The most powerful part of Raskin’s book, the heart-shattering part, is his love letter to Tommy, a “dazzling, precious, brilliant … moral visionary, a slam poet, an intellectual giant slayer, the king of Boggle, a natural-born comedian, a friend to all human beings but tyrants and bullies, a freedom fighter, a political essayist, a playwright, a jazz pianist, and a handsome, radical visitor from a distant future where war, mass hunger and the eating of animals are considered barbaric intolerable and absurd”. Photograph: Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images Trump supporters clash with police on 6 January 2021. His father described his illness as “a kind of relentless torture in the brain … Despite very fine doctors and a loving family … the pain became overwhelming and unyielding and unbearable at last.” Like so many others with clinical depression, the catastrophe deepened his symptoms. Tommy was a second-year student at Harvard Law School when Covid began. In the state legislature, Raskin helped outlaw the death penalty and legalize same-sex marriage. Jamie Raskin taught constitutional law then ran for the Maryland senate, with Tommy, then 10, his first campaign aide. When Raskin was the only one acquitted, he famously demanded a retrial. In 1968, Marcus Raskin was indicted with William Sloane Coffin, Dr Benjamin Spock and others for conspiracy to aid resistance to the draft. His grandfather, Marcus Raskin, was one of the earliest opponents of the Vietnam war when he worked in the Kennedy White House. His maternal great-grandfather was the first Jew elected to the Minnesota legislature. Tommy Raskin was the fourth generation in a great liberal family. Raskin’s astonishing story of tragedy and redemption, of “despair and survival”, depended entirely on all the “good and compassionate people” like Tommy, “the non-narcissists, the feisty, life-size human beings who hate bullying and fascism naturally – people just the right size for a democracy … where we are all created equal”. “I’m not going to lose my son at the end of 2020 and lose my country and my republic in 2021,” he told CNN, less than three weeks after Tommy’s death. He found “salvation and sustenance … a pathway back to the land of the living”. Instead of succumbing to unfathomable grief over the death of his son, Raskin seized a lifeline thrown by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and agreed to lead the effort to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the riot which might have derailed the peaceful transition of power. This is where the superhuman part came in. Never had he felt “so equidistant … between the increasingly unrecognizable place called life and the suddenly intimate and expanding jurisdiction called death”. Raskin suffered “a violent and comprehensive shock to the foundations”. Six days later, a vicious mob invaded Raskin’s workplace, the cradle of democracy, leaving several dead and injuring 140 police officers. On 31 December, his beautiful, brilliant, charismatic 25-year-old son, Tommy, took his own life. When 2020 began, he had no inkling that just 12 months later his country and his family would face “two impossible traumas”. 6.Jamie Raskin is a fine writer, a Democratic congressman, a constitutional scholar and a deeply loving father. Here’s what we know about what Trump did on Jan. ![]() The Washington Post examined text messages, photos and videos to create a video timeline of what happened on Jan. Inside the siege: During the rampage, rioters came perilously close to penetrating the inner sanctums of the building while lawmakers were still there, including former vice president Mike Pence. Five people died on that day or in the immediate aftermath, and 140 police officers were assaulted. Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. ![]() 6, 2021, a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol held its final public meeting where members referred four criminal charges against former president Donald Trump and others to the Justice Department. ![]() The final hearing: The House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Read The Post’s analysis about the committee’s new findings and conclusions. ![]() 6 committee released its final report, marking the culmination of an 18-month investigation into the violent insurrection.
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