Today the House's new January 6th Select Committee convened for the first time and held its first hearing. Today's initial hearing was all about setting the stage for what is to come, explaining why such an investigation is necessary, and countering all the Republican gaslighting that has been attempted of late by instead reminding the country of exactly what did happen that day. It was brutal -- the videos played (once again) showed an out-of-control mob hellbent on harming sworn police officers while storming the seat of democracy, in an effort to overturn an election result they didn't like. Just like we all saw with our own eyes on that dark day.

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It's like the Republicans all suddenly got put on double-secret probation or something. It seems to have finally dawned on them that the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus is actually real, and it is now killing off an inordinate number of their own base voters. So some of them had, as President Joe Biden said this week, their "altar call" moment.

Of course, hearing "Delta," what popped into our minds for this tectonic shift was Animal House's John Belushi asking his fellow Delts: "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!" Of course, his speech ended when his frat brother stood up and proclaimed: "I think this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part." To which Belushi responded: "And we're just the guys to do it!"

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Last night, President Joe Biden participated in a town hall in Cincinnati, Ohio, hosted by CNN and moderated by Don Lemon. He made some news there, because when he was directly asked if preserving the Senate filibuster was more important than passing voting rights bills, he sounded like he kind of wanted to have it both ways. He seems absolutely convinced that either: (1) Republicans are going to suddenly magically develop a conscience and a high-minded sense of civic duty and start joining with Democrats to pass good legislation; or (2) that getting rid of the filibuster would somehow "throw the entire Congress into chaos and nothing will get done." The first seems naive, at best. The second, however, is completely backwards.

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Republicans in the House of Representatives, led by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, are trying to paint Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democrats as being somehow "too partisan" about investigating the attempted insurrection at the United States Capitol on the sixth of January. This is supposed to somehow delegitimize the effort, but it is in fact laughable on the face of it. Because when you get right down to it, of course it is a partisan exercise. The reason? Because one of America's major two political parties was complicit in attempting to overturn the will of the people in a national presidential election. One party did that. In a very partisan way. So any investigation of the incident is going to naturally expose this fact in a glaring way, because at this point only one party is even interested in getting at the truth -- the other party doesn't want that at all because they know they are so complicit. It doesn't matter who investigates it, the facts are the facts -- and one party bears the blame. This is precisely what Republicans don't want to talk about, which is why they've attempted to either stop or sabotage the entire effort to investigate 1/6 in any way, shape, or form from the very beginning.

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The ball is now in Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's court. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy finally named his five picks for the 1/6 Select Committee investigation, but the way the bill creating the committee was written gives Pelosi full veto power over any or all of these suggestions. At a minimum, she should reject at least one of the names put forth by McCarthy. [Editorial Note: This entire article should be read "as of this writing," as Pelosi could act at any time.]

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There were two interesting developments in the congressional sausage-making process this week, both of which Democrats should immediately adopt as their main messages for the next week or so.

The first was that Senators Bernie Sanders and Mark Warner announced they had come to a compromise on the reconciliation bill which will fund the lion's share of President Joe Biden's economic agenda. They settled on a total figure of $3.5 trillion in new spending, which is far less than Bernie's original goal of $6 trillion (just for this bill alone), but also far more than the opening bid of the fiscally-conservative Democrats, which was in the $1.5 to $2 trillion range. It also will mean that Biden got the exact total he asked for in his "three-legged stool" of economic legislation. His first big legislative achievement (the American Rescue Plan) spent $1.9 trillion, and the bipartisan infrastructure deal represents $0.6 trillion more, which will mean a grand total of $6 trillion for all three -- which is exactly what Biden asked for in the first place.

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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has never been seen by anyone as any sort of profile in courage. The most common view of him, in fact, is that he's as spineless as a jellyfish. He has gotten to his position of power within the Republican Party largely by trying to be everyone's best buddy, but that's not exactly a core leadership quality, to put it mildly. And now he's in a pickle, because everyone is waiting to see what he's going to do about the House 1/6 Select Committee. My personal guess is that he'll figure out what the path of least resistance is and then embrace it. He's certainly done so before, so it's about all I expect from him.

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A divide has opened up in America, between states that have done a good job vaccinating as many of their citizens as possible and those who are falling behind. Many noted this disparity as Independence Day rolled around, when the country as a whole fell three points behind President Joe Biden's ambitious goal to get at least one vaccine shot into the arms of 70 percent of adult Americans. Hitting only 67 percent is still a monumental achievement (more than two-thirds), to be sure. But a lot of media focus was on the fact that many individual states have indeed reached the 70 percent goal, while others hadn't even gotten to 60 percent. But what was largely missing in all this commentary was the stark fact of the political divide.

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Happy Independence Day! No, that heartfelt wish is actually not premature, as we pointed out years ago. The second of July is indeed the day American declared her independence from Britain. All the histories, all the traditions, all the celebrations get it wrong each and every year. No, really!

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There's a lot of news in the legal world today, so even asking the question: "Will Trump testify?" needs further specification. I am not asking whether Donald Trump will testify in the upcoming case against his namesake Trump Organization and its top financial officer, because it's pretty obvious he would never take the stand in a case like that. Instead, what I'm wondering is whether the still-forming House 1/6 select committee will try to subpoena Trump -- and if they do, whether he'd actually appear or (as is more usual for him) fight it to the bloody end in the courts.

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