Speak, He Said: A federal judge has ruled that former Vice President Mike Pence must break executive omerta and appear in front of the grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. The order overrules legal efforts by both Pence and Trump to prevent this.

  It’s a blow to Trump, and maybe to Pence as well. Pence had been claiming executive privilege, which protects communications between the president and some members of his administration. Prosecutors want Pence to testify about Trump’s demands on him, which have already been established by Pence’s aides in testimony last year to the House select committee that investigated the January 6^th insurrection.

  In addition to executive privilege, Pence claimed that as President of the Senate, he was shielded from legal scrutiny by the Constitution’s  “speech or debate”  clause that protects the separation of powers. While recognizing some immunity under  “speech or debate,” Judge James Boasberg said Pence would have to testify about any potential crimes committed by Trump. 

The Shooting Gallery:  Nashville police yesterday released stunning bodycam video of officers doing a quick, brave, and professional job of clearing rooms in the Covenant School and ultimately confronting and killing the shooter. It was everything that more than 300 cops did not do when they stood outside the school in Uvalde, Texas for more than an hour.

  Police Chief Drake said yesterday that the shooter, Audrey Hale, had legally bought the guns used to kill three children and three adults in the school. Drake said Hale had bought seven guns from five different local gun stores.

  Drake said Hale’s parent told police that they thought she had only one gun that she had sold. He said the parents told him that their child was under medical care for an emotional disorder — Hale was transgender. Drake said the parents thought their child should not own a gun, but, “As it turned out she had been hiding several weapons within the house.” 

  Tennessee Republican Rep. Andrew Ogles, who represents the Nashville district where the Covenant School occurred, said yesterday in a statement that he was “utterly heartbroken” about the massacre.

  Gun control advocates were quick to point out that Ogles sent out a 2021 Christmas card with his wife and three children posing in front of their decorated tree, four out of the five of them holding an assault rifle and the youngest daughter with a card that said “Peace.” 

The Gun: It’s possible that most Americans have no idea of the damage caused by a bullet from an AR-15, a rifle designed in the late 1950s that eventually became the standard military rifle, the M16, during the Vietnam War. It was made for efficient killing on the battlefield. The semi-automatic AR-15 is the weapon of choice for mass shooters, easily purchased in many states. While a standard bullet might cut a straight path through a human body, the .223 round from an AR-15 travels at 600 yards a second, so when it hits flesh the bullet tumbles and fragments, building up compression and blowing out huge exit wounds.

  The Washington Post, with the permission of the boys’ families, published an online animated article detailing the damage done by AR-15s to two victims of school shootings, Noah Pozner, 6, killed at Sandy Hook in Connecticut, and Peter Wang, 15, shot at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas in Florida.

  The Post says: “The carnage is rarely visible to the public. Crime scene photos are considered too gruesome to publish and often kept confidential. News accounts rely on antiseptic descriptions from law enforcement officials and medical examiners who, in some cases, have said remains were so unrecognizable that they could be identified only through DNA samples.”

  Here is the link: AR-15.

Migrant Fire: The number of dead in that fire in a migrant detention center in Juarez, Mexico has risen to 38. Security video shows the guards just walking away after detainees placed mattresses against the bars of their cell and set them on fire.

  Juarez is just across the US border from El Paso, Texas, and is a major crossing point for migrants. As the US cracks down on border crossings, Mexico is faced with housing the frustrated migrants. At the time of the fire, 68 men from Central and South America were being held at the facility. 

The Spin Rack: A Maryland appeals court yesterday reinstated the murder conviction of Adnan Syed, the subject of the “Serial” podcast who was freed last year after spending 23 years in prison fighting a conviction that he had killed his former high school girlfriend. The court ruled that a lower court violated the right of the victim’s family to be notified of the hearing that led to Syed’s conviction being thrown out. They didn’t say whether Syed must return to prison to wait for a new hearing. — A mother in St. Petersburg, Florida filed a formal objection after her child’s class was shown the movie “Ruby Bridges” about the little Black girl famously escorted by US Marshals to an all-white New Orleans grade school in 1960. In the complaint, the parent said the film isn’t appropriate for second graders because it might teach them that “white people hate black people.” — A Russian man is being deported from Indonesia after posing naked on top of the country’s sacred Mount Agung in Bali.

Below the Fold: This may be the first time fishermen are criminally punished for exaggerating the size of what they caught. Two fishermen found cheating during an Ohio walleye fishing tournament in September pleaded guilty in Cuyahoga County court. Jacob Runyan and Chase Cominsky put lead weights in their fish to win a $30,000 prize.

  Prosecutors recommended six months of probation, the forfeiture of their boat, and loss of their fishing licenses for three years.

  But, you know, they’ve got a great story to tell.

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