NEW YORK - CNN’s Jake Tapper, under fire for a comment questioning a Republican congressman and combat veteran’s commitment to democracy, said Thursday the criticism is an attempt to change the subject from the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

During coverage of Wednesday's House vote to impeach President Donald Trump, Tapper referenced U.S. Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, who was among Republicans who voted last week against the certification of President-elect Joe Biden's victory.

Mast lost both legs in an explosion while serving in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan in 2010. Tapper noted Mast's sacrifice “fighting for democracy abroad, although I don't know ... about his commitment to it here in the United States.”

That made Tapper an immediate target online and elsewhere. Fox News Channel's Pete Hegseth, a former U.S. Army National Guard member, called Tapper “an emotional bowl of soup with a serious inferiority complex for veterans and the military.”

MINNEAPOLIS - Daunte Wright, the young Black man shot by an officer during a traffic stop in suburban Minneapolis, was not “just some kid with an air freshener,” but a “prince” whose life ended too soon at the hands of police, the Rev. Al Sharpton said Thursday during an emotional funeral.

Hundreds of people wearing COVID-19 masks packed into Shiloh Temple International Ministries to remember Wright, a 20-year-old father of one who was shot by a white police officer on April 11 in the small city of Brooklyn Center. The funeral was held just two days after former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted in the death of George Floyd and amid a national reckoning on racism and policing.

“The absence of justice is the absence of peace,” Sharpton said. “You can’t tell us to shut up and suffer. We must speak up when there is an injustice.”

The civil rights leader's thundering eulogy included a stinging rebuke of the possibility that Wright was pulled over for having air fresheners dangling from his mirror. Wright’s mother has said her son called her after he was stopped and told her that was the reason. Police said it was for expired registration.

Well, another civic election season has come and gone, and I have to say it was a doozy. The most surprising event was the steady climb in support for young mayoral candidate Noah Redden, who started out with just four per cent public support in September but had reached a solid 14 per cent support in October.

On election day, Redden nearly came in second, less than one percentage point behind Kevin Klein, an experienced politician.

Indeed, the 27-year-old’s accomplishment was nothing short of astonishing. Particularly given that his shoestring campaign was given very little coverage — largely, according to one pundit, because he didn’t send out any press releases.

This when Redden’s unwritten press releases were there for everyone to see on Instagram, as he popped up in locations across the city, posting videos about what he hoped to achieve as mayor.

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