From Matt Yglesias’ January 20 Slow Boring, Blame Trump for Trump-era immigration excesses:

All of this is terrible. And all of it is Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s doing (with help from the Supreme Court).

And now ICE has committed yet another brutal, inexcusable murder. R.I.P. Alex Pretti, ICU nurse and model American citizen.  None of this would be happening if we had decent, moral leadership and if ICE was operating in a lawful manner (and perhaps operating in states where there are many more illegal immigrants, rather than ones the petulant president likes to goad).  And the reprehensible lying about what is transpiring – sickening. As the New York Times Editorial Board said today, “The administration is urging Americans to reject the evidence of their eyes and ears. Ms. Noem and Mr. Bovino are lying in defiance of obvious truths. They are lying in the manner of authoritarian regimes that require people to accept lies as a demonstration of power.” I am sad and fear for my country.

After watching what actually transpired in the horrific shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an as-yet unnamed ICE agent versus the responses from the current administration, I thought that Steve Vladeck, writing in his One First Substack, had a wonderfully fitting quote from Hannah Arendt, who wrote in her 1967 New Yorker essay “Truth and Politics”:

“The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end—is being destroyed.”

And so it is.

If you are interested in an excellent summary of Jack Smith’s sworn testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, read Parker Molloy, writing in her The Present Age substack here. One excerpt:

“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power.”

Besides the Republican release of the transcript on New Year’s Eve, one might surmise that the timing of the illegal Venezuelan incursion was not entirely coincidental.

And the plague of firearm deaths continues…from Katelyn Jetelina’s Your Local Epidemiologist:

“Almost immediately, social media seized on the tragedy to argue that Australia’s strict gun laws don’t work. I’ll stop that right there. This isn’t a debate because the data are crystal clear:

1. 1. Mass shootings are extremely rare in Australia. Since the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, strict firearm regulations (a buyback program and tight licensing) have kept mass shootings to zero or one per year on average in Australia. By contrast, the U.S. experiences roughly 400–650 mass shootings annually, with more than 46,000 deaths from gun violence each year. As the graph below shows, it’s not even close.
      
   2. A tragedy does not disprove the effectiveness of these laws. Data show that strict regulations reduce deaths. Beyond Australia, places like the U.K., Japan, and Canada have similarly strict gun laws and extremely low rates of mass shootings. We can also see variability within the United States. States with the most lax gun laws have the highest rates of gun violence.
   3. Firearm deaths are the leading cause of death for children in the U.S., whereas in Australia, child deaths from firearms are extremely rare, with suicide and road accidents being the top causes.”