I believe in an independent judiciary. I also believe in a judiciary that upholds the rule of law — not one that ignores it to promote a deeply unpopular and partisan agenda at odds with the Constitution and the settled rights of our citizens. And when a court consistently shows that it no longer is bound by the rule of law, Congress must exercise its constitutional authority to fix that court.

Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to change the size of the Supreme Court. Congress has used that authority seven times before. To restore balance and integrity to a broken institution, Congress must expand the Supreme Court by four or more seats.

Some oppose the idea of court expansion. They have argued that expansion is “court-packing,” that it would start a never-ending cycle of adding justices to the bench, and that it would undermine the court’s integrity.

They are wrong. And their concerns do not reflect the gravity of the Republican hijacking of the Supreme Court.

Just as Tucker Carlson had once traveled to Mar-a-Lago to ask the president to take the Covid-19 pandemic more seriously, these Fox hosts were intervening with a man who they knew took television seriously, more seriously than his constitutional duties.

Hearing the texts read aloud at this late date in the year does provide a sense of clarity. Many of Trump’s lies before this seemed to have little cost at all. Many of them had been brazened out until they produced a kind of success. The lies that Trump told that day to that crowd had produced this specific, televised disaster. Unfortunately, it was a predicted disaster. But almost everyone knew it was wrong while it was happening. It took effort to forget.

In the months after January 6, the politically correct move for Trump’s cable-news apologists has been to ignore the fact that the people who set about “investigating” the supposed vote fraud have turned up nothing of consequence or merit. Or, it has been to focus obsessively on the potential involvement of the FBI or other intel agencies in the riots, to speculate about who may have been planted as agent provocateurs in the crowd. This is worth inquiring about, especially after the FBI’s cack-handed work trying to instigate a kidnapping plot against Governor Whitmer went south.

But the riot at the Capitol happened because President Donald Trump simply lied, and lied, and lied. On that very day he lied about what the vice president’s powers were. “All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify, and we become president, and you are the happiest people,” he told the crowd.

WASHINGTON — Frustrated with President Biden and congressional Democrats for failing to enact voting rights legislation this year, progressive advocacy groups and descendants of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. are planning to use the January holiday commemorating the civil rights leader’s birth to call for more aggressive efforts to overcome Republican opposition.

With two measures stalled on Capitol Hill, members of the King family, backed by dozens of liberal organizations, say they will take their campaign to protect voting rights on the road, holding a series of marches to promote the urgency of the issue beginning Jan. 15 in Phoenix and ending two days later in Washington, D.C., on the official holiday.

They hope to spur action, after months of stalemate in Congress, to offset new voting restrictions being imposed around the country by Republican-led legislatures. And they plan to press their case for killing the filibuster — the maneuver Republicans are using to thwart action in the Senate — condemning it as a tool for perpetuating racist policies.

The planned marches are the most vivid sign yet of activists’ growing dismay with the White House and top Democrats about the party’s inability to move forward on the voting rights bills. Some involved in the fight say they see no clear strategy for success, and argue that Democrats have moved too slowly even as they have pressed hard to break through Republican obstruction on other issues.

Adrienne Adams declared victory in the race for City Council speaker Wednesday. But wait! Francisco Moya also declared victory in the race for City Council speaker Wednesday, setting up a bizarre showdown for city government’s second most powerful job.

What on earth is going on here? Both Queens Democrats proclaimed they have secured a majority of votes to win the speakership, but neither one showed their work. They can’t both be right, so one (or both) of them is either lying, being lied to, or bad at math.

What we know for sure: Four other candidates for speaker — Diana Ayala, Justin Brannan, Gale Brewer and Keith Powers — dropped out and publicly threw their support behind Adams. As POLITICO reported this weekend, the rivals talked with labor and party bosses to abandon their own bids and get behind Adams as backlash built against Mayor-elect Eric Adams' attempts to intervene on behalf of Moya. (Another candidate, Carlina Rivera, remains in the race.)

According to Adrienne Adams, she has enough to put her over the top with a 26-vote majority. “Today is a historic day for New York City,” she said in a statement. “After much discussion and collaboration with my colleagues, I am honored to have received the necessary votes to become the next Speaker of the New York City Council.”

Amtrak said Tuesday it is suspending a vaccine mandate for employees, averting the termination of about 500 people and service cuts that were expected next month.

Railroad employees who aren’t vaccinated against the coronavirus will be allowed to submit to weekly testing, Amtrak Chief Executive William J. Flynn said in a memo to workers. The policy applies to the company’s 17,000 employees.

“After reviewing our system service plans in light of these changes, we do not anticipate having system-wide service impacts in January,” Flynn said.

Amtrak last month warned about possible service cuts after the end-of-the-year travel crunch because some workers have not complied with a mandate to be fully vaccinated by Jan. 4. Amtrak President Stephen Gardner last week noted the possible cuts in a House hearing, during which he said the railroad didn’t expect to have enough people to operate all trains.

Seattle Mayor-elect Bruce Harrell appointed the first batch of leaders in his administration Monday, a group that includes his niece as senior deputy mayor.

Harrell shared a preview of the administration’s structure in a news release Monday, announcing three deputy mayors — one of them a new position to oversee housing and homelessness:
* Senior deputy mayor: Monisha Harrell, Harrell’s niece and campaign manager, board chair for Equal Rights Washington, and a member of the National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund
* Deputy mayor of housing and homelessness: Tiffany Washington, a current deputy mayor
* Deputy mayor of external relations: remains unfilled through January as Harrell consults constituents

President Biden and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) are locked in a disagreement over how long programs in the Build Back Better agenda should be funded, people familiar with the matter tell Axios.

Why it matters: The impasse all but guarantees the Senate will delay a vote on the $1.75 trillion spending package until next year. It's also an indication Biden is willing to hold out for a bigger deal, as opposed to a faster one.

The president told the senator during a phone call Monday he didn’t want to budge from his plan to fund some of his programs for one year, and others for 10 years.

Manchin was equally clear: Before negotiating which individual programs should survive, he wants to agree to a common denominator for their funding term.

Keechant Sewell, the Nassau County chief of detectives, will become New York City’s first female police commissioner, taking over the nation’s largest police force at a critical moment.

Chief Sewell’s appointment, which is expected to be announced on Wednesday, was seen as one of the most important decisions for Eric Adams, the incoming mayor, as he begins to fill out his administration.

Her selection was confirmed on Tuesday night by Evan Thies, a spokesman for Mr. Adams. Chief Sewell was chosen from among a field of rumored candidates from within the New York Police Department and from larger police departments around the country.

Mr. Adams, a former police captain, ran as a centrist in the Democratic primary, promising to address a troubling rise in violence and to rein in police abuse. He will be counting on Chief Sewell to help him strike that balance.