Kevin's choice

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has chosen five Republicans to join the select committee that will investigate the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. McCarthy's picks are ranking member Rep. Jim Banks, plus Reps. Jim Jordan, Rodney Davis, Kelly Armstrong, and Troy Nehls. All five congressmen voted against impeaching Donald Trump in January, a week after the deadly event he incited.

• — McCarthy said he wanted to "make sure you get the best people," touting Davis' work on the House Administration Committee and Nehls' years in law enforcement. The appointments come just days before the panel will hold its first hearing, featuring witnesses from the U.S. Capitol Police and D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. —Politico
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• — "Why was the Capitol unprepared and vulnerable to attack?" Banks said in a statement that "we need leaders who will force the Democrats and the media to answer questions so far ignored," adding that the committee should also investigate the racial justice protests of last summer. Jordan called the probe "impeachment round three," and said he'll "focus on the truth and...the facts." Lol.
   
• — McCarthy's picks will join fellow Republican Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, who were selected by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Cheney and Kinzinger were the only two Republicans to vote in favor of the committee. The panel's Democratic chair will be authorized to issue subpoenas without Republican approval. The committee doesn't have a deadline to finish its work. —USA Today

Tribe: Garland's insurrection ruling and the future of democracy

"If [Attorney General Merrick] Garland comes even close to suggesting that the elected head of the executive branch and those members of Congress so beholden to him that they will join him in his crusade to 'stop the steal,' as the president put it, are to be shielded by the Justice Department from liability—whether civil or criminal—for seeking to prevent Congress from peacefully certifying an election replacing that chief executive with a successor, our system of government will be in mortal peril." —Laurence Tribe in The Boston Globe

Laurence Tribe is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor Emeritus of Constitutional Law at Harvard University and was the Justice Department’s first head of the Office of Access to Justice.

MORE: Merrick Garland's choice on Mo Brooks and the Capitol attack —The New York Times

Infrastructure weak

Lawmakers sparred yesterday over Senate Democrats' decision to impose a midweek deadline on a bipartisan group still scrambling to reach a deal on a $1 trillion infrastructure bill. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer set up a vote for tomorrow that would open debate on the bill, but the group of 22 senators hasn't yet agreed on how to fully pay for the cost of the legislation. Schumer says the Wednesday vote "is simply about getting the legislative process started here on the Senate floor. It is not a deadline to determine every final detail of the bill." But Sen. Mitt Romney, a member of the bipartisan group, says, "It's unlikely we'll proceed to a bill if we still haven't resolved all the major issues." Stay tuned. —The Wall Street Journal

MORE: Lindsey Graham floats Senate GOP leaving Washington, D.C., to deny a quorum for Democratic infrastructure bill —Insider

Safe harbor for Afghan allies

About 700 Afghan interpreters, whose lives are in danger because they worked with the U.S. during military operations in Afghanistan, have been cleared for evacuation to the U.S., along with 1,800 of their family members. The evacuees are expected to arrive by the end of the month and will be initially housed at the Army base at Fort Lee, Va., and potentially other military installations. According to the State Department, roughly 18,000 interpreters are seeking a special immigrant visa for themselves and their families. The Biden Administration issued a statement yesterday supporting a bipartisan bill that would remove some of the burdensome application requirements and speed up the approval process. —Defense One

MORE: Western diplomats plead for Taliban to halt offensive as U.S. evacuations of Afghan employees begins —Yahoo! News

WaPo Ed Board: Belarus' democracy movement deserves U.S. support

"In the global contest between democracy and dictatorship, Belarus is a critical test case. The pro-democracy movement in Belarus has suffered arrests, beatings, torture, censorship, and other deprivations, but it continues to fight for freedom. The United States should be at the vanguard of those helping Belarus complete the journey." —The Washington Post

MORE: On Washington visit, Belarus opposition leader asks U.S. for more help —Reuters

Focus on Georgia's voting law

The Senate Rules Committee held its first field hearing in 20 years in Atlanta, Ga., yesterday to examine voting rights issues, including the state's restrictive new law. "This is absurd. This is not America. What we need to do is make it easier for people to vote, not harder," Committee Chair Amy Klobuchar said of the law, passed in March, that adds a host of election regulations. The hearing featured testimony from Sen. Raphael Warnock, local officials, and voters. No Republican members of the panel attended the hearing, which Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called a "silly stunt." —Star Tribune

• — "Discrimination with surgical precision." The hearing came a day after a roundtable discussion of the law with Klobuchar, Sen. Jeff Merkley, former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, and local voters. Abrams contends that the state's Republican-led Legislature came up with the new voting law after a record number of Georgia residents voted by mail in the November election, turning the state blue. —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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• — Meanwhile, on the other side... Ten Fulton County voters looking to prove claims of widespread election fraud are seeking an in-depth inspection of 147,000 absentee ballots—including with a high-powered microscope. They're hoping that last week's revelation that nearly 200 Fulton ballots were initially double-counted will sway a judge. However, though the ballots were initially scanned twice last fall, there's no indication that any vote was included more than once in the final results, which have already been recounted by hand twice. —Florida Phoenix
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• — "Fulton's voters and the people of Georgia deserve better." Nevertheless, in light of the revelations, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has called for Fulton County Elections Director Rick Barron and Registration Chief Ralph Jones to be dismissed. "Fulton County's continued failures have gone on long enough with no accountability. Rick Barron and Ralph Jones...must be fired and removed from Fulton's elections leadership immediately," Raffensperger tweeted. —The Hill

Sánchez: Young Cubans take on the fight for freedom

"[Y]oung Cubans are not protesting solely against the pandemic curfews, the cut in commercial flights that allowed them to escape to another country, or the shops that accept only foreign currencies even though the people are paid in Cuban pesos. These protests are fueled by the desire for freedom, the hope of living in a country with opportunities, the fear of becoming the weak and silent shadows that their grandparents have become. These young Cubans don't want to be the grandchildren of a revolution that has aged so badly that Cubans are forced to risk their lives crossing the Florida Straits for a chance at a decent life." —Yoani Sánchez in The New York Times

Yoani Sánchez is a journalist and an activist for freedom of expression in Cuba.

MORE: Cubans' calls for political change grow louder than ever: 'Not about the embargo' —NBC News

I cringe whenever I hear folks speak of the guardrails of the Constitution or our democracy that saved us before, during, and after Jan. 6. I cringe because the only guardrails were a handful of people. I cringe because there are some people who will hear that and think all is good, they won't stand up, they won't vote. They may believe that all is okay because of those "guardrails." I may be preaching to the choir, but the Constitution is a piece of paper with words on it. It is nothing without people who believe in it and will stand up for it. It is nothing by itself. I am a veteran who took an oath to it long ago, an oath that does not expire. I've read it many times. But it is just words on paper.

The guardrails are people. People with ethics, with morals, with decency, with civility. If someone like Hitler was in power here (cue the laughs), would the Constitution matter? No. After all the voting that took place in 2020, it was purely a handful of people that saved us. That's not hyperbole or rhetoric. Please do not take it for granted.

When Trump came down the escalator in 2015, I told friends and family he would expose the Constitution for what it is, just words on paper. And that he would expose a lot of people for who they really are by giving them cover. Too many people, in my opinion, took him too lightly. A carnival barker with no soul or ethics can do a lot of damage. Oh, but he was good for ratings, so people bowed to him. And so I cringe when people speak of guardrails, which may once again lull people to sleep with a false sense of security. There is no bottom to Trump and his sycophants. The only guardrails are people who stand against people like him. —Bill T., Arizona

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff or the Stand Up Republic Foundation.