The Quiet Coup:  One year since the Capitol insurrection, law enforcement is on alert this morning for a repeat of the attempted coup against the government of the United States. It’s a year late. A coup, if there is to be one, will come with guns and legislation.

  The full depths of danger to democracy that day have yet to be plumbed. We still don’t know everything about who was behind it and how it happened, not just on the Capitol steps, but in the Oval Office of the White House. Now, the House January 6^th investigating committee is asking to question former Vice President Mike Pence, who was called upon by Donald Trump to reject certification of the Electoral College vote, even though he didn’t have the power to do that. 

  A NY Times editorial notes that, “The effort extended all the way into the Oval Office, where Mr. Trump and his allies plotted a constitutional self-coup.”

  In the past year, 700 people have been arrested, 325 of them for felony offenses. At least 165 have pleaded guilty to crimes committed during the insurrection. Seventy have been sentenced and 31 of those have been sent to prison. Investigators are still looking for a man who planted two pipe bombs that never went off.

  Authorities say 140 police officers were injured in the riot and one later died. Two committed suicide within days of the assault.

  Attorney General Merrick Garland noted in a speech yesterday that disappointment with the election and belief that it was fraudulent have resulted in violent threats to election workers, members of Congress, judges, airline crews, health care workers, and school administrators.

  The  Survey Center on American Life has found that almost 100 million adults of all political persuasions agree that “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.” Some Americans are openly asking, “When can we use the guns?”

  In the meantime, Republicans in state legislatures they control have been busy re-writing the rules of elections and voting, determined to make it harder to elect a Democrat to anything, let alone president, and attempting to give themselves power over certifying the results. It’s the quiet coup.

  The NY Times says, “Thus the Capitol riot continues in statehouses across the country, in a bloodless, legalized form that no police officer can arrest and that no prosecutor can try in court.”

  Barton Gellman writes in the current issue of The Atlantic  that, “In at least 15 more states, Republicans have advanced new laws to shift authority over elections from governors and career officials in the executive branch to the legislature. Under the Orwellian banner of ‘election integrity,’ even more have rewritten laws to make it harder for Democrats to vote. Death threats and harassment from Trump supporters have meanwhile driven nonpartisan voting administrators to contemplate retirement.”

  Gellman concludes; “There is a clear and present danger that American democracy will not withstand the destructive forces that are now converging upon it. Our two-party system has only one party left that is willing to lose an election. The other is willing to win at the cost of breaking things that a democracy cannot live without.”

Viral News: New cases of Covid-19 are up 247 percent over the past two weeks. The CDC expects 54,000 people a day to end up in the hospital by the end of the month.

  Three of the largest health systems in Michigan say a combined 2,000 health care workers have tested positive for COVID-19 in just the last week, worsening staff shortages and forcing them to leave beds empty while delaying hundreds of surgeries and medical procedures.

  In entertainment, The 64th annual Grammy Awards that were to be held January 31^st are postponed and and the Sundance Film Festival normally held in Utah has been moved online.

Foot Fault: Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic yesterday was denied entry to Australia, losing his chance to defend his singles title in the Australian Open. The 20-time grand slam champion was held in an airport room for 12 hours while officials questioned his Covid vaccination status and his reasons for wanting an exemption from a vaccine mandate.

  The tennis world and Australian government were in a snit because tournament officials gave Djokovic permission to play even though he steadfastly refused to say whether he’s vaccinated against Covid-19. The Victoria state government has required all players, staff, and fans to be fully vaccinated, but Open officials had granted Djokovic a medical exemption for reasons not revealed. 

The Spin Rack: Twelve people died, including eight children, in a fire early yesterday in a Philadelphia row house owned by the local housing authority. The cause is undetermined. —  Dozens of antigovernment demonstrators in have been killed and hundreds injured in Kazakhstan. After the city hall in Almaty, the country’s largest city, was set on fire, and the airport overrun by an angry mob, police and paratroopers opened fire. — North Korea launched a ballistic missile yesterday, just days after outgoing South Korean President Moon Jae-in vowed to make a final push for peace with the Hermit Kingdom of Kim Jong Un. — The Dow hit a record high yesterday, closing at 36407.11.

Looking Up: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope successfully deployed its secondary mirror yesterday, giving great cheer to mission operators one day after the telescope unfolded its enormous sunshield. The sun shield is the size of a tennis court and it’s the critical piece of gear that will make it possible for the  floating observatory to look into the reaches of the universe. It’s a huge success so far in space exploration.

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