Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan. Touted as the future of conservative politics, the trio staked out specifically defined roles meant to highlight their strengths: Cantor was the captain, Ryan was the thought leader, and McCarthy was the tactician.

Had he not been thumped in a shocking primary upset to a Tea Party candidate in 2014, Cantor would have likely become the first Jewish Speaker of the House. Ryan would go on to win the gavel after the retirement of Speaker John Boehner and spend four painful years negotiating the rise of Trump, before absconding after the utter shellacking his party took in 2018.

Say what you will about Cantor and Ryan, but they weren’t bereft of vision. They had specific policy goals, made them known, and weren’t afraid to fight for their beliefs, even with members of their own party, even on principle, however inconsistent that may have been.

Unlike his fellow Young Guns, Kevin McCarthy doesn’t appear to have any sort of vision beyond his own quest for power. His current and past GOP colleagues certainly seem to think so.

In a text exchange with CNN contributor Alyssa Farah Griffin—a former Trump administration official—she had little sympathy for the embattled GOP leader: “I’m sorry but McCarthy bears tremendous responsibility for this current disaster. He empowered the Hard Right, who are now blocking him, all while he’s telling his Conference that they can’t support anyone other than him because that would empower the hard Right.”

Stephen Colbert Can’t Believe He’s Agreeing With Matt Gaetz

Last month, Matt Gaetz published an op-ed in The Daily Caller claiming: “Every single Republican in Congress knows that Kevin does not actually believe in anything. He has no ideology. Some conservatives are using this fact to convince themselves that he is the right leader for the moment, as McCarthy is so weak he’ll promise anything to anyone.”

Gaetz also pointed to former GOP Rep. Bill Thomas (R-CA), McCarthy’s former mentor, who told a reporter last month: “Kevin basically is whatever you want him to be. He lies. He’ll change the lie if necessary. How can anyone trust his word?”

Many reporters who have covered him seem to agree, perhaps with a bit more subtlety.

This past June, a blistering op-ed from Politico’s Michael Schaffer summed up McCarthy in a brutal paragraph of descriptions from journalists, with various takes on his lack of policy curiosity and, notably, a 2018 article by Julie Hirschfield Davis that described him as “a golden retriever of a man.”

OK, perhaps not so much subtlety.

Seriously, why does Kevin McCarthy want to be speaker? Has anyone figured that out? Has anyone asked him directly? I don’t think he knows beyond some half-baked effort at his legacy. He has articulated no particular vision for the country. His colleagues don’t seem to trust him, and the reporters who have followed his career aren’t impressed with his knowledge of policy.

McCarthy has scrambled in recent weeks to placate his detractors in the caucus, offering numerous concessions—this morning going so far as to concede a rule that would permit any individual member to call for a no-confidence vote on his leadership, an embarrassing reversal that he previously vowed not to accept.

Holdouts Take Kevin McCarthy’s New Offer and Vote for Him to Shove It

It’s surreal to be as progressive as I am—in many ways, the antithesis of Kevin McCarthy—and understand, in ways he apparently doesn’t, that the more he offers concessions and grovels to these people, the more he drives them away. They dislike him not because of any glaring differences in policy but because he’s weak. And by “weak,” I mean that he’s spiritually weak. What does Kevin McCarthy stand for at the end of the day? What does he believe in? He doesn’t even have the good sense to believe in himself. Who wants to follow a leader like that? I sure as hell wouldn’t.

Even those Democratic lawmakers who opposed former Speaker Nancy Pelosi in previous leadership elections affirmed their respect for her as a colleague, which is why she won nine consecutive leadership elections and didn’t need more than one ballot in any of them.

I think even if McCarthy manages to pull a rabbit out of his hat and gets to that magic majority threshold for election, he’s going to be an ineffective speaker. His colleagues don’t respect him. They certainly don’t fear him. He’s a paper tiger in a room full of matches.

He fears his own caucus and craves their approval, and they know it.

Mexico arrests Ovidio Guzman, son of ‘El Chapo,’ city engulfed by violence

Reuters

Mexico arrests Ovidio Guzman, son of ‘El Chapo,’ city engulfed by violence

Lizbeth Diaz and Dave Graham – January 5, 2023

Mexico arrests Ovidio Guzman, son of 'El Chapo,' in Culiacan

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican drug cartel leader Ovidio Guzman, a son of jailed kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, was arrested, unleashing a violent backlash by gang gunmen on Thursday that shut the airport in the city of Culiacan as authorities told residents to stay indoors.

Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval told a news conference that security forces had captured the 32-year-old senior member of the Sinaloa Cartel. The arrest comes three years after an attempt to detain him ended in humiliation for the government.

Ovidio was now being held in the capital Mexico City, Sandoval said.

Videos shared on social media, which Reuters was unable to immediately verify, appeared to show heavy fighting overnight in Culiacan, the main city in the northern state of Sinaloa, with the sky lit up by helicopter gunfire.

The city’s airport was the target of violence, with Mexican airline Aeromexico saying one of its planes had been hit by gunfire ahead of a scheduled flight to Mexico City. No-one was hurt, it said. The airport was closed until Thursday night.

Ovidio, who has become a key figure in the cartel since the arrest of his father, was briefly detained in 2019 but was quickly released to end violent retribution in Culiacan from his gang. The incident was an embarrassing setback for the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

His latest capture comes before a North American leaders’ summit in Mexico City next week, which U.S. President Joe Biden will attend and at which security issues are on the agenda.

One of the Mexican officials said Guzman’s arrest was likely to prove a welcome addition to U.S.-Mexico cooperation on security ahead of Biden’s visit.

The United States had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Ovidio.

It not yet clear whether Ovidio will be extradited to the United States like his father, who is serving a life sentence at Colorado’s Supermax, the most secure U.S. federal prison.

A surge in overdose deaths in the United States, fueled by the synthetic opioid fentanyl, has led to increased pressure on Mexico to combat the organizations – such as the Sinaloa Cartel – responsible for producing and shipping the drug.

The cartel is one of the world’s most powerful narcotics trafficking organizations.

For Tomas Guevara, a security expert at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, Guzman’s arrest helps save face for Mexican law enforcement following the humiliation of having to let El Chapo’s son go in 2019.

“The detention of Ovidio is finally the culmination of something that was planned three years ago,” he said.

It might also herald a change in approach by the government, Guevara added, after criticism from many security experts that Lopez Obrador was soft on the cartels, an accusation he denies.

The president argues the confrontational tactics of his predecessors were unsuccessful and only caused more bloodshed, saying he would instead pursue a strategy of “hugs not bullets.”

RESIDENTS URGED TO STAY INDOORS

On Thursday morning, security forces were attempting to contain a violent reaction to the arrest in the Culiacan area by Guzman’s associates.

Burned vehicles were scattered on the streets and heavily armed law enforcement patrolled in pickup trucks.

“We continue to work on controlling the situation,” said Cristobal Castaneda, Sinaloa’s public security chief.

Local government urged people to stay indoors and said schools and administrative offices were closed due to the violence. Street blockades had also been erected.

“We ask the citizens of Culiacan not to leave home due to the blockades that have occurred in different parts of the city,” Culiacan Mayor Juan de Dios Gamez wrote on Twitter.

Joaquin Guzman, 65, was convicted in New York in 2019 of trafficking billions of dollars of drugs to the United States and conspiring to murder enemies.

Eduardo Guerrero, director of Lantia Consulting which analyzes Mexican organized crime, said that recent pressure from the Biden administration to target the Sinaloa Cartel had likely motivated Mexico to go after Guzman.

But he warned that while Ovidio’s capture was likely to weaken that cartel, it could help their main rival, the notoriously violent Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

“It’s very important the government bear in mind that the weakening of the Sinaloa Cartel may also bring about an even greater expansion, a greater presence of the Jalisco Cartel.

(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz, Dave Graham and Diego Ore, additional reporting by Tomas Bravo, Kylie Madry and Jackie Botts, Writing by Stephen EisenhammerEditing by Alistair Bell)

Cartel lays siege to Mexican city after recapture of the son of ‘El Chapo’

Los Angeles Times

Cartel lays siege to Mexican city after recapture of the son of ‘El Chapo’

Kate Linthicum – January 5, 2023

FILE - This Oct. 17, 2019 file frame grab from video provided by the Mexican government, shows Ovidio Guzman Lopez at the moment of his detention, in Culiacan, Mexico. Mexican security forces had Ovidio Guzman Lopez, a son of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, outside a house on his knees against a wall before they were forced to back off and let him go as his gunmen shot up the western city of Culiacan. (CEPROPIE via AP, File) — Ovidio Guzmán, a leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel, is taken into custody by Mexican security forces in 2019. He was released then, but was apparently captured again Thursday. (Associated Press)

Armed men took hostages, burned vehicles and stormed an airport in northern Mexico on Thursday after federal forces captured Ovidio Guzmán, one of the world’s most wanted cartel leaders and the son of drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

The drug boss was arrested early Thursday in the city of Culiacan, a stronghold of Guzmán’s Sinaloa cartel, and was later flown to Mexico City, according to Mexican Secretary of Defense Luis Crescencio Sandoval González.

Officials canceled flights, suspended school and ordered residents to shelter in place as videos circulated on social media showing roads blockaded by burning vehicles and gunfire erupting on the tarmac of the Culiacan airport. One local journalist, Marcos Vizcarra, said he had been effectively taken hostage along with other civilians in a hotel, their cars confiscated by armed gunmen to be incinerated in the streets.

The dramatic cartel response was eerily similar to a bloody siege on Culiacan in 2019, the last time federal forces sought to capture 32-year-old Ovidio Guzmán.

Vehicles burn on a city street — Vehicles burn in Culiacan, Mexico, on Oct. 17, 2019, after the arrest of the son of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán there. A similar scene was playing out Thursday as Ovidio Guzmán was reportedly arrested a second time in Culiacan. (AFP via Getty Images)

In 2019, federal forces raided a luxurious Culiacan compound and subdued Ovidio Guzmán, who has helped lead the Sinaloa cartel since his father was sentenced to life in prison in the United States.

But as Mexican national guard members were attempting to take him into custody, hundreds of Sinaloa fighters seized control of the city, taking hostages, blocking intersections with burning vehicles and laying siege to a housing complex for the families of military personnel. Eight people were killed. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador eventually ordered Guzmán’s release to avoid more bloodshed.

Many Mexicans and U.S. law enforcement personnel were furious about the bungled operation, which they said humiliated federal forces and sent a dangerous message to criminal groups.

The recapture of Guzmán comes days before a scheduled visit to Mexico by President Biden. Some in Mexico speculated that it was timed to please the Americans, who have grumbled about the Mexican president’s crime-fighting strategy and in particular his effort to shield a former defense minister charged by U.S. officials with collaborating with organized crime.

Former President Vicente Fox, a major critic of López Obrador, speculated in a tweet that “Ovidio will be the gift for Biden.”

George Israel, a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said López Obrador was “cleaning the house before Biden arrives, gift in hand with bow and all.”

Meanwhile, the situation on the ground in Culiacan seemed far from contained.

After videos circulated showing gunfire at the airport, Aeromexico, the country’s largest airline, said one of its planes was attacked but said there had been no injuries.

Rubén Rocha Moya, the governor of Sinaloa state, called on citizens “to remain calm and take shelter in their homes.”

Cecilia Sánchez in The Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.

Capitol riot investigation growing 2 years later

Associated Press

EXPLAINER: Capitol riot investigation growing 2 years later

Michael Kunzelman – January 5, 2023

FILE - Violent insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier on Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File) — Violent insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier on Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

FILE - Violent insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump, storm the Capitol, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File) — Violent insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump, storm the Capitol, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

FILE - U.S. Capitol Police hold rioters at gun-point near the House Chamber inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) — U.S. Capitol Police hold rioters at gun-point near the House Chamber inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

Violent insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

FILE - Violent insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File) — U.S. Capitol Police hold rioters at gun-point near the House Chamber inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

Violent insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

FILE - Police with guns drawn watch as rioters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) — Police with guns drawn watch as rioters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - People shelter in the House gallery as rioters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) — People shelter in the House gallery as rioters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

The largest investigation in the Justice Department’s history keeps growing two years after a violent mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol and challenged the foundations of American democracy.

More than 930 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the siege on Jan. 6, 2021, and the tally increases by the week. Hundreds more people remain at large on the second anniversary of the unprecedented assault that was fueled by lies that the 2020 election was stolen.

A surplus of self-incriminating videos and social media posts has made it difficult for riot suspects to present viable defenses. Federal prosecutors have a near-perfect trial record, securing a conviction in all but one case.

The cases have clogged Washington’s federal court, a building less than a mile from the Capitol. Virtually every weekday, judges are sentencing rioters or accepting their guilty pleas while carving out room on their dockets for trials. Already scheduled for this year are trials for about 140 riot defendants.

At least 538 cases, more than half of those brought so far, have been resolved through guilty pleas, trials, dismissals or the defendant’s death, according to an Associated Press review of court records. That leaves approximately 400 unresolved cases at the outset of 2023.

While a House committee has wrapped up its investigation of the riot, the Justice Department’s work appears to be far from done. A special counsel is overseeing two federal investigations involving Trump: one into the retention of classified documents at the former president’s Florida estate and a second into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The Jan. 6 attack as an “assault on our democracy,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

“And we remain committed to doing everything in our power to prevent this from ever happening again,” he said in a statement Wednesday.

A look at where the prosecutions stand:

HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN CHARGED?

The number of defendants charged with Jan. 6-related federal crimes is approaching 1,000. They range from misdemeanor charges against people who entered the Capitol but did not engage in any violence to seditious conspiracy charges against members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys extremist groups accused of violently plotting to stop the transfer of presidential power.

More than 100 police officers were injured at the Capitol. More than 280 defendants have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement officers on Jan. 6, according to the Justice Department. The FBI is posting videos and photos of violent, destructive rioters in seeking the public’s help in identifying other culprits.

Investigators have used facial recognition software, license plate readers and other high-tech tools to track down some suspects. Networks of online sleuths have helped the FBI identify rioters based on digital clues.

Among those still on the lam: the person who put two explosives outside the offices of the Republican and Democratic national committees before the riot. The FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Metropolitan Police Department are offering a $500,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

Authorities have shared a staggering amount of evidence with defense lawyers — more than nine terabytes of information that would take over 100 days to view. The shared files include thousands of hours of surveillance footage from the Capitol and hundreds of hours of bodycam videos from police officers who tried to hold off the mob.

HOW MANY HAVE PLEADED GUILTY?

Nearly 500 people have pleaded guilty to riot-related charges, typically hoping that cooperating could lead to a lighter punishment.

About three-quarters of them pleaded guilty to misdemeanors in which the maximum sentence was either six months or one year behind bars. More than 100 of them have pleaded guilty to felony charges punishable by longer prison terms.

The first person to plead guilty to a Jan. 6-related crime was Jon Ryan Schaffer, an Indiana musician who joined the Oath Keepers. Schaffer was one of at least eight Oath Keepers who pleaded guilty before the group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, and other members went to trial on seditious conspiracy charges.

The Justice Department also cut plea deals with several Proud Boys members, securing their cooperation to build a case against former national leader Enrique Tarrio and other top members of the group. A New York man, Matthew Greene, was the first Proud Boys member to plead guilty to conspiring with others to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote.

HOW MANY HAVE GONE TO TRIAL?

Dozens of riot defendants have elected to let juries or judges decide their fates. For the most part, they haven’t fared well at trial.

The Justice Department notched a high-stakes victory in November when a jury convicted Rhodes, the Oath Keepers’ founder, and a Florida chapter leader of seditious conspiracy. It was the first seditious conspiracy conviction at trial in decades. Jurors acquitted three other Oath Keepers associates of the Civil War-era charge, but convicted them of other felony offenses.

The next major milestone is the sedition trial of Tarrio and four other members of the Proud Boys. Jury selection in the trial of the far-right extremist group started last month.

In other cases, an Ohio man who stole a coat rack from the Capitol testified that he was acting on orders from Trump when he stormed the Capitol. A New Jersey man described by prosecutors as a Nazi sympathizer claimed he didn’t know that Congress met at the Capitol. A retired New York Police Department officer testified that he was defending himself when he tackled a police officer and grabbed his gas mask outside the Capitol.

Those defenses fell flat. Jurors unanimously convicted all three men of every charge in their respective indictments.

Federal juries have convicted at least 22 people of Jan. 6 charges. Judges have convicted an additional 24 riot defendants after hearing and deciding cases without a jury.

Only one person, New Mexico resident Matthew Martin, has been acquitted of all charges after a trial. After hearing testimony without a jury, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden concluded that it was reasonable for Martin to believe that outnumbered police officers allowed him and others to enter the Capitol through the Rotunda doors on Jan. 6.

HOW MANY HAVE BEEN SENTENCED?

At least 362 riot defendants were sentenced by the end of 2022. Roughly 200 of them have received terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years. Prosecutors had recommended a jail or prison sentence in approximately 300 of those 362 cases.

Retired New York Police Department Officer Thomas Webster has received the longest prison sentence. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who sentenced Webster to a decade in prison, also presided over the first Oath Keepers sedition trial and will sentence Rhodes and Rhodes’ convicted associates.

Webster is one of 34 riot defendants who has received a prison sentence of at least three years. More than half of them, including Webster, assaulted police officers at the Capitol.

The riot resulted in more than $2.7 million in damage. So far, judges have ordered roughly 350 convicted rioters to collectively pay nearly $280,00 in restitution. More than 100 rioters have been ordered to pay over $241,000 in total fines.

Judges also have ordered dozens of rioters to serve terms of home detention ranging from two weeks to one year — usually instead of jail time — and to collectively perform more than 14,000 hours of community service.