...Hawley and Cruz, both of whom clerked for chief justices of the Supreme Court, hope to be wafted into the White House by gusts of such paranoia.

As does Vice President Pence, who says about Hawley et al.: Me, too. To fathom Pence’s canine devotion to Trump, watch a video from June 7, 2018. Seated next to Trump in a meeting, Pence saw Trump take his water bottle off the table and place it on the floor. So, Pence did likewise. Google the 22-second video. It is a sufficient Pence biography.

https://massie.house.gov/news/email/show.aspx?ID=Z5MPA3CVK5FYZQ3KBYQIDSAWB4

From a purely partisan perspective, Republican presidential candidates have won the national popular vote only once in the last 32 years. They have therefore depended on the electoral college for nearly all presidential victories in the last generation. If we perpetuate the notion that Congress may disregard certified electoral votes—based solely on its own assessment that one or more states mishandled the presidential election—we will be delegitimizing the very system that led Donald Trump to victory in 2016, and that could provide the only path to victory in 2024.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/democrats-ask-fbi-director-wray-open-criminal-probe-trump-after-n1252732

When asked at a House Democratic leadership news conference on Monday whether the House should take any action over the call, Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said he had not read the transcript of the conversation, but, "We're not looking backward, we're looking forward to the inauguration of Joe Biden on January 20.” Jeffries emphasized that House Democrats are focused on addressing the coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis in the new Congress.

https://hughhewitt.com/some-perspective/

The news is now consumed with the fact that covid deaths have exceeded 300,000 in the United States. My heart aches for everyone that has lost a loved one. That is deeply saddening.

But while we are breathlessly reporting that news as if it the worst news possible, I think some historical perspective is important. 300,000 is roughly 0.09% of the population of the United States.

Now consider this regarding the Black Plague:

Europe suffered an especially significant death toll from the plague. Modern estimates range between roughly one-third and one-half of the total European population in the five-year period of 1347 to 1351 died, during which the most severely affected areas may have lost up to 80 percent of the population.