Late last week, on the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack, President Joe Biden hosted a special event at the White House to present Presidential Citizens Medals to a small group of Americans. The point, as NBC News reported, was to honor a select, bipartisan group of election workers, officials, and law enforcement officers for their “contributions to our democracy” before and during the riot.

Among the deserving recipients were Shaye Moss, a clerical worker in a county election office in Georgia, and her mother, Ruby Freeman, who took a temp job helping count ballots in the 2020 election. Both women were the target of a baseless and dangerous right-wing smear campaign, and Biden took care to applaud Moss and Freeman for their work and perseverance.

“Despite it all, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss found the courage to testify openly and honestly for the whole country and the world about their experience to set the record straight about the lies and defend the integrity of our elections,” the Democratic president said. “Ruby and Shaye, you don’t deserve what happened to you, but you do deserve the nation’s eternal thanks for showing the dignity and grace of We the People. [It’s] presumptuous of me, but I’m so proud of you both.”.....

It’s difficult to guess what precipitated this renewed campaign, but it’s worth noting for context that it roughly coincides with a related story out of Freeman’s hometown of Atlanta. NBC News reported this week:

The Georgia grand jury conducting a criminal investigation into whether there were any “coordinated attempts to unlawfully alter the outcome of the 2020 elections” in the state by former President Donald Trump and his allies has completed its work, a judge said in a ruling issued Monday.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney explained in a ruling that the grand jury was convened for an investigation into “‘the facts and circumstances relating directly or indirectly to possible attempts to disrupt the lawful administration of the 2020 elections in the State of Georgia’ and to prepare a report on whether anyone should be prosecuted for such potential crimes.”

Christian nationalism “is a political ideology and cultural framework that seeks to fuse American and Christian identities,” explained Amanda Tyler, executive director of Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, at a House Oversight subcommittee meeting on political extremism Tuesday. “It suggests that ‘real’ Americans are Christians and that ‘true’ Christians hold a particular set of political beliefs.” And, Tyler emphasized, it “helped fuel the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, uniting disparate actors and infusing their political cause with religious fervor.”

None of the three Republicans present for the hearing — South Carolina’s Nancy Mace, Arizona’s Andy Biggs and Florida’s Byron Donalds — followed up on the topic with Tyler that day. But if they want more information, they could just ask one of their fellow GOP congressmen: Rep. Rick Allen, R-Ga.

Newly revealed texts between Allen and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, published while the hearing was in progress, dramatically show how deeply Christian nationalist ideology runs through the Republican Party, and how it continues to underlie Republicans’ ongoing denial that Jan. 6 was a violent attempt to overthrow the government.......

As Tyler told lawmakers, “Christian nationalism uses the language, symbols and imagery of Christianity — in fact, it may look and sound like Christianity to the casual observer.” Meadows cited language from the New Testament to encourage a political ally to persist in overturning a democratic election on behalf of a would-be autocrat. As Tyler noted, though, “closer examination reveals that it uses the veneer of Christianity to point not to Jesus the Christ but to a political figure, party, or ideology.”

Some Republicans, notably far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ga., have embraced the term “Christian nationalist.” Others have called it a pejorative lobbed at them by the left. At Tuesday’s hearing, Greene’s Republican colleagues merely ignored the ideology. But the more we learn about Jan. 6 — not just from the trove of Meadows’ text messages, but from the committee’s final report and the various advancing criminal investigations — we are likely to see more evidence of its leading role.

One particularly poor example in CNN’s programming came just before prime time, on Erin Burnett OutFront. As the story was breaking, anchor Erin Burnett emphasized that Biden was legally required to return the documents when his term as vice president ended in 2017. Burnett pointed out the differences between the FBI seizing documents at Mar-a-Lago following a court-approved search warrant and Biden’s legal team immediately turning over the documents to the National Archives when they found them. But CNN’s coverage implied hypocrisy on Biden's part by playing a September 2022 clip of the president rhetorically asking “how anyone could be that irresponsible” in regard to Trump withholding classified material at Mar-a-Lago. CNN also included an image of the classified documents found by the FBI at Trump’s residence during the segment without providing context, potentially misleading viewers.

From the January 9, 2023, edition of CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront

Burnett then brought out CNN correspondent Jamie Gangel, who while mentioning the differences between the Trump story and Biden’s, framed the news as “a political nightmare for the Biden administration” and “politically something that the Republicans and Donald Trump are going to make hay in.”

In response to a question from Burnett about “how much of a gift” and how “transformational” the new story is for Trump, Gangel stated that this is “a huge political gift for Trump." And despite the distinct differences between the documents found at Trump’s home and Biden’s office, Gangel posited that “it is going to be very important for Justice [Department], and as much as the National Archives plays a role here, to really let the public know what was in here. Is that nuance going to cut through? I don’t think so.”

https://twitter.com/froomkin/status/1612631760113700866

A QAnon promoter with tens of thousands of followers on Facebook and Telegram has died after contracting COVID-19.

Cirsten Weldon, who went by the name “CirstenW” online, died at a hospital in Camarillo, Calif., the Daily Beast reported.

On her last video, posted on December 28, Weldon was coughing and admitted she felt “exhausted” and “weak.”

Weldon was virulently anti-vaccine, both online and in real life. In one video posted to her social media channels, she can be seen harassing people in line to be vaccinated against COVID-19. “The vaccines kill. Don’t get it,” she shouts. “This is how gullible these idiots are. They’re all getting vaccines.”

Weldon was so well-known as a QAnon influencer that she even livestreamed with comedian Roseanne Barr, who has now devolved into a full-time conspiracy theorist. An October livestream with Weldon has over 70,000 views on Barr’s YouTube channel. In it, Weldon rambles about how Donald Trump is still the “real” president and claims without evidence that “arrests are happening in California” of her political enemies.

President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Approves California Emergency Declaration
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Late Sunday evening while in Mexico City, Mexico for the 10th North American Leaders’ Summit, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., declared that an emergency exists in the State of California and ordered Federal assistance to supplement State, tribal, and local response efforts due to the emergency conditions resulting from successive and severe winter storms, flooding, and mudslides beginning on January 8, 2023, and continuing.

The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the counties of El Dorado, Los Angeles, Mariposa, Mendocino, Merced, Monterey, Napa, Placer, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Sonoma, Stanislaus, and Ventura.

Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Emergency protective measures (Category B), limited to direct Federal assistance, under the Public Assistance program will be provided at 75 percent Federal funding.

Deanne Criswell, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named Andrew F. Grant as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected areas.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION MEDIA SHOULD CONTACT THE FEMA NEWS DESK AT (202) 646-3272 OR FEMA-NEWS-DESK@FEMA.DHS.GOV.

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