WTF Just Happened Today

Monday, November 8, 2021

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1/ The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol issued subpoenas to six former Trump advisers “tied to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election,” including two who were involved in plans at the Willard hotel “command center” to overturn the election the day before the attack on the Capitol. Those subpoenaed to provide testimony and documents include John Eastman, who outlined a legal strategy to deny Biden the presidency, former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, who led efforts to investigate voting fraud in key states, Michael Flynn, Jason Miller, Bill Stepien, and Angela McCallum. The committee “needs to know every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress, what connections they had with rallies that escalated into a riot, and who paid for it all,” Chairman Bennie Thompson said in a statement. The committee is demanding records and testimony from witnesses between late November and mid-December. (CNN / ABC News / Washington Post / NBC News / Bloomberg / CNBC / USA Today)

2/ The House passed the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill to improve the country’s roads, bridges, pipes, ports, and Internet connections, which Biden hailed as a “monumental step forward for the nation.” After a months-long standoff between progressive and moderate Democrats, the funding package passed on a 228-to-206 vote: 13 Republicans joined 215 Democrats in support, while six progressive Democrats voted against the measure. Progressives had insisted that they could not back the measure without a vote on the $1.75 trillion social safety net and climate bill, which a half-dozen moderate-to-conservative Democrats refused to support without an official cost estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which could take a week or more. Progressives ultimately accepted a written commitment from moderates that they would pass the social safety net and climate package when it comes up for a vote in mid-November, provided the spending plan does not add to the deficit. Democrats are now aiming to vote on the safety net bill before Thanksgiving. “Finally, infrastructure week,” Biden told reporters. “I’m so happy to say that: infrastructure week.” (New York Times / Washington Post / Associated Press / NPR /