memeorandum: One Year Since the Jan. 6 Attack on the Capitol (U.S. Department of Justice)

8:00 AM ET, January 1, 2022

Top Items:

Betty White Dead at 99 — EXCLUSIVE — 1.41M … 3:32 PM PT — Betty's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is drawing a crowd ... and folks are leaving candles, flowers, stuffed animals and other tokens. — 12:32 PM PT — The beginnings of a makeshift memorial outside Betty's house are underway.

Discussion: New York Times, Salon, Raw Story, The Daily Dot, Mediaite, The Western Journal, W, Insider, Joe.My.God., Billboard, The Wrap, The Gateway Pundit, Pet Rescue Report, Variety and The Daily Caller

Stephen M. Silverman / People.com:

Betty White, The Golden Girls and Hot in Cleveland Star, Dead at 99 — “Even though Betty was about to be 100, I thought she would live forever,” Betty White's agent and close friend Jeff Witjas tells PEOPLE in a statement — Betty White, TV's perennial Golden Girl, has died. She was 99.

Discussion: Breitbart, New York Post, Washington Blade, Page Six, Todd Starnes, NPR, Variety, Fox News, Deadline, Billboard, CNN, KRON4, The Wrap, RedState, Vanity Fair, UPI, NBC Chicago, Insider, Al Jazeera, Deseret News, FOX 46 Charlotte, Hollywood Reporter, Raw Story, WRIC-TV and Slate

Richard Severo / New York Times:

Betty White, a Television Golden Girl From the Start, Is Dead at 99 — Among the many highlights of a career that began in 1949 were star turns on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” in the 1970s and “Saturday Night Live” in 2010. — Betty White, who created two of the most memorable characters in sitcom history …

Discussion: Associated Press, Balloon Juice, Variety, The Mahablog and NPR

Adam Bernstein / Washington Post:
Betty White, one of the most endearing and enduring faces on television, dies at 99

Discussion: Reuters, Mediaite, Florida Politics and The Daily Beast

Kyle Morris / Fox News:

Ron DeSantis accompanied wife to cancer treatment while critics claimed he was ‘missing’ — DeSantis announced his wife's breast cancer diagnosis in October — Florida Democrats blame DeSantis for COVID surge — Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis accompanied his wife to her cancer treatment …

Discussion: Althouse, HuffPost, RedState, Townhall, No More Mister Nice Blog, TheGrio, Twitchy, Joe.My.God. and HotAir

Nathaniel Rodriguez / WFLA-TV: Gov. Ron DeSantis to make public appearance at Orange Bowl, first event appearance in two weeks

Mark Moore / New York Post:
AOC pictured dining maskless in Miami Beach as Omicron cases soar

Discussion: National Review, The Hill, Insider, Power Line and Instapundit

Darragh Roche / Newsweek:
Where Is Ron DeSantis? Photos Fuel Speculation About Whereabouts of Florida Governor

Discussion: Mediaite, Joe.My.God. and Political Flare

Cate Cadell / Washington Post:

China harvests masses of data on Western targets, documents show — China is turning a major part of its internal Internet data surveillance network outward, mining Western social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to equip its government agencies, military and police with information on foreign targets …

New York Times:
Chinese Police Hunt Overseas Critics With Advanced Tech

more at Techmeme »

Adam Liptak / New York Times:

Chief Justice Roberts Reflects on Conflicts, Harassment and Judicial Independence — In his year-end report, the chief justice said that the court administrators, not Congress, should address financial conflicts and workplace misconduct in the judicial system.

Discussion: USA Today, NBC News, CNN, Bloomberg and SCOTUSblog

Wall Street Journal:

Chief Justice John Roberts Pledges to Bolster Judicial Ethics — Year-end report addresses Wall Street Journal findings that federal judges with financial conflicts improperly ruled in hundreds of cases — WASHINGTON—Chief Justice John Roberts pledged Friday to improve ethics training …

Discussion: Washington Post and NPR

Jessica Gresko / Associated Press:
Chief justice: Judges must better avoid financial conflicts

Discussion: Political Wire

Keith L. Alexander / Washington Post:

Prosecutors break down charges, convictions for 725 arrested so far in Jan. 6 attack on U.S. Capitol — Federal prosecutors in the District have charged more than 725 individuals with various crimes in connection with the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection, when hundreds of rioters forced …

Discussion: Raw Story

U.S. Department of Justice:

One Year Since the Jan. 6 Attack on the Capitol — Thursday, Jan. 6 2022, marks one year since the attack on the U.S. Capitol that disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress in the process of affirming the presidential election results. The government continues to investigate losses …

Discussion: Insider

New York Times:

Omicron Doesn't Infect the Lungs Very Well, Animal Studies Find — Compared with earlier variants, Omicron may cause less damage to the lungs, new animal research suggests. — A spate of new studies on lab animals and human tissues are providing a possible explanation …

Discussion: The Times of Israel and HotAir

Victoria Guida / Politico:

FDIC's GOP chair to resign after partisan brawl — Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Jelena McWilliams on Friday unexpectedly submitted her resignation after the Trump appointee faced partisan strife at the bank regulator, in a move that will give Democrats control of the agency in the coming weeks.

Discussion: New York Times, FDIC, One America News Network, Raw Story and Bloomberg

Politico:

Bernard Kerik provides batch of documents to Jan. 6 select committee — A key adviser to Donald Trump's legal team in their post-election quest to unearth evidence of fraud has delivered a trove of documents to Jan. 6 investigators describing those efforts.

Discussion: Mediaite, New York Post and Raw Story

Jonah Goldberg / The G-File:

Top-Down Letdown — How elites failed us in 2021. — Dear Reader (and all the strange voices in my head), — I finally got COVID. I assume it was Omicron, but who knows? Whatever variant it was, it wasn't fun. Since odds are good everybody everywhere is going to get it, I'll spare you the detailed reporting from my sickbed.

Office of the Texas Governor:

Governor Abbott, TDEM, DSHS Request Federally-Supported COVID-19 Testing Sites, Medical Personnel, Increased Monoclonal Antibody Allocations — Governor Greg Abbott announced today that the State of Texas, through the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) and the Texas Department …

Discussion: The Texas Tribune, CBS Dallas / Fort Worth and KXAN-TV

Kevin Breuninger / CNBC:

Biden to speak with Ukraine President Zelenskyy, says he ‘made it clear’ to Putin that Russia cannot invade — President Joe Biden plans to speak with Ukraine President Zelenskyy on Sunday to express support amid Russia's military buildup on the border, a White House official said.