Trump to Court: In a case that may set constitutional precedent, Donald Trump appealed to the Supreme Court to block the release of 700 pages of records his presidential records to the House committee investigating the January 6^th insurrection at the Capitol.

  Trump has claimed executive privilege over the records even though he’s no longer the country’s chief executive.

  The House committee is investigating what may have been Trump’s role in either inspiring or planning the insurrection, as well as what may have been efforts to overturn the election, essentially staging a coup.

  A lower court has already allowed the House committee to go forward, but Trump is asking the highest court to put a hold on that and ultimately decide in his favor. Trump’s lawyers wrote, “The limited interest the Committee may have in immediately obtaining the requested records pales in comparison to President Trump’s interest in securing judicial review before he suffers irreparable harm.” 

  Note that they cite harm to Trump, not the country.

The Cop Found Guilty: Former Minnesota police officer Kim Potter was found guilty yesterday of first and second degree manslaughter in the shooting death of black motorist Daunte Wright last April. Once a long-serving officer of the Brooklyn Center police, the 49-year-old Potter was led away in handcuffs.

  The jury’s decision is an unusual one, particularly in an accidental police killing, because jurors most often side with the cops.

  The judge denied a request for Potter to be released on bail until a sentencing in which she is likely to be sent to prison. The maximum is 15 years and a $30,000 fine.

  Potter and another officer in training stopped the 20-year-old Wright because he had an air freshener hanging from his rear view mirror, which is illegal in Minnesota. When Wright began resisting, Potter shouted “Taser ! Taser! Taser!” but pulled her gun instead, shooting and killing Wright.

The Omicron Wave: The Food and Drug Administration approved a second at-home treatment for people with Covid-19 in just two days.

  The drug called Molnupiravir is a five-day course of pills for patients 18 and older at high risk of severe Covid-19. It is reported to have cut the risk of hospitalization and death by 30 percent. Merck says it will have 10 million packs of the drug available by the end of the month.

  On Wednesday the FDA approved  Pfizer’s Paxlovid for the same purpose.

  In an effort to avoid spread of Covid at the Beijing Olympics, officials have advised fans to “Avoid shouting, cheering and singing — show support or celebrate by clapping instead.” They’ve alreadylimited the audience at the games to people from mainland China. “A certain number of positive cases will become a high probability event,” Han Zirong, secretary-general of Beijing’s Winter Games organizing committee said.

  Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump, who created the culture of doubt about the reality of the Covid pandemic and the need for vaccines, surprisingly told an interviewer  that the “vaccine works” and “people aren’t dying when they take the vaccine.”

  Trump contracted Covid when he was still in office and has since been vaccinated.

“Look, the results of the vaccine are very good, and if you do get (Covid), it’s a very minor form. People aren’t dying when they take the vaccine,” told with The Daily Wire’s Candace Owens. As questioned the vaccine efficacy, Trump interrupted, saying, “Well, no, the vaccine works.” He said, “The ones that get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don’t take their vaccine. But it’s still their choice, and if you take the vaccine, you are protected.” 

The Obit Page: Author Joan Didion, who burst into the literary scene in the 1960s with reports on the edges of American culture in the breezy and personal style of what was then called “The New Journalism” before becoming a best-selling novelist, died at home in Manhattan at age 87.

  The cause was the effects of Parkinson’s Disease.

  After her breakout as a journalist, she went on to write the best-sellers “Play It as It Lays” and “The Book of Common Prayer.” 

   Didion wrote essays for The New York Review of Books on the civil war in El Salvador and Cuban émigré culture in Miami, which were later published as the books “Salvador” and “Miami.”

  About Miami she said, “Havana vanities come to dust in Miami.” 

  Salvador: “Terror is the given of the place.”

  And she wrote about Los Angeles; “A good part of any day in Los Angeles is spent driving, alone, through streets devoid of mean­ing to the driver, which is one reason the place ex­hilarates some people, and floods others with an amorphous unease. There is about these hours spent in transit a seductive unconnectedness. ”

  Didion was married to the writer John Gregory Dunne. Together they wrote the screenplays for “Panic in Needle Park,” which launched Al Pacino as an actor, and the adaptation of Didion’s second novel, “Play It as It Lays.” 

  The pair met in the 1950s and Dunne died of a heart attack in 2003 at age 71. Didion wrote afterwards in “The year of Magical Thinking” that “A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty.” 

The Spin Rack: President Biden announced that pandemic relief for about 41 million federal student loan borrowers will be extended once again until May 1. — The police chief in Oakboro Town, North Carolina  has been put on unpaid leave and probation for telling officers about a “clinic” that would give them a Covid vaccination card without actually getting the shot. 

Merry Christmas to All: We’ll take the day off tomorrow unless the earth shakes.

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