Stack One: Stewart Rhodes, the leader and founder of the far right Oath Keepers militia, has been arrested by the FBI and charged with seditious conspiracy and other crimes for his part in plotting to storm the Capitol last Jan. 6^th.

  These are the most serious charges brought against anyone involved in the insurrection. The 11 men are accused of attempting to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power to Joe Biden.

  Sedition, among other acts, includes conspiracy to overthrow or destroy by force the government of the United States and to seize any property of the United States. Ten other Oath Keepers are charged as well.

   The 56-year-old Rhodes, who wears a patch over his left eye because of a gun accident, is a former paratrooper with a Yale law degree. He was outside the Capitol on Jan. 6th, communicating by cellphone and a chat app with other Oath Keepers who breached the building. But there is no evidence that Rhodes entered the Capitol himself.

  The  indictment charges that the Oath Keepers climbed the Capitol steps in a military “stack” assault formation then split, half going to the Senate and half to the House looking for Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  While this was happening, the indictment charges, an armed “Quick Reaction Force” was ready in Virginia to rush in for support of the initial team.

  The indictment says the team members went by code monikers including “Gator 1,” “Ahab,” “Faith,” and “Captain.”

  Two days after the 2020 election, the indictment says, Rhodes sent an encrypted message to his members saying. “We aren’t getting through this without a civil war.”
  In a later message, also encrypted, he said, “It will be a bloody and desperate fight. We are going to have to fight. That can’t be avoided.” 

  Rhodes and his 10 followers now face up to 20 years in prison.

Viral News: The Supreme Court  yesterday blocked the Biden administration vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers, crippling a critical part of the White House plan to attack the coronavirus pandemic.

  The vote was 6-3, with the liberal justices in dissent. 

  The employer mandate would have required workers to be vaccinated, wear masks, and be tested every week. The order covering as many as 84 million employees was issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the court said the agency doesn’t have the power to do that.

   The opinion says, “Although Congress has indisputably given OSHA the power to regulate occupational dangers, it has not given that agency the power to regulate public health more broadly. Requiring the vaccination of 84 million Americans, selected simply because they work for employers with more than 100 employees, certainly falls in the latter category.”

DOA: President Biden’s push for national voting rights laws appears dead after Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced  she would not vote to alter the filibuster rules to get the bills past Republican opposition. “Like every other major civil rights bill that came along, if we miss the first time, we come back and try it a second time,” Biden said after emerging empty-handed from his meeting with Senate Democrats. “We missed this time.”

Debatable: In a further signal that Republicans are going to have to line up behind Donald Trump for the mid-term and 2024 presidential elections, Sen. Lindsey Graham announced he won’t back Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to lead the party unless McConnell has a “working relationship” with the former president.   

  Speaking with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Graham McConnell for his broken relationship with Trump. “Elections are about the future,” Graham said. “If you want to be a Republican leader in the House or the Senate, you have to have a working relationship with President Donald Trump.”

  He also said Trump was “the most consequential Republican since Ronald Reagan.” 

  In other internal fighting, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was trying to “cover up” the Capitol insurrection by refusing to speak with the House investigating committee. Cheney told CNN, “I wish that he were a brave and honorable man. He’s clearly trying to cover up what happened.”

  And while we’re at it, the Republican National Committee told the Commission on Presidential Debates, which has hosted presidential and vice presidential debates for more than 30 years, that it will prohibit its nominees from participating in CPD debates. The Republicans claim, among other things, that the CPD has arbitrarily changed rules, held debates after early voting had begun, and failed to maintain political neutrality.

The Spin Rack: Australia’s immigration minister once again canceled the visa for tennis star Novak Djokovic. He’ll be back in court today to challenge that. — Queen Elizabeth stripped her son Andrew, often described as her favorite, of his military titles and royal functions. Although Andrew is a veteran of the Falklands war, more than 150 veterans objected to him keeping his military honors as he faces accusations in the US that he took pleasure with at least on teenage girl recruited by the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew will no longer be referred to as “his royal highness.” — Speaking of sex scandals, the ex-girlfriend of the odious Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz has appeared before a federal grand jury investigating the congressman, also for possible sex trafficking of a minor. — The student loan processing company Navient has agreed with 39 states to cancel $1.7 billion in loans. The lender was accused of making loans that students were unable to re-pay.

Sacré bleu!: After more than 70 years, the federal government decided that what American food companies call “French” dressing no longer needs to be regulated. The dressing that varies in color from orange to red has been minimally required to have oil, spices, and some kind of acidifier. It’s never actually been required to be actually French or even good. 

-30-