The Dirty Half-Dozen: The House committee investigating the January 6th Capitol insurrection has issued subpoenas to a half-dozen more former Trump administration officials, organizers, and close associates involved with trying to overturn the election and the rally held before the siege.

  High on the list is John Eastman, the lawyer who appeared in a fedora next to Trump at the pre-riot rally who had written a memo advising to Trump to use  Vice President Pence to reject electoral college results and convince state legislatures from certain states also to reject electors.

  Trump has called for all his former associates to refuse cooperation.

  Also subpoenaed are Bill Stepien, the manager of Trump’s 2020 campaign, Jason Miller, a senior advisor, and Angela McCallum, Trump’s campaign assistant.

  Former General Michael Flynn, who briefly served as Trump’s national security advisor and who the committee said reportedly attended a December meeting at the White House during which participants discussed declaring a national emergency as a route for seizing voting machines.

  “The Select Committee needs to know every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress, what connections they had with rallies that escalated into a riot, and who paid for it all,” Chairman Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi  said in a statement.

  Subpoenaed as well are Michael Flynn, who briefly served as Trump’s national security advisor, and Bernie Kerik, the former NY City chief of police who is believed to have attended the January 5th “war room” meeting at the Willard Hotel.

  Whether any of them testifies remains to be seen. Trump buddy Steve Bannon refused to and has been held in criminal contempt of Congress, awaiting indictment by the Justice Department.

Funeral Rap: Rapper Travis Scott says he will pay for the funerals of all eight people killed in a crowd surge at his concert Friday night. He also says he will pay for mental health services.

  “Travis remains in active conversations with the city of Houston, law enforcement and local first responders to respectfully and appropriately connect with the individuals and families of those involved,” says a statement released by Scott’s people. “These are the first of many steps Travis plans on taking as a part of his personal vow to assist those affected throughout their grieving and recovery process.”

 In addition, organizers of the Astroworld festival say they will refund all ticketholders for Friday and Saturday’s cancelled events.  

  A criminal investigation has been opened into the incident. Scott is taking heat for failing to stop the show as people were dying, but he has not talked about that. He rolled out his love interest, the celebutante Kylie Jenner, who was there Friday night and said in a statement, “I want to make it clear we weren’t aware of any fatalities until the news came out after the show and in no world would have continued filming or performing.” 

Rittenhouse: The man who survived being shot by Kyle Rittenhouse during the fatal  Kenosha street demonstrations in August 2020 admitted that he pointed his own handgun at Rittenhouse but didn’t intend to shoot. Gaige Grosskreutz was there as both a protester and a volunteer medic.

  Rittenhouse fired instead, blowing away most of Grosskreutz’s right bicep. The then 17-year-old Rittenhouse had already killed two men.

  Grosskreutz said he drew his own gun after the shooting started. “I thought the defendant was an active shooter,” the 27-year-old said. He said he thought “That I was going to die.”

High Anxiety: A Russian military buildup on the border with Ukraine is giving the US greater concern that an invasion is in the offing.

  Pentagon press secretary John Kirby has said that the “scale” and “the size of the units that we’re seeing” from Russia is “unusual.” He said, “As I’ve said before, any escalatory or aggressive actions by Russia would be of great concern to the United States.” 

  Russia has also been squeezing the Ukraine energy supply. What, if anything, the US would do in the event of invasion is unknown.

  Publicly, Ukraine is downplaying the threat. Russia has “established a practice of “transferring and accumulating military units for the purpose of maintaining tension in the region and political pressure on neighboring countries,” Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said.

The Spin Rack: Saint Michael’s College north of Burlington, Vermont, is blaming Halloween parties for an outbreak of Covid-19 in 77 students. — Four SpaceX astronauts splashed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico last night ending a six-month stay on the International Space Station. They had to wear diapers on the return trip because the toilet was busted on their spacecraft. — State Farm insurance is dialing back on its ads featuring Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers following his deception about being vaccinated against Covid-19.   

Newswriting 101: The NY Post reports that Facebook has banned ads for the book “Penis Politics,” written by a former aide to former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo who departed office in a sexual harassment scandal.

  The Post says “the ads were rejected by stiffs at the social media giant.”

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