Hello,

So Liz Cheney made about six kinds of news Monday evening at the hearing of the House select January 6 committee at which it voted to hold Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress. Cheney read from text messages that the former White House chief of staff had already turned over to the committee before he decided not to cooperate—communications that, she emphasized more than once, Meadows handed over with no attempt to cloak them in any kind of privilege claim. Among the points:

And yet, as Cheney stressed, Trump said nothing for 187 minutes. People died. Many were injured. The whole thing was against the law top to bottom, from trying to undo the results of an election to trespassing and damaging federal property. And the president of the United States was sitting there doing nothing, and probably enjoying it. Yes, you could say we knew this, but we know it now in a way we didn’t 24 hours ago, because Cheney painted a very vivid and specific picture of those crucial three hours.

We don’t yet know who these members of Congress were. The committee knows, and Chairman Bennie Thompson said that in due course, we will know. We can make certain educated guesses, like a certain snarling, sportcoat-eschewing former wrestler from Ohio. But when we find that out, we can start matching specific individuals to specific crimes.

The full house will vote today to hold Meadows in contempt, which will hand the ball to the Justice Department, which will decide whether to prosecute. Eyes on Merrick Garland again.

Million-dollar question, now finally coming into view: Will the Democrats have the guts to put people in jail if need be?

So yeah—a big and significant day on Capitol Hill.

Also on Capitol Hill, the Senate will vote Tuesday to raise the debt limit. This is worth mentioning for one reason: The Senate is suspending the filibuster to do it. This is the second time this month the Senate has done the same. Earlier, Utah Republican Mike Lee asked for a simple up-or-down vote on his amendment opposing Joe Biden’s vaccine requirements for American businesses, and his colleagues granted it. It lost 48–50, but the point is this: Twice this month, the Senate has passed a filibuster carve-out. So it can be done when it wants to do it. 

In Covid-19 news, breaking this morning: Pfizer says its new pill reduces risk of hospitalization and death by nearly 90 percent if taken within three days of the onset of symptoms.

Today at NewRepublic.com, Alex Shephard writes that Chris Wallace’s departure from Fox News pulls away the last remaining fig leaf of newsiness at the network. Tim Noah is impressed with the early phase of the Biden administration’s moves to crack down on global kleptocrats and make them reveal true sources of corporate ownership and more. And Joanna Robin has a fascinating look inside shaky-seeming Medicare Advantage plans. Are Joe Namath and Jimmie Walker and (God forbid) William Shatner peddling Americans a bill of goods?

Thanks for reading,

Every day, our journalists are exposing the right’s assaults on our democracy—and pushing the Democrats to go bold to preserve the republic. Here’s a special offer from The New Republic so you won’t miss their scoops and sharp analysis.

Yesterday’s politics question: Speaking of Joe Manchin, why is West Virginia a state, anyway? What year did it happen, and what was the main issue that drove its creation?

Answer: The 55 counties of western Virginia started discussing seceding from the rest of Virginia in 1861, not long after Virginia seceded from the union. Congress and President Lincoln made West Virginia a state on June 20, 1863. The main issue was slavery, which didn’t have much support in the western, yeoman-farmer counties, where the terrain was mostly too rugged for plantations, and the way the state was totally run by the wealthy Tidewater planters meant the westerners had zero political power. The state legislature abolished slavery in the new state in February 1865.

Yesterday’s Christmas carol question: Good King Wenceslas was a real guy. In what country did he live, and what day, speaking of the 12 days of Christmas, is the “feast of Stephen”?

Answer: The real-life Wenceslaus I, or Vaclav the Good, was the duke of Bohemia, in the present-day Czech Republic, in the early tenth century. He was a good egg, evidently—he really did go out on the feast of Stephen (December 26 back then) to give alms to the poor. He was probably killed by his evil brother.

Today’s political question: Liz Cheney’s invocation of those 187 minutes brings to mind another famous set of minutes from the not-too-distant history of this country. When someone speaks of “the missing ___ minutes,” which presidency and scandal are they referring to, what does the word “missing” refer to, and how many minutes were involved?

Today’s Christmas carol question: Match the composer to the popular twentieth-century Christmas song. Songs: “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” “The Christmas Song,” “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Composers: Mel Tormé and Robert Wells, Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, Meredith Willson.