GOP Congresswoman Blamed Wildfires on Secret Jewish Space Laser  —  Axios has a small squib about “The Mischief Makers,” a handful of idiosyncratic congressional backbenchers who make trouble for their respective party leadership.  The leading Democratic mischief-maker is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez …

Public Statement  —  Statement of Acting Chair Lee and Commissioners Peirce, Roisman, and Crenshaw Regarding Recent Market Volatility  —  Acting Chair Allison Herren Lee Commissioner Hester M. Peirce Commissioner Elad L. Roisman Commissioner Caroline A. Crenshaw

‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years - ex-KGB spy  —  The KGB ‘played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality’, Yuri Shvets, a key source for a new book, tells the Guardian  —  Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset over 40 years …

Johnson & Johnson's Vaccine Offers Strong Protection but Fuels Concern About Variants  —  The vaccine's efficacy rate dropped from 72 percent in the United States to just 57 percent in South Africa, where a highly contagious variant is driving most cases.  —  Johnson & Johnson announced …

Suck It, Wall Street  —  In a blowout comedy for the ages, finance pirates take it up the clacker  —  In the fall of 2008, America's wealthiest companies were in a pickle.  Short-selling hedge funds, smelling blood as the global economy cratered, loaded up with bets against finance stocks …

Conservatives warn culture, political wars will worsen  —  The verdict is clear: The vast majority of Republicans will stand firm with former President Trump.  The next phase is clear, too: Republicans are rallying around a common grievance that big government, big media and big business …

'I'm just furious': Relations in Congress crack after attack  —  Some House lawmakers are privately refusing to work with each other.  Others are afraid to be in the same room.  Two members almost got into a fist fight on the floor.  And the speaker of the House is warning that “the enemy is within.”

Republican Ties to Extremist Groups Are Under Scrutiny  —  A number of members of Congress have links to organizations and movements that played a role in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.  —  WASHINGTON — The video's title was posed as a question, but it left little doubt about where the men who filmed it stood.

POLITICO Playbook: My wild day in Wyoming with Matt Gaetz  —  DRIVING THE DAY  —  TARA WRITES FROM CHEYENNE, Wyo. — When the opportunity arose to fly across the country to see whether a slick-suited, 30-something congressman from Florida could stage a substantial rally in the name of DONALD TRUMP …

Arizona GOP lawmaker introduces bill to give Legislature power to toss out election results  —  The Republican chair of Arizona's state House Ways and Means Committee introduced a bill Wednesday that would give the Legislature authority to override the secretary of state's certification of its electoral votes.

Pipe bombs found near Capitol on Jan. 6 are believed to have been placed the night before  —  The two pipe bombs that were discovered on Jan. 6 near the U.S. Capitol shortly before a mob stormed the building are believed to have been planted the night before, according to a law enforcement official familiar …

U.S. handling of American evacuees from Wuhan increased coronavirus risks, watchdog finds  —  The special counsel also criticized the HHS general counsel's office for its ‘attempts to shame the whistleblower.’  —  As the first American evacuees from Wuhan, China, touched down at a California military base …

Body Camera Footage Shows Capitol Rioters Trampling Over Woman  —  Video obtained by The Times provides a police officer's view of the deadly battle to defend a key entryway from the surging mob.  —  As 34-year-old Rosanne Boyland lay dying on the steps of the Capitol on Jan. 6 after being crushed by a mob …

‘Trump Just Used Us and Our Fear’: One Woman's Journey Out of QAnon  —  During the political fallout after four years of Donald J. Trump, one question is what will happen with the followers of conspiracy theories that bend Americans' perceptions of reality.  —  WASHINGTON — In the summer of 2017 …

Man who wore horns at riot willing to speak at Trump's trial  —  PHOENIX (AP) — The lawyer for an Arizona man who took part in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol while sporting face paint, no shirt and a furry hat with horns is offering to have his client testify at former President Donald Trump's upcoming impeachment trial.

DC Fails To Disbar Anti-Trump FBI Lawyer Despite Guilty Plea  —  As the U.S. government seeks prison time for a former FBI lawyer who admitted falsifying evidence to spy on a former Trump aide, the District of Columbia Bar association hasn't begun an investigation to strip him of his law license, records show.

‘Charming’ D.B. Cooper suspect Sheridan Peterson dies at 94, spent years dedicated to political causes  —  Sheridan Peterson, long considered a suspect in the D.B. Cooper skyjacking case, died Jan. 8 in California.  He was 94.  —  The California native served in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II …

Lots of Politics, Little Legitimacy  —  The USCCB needs an ecclesial and theological vision.  —  U.S. Catholicism Bishops Joe Biden  —  The second Catholic president of the United States is the first to hold office in the midst of an American intra-Church crisis.

Suspected Russian Hack Extends Far Beyond SolarWinds Software, Investigators Say  —  Roughly 30% of victims are said to have no connection to the network-management company's tainted software  —  Investigators probing a massive hack of the U.S. government and businesses say they have found concrete evidence …

The Conservative Case Against the Boomers  —  For bleakness, scope, and entropic finality, the progressive critique of the generation has nothing on the social-conservative one.  —  Everyone's fed up with the baby boomers.  Younger progressives charge them with a form of generational hoarding—of titles and power but mostly of money.

New Georgia runoffs data finds that more Black voters than usual came out.  Trump voters stayed home.  —  Those slight differences helped Democrats win the Senate.  —  This month, Georgia voters sent two Democrats to the U.S. Senate after runoff elections, breaking with a decades-long history of electing Republicans.

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel is trying to hold together a party that Donald Trump might want to tear up  —  Air Force One was fueled and ready for the final flight.  —  This was the end for Donald Trump, the last hours of a progressively more noxious and isolated presidency.

Biden's Worst Executive Order Went Almost Entirely Unnoticed  —  In the flurry of President Joe Biden's executive orders was one that was almost entirely overlooked but could easily end up having the biggest impact.  —  The order also seems harmless enough, going by the seemingly innocent title “Modernizing Regulatory Review.”

Oath Keepers Got Ammo Discount for Post-Election ‘Chaos’  —  KEEP THE FAITH … The store offering the sale was until very recently run by police officers, including a member of the far-right militia group.  —  In the days before the Nov. 3 election, the far-right paramilitary group …

I'm one of the 1%.  We should support Biden in raising our taxes  —  John MacIntosh was a partner at a leading global private equity firm, where he worked in New York, Tokyo and London.  He now runs a nonprofit in New York.  The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.  View more opinion at CNN.

Mattis: Trump ‘fomented’ Jan. 6 Capitol assault  —  Former Defense Secretary James Mattis said Thursday the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol was “fomented” by former President Donald Trump, and exemplified the “internal threats” faced by the U.S. that should be viewed “with every bit as much gravity …

So much for Joe Biden, moderate  —  President Biden wasted no time releasing a flurry of executive orders and legislative proposals.  Some of them may be helpful in addressing the economic challenges imposed by the coronavirus pandemic.  But others would almost certainly “cancel” …