“He is required to answer for his actions,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and chairman of the committee. “He is required to answer to those police officers who put their lives and bodies on the line to defend our democracy,” he said.

  Montana’s Republican Liz Cheney said, “We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion.” Trump is likely to fight the subpoena, or plead the Fifth Amendment if he appears.

  In a separate action, the Supreme Court declined to intervene in Trump’s fight over the documents seized by the Justice Department from his Mar-a-Lago home. 

  In the hearing, Cheney also said yesterday that the committee has “sufficient information to consider criminal referrals for multiple individuals.” She didn’t say who.

  Committee members laid out evidence showing that Trump planned before the election to claim that he won no matter the result. They also demonstrated that Trump admitted to several people that he lost even though he continues to this this day to claim he was defrauded of a second term.

  In previously unreleased video, the committee showed Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer calling for help from the Justice Department as they were locked in with members of both parties during the insurrection.

  Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson was shown on video telling the committee that she and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows ran into Trump the night in December, 2020 when he lost his election appeal to the Supreme Court. She recalled Trump saying,  “something to the effect of, ‘I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out. We need to figure it out. I don’t want people to know that we lost.’”

Life for Death: A jury in Parkland, Florida recommended life in prison for school shooter Nikolas Cruz, who killed 14 students and 3 teachers in one of the worst school massacres in the country’s history. 

  Cruz had pleaded guilty and the three-month trial was to determine the penalty. It took the jury of seven women and five men just one day to decide on death, but they were split on the question of death.

  The families of victims expressed shock and disappointment that Cruz avoided death. Max Schachter, the father of shooting victim Alex Schachter said, “Coming in here today, we thought we were going to get justice. We thought that finally the parkland murderer was going to be held accountable for his actions.” 

  On Valentine’s Day in 2018, Cruz, who was a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, walked into the three-story building and began firing.  His defense lawyers had argued that the killer’s traumatic and dysfunctional childhood should have been considered as a mitigating factor in sentencing.

Econ 101: Inflation remained at a high 8.2 percent for the year through September, only a slight moderation from the 8.3 percent through August, according to the consumer price index.

  This increases the likelihood the Federal reserve will raise the base interest rate next month by half or three quarters of a point to further cool the economy and curb inflation.

  Not accounting for the more volatile food and fuel, inflation was still a high 6.6 percent.

  The biggest percentage jumps were in piped utility gas service (+2.9), motor vehicle maintenance and repair (+1.9), fruits and vegetables (+1.6), and motor vehicle insurance (+1.6).

  The good news for the older crowd is that Social Security payments will jump 8.7 percent next year to adjust for inflation.

The War Zone: More than three dozen people have been killed since Russia stepped up air strikes against civilian targets, according to Ukrainian officials. Missiles and drones have been blowing up power facilities, but also apartment buildings.

  One of the weapons giving Ukraine a lot of worry are so-called “kamikaze drones,” slow-moving and self-destructing aerial weapons.

  The Institute for the Study of War reports that Russia is also cranking up its information war. “Russia has seemingly intensified its information operation to falsely portray Ukraine as a terrorist state,” ISW says. They speculate that, “Russian authorities may also be setting conditions for false-flag attacks against Russia framed as Ukrainian-perpetrated acts of terrorism.”

The Spin Rack: Five people were killed, including an off-duty police officer, and two others were wounded in a shooting yesterday in Raleigh, North Carolina. The suspect is a minor who was taken into custody after a four and a half hour standoff. — Two police officers in Bristol, Connecticut were killed Wednesday night and a third was seriously wounded responding to a disturbance call. The suspect was killed. Police said the incident started with an incident in a bar and they subsequently went to a house about a mile away where they were ambushed. — – A Texas family of five was sentenced for storming the Capitol during the January 6^th insurrection, with the two parents sentenced to prison and three adult children given probation and home confinement. The Munn family from Borger, Texas, entered the Capitol through a broken window and were among the first to breach the building. The mother, Dawn Munn, said before sentencing that, “I was looking for somebody to show me proof that our election was going to be secure.” —  Nury Martinez, who already resigned as president of the Los Angeles City Council after being recorded making racist remarks, resigned her seat on the council as well.

Wildlife Loss: The World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London report that animal populations around the world shrunk by an average of 69 percent between 1970 and 2018. Wildlife is getting squeezed out by human life. The primary reasons are infrastructure development, energy production, and deforestation.

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