Rock and Roll: Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and one of his senior officers were convicted yesterday of the rarely prosecuted crime of seditious conspiracy for attempting to interrupt the peaceful transfer of presidential power in the January 6^th insurrection. Rhodes, 57, and Kelly Meggs, 53, face 20 or more years in prison.

  Of the more than 900 people arrested after the insurrection, these are the most serious convictions.

  The jury accepted the government case that Rhodes and Meggs had conspired, plotted, and planned to keep Donald Trump in office after the 2020 election. Meggs led a team of Oath Keepers dressed in combat gear and formed into a military “stack” formation into the US Capitol that day. 

  Video presented to the jury showed Oath keepers in a hotel outside Washington staging guns and equipment in preparation for January 6^th. In one recording also presented to the jury, Rhodes tells a fellow Oath Keeper, “I do want some Oath Keepers to stay on the outside and to stay fully armed and prepared to go in armed if they have to. So if the shit kicks off, then you rock and roll, okay?”

  The defense claimed that the Oath Keepers were merely preparing for President Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act so they could rush in to provide armed support.

  The jury of seven men and five women deliberated for more than 17 hours. They also found Rhodes guilty of obstructing governmental process, the certification of the 2020 presidential election, and destroying evidence to hinder the federal investigation. The jury found Rhodes not guilty of two other conspiracy charges and acquitted three other defendants of sedition, while convicting them of lesser charges.

The War Room: The US will give Ukraine another $53 million to buy equipment for the repair of its missile-battered power grid, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced while in Romania at a summit of NATO leaders. This comes in addition to $55 million already promised for electrical repair.

  The US hopes other allies will follow suit to help fix the damage of weeks of Russian  aerial attacks on power installations. The Russians are trying to make the Ukrainian people suffer through winter with no power or public water.

  Russia now controls about 17 percent of Ukraine, the smallest amount of turf under occupation since the opening weeks of the invasion. The Russians have recently claimed to have taken villages around Bakhmut, southeast of the liberated city of Kerson, but the Institute for the Study of War says there’s no open evidence of that and dismisses it as “part of a continued information operation since October,” meaning the Russians also fight with lies. 

Hitched: The Senate voted 61-to-36 to grant federal recognition to same-sex and interracial marriages. The bill gets sent along to the House, which is sure to pass it and give it to President Biden for signing. 

The Long Count: Denial ain’t a river, it’s an election tactic.

 Donald Trump on Monday declared the Arizona midterm election “yet another criminal voting operation” and demanded that the defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake be “installed Governor of Arizona.”

  Lake, who campaigned saying the only result she would accept would be if she won, says she’s gathering evidence for a lawsuit to challenge the election she lost by a mere .6 percent — 17,116 votes.

  Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem, a 2020 election denier and member of the Oath Keepers militia, also is fighting the results in which he lost by over 120,000 votes out of  more than 2.5 million cast.

  The election, particularly in Maricopa County, was fraught with technical problems and long lines. It was a mess. But Lake claims the game was fixed, calling it the  “most dishonest elections in the history of Arizona.”  There’s no evidence so far of fraud, vote fixing, or problems that changed the outcome. 

  Nevertheless, Lake said, “We the people will not forget. God will not forget,” as if God cares whether Kari Lake is governor of Arizona.

Trump World: In what could be the slow political death of Donald Trump, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell yesterday condemned the former president’s dinner meeting with antisemites Kanye West and Nick Fuentes. “There is no room in the Republican Party for antisemitism or white supremacy,” McConnell told reporters. “And anyone meeting with people advocating that point of view, in my judgment, are highly unlikely to ever be elected president of the United States.”

On the Pitch: The US beat Iran 1-0 yesterday in a nail-biting match with 10 minutes of overtime to advance to the round of 16 in the World Cup.

  Iran was not on its game, failing to even take a shot until the second half, but they never let the Americans rest either. 

  Christian Pulisic, possibly the Americans’ best player, scored the only goal but sustained an abdominal injury colliding with the opposition goalie and had to leave the game at the half. 

  The US next plays the Netherlands on Saturday.

The Spin Rack: New York Mayor Eric Adams ordered police and medical workers to remove mentally ill homeless people from the streets, even if they pose no danger. Adams, who has vowed to clear homeless camps, said, “The common misunderstanding persists that we cannot provide involuntary assistance unless the person is violent.” — At least four tornadoes touched down yesterday and overnight in the South. Residents of Louisiana, Alabama and Florida are still under tornado watches.

Below the Fold: American photographer Spencer Tunick gathered 2,500 people Saturday for a naked photo shoot on Australia’s Bondi Beach to raise awareness of skin cancer. Tunick specializes in mass naked shoots.

  Organizers said as many as 2,000 Aussies a year die of skin cancer. One woman participant in the photo shoot  said, “I have to confess I was thinking, ‘What have I done?’ But it was great, everyone was a really good vibe, everyone was really respectful and it just felt really fun.

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