Gap in the Records: The House committee investigating the January 6^th insurrection has found gaps in the official records of who President Trump was talking to and when that day.

  Just one example; the Committee knows that Trump spoke to Vice President Mike Pence but the call is not in the record.

  It has been independently confirmed, however, that Trump spent 10 minutes on the phone on the 6th with Republican Rep. Jim Jordan.

  Trump has previously been reported to have been cavalier about preserving official records. He used his personal cellphone for official communications and had a habit of tearing up papers that then had to be taped together for preservation by the National Archives. It’s also been reported that he had documents placed in burn bags.

  The Washington Post reports that among some of the documents Trump took to Mar-a-Lago when he left Washington were some clearly marked “top secret.”

  Now, NY Times Reporter Maggie Haberman writes in her new book “Confidence Man” that the White House staff occasionally found a toilet jammed with ripped up official papers that Trump had attempted to flush.

  Trump denied it in a statement issued yesterday saying, “Another fake story, that I flushed papers and documents down a White House toilet, is categorically untrue and simply made up by a reporter in order to get publicity for a mostly fictitious book.” 

Econ 101: Prices rose 7.5 percent in January, the steepest inflation since 1982, according to the numbers in the Consumer Price Index. Gasoline alone rose 40 percent in the past year.

  Forecasters are optimistic that the average for the year will be closer to 3 percent, but we’ll see.

  Cars are taking a bigger bite out of buyers. New-car prices have skyrocketed over the past year, rising 12.2 percent as supply-chain disruptions and other issues have made it hard for manufacturers to keep up with strong consumer demand. Used-car prices are up by a stunning 40.5 percent. Now you have the situation with the Canada bridge protest, blocking the movement of car parts both North and South of the border, hindering production.

Viral News: The Navy announced it has discharged 240 members of the service who refused to get the Covid vaccine as required.

  The Army is also working on potential discharges. They report that 3,350 

Soldiers have refused, some for medical or religious reasons. “To date, Army commanders have relieved a total of six Regular Army leaders, including two battalion commanders, and issued 3,073 general officer written reprimands to Soldiers for refusing the vaccination order,” the Army said in a statement last month.

  New York City is getting tough. They’re preparing to fire today as many as 3,000 workers who have refused to get vaccinated. That’s about 1 percent of work force.

Five Ring Roundup: Halfpipe snowboarder Shaun White, a three time gold medalist, finished out of the medals yesterday in his  final Olympic competition. He went out with class. Japan’s Ayumu Hirano won the event with spectacular runs, but he wouldn’t exist if White hadn’t come before him.

  In the women’s Super G, Mikaela Shiffrin finished 9^th after failing to complete runs in two previous events.

 Russian skater Kamila Valieva is the focus of suspicion that she’s the one who was found to have a banned substance in her system. The International Olympic Committee says a minor on the Russian team was the one involved, and Valieva is the only minor on the team. 

  The drug in question is a heart medicine  that could improve performance in a young person who doesn’t need it. Because Valieva is only 15, she’s being treated differently than an athlete 16 or older and has not been named. 

  Valieva is the first woman to land a quad jump at the Olympics — twice— and she led the Russian Olympic Committee team to gold in the team event. If by chance the Russians are disqualified, the Americans would step up to first place, and Japan to second.

  The Olympic committee isn’t saying much about it. Mark Adams, a spokesperson for the International Olympic Committee said in a press conference that “because there are legal implications involved, I can’t talk very much about it at this stage.”

Out of Context: A top deputy to Virginia’s new Republican attorney general resigned after The Washington Post questioned Facebook posts she had made praising January 6^th rioters and falsely claiming Donald Trump won the 2020 election.

  Monique Miles wrote on January 6^th, 2021, that the attack was being carried out by “patriots” and was a “peaceful protest.”

  Miles told the Post  in an email that the messages “have been taken out of context” and she posted them “before all the audits occurred.” She said the revelation of her Facebook posts is a “character assassination to stir up controversy.”

The Spin Rack: A wing of the so-called “Freedom Convoy” of Canadian truckers protesting Covid safety mandates has blocked a third crossing into the US, the Emerson crossing into North Dakota. The three blockages have put a serious dent in commerce between the two countries. — A Seattle man who pleaded guilty to punching two police officers during last year’s January 6^th insurrection was sentenced to six months in prison yesterday, becoming at least the 100^th rioter sent to the slam. The convict is Mark Leffingwell, a 52-year-old veteran wounded in Iraq. — A federal judge has reversed a Trump administration decision and restored protections to gray wolves in the lower 48 states. Trump re-opened wolves to hunting even though they had been hunted nearly to extinction. 

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