By Jessie Seigel / Washington, D.C. I used to yell at my television—at TV news shows like Meet the Press and Face the Nation--calling the politicians and pundits who appeared on them names or shouting my disagreement with the flawed talking points they spouted. I’d imagine neighbors walking through the hall past my apartment, shaking their heads and marveling at the patience of my long-suffering nonexistent spouse: “Poor soul, always bearing up so silently while that virago shouts every name in the book at him and never lets him get a word in edgewise!” When I’d get especially furious I’d find myself shouting at the TV, “Why don’t you let me give my opinion?!” And now, through Washington Whispers, I do. How It Began: In September, 2020, I wrote a Facebook post criticizing Bob Woodward for holding back Trump’s taped admission that proved that Trump had full, early knowledge of, and deliberately lied about, the dangers of COVID-19. Andrea Sachs, longtime reporter at Time magazine and the founder and editor of The Insider, took issue with my harsh assessment. I responded in a private email, explaining the basis of my view in greater detail, and Andrea suggested I write it up as an article for The Insider—my first article in our publication. A few days after the Woodward article ran, Andrea asked me to write on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had just died. I did so. And then, little by little, I was seduced into writing the next article and the next, until I found myself writing a column on a regular basis. You’d think the opportunity to express myself to more than my four walls and any passing neighbor would alleviate the frustration I felt before becoming a columnist. To some degree it has. But I still often wonder if, however much my column might inform and impart my own interpretation of public events, it will really change anything. Furthermore, as a columnist, I can’t just rant at the news of the moment and move on as I used to, or simply take a break from it. I have to pay attention nonstop in order to address what comes up. That often makes the research and writing oppressive, although I am always happy with the result once a column is completed—a moment of elation produced by some days of self-imposed hell—before I start on the next. And from last September to this September—from Covid to coup attempts—what a hell of a year this has been! The subjects of my articles have run the gamut from the Covid-19 pandemic, to changes at the U.S. Supreme Court, to the Republican Party’s efforts to rig the 2020 election, to the January 6 coup attempt and the impeachment and trial that followed. I have also written about individual players on America’s political stage: Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Matt Gaetz, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, as well as President Biden, Vice-President Harris, Justice Breyer, and Attorney General Garland. The common thread in all of these articles has been the continuing war between those who believe in democracy and care about human survival and those whose only pursuit is a cynical calculation of how to obtain and keep power. This struggle underlies pretty much every aspect of the news and of my columns. To wit: Covid: In March 2021, I wrote an article cataloguing Trump’s many lies about Covid, from his claims that the epidemic amounted to just one person coming in from China, to his insistence that Covid would disappear come spring 2020, to his attempts to intimidate the CDC and NIH into modifying their statements about the science of the virus. Trump denigrated masks and dismissed the number of Covid deaths, egging on his followers to claim masks restricted their personal “liberty,” and treating those wearing masks as making an opposing political statement rather than trying to keep themselves and others alive. Then, of course, Trump got Covid himself, got treatment the rest of us could not have obtained, and later quietly got vaccinated in January just before he left office. By the day he left, some 400,000 American citizens had died of the disease. Because the Trump administration had produced absolutely no plan for vaccine distribution, the Biden Administration had to start from scratch. So, initially, in 2021, there was not enough vaccine compared with the demand for it, it was unclear where one could get vaccinated, and computer sign-ups did not work efficiently. In addition, as early as last March, Texas Governor Gregg Abbott was dropping mask mandates and removing Covid-related restrictions on businesses. By May, all three vaccines—Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson—were available to protect the public. But by then, anti-vaxxer cult thinking had taken hold among a vocal minority of people who willingly gobbled up anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. Though vaccination certification is a sensible way to protect public health from the unvaccinated, the right wing labeled it as a “passport,” or even—as QAnon favorite, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene did—as Biden’s “Mark of the Beast.” In the summer, the Delta variant descended upon us, resulting in hospitalization and deaths of children—and still, Republican governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis and Texas’ Gregg Abbott have rejected even mask mandates in schools, let alone vaccine mandates. Some may express wonder at these Republican leaders’ failure to understand that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Some might be bewildered by their determination to act so callously about the deaths of their own constituents. But I find it impossible to separate the actions and statements of Republican leaders on Covid from the many other post-election Republican manipulations intended either to delegitimize Biden’s presidency or make it ineffectual so that such failure, along with voter suppression, can be used against the Democrats in the 2022 midterm election and beyond—a cold-blooded political ploy. When President Biden came into office, he faced a tremendous mess left by the Trump Administration for someone else to clean up. While giving the Biden Administration credit for that, my articles nevertheless addressed the flaws in its approach. Among these were the messaging of Biden’s CDC. While CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky appropriately pointed out that we must follow the science and Dr. Fauci pointed out that scientific developments will change requirements as we move forward, the CDC’s constant changes, updates, and backtracking of guidelines gave us all whiplash. Furthermore, while the Republicans drummed up fear and hate, the Biden Administration responded with overly mild-mannered attempts to persuade—as if they had a fear of offending anyone or further inflaming the right-wing’s followers. Instead of pushing for vaccination certification, they even foolishly left the loosening of restrictions for the vaccinated to the “honor system”—a recipe for confusion and uncertainty since the unvaccinated could be and often were less than honest. However, last week, Biden finally laid out a strong big stick policy, requiring vaccination and/or weekly testing wherever he has the legal authority to do so. And to the Republican governors threatening to sue over it, Biden fired back, “Have at it.” Biden’s firm stance is welcome. I only wish he had shown this solid determination earlier. The Supreme Court: In September 2020, I wrote on the life and death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and then-Senate Leader Mitch McConnell’s rush to confirm the ultra-conservative Amy Coney Barrett to take the liberal Ginsburg’s place within spitting distance of the 2020 election. The previous year, McConnell had refused to give Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee, even a hearing on the manufactured grounds that it was the beginning of an election year and the next president should make the choice. That resulted in the installation of Neil Gorsuch once Trump was elected and the installation of Brett Kavanaugh only two months after Justice Anthony Kennedy retired. Ultraconservatives Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett are young enough that they will surely influence the Court’s decisions for decades to come. As a result, liberals have become concerned that 83-year-old Justice Stephen Breyer, though currently healthy, could die at a time when Republicans control the Senate, resulting in appointment of yet a seventh right-wing judge. This would make the conservative sway on the Court even more lopsided. Thus, near the end of the Court’s term in June, I wrote on the pressure for Breyer to resign while a Democratic administration could replace him. At that time, Breyer was resisting, arguing that the Supreme Court is not political, and that “The more the political fray is hot and intense, the more we stay out of it.” I wrote that for Justice Breyer to act like the Supreme Court is nonpolitical and that his decision about retiring should take no notice of the political needs or future of the country—especially at a moment when democracy is fighting for its life—is intellectually dishonest. Though I greatly doubt Breyer ever saw my article, it looks like he is now rethinking his position on retirement. In an August 27 interview with CNN, Breyer said that the emphasis on an apolitical court doesn’t necessarily apply to retirements. Breyer also noted a statement by Justice Antonin Scalia that the latter didn’t want someone appointed who would reverse everything he had done during his time on the court. I still think Breyer is living in a dream world if he perceives the Court as a nonpolitical entity. But if he decides that does not apply to retirements—I’ll take it. The Direct Assault on Democracy: In October of last year, I wrote about Trump and his henchmen purging voter rolls, limiting the number of polling places, and preventing timely delivery of absentee ballots by the U.S. Postal Service. Some partisans even set up fake deposit boxes to steal absentee ballots delivered in person. Even back then, Trump was encouraging organized right-wing armed groups and white supremacist vigilantes who had plotted to kidnap and kill various democratic leaders, to go armed to the polls to intimidate voters. When Biden won despite these fascistic tactics, Trump and his minions accused the Democrats of doing what Trump and the Republicans had actually attempted to do: rig the election. On January 6, Trump sicced a mob on Congress to block the counting of electoral votes so he could remain in office despite losing the election. The House proceeded to impeach Trump over his anti-democratic actions, but Mitch McConnell, still Majority leader until the new Senate came in on January 20, prevented a trial from beginning before Trump left office. Afterward, in Catch-22 fashion, McConnell opposed impeachment because Trump was out of office. The Democrats, who now held a thin majority in the Senate, nevertheless proceeded with the impeachment trial. I covered each day of it for The Insider. As I concluded then, the House impeachment managers were more eloquent than Daniel Webster addressing a jury of the damned in Steven Vincent Benet’s "The Devil and Daniel Webster." But while Webster managed to find some remnant of decency amongst the damned, at Trump’s impeachment trial, the damnable Senators stuck with the Devil. And they have busily stuck with him ever since. The Republicans not only have been trying to block a bipartisan investigation of the January 6 coup attempt, their most right-wing members have been promoting further coup attempts. At a Memorial Day For God & Country Roundup in Dallas, Texas, Michael Flynn advocated violent overthrow of the U.S. government along the lines of the coup in Myanmar. And a rally in D.C. to support those arrested for their part in the coup attempt is now scheduled for September 18. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy futilely tried to appoint members to the House investigating committee who were involved in promoting the insurrection and whose only interest would be disruption of the investigation. But Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have none of that. She refused to seat two of those McCarthy put forward. He then refused to have any Republicans participate. But two Trump detractors, Republican Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger—who had sufficient integrity to acknowledge an insurrection took place—agreed to join the Committee, making it its work an honestly bipartisan effort. Where are we Now? We have in Joe Biden a president with the programmatic aspirations of a Franklin Roosevelt. As I have noted during the past year, Biden began his term off and running, with The American Rescue Plan to deal with Covid, and seven other ambitious progressive bills passed by the House of Representatives within two months of his taking office: The Equality Act (prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity); the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (protecting union organizing); the For the People Act (voting rights); the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (voting rights); the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021 (on gun sales and transfers); and the Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021 (extending time for background checks). But with a 50-50 split between Democrats and Republicans in the senate—Vice President Harris being the deciding vote for a Democratic majority—and with Republican senators falling in line to obstruct, President Biden needs an elimination or curtailment of the filibuster to permit majority rule to apply. This could be accomplished by a simple majority vote. However so-called moderate Democrats like Joe Manchin of West Virginia have insisted on playing for McConnell’s team—disingenuously claiming to be for voting rights and some of these other bills while blocking any filibuster change that would permit their passage. Too many Democrats, including the president, have not, until very recently, come to understand that they cannot govern simply by keeping their heads down and doing the work. Given the current unified Republican obstruction, the administration will not be able to do what the country needs unless it fights fire with fire. This means not only loudly calling out Republican lies, but stoutly fighting for the Democratic programs—even if that requires putting pressure on the party’s purported moderates. While the Republicans connive, plot, and use every lever their nefariously creative minds can think up, the Democrats cannot afford to continue wringing their hands like helpless maidens. And they cannot allow the more conservative members of their party like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to deliberately bury their heads in their pillows, sleeping as soundly as Rip Van Winkle. Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer need to shake them awake. Because if they don’t wake up soon, we’ll all wake up to find democracy is dead. To accomplish his ambitious legislative agenda, Biden needs to deal with the Republicans with a Trumanesque “give ‘em hell” attitude. And when dealing with the Manchins of his party, he needs to summon up the iron resolve of a Lyndon Johnson. Though for the first several months, Biden displayed only a mild-mannered niceness, in the last few weeks he has begun to show a tougher core. He did so first in his firmness about withdrawing from Afghanistan, and then, last week, in finally putting his foot down on requiring vaccine mandates. Perhaps Biden is learning that nice guys finish last, and that good guys do not have to be nice guys. Let’s hope that’s a lesson he and the Democrats take into this next crucial year. Whatever happens, I'll be here to cover it for Insider readers, doing my part to try to shake the country awake, even if I have to yell to do it. Be sure to read the other half of this week's cover!

By Andy Borowitz September 13, 2021 PALM BEACH (The Borowitz Report)—In a blistering attack on another former Commander-in-Chief, Donald J. Trump called George W. Bush “ungrateful,” telling reporters, “I kept him from being the worst President in history.” “When he left office, he was at the bottom of the list of Presidents—I mean, the very, very bottom,” he said. “Then I got into office and changed all that.” “I worked hard, day in, day out, to keep Bush from being the worst,” he said. “He’s given me no credit for that whatsoever. This should never be allowed to happen in this country.” Despite doing Bush “this incredible favor,” Trump said, “I have never got so much as a thank-you note from that ungrateful bastard. I don’t know, maybe he’s too busy with his so-called paintings to write.” Trump called Bush’s warnings about domestic terrorism during a speech on the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 “totally out of line.” He added, “When he was President, there were terrorists all over the world. I brought terrorism jobs back to the U.S.A.” Andy Borowitz is a Times best-selling author and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes The Borowitz Report, a satirical column on the news.

By Bonnie Fishman I had a blissful couple of hours today sitting under an umbrella on the beach in Santa Monica, Calif.. There was an intense sea air smell, beautiful cresting waves, and a nice breeze. I was unapologetically being. In 2009, when I retired after 30 years of owning and running a bakery/restaurant/catering business in suburban Detroit, for the first time in my entire life I was unencumbered with work responsibilities. I even threw myself a “celebration of life” party. True “being,” not “doing”–what a big difference! What does that look like? I would run into old customers of mine, still do, who would ask what do you DO now? Do you teach cooking classes? NO. Do you cater a little? NO. Do you cook for anyone? NO. What do you DO then? My pat response has been “I’m living my life.” Again, you ask, what does that look like? The day is mine. I wake up when I want, sit on my porch with coffee and write, and communicate with the outside world. I may take Chester, my 10-month-old Springer Spaniel, out to the neighboring fields to chase birds and play with his BFF, Elsa May. I swim laps, maybe go to the grocery store, come home and fix a nice lunch. Hang. Be. Present. Try it some time. It’s quite thrilling really if you can come to grips that your life purpose at any given moment may be being instead of doing. I have done plenty in my nearly 70 years on earth. From the age of 15 until I was 57, when I was forced into retirement (a story for another column!), I had filed W-2 forms each year except in 1971 when my mom died. That year, I spent the summer up in West Branch, MIch. with my family. We didn’t work, we mourned. The food business is a physically hard business with many stresses coming at you from all angles. I loved it anyway. I had a long run of 42 years. During that time I also went to college, studied at the Cordon Bleu Cooking School in London, got married, raised two children, bought and sold real estate, lived in three different residences, maintained a cabin in northern Michigan, and traveled. Just “being” wasn’t in the cards. I didn’t even know what that meant. I could never picture myself NOT working, until my unexpected retirement. If it weren’t for that, I would still be slaving in a hot kitchen. What an eye-opener! I could be or do whatever I wanted on any given day. I effortlessly transitioned to a state of being. Forget that doing! I had done enough. What I have noticed lately is that out of that being comes doing. Hey, is that spontaneity knocking on my door? Perfect example: I was down in L.A. visiting my son and his family. Ben and I, as per usual, head to the farmer’s market, one of our favorite bonding activities, as we both love to cook. We’re browsing down the first aisle and I spot treviso. Now there’s a vegetable that I don’t see much, nor have ever eaten or cooked it. Treviso is a mild variety of radicchio that ranges from the size of a small Belgian endive to a large head of Romaine lettuce. Wouldn’t that look great grilled and placed on our holiday table? So I buy it, all $24 worth. You gotta love these farmer’s market prices. The vegetables are pampered and live better than most people in America! Back to Ben’s chef’s kitchen and we collaborate on how to deal with these beauties. We don’t want to do a disservice to this swanky lettuce, especially at that price. The end product was a success at our feast. I have recreated the recipe below. However, in talking about it, we allowed our imaginations to run wild and came up with a few riffs on the basic recipe: 1) Put the finished treviso in a casserole, cut side up, sprinkle with bread crumbs and Parmesan, then run it under the broiler for a couple of minutes. 2) Sprinkle the finished product with crumbled bacon, chopped tomatoes or chopped hard-boiled eggs. Drizzle on some bleu cheese dressing, thinned out with lemon juice. Voila, you have a take on a wedge salad. 3) Serve with a poached egg on top. Pass the hot sauce. 4) Consider these cooking techniques for radicchio, baby boy choy, Belgian endive or small heads of Romaine hearts. In your own state of being, your mind has an opportunity to create. Lettuce hear your own ideas for grilling this healthy treat! Grilled Treviso Yield: 8 servings 4 small, tightly packed treviso 1/4 c. olive oil kosher salt fresh ground black pepper juice of 1 small lemon balsamic glaze Trim the very bottom of the treviso, being careful not to severe the leaves. Remove any blemished outer leaves. Cut the lettuce in half lengthwise. Place on a cookie sheet cut side up. Brush the treviso with the olive oil. Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. Turn over and repeat on the other side. Heat a grill to high. Char the treviso, cut side down for 1-2 minutes. Turn over and cook 1-2 minutes more. Turn heat down to low, cover the grill and cook for 3 minutes a side. Place the treviso on a decorative platter without stacking one on top of the other. Squeeze on the lemon juice. Drizzle on the balsamic glaze in a zigzag pattern crosswise. Serve at room temperature. Bonnie Fishman attended the Cordon Bleu Cookery School in London. Later, she owned and operated Bonnie’s Patisserie in Southfield, Mich. and Bonnie’s Kitchen and Catering in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. She has taught cooking for over 35 years and created hundreds of recipes. She is now living in Northern California.

FRED PLOTKIN is one of America’s foremost experts on opera and has distinguished himself in many fields as a writer, speaker, consultant and as a compelling teacher. He is an expert on everything Italian, the person other so-called Italy experts turn to for definitive information.  Fred discovered the concept of "The Renaissance Man" as a small child and has devoted himself to pursuing that ideal as the central role of his life. In a “Public Lives” profile in The New York Times on August 30, 2002, Plotkin was described as "one of those New York word-of-mouth legends, known by the cognoscenti for his renaissance mastery of two seemingly separate disciplines: music and the food of Italy." In the same publication, on May 11, 2006, it was written that "Fred is a New Yorker, but has the soul of an Italian."

By Naomi Serviss I’ve dreaded this calendar week for 20 years. The images haunted my dreams, almost wrecking my morning walks. Who could fathom the horror unleashed? Twenty years and a lifetime ago my family lived on Long Island. My husband Lew was the New York Times' Metro Desk slot editor. He worked nights. I was a freelance entertainment/travel writer. Our kids Emmy and Ben were teenagers. September 11, 2001 was an election day. A grueling slog ahead for Lew at the paper. Here’s kind of a funny-not-ha-ha-funny thing: We had no television. By choice. After hockey season ended, we ditched the tube. We were not in the loop that cerulean blue morning. The phone rang unexpectedly. It was my friend Diana, calm but forceful. “Turn on your television.” “We got rid of it.” Diana said a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. She saw it on TV. A chill buzzed my lower back. She was dead serious. Adrenalin racing, I tore out the front door and ran to neighbors across the street. After an interminable amount of time ringing their bell and knocking hard on the door, it opened. In a burst, I pleaded “Turn on the television now!” We ran downstairs in the basement where the television lived. We gasped, horrified, as we watched the second plane hit. It seemed like an elaborate, very bad hoax. How could this be happening? Then I remembered Lew had to get to work fast! I went back to the house and up the stairs to our bedroom. He was tight asleep. Unaware and at peace. I gently rubbed his arm and one eyelid slowly peeped. “I’ll be up all night with the election. Let me sleep some more, please,” he implored. It was tempting to let him linger a bit longer, in ignorant bliss. But my journalistic juices were running as I knew would his. Lew drove to Queens and ditched the car. He threaded through an endless wave of dust-encrusted, shocked human forms seeking refuge across the 59th Street Bridge. He made it to The Times’ W. 43rd St. office and work began. Our collective memories have been seared into history books. I hope they don’t become footnotes. Thomas F. Flynn, a CBS broadcast journalist and author of the epic poem, Bikeman, then lived in Lower Manhattan. Flynn’s stunning first-hand testament morphs human tragedy into art. He will always be haunted by what he saw. Flynn bicycled fast to the horrid scene, fueled by adrenaline and the acrid smells in the air. His reporter’s instinct drove him urgently. The great smoldering maw was dubbed, “The Pit from Hell” He wanted to get on the fresh scene before police cars and ambulances flooded the streets and curtailed access. Bikeman is an homage to Dante’s Inferno as only a poet-journalist would write. It was produced as a play in 2014 and starred Robert Cuccioli, a veteran Broadway actor. He starred in Les Mis and Jekyll & Hyde, among daring off-Broadway work. Since the pandemic, he’s been active in several virtual Irish Repertory Theatre productions. A new project is an immersive audio version of Bikeman, available on the irishrep.org website. Flynn and Cuccioli reunited on September 10th, for an abbreviated narration of the epic poem. And a little Q&A after. The memorial event was hosted by the Lincoln Center’s Performing Arts Library. The simple production took flight on the library’s terrace overlooking Amsterdam Avenue. The sky eerily echoed the dazzling blue of 20 years past. From Bikeman: “It is a harsh attack, unsafe, unkind. Hastily, and with a purpose, I load the journalist’s tools: pen, note pad, phone, into a bag. “I am off to the towers. Go. Go. Go.” “I board my bicycle and pedal toward the unnatural clouds rising into the trembling sky.” An audience of about 75 friends of the arts and library patrons sat on unforgiving plastic chairs beneath a simmering September midday sun. Cuccioli’s narration was masterful. He expertly waited out piercing ambulance sirens and blaring truck horns. Afterwards, he chatted with friends and colleagues. Lew had an opportunity to chat with Flynn, who listened eagerly to Lew’s trauma that day and its aftermath. I went into the city a few days after the attacks. Not about to pass up my tickets to see the off-Broadway play, Love, Janis. Walking to the theater hundreds of missing persons posters were plastered on every available wall or pole. I’ll always remember the camaraderie of those walking in the city. Strangers smiled and said encouraging words. We were all in it together. A million “I Love New York” tee shirts magically appeared On the sidewalks in front of Times Square tourist shops. Little American flags appeared ($3 for $1) and I felt a compulsion to buy some. I still don’t know why I did. Naomi Serviss is a New York-based award-winning journalist whose work has been published in The New York Times, Newsday, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Highroads (AAA magazine), in-flight publications, spa and travel magazines and websites, including BroadwayWorld.com

By Andy Borowitz September 10, 2021 WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Calling President Joe Biden “an authoritarian dictator of the most reprehensible kind,” Fox News has accused him of using the power of the federal government to improve the country. “Joe Biden came into office claiming that he wanted to be the President of all the people,” Sean Hannity said. “Now, however, his real agenda has become clear: he wants to increase Americans’ life expectancy.” “How long one lives should be a personal choice,” Hannity continued. “But not if Joe Stalin-slash-Biden has anything to say about it.” Tucker Carlson agreed, arguing that Biden’s push for a $3.5 trillion spending package “is no more and no less than a totalitarian dictator’s plot to raise the nation’s standard of living.” “To those of you who think I’m being an alarmist, let’s learn a lesson from history,” he said. “This is exactly like what happened in Germany under Angela Merkel.” Andy Borowitz is a Times best-selling author and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes The Borowitz Report, a satirical column on the news.

By Jessie Seigel / Washington, D.C. Its name is magisterial: The United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. And its mandate couldn’t be more urgent, given that Trump’s marauders attacked the outnumbered police and threatened the lives of the Vice President and every member of Congress. But since its first hearing in July, where four Capitol police officers gave moving testimony about the January 6 assault on the Capitol, the select committee has appeared quiescent. However, appearances are deceiving. The committee has been quietly working away, meeting twice per week, even during the House’s summer recess. It is now on the move, and its actions are broad, comprehensive, and dogged—exactly what they should be—a model for anyone who wants to see those behind the January 6 coup attempt exposed and democracy saved. This is hardly surprising given the stellar backgrounds and demonstrated integrity of the Committee’s members. In addition to Committee Chair Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, there is no absence of talent. Among the Democrats, California Rep. Adam Schiff was the lead manager of Trump’s first impeachment, and California Rep. Zoe Lofgren was a fellow manager. Democratic Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, constitutional scholar, was lead manager of Trump’s second impeachment. California Rep. Pete Aguilar is vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, and Florida Rep. Stephanie Murphy, currently a member of the House Armed Services Committee, was formerly a national security specialist at the Pentagon. After jousting between Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy over the composition of the committee, only two Republicans cared sufficiently about democracy to join: Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger and Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney. In the spirit of bipartisanship, Cheney has just been made the Committee’s Vice-Chair—to the consternation of the Republican right wing, which is trying to get Cheney and Kinzinger ousted from the Republican Caucus as Democratic “spies.” The Select Committee’s Actions On August 25, the committee issued a sweeping demand for documents from federal agencies. These included communication records of the White House, and the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Interior, Justice, FBI, National Counterterrorism Center, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The committee gave these agencies a stiff deadline of two weeks—until September 9—to produce the documents. The committee also requested information on personnel changes between Election Day 2020 and Inauguration Day 2021, when Biden took office, as well as documents and communications that could reveal former President Trump’s use of such personnel changes to remain in office despite losing the election. According to Salon, this included questions about why the Defense Department denied that Michael Flynn's brother, Lt. General Charles Flynn, participated in the January 6th meetings on how and when to respond to the attacks. Michael Flynn was central to Trump’s "Stop the Steal" campaign fomenting the attack. Hopefully, the committee also has inquired about the replacement on November 9, 2020 of Defense Secretary Mark Esper with Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, who delayed authorizing deployment of the Washington, D.C. National Guard on January 6. In addition, the committee’s requests to agencies included documents and communications involving Trump's former Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, members of Trump’s legal team like Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Kurt Olsen, and members of his family—Melania, Donald Jr., Eric, Ivanka, son-in-law Jared Kushner, and daughter-in-law Lara—all of whom had roles in either the White House or Trump’s campaigns. On August 30, the committee also sent letters to 35 major telephone, email and social media companies—including AT&T, Inc, T-Mobile US Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Facebook, Reddit, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube—instructing them to preserve records that could be relevant to the committee’s inquiry. The private companies were not only asked to preserve records of Donald Trump, Ivanka, Eric and Donald, Jr., but records of a number of members of Congress: Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of Arizona, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Jody Hice of Georgia and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. The committee chairman, Mississippi Democratic Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, explained that these individuals’ records were specified because they have been publicly supportive of the January 6 move on the Capitol and of the people who participated in it. According to The New York Times, Thompson said, “We need to find out exactly what their level of participation in this event was…If you helped raise money, if you provided misinformation to people, if you served on a planning committee — whatever your role in January 6, I think the public has a right to know.” Committee member California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff told the Times that the requests were broad by design: “We know that there are members who were involved in the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally; we know that there are members who had direct communications with the president while the attack on the Capitol was going on…There are any number of members who have very pertinent information.” As far back as July 31, the Washington Post reported that Thompson said, “If we get an inkling that there’s any resistance with providing the committee some of this information, boom, here comes the subpoena.” Thompson has maintained that the committee will have no reluctance to subpoena any member of Congress whose testimony is relevant if they don’t cooperate voluntarily. Finally, according to the New York Times, a person familiar with the committee’s discussions said its members intend to investigate the possible coordination by militias. Committee member, California Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren emphasized that the requests thus far are part of an investigation, not an accusation, but she also stated, according to the Times, “We’ll see what we find out…It’s fair to say you didn’t have 10,000 people just happen to show up and attack Capitol Police officers, maim them and threaten to kill the vice president and members of Congress just because they felt like it. There was a reason, there was a structure to this, and we need to uncover everything about that.” The Republican Reaction Now that the legal chickens are on the verge of coming home to roost, Republican feathers are flying. On August 31, Minority Leader McCarthy tweeted: But McCarthy cited no such law—because, apparently—there isn’t one. In fact, the companies now have a legal duty to preserve the records as asked and are required under law to comply with Committee subpoenas. If McCarthy wishes to oppose that, the proper recourse would be to challenge it in court—not make threats worthy of a tin-pot dictator. While McCarthy pretended that he has law on his side, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene did not even try to veil her threat. On Fox News, referring to cooperation with the Committee, she told Tucker Carlson: "If these telecommunications companies, if they go along with this, they will be shut down. And that's a promise." Committee member Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California has suggested the House should consider a criminal referral of McCarthy to the Justice Department for witness tampering or obstruction of justice. He told CNN, "I've prosecuted people for doing less on smaller scale cases." If McCarthy made his statements or tweeted them from the floor of the House, he might—as was Joe McCarthy before him—be protected by the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause, providing members of Congress with immunity for “any speech or debate in either House.” But Majorie Taylor Greene, who made her threat on Tucker Carlson’s TV show, has no such protection. Perhaps, at a minimum, a criminal referral against her should be made to the Justice Department. Whatever response the committee makes to these Republican threats, the bottom line is that the committee is proceeding to investigate Trump’s attempted coup with intelligence and vigor. They mean business. Now if only the Senate and the Justice Department can find the appetite to measure up to their superb investigative standard and do their part, perhaps Americans will get the answers they deserve. Political columnist Jessie Seigel had a long career as a government attorney in which she honed her analytic skills. She has also twice received an Artist’s Fellowship from the Washington, D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities for her fiction, and has been a finalist for a number of literary awards. In addition, Seigel is an associate editor at the Potomac Review, a reviewer for The Washington Independent Review of Books, and a dabbler in political cartoons at Daily Kos. Of this balance in her work between the analytic and the imaginative, Seigel jokes, “I guess my right and left brains are well-balanced.” More on and from Seigel can be found at The Adventurous Writer, https://www.jessieseigel.com.

By Bonnie Fishman STRESSED OUT, “To experience a lot of mental, emotional, or physical strain or tension,” according to Wikipedia. DESSERTS spelled backwards is STRESSED. That’s no accident. Stress eating–we all go for comfort food, often sweet things. Maybe that’s why I wrapped myself in a dessert world when I opened Bonnie’s Patisserie in Southfield Mich. in 1980. Surrounded by the aromas, sights, and tastes of homemade cinnamon rolls, muffins, cookies, brownies, coffee cakes, and the like, I was a kid in a candy store (a.k.a. bakery) every morning for 30 years. You have NO IDEA what a high that was entering my shop when the bakers were taking delicacies out of the oven. That smell smacked me in the face. I was home, wrapped in a security blanket, being coddled like a small child. These were the aromas of my childhood, Mom baking almost every day. It was really no accident that I recreated that sensory space to bask in. I ate a sweet every morning with my coffee. (Who are we trying to kid? I ate them all day!). These comforting tastes and smells eased me through a stressful day of being a businesswoman. Another ironic play on words is STRESS FRACTURE. Stress fractures are tiny cracks in a bone. They are caused by repetitive force. Actually, I see a real twist here, pardon the pun. When one’s life is fractured, it causes stress. Many people’s worries during this continued period of Covid-19–not feeling safe about career stability, schooling children, economic woes, safety of loved ones–have put a collective pressure on us all. I and my family are going through a particularly stressful time right now, so how do we get through it? For starters, supporting each other and processing the days’ and weeks’ events together. But when I am really, really over the edge, I don’t eat. Anything this side of that, it’s carbohydrates all the way: crusty bread with sweet butter, sesame bagels with cream cheese and apricot jam, my home-baked blueberry muffins (with extra berries!) right out of the oven. So I bake my stress away. I used to do it in college in the evenings after studying and before exams. Now I do it to help sort out my thoughts, give myself purpose, and well, enjoy the fruits of my labor. The recipe I’m posting today is just the right ticket for stress eating. These Cappuccino Biscotti have it all. They go great with coffee and their snappy texture and flavor are the epitome of your many emotions: the warm cinnamon and cayenne spices wraps you in loving arms, the biting candied ginger lets you know you’re alive, the chocolate chunks hit the sweet spot, and the protein-filled nuts give you the support you need. Make these. Savor them. Give them away. Keep them in a jar. When the mood strikes, reach for my version of a great stress reliever. Then call your therapist. As with most biscotti, there are many varieties and flavors. This recipe is a starting point for your creative mind. Take your pick: very crispy or ones with a little “give, depending how long you keep them in the oven. Feel free to substitute any of the items with something more to your liking. You prefer walnuts to almonds? Go for it. You want white chocolate instead of dark? I won’t argue with you. Golden raisins instead of cherries? Hmmm, maybe you’re on your own with that one. Come and decompress with us-tell us here at The Insider what you put in your own biscotti. Cappuccino Biscotti Yield: 4 dozen 1 Tbs. instant espresso powder 1 Tbs. hot water 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract 2 lg. eggs 1 egg white 2 c. flour 1 c. sugar 1/3 c. + 2 Tbs. cocoa powder 1/2 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. salt 1/2 tsp. cinnamon 3/4 c. toasted chopped almonds or hazelnuts 3/4 c. chocolate chunks or chips 3/4 c. chopped crystalized ginger 3/4 c. dried cherries Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Spray with pan release. Reserve. Dissolve the espresso powder in the hot water in a small bowl. Add the vanilla. When the water has cooled to room temperature, whisk in the eggs and the egg white. Combine the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, soda, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Pour in the wet ingredients. Using a wooden spoon, stir together. Add the nuts. Continue working the dough until it comes together, using your hands if necessary (spray your hands with pan release first). Divide the dough into 2 pieces. Roll each piece into a log and press onto the cookie sheet. The logs should be about 3” wide x 14” long x 1/2” high. Bake for 18 minutes. Cool slightly. Cut into 1/2” slices. Bake again until desired “crunch”, about 15 minutes. Cool completely. Bonnie Fishman attended the Cordon Bleu Cookery School in London. Later, she owned and operated Bonnie’s Patisserie in Southfield, Mich. and Bonnie’s Kitchen and Catering in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. She has taught cooking for over 35 years and created hundreds of recipes. She is now living in Northern California.

September 9, 2021 Dear Editor, So much has been said during the past week about the new Texas abortion law, SB 8, which essentially decimates a woman’s right to have an abortion in that state beyond six weeks of pregnancy. I am outraged by the situation, but I wondered what I could possibly add to what has already been said. I need to share my personal experience: I provide support for patients who are having abortions at my local Planned Parenthood health center. I hold their hands and dry their tears. I tell them what they can expect. I tell them, “No, you are not a bad mother for taking care of the children that you already have.” “No, you are not a bad person for wanting to finish your education, for wanting to be older, for wanting to be younger, for wanting to be more financially secure, for wanting to feel more emotionally stable, for wanting to escape an abusive relationship.” And then, there are completely different conversations for those patients and their partners who desperately, completely, heartbreakingly want this child but have been told at 20 or so weeks that there is something horribly wrong, that their child will not be able to survive outside the womb or will live a life filled with pain. Again, I hold hands and dry their tears. I also reassure them they are doing what parents do: making the best decision possible, under horrible circumstances, for their child. In early March, 2020, I said goodbye to the clinic’s staff as I left for a week’s vacation. On March 13, 2020 I received an email saying that volunteers would no longer be allowed in the clinic while everyone tried to figure out what this coronavirus was all about. I mourned my lost purpose. I mourned that I only said goodbye for a week, not for an indefinite period of time. I mourned for three weeks until I thought: I’ll bet our protestors aren’t going to allow something like a little pandemic to get in the way of shaming patients and visitors to our health center. I was right. Within a week I was standing on the front lines, wearing a bright pink vest emblazoned with “I Stand With Planned Parenthood” on the front and “Volunteer” on the back, helping patients drive past the shouting, poster-waving protestors. Last Wednesday, September 1st, was to be my celebratory return to providing patient support. Fully vaxxed, new rules in place, I was ready! I was aware that Texas Law SB 8 was to go into effect that day, but I would not allow myself to think that the U.S. Supreme Court would turn down the emergency request to pause implementation, even with a conservative majority. Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land for almost 50 years! Two generations have grown up knowing abortions are legal. The idea of deputizing anyone, everyone…. It is patently absurd and deplorable! I did return on September 1st and again on September 2nd , feeling a bit less celebratory. I held hands. I dried tears. I listened to stories and consoled and validated choices made. I also looked at our white board filled with patient names and gestational ages, and realized that, if we were in Texas, the overwhelming majority of our patients would not have been seen. Six weeks! Most people do not realize that this means six weeks since the start of one’s last menstrual period. A heart has not formed and therefore there can be no heartbeat. While true, this really is beside the point.. Laws against abortion are not about babies. They are not about protecting women and keeping them safe. This law allows one set of so-called religious principles and beliefs to apply to all. This is about control – physical, psychological and economic. If the Texas law is allowed to stand, a woman who is raped is victimized at least twice, once by the rapist and again by those who would force her to continue the pregnancy. A person who chooses to abort but is forced to continue the pregnancy is not the person in control. This is not supported by the majority of Americans, and it must stop. Actual, living, real-life peoples’ lives depend on this being stopped. Just like the women and men that I meet. Angrily yours, Stephani T. P.S. And in the “you can’t make this up” department, breaking news: Mexico’s Supreme Court just voted to decriminalize abortion. While certainly not perfect, (i.e. legalized), we are talking about a country with one of the largest Catholic populations in the world moving in the right direction. More than 80% of Mexicans are Catholic. That is in contrast to many states in the U.S., most notably Texas, passing laws to further restrict women and their supposedly constitutional right to control their own reproductive health choices.

By Sarah Mountain, Ph.D. This story originally ran at nu-detroit.com and is reprinted with the author's permission. The worst day of our lives reads something like the lead up to a bad joke. My husband and I were in bed with my parents, our Rabbi and a psychologist… But there’s no punchline. Just hushed voices and dimmed lights as someone called the doctor to see if he would take my case; it was the night we decided to have an abortion and end a long fought-for pregnancy. After enduring miscarriages and D&C surgeries, we were finally, cautiously pregnant again. There were signs from the very beginning that something was amiss. Weekly doctor visits became appointments every 48 hours to track the slow growth. As I continued to hemorrhage every few days in the late hours of the night, we became regulars in the emergency room; each time a heartbeat remained. By the time we saw a high-risk specialist, I had been diagnosed with a subchorionic hematoma. It’s not an uncommon condition in pregnancy and, in most cases, as the fetus grows, it shrinks the hematoma and stops the bleeding. In my case, the hematoma was growing faster than the fetus, impeding growth and causing a concerning amount of blood loss. After hours with the specialist and her team, she called us into her office and laid a number of documents before us. She told us that Michigan law didn’t allow for her to advocate for termination, but that she didn’t think the fetus was compatible with life. The hemorrhaging I was experiencing was so severe, if I chose to continue with the pregnancy, I would have to sign papers that I understood my life was at risk, that I gave her permission to perform an emergency hysterectomy in the future if it were necessary to stop the bleeding and that I understood even those measures may not be enough to save my life. These are the moments we can’t ever fathom having to face before we arrive at them. As a mother, you want to protect your children. It didn’t even register that I was bleeding to death. I sat there unable to comprehend that I was being forced to choose between ending the pregnancy I had wanted so badly or continuing to carry the pregnancy that was likely not viable and could leave my 2-year-old daughter motherless. We went home to weigh our options even though it felt like an impossible decision … which led us to that night and the support system in our bedroom. We had connections and resources. Someone sent our scans to a high-risk specialist on the other side of the country so she could confirm what we already knew. I wasn’t a candidate for an abortion in a clinic setting because of the medical complications I was experiencing. At the time, there were only two doctors in Michigan that performed abortions in hospitals. Until our appointment was approved and scheduled, there was talk of going out of state. We had one appointment with the doctor before the abortion. There was paperwork and an exam. The doctor had me sign a paper saying that he had made me listen to the heartbeat so that I could feel the full weight of my decision — without ever making me do so. It remains one of the greatest moments of compassion I have ever experienced. My husband was by my side every step of the way, but the paperwork only had room for one signature: mine. That stuck with me for years afterwards. That it was my signature alone. We spent the next 24 hours in the emergency room. Which would come first, the surgery that would terminate my pregnancy or a hemorrage that could kill me? The following day, I had the abortion. I had the abortion knowing that it was a decision that I had to make. Knowing that Judaism puts the life of the mother above that of their unborn fetus. Knowing that I wanted to be there for my daughter, that I didn’t want to miss out on her life. Knowing that my husband and I wanted the chance to have more children. Texas Senate Bill 8 would have left me bleeding to death. It would have left my daughter motherless and my husband a widower. Denying women access to health care has always led to more death, not less. These laws conflict with the Jewish belief that life begins at birth, that the mother’s life is more important than that of the fetus that she carries. These laws punish the economically disadvantaged, those without connections, those without a support system, those too afraid of hurting people who could assist them, from receiving health care that they desperately need. Texas politicians did not end abortions with these laws — they just ended ones that happen in safe settings with medical professionals. It has been a decade since my abortion. My husband and I went on to have two more children. I endured 20 weeks of hyper-emesis with each of my three full-term pregnancies, each necessitating a hospital visit for IV fluids. Pregnancy and childbearing are physically, emotionally and mentally taxing — not to mention the mothering that comes after. As we reach the first yahrzeit of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I find myself reflecting on her words: The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, her well-being and dignity. When the government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a full human responsible for her own choices. Like most mothers, I make sacrifices for my children every day. There’s nothing I would not do to care for them, protect them and love them. The choice we made a decade ago to have an abortion, to spare a potential child a short, pain-filled life, to spare my own life and to spare my daughter a life without her mother — it is the most selfless act of motherly love that I can ever make. It is the right of every woman to have that same choice, whether or not their fetus is incompatible with life or their own life is in danger. Full stop. I will continue to share my story to help erase the stigma surrounding abortion and to fight against abortion bans like the one in Texas and anywhere public policies infringe on women’s privacy, autonomy, safety and humanity. I fought too hard to bring my children into the world for this to be the world we leave them.

By Andy Borowitz September 2, 2021 AUSTIN (The Borowitz Report)—A new bill moving swiftly through the Republican-controlled Texas legislature would institute a strict statewide dress code for women. Governor Greg Abbott, a vehement supporter of the bill, said that the dress code would benefit women because “it will give them one less thing to think about when they get up in the morning.” “I believe in the sanctity of human life, and the best way to protect that life, in the case of a woman, is to free her from the stress of having to choose what to wear,” Abbott said. Abbott summarized the new dress code, which bars women from wearing skirts above the knee, sleeveless blouses, and most varieties of pants. “Slacks are fine as long as they have cuffs,” he said. “However, if a woman is caught wearing jeans or dungarees, she will be sent home.” Abbott dismissed comparisons between the state’s proposed dress code and that imposed by the Taliban, which has required women to wear burqas. “We are strongly opposed to masks of any kind,” he said. Andy Borowitz is a Times best-selling author and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes The Borowitz Report, a satirical column on the news.