Surprise Witness: The House January 6^th committee has called an unscheduled public session to hear from a surprise witness identified by Punchbowl News as Cassidy Hutchinson, who was an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. The calling of an unscheduled session must mean that Hutchinson will have critical things to say. 

  Hutchinson was in the room for meetings leading up to the insurrection. She may have witnessed efforts to pressure Vice President Pence and the Justice Department to overturn the 2020 election. Her former boss, mark Meadows, has refused to answer subpoenas to testify, citing executive privilege.

God Help Us: In yet another weakening of precedent, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court ruled that a high school football coach had a Constitutional right to pray and lead others in prayer at the 50-yard line after his team’s games.

  The case involved Joseph Kennedy, an assistant coach at a public high school in Bremerton, Washington, who routinely offered post-game prayers with students often joining him. The school eventually declined to renew his contract.

  It’s been 60 years since the Supreme Court outlawed prayers in public schools, citing the separation of church and state. Kennedy’s school district argued that his publicly led prayers were coercive, pressuring players to participate regardless of religious beliefs. 

  Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion that Kennedy was free to pray because “Mr. Kennedy prayed during a period when school employees were free to speak with a friend, call for a reservation at a restaurant, check email, or attend to other personal matters.” What Gorsuch did not note is that all those other people were not employed by the school district.

  Gorsuch wrote that, “The number of players who joined Mr. Kennedy eventually grew to include most of the team,” which would seem to prove the school district’s point that it was an officially led prayer.

Just Desserts: Federal agents last Wednesday seized the cell phone of former Donald Trump lawyer John Eastman as he was leaving a restaurant in New Mexico. Eastman advised and supported Trump in his effort to overturn the 2020 election.

  Agents patted down Eastman and ordered hm to unlock his phone with face recognition. The seizure was revealed in a filing by Eastman’s own lawyers.

  It happened the same day that federal agents raided the home of former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who supported Trump’s claim of election fraud.

  The action indicates that the criminal investigation is intensifying surrounding post-election efforts to illegally retain Trump in the presidency. 

After Roe: With clinics quickly closing in anti-abortion states after the Supreme Court ruling striking down legal abortion, courts in Utah and Louisiana have granted temporary shields from so-called “trigger” laws, allowing clinics to keep seeing patients. In Florida, a judge is expected to rule today on whether to block the state’s 15-week ban on abortion.

  Since the Court ruling striking down nationally legal abortion, people have been snapping up supplies of  Plan B and other emergency contraceptive pills, causing some shortages. CVS said it would limit sales to three packs per customer.

  And in California lawmakers have placed a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would protect reproductive rights in the state.

The War Zone: A Russian missile struck a shopping mall in central Ukraine yesterday, killing at least 13 people and leaving 10 missing. 

  As many as 1,000 people may have been in the mall at the time. People had been out enjoying a day of normalcy in the industrial city of Kremenchuk when horror hit. Ukraine’s interior minister Denys Monastyrskyi said, “People just burned alive.” 

  The mall is not far from a facility used to repair tanks. Group of 7 leaders meeting in a statement from Germany called the mall attack a “war crime.” 

Free Press for Now: The Supreme Court yesterday declined to hear a case challenging  the 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan ruling, which protects media organizations from libel and slander.

 The historical decision says that even if a press organization says something false or defaming about a public official, it must be done with reckless disregard for the truth and “actual malice” in order to be sued. It’s been a critical case allowing the press to report ugly truths about politicians and public figures while allowing for mistakes. 

  The case in question involved the Southern Poverty Law Center labelling a Christian fundamentalist organization as a “hate group” because of its stances on human sexuality and marriage. The group, Coral Ridge, sued all the way to the Supreme Court, failing to overturn New York Times v. Sullivan.

 Justice Clarence Thomas, who appears to be on a campaign to reverse previous decisions, wrote in dissent that, “This case is one of many showing how New York Times and its progeny have allowed media organizations and interest groups ‘to cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity.’”

  For now, the press is still free to make blunt assessments of Thomas’s intelligence.

The Spin Rack: At least 46 migrants were found dead yesterday inside a tractor-trailer in San Antonio, Texas. Temperatures were in the 100s. Twelve survivors were taken to hospitals. — An Amtrak train in Missouri hit a truck and derailed, killing three people, including the driver of the truck. Fifty people were injured as the entire train turned on its side. — A Russian court extended the detainment of WNBA star Britney Griner for another six months and set her trial to start on Friday. She is accused of bringing cannabis-based vaping pods into the country. — Alex Wagner, a veteran of MSNBC and CBS News, is replacing the popular Rachel Maddow on her prime time MSNBC show. Maddow is staying with the network, but working less. 

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