Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Pre-emptive strike offers blueprint for GOP senators to acquit president, claiming a plot by Democrats
Donald Trump’s actions towards Ukraine were “entirely prudent” and involved “no quid pro quo, bribery, extortion, or abuse of power”, according to a draft Republican report on last month’s impeachment inquiry hearings.
Designed as a pre-emptive strike on an imminent report from the Democratic majority, the GOP document underlines how evidence presented at the hearings failed to shatter Republicans’ united front.
The US president arrives this week from a split nation amid signs of a Democratic revival
Reality. We all used to know what it meant. The world as it is. Objective facts that provide the foundation for rational – not emotional – judgments and actions.
But the old definition of reality has taken a serious beating during the nearly three years Donald Trump, the reality-show president, has been in office. Partly because Trump himself seems to live in a reality separate from the one most of us inhabit. Partly because too many people still can’t accept the objective facts of his presidency.
Ohio introduces one of the most extreme bills to date for a procedure that does not exist in medical science
A bill to ban abortion introduced in the Ohio state legislature requires doctors to “reimplant an ectopic pregnancy” into a woman’s uterus – a procedure that does not exist in medical science – or face charges of “abortion murder”.
This is the second time practising obstetricians and gynecologists have tried to tell the Ohio legislators that the idea is currently medically impossible.
Danielle Stella, a pro-Trump Republican candidate for Congress, was banned from Twitter after her account published a violent comment about the Democrat she hopes to unseat next year, Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar.
Stella’s campaign Twitter account, @2020MNCongress, featured at least two posts involving the idea of Omar being hanged, according to the Washington Times, which broke the story of her suspension.
The US Navy has thrown out plans to review three officers under scrutiny following Donald Trump’s decision to intervene in a related case.
Trump issued a direct order to halt disciplinary measures against a Navy Seal accused of war crimes in Iraq. On Sunday, defense secretary Mark Esper fired the navy secretary Richard Spencer after Spencer resisted pressure to intervene in the case of Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher.
As part of a sting operation, federal agents enticed foreign-born students, mostly from India, to a Detroit school that marketed graduate programs in technology and computer science. The students paid about $12,000 in tuition and fees per year to attend the university, which was created in 2015.
The students had arrived legally in the U.S. on student visas, but since the University of Farmington was later revealed to be a creation of federal agents, they lost their immigration status after it was shut down in January. The school was located on Northwestern Highway near 13 Mile Road in Farmington Hills and staffed with undercover agents posing as university officials...
Attorneys for the students arrested said they were unfairly trapped by the U.S. government since the Department of Homeland Security had said on its website that the university was legitimate. An accreditation agency that was working with the U.S. on its sting operation also listed the university as legitimate...
No one has filed a lawsuit or claim against the U.S. government for collecting the money or for allegedly entrapping the students.
Attorneys for ICE and the Department of Justice maintain that the students should have known it was not a legitimate university because it did not have classes in a physical location. Some CPT programs have classes combined with work programs at companies.
When the FiveThirtyEight polling average on impeachment dipped by a few points last week, Trump’s allies rushed to claim that the slight decline was evidence of the American public turning against the inquiry.
But additional polls appear to have debunked that claim. It seems the recent damning testimony from current and former Trump officials like Gordon Sondland and Fiona Hill has not moved the needle much, with around half of Americans supporting the impeachment of the president.
Finally getting a few more impeachment polls and the notion that the numbers are moving against Democrats isn't looking so hot. +4 spread on supporting impeachment/removal, which is similar to the peak in October.https://t.co/Tj71WyGT4xpic.twitter.com/S7iUHaRdlX
Secretary of state Mike Pompeo has announced he will deliver remarks to the media at 11 a.m. ET. It’s unclear whether Pompeo will also take questions from reporters, who would inevitably ask about the cabinet member’s role in the Ukraine controversy.
A federal judge has ruled that former White House counsel Don McGahn must testify before the House Judiciary Committee, a decision that could have major implications for the House’s impeachment probe.
BREAKING: A federal judge on Monday ordered Don McGahn must testify to Congress about his time as the Trump WH's top lawyer, a ruling that will add pressure on other Trump officials tied to the impeachment probe. Decision here: https://t.co/6FeuuCrO5gpic.twitter.com/sQ0PubTxqW
MONEY QUOTE: Jackson indicates that any "current or former" senior WH aide subpoenaed by a House committee must at least appear for testimony -- even if they claim privilege while testifying. pic.twitter.com/7DEYdItZLG
In the response to a freedom of information lawsuit by the Center for Public Integrity, an investigative journalism nonprofit, a federal judge has ordered the release of hundreds of pages of communications between Defense Department officials and others over stalled American aid to Ukraine.
Judge orders release of documents of communications between the Pentagon’s comptroller, DOD and White House OMB over the delay in stalled Ukraine aid. Must turn over 106 pages to Center for Public Integrity by Dec. 12. Another 100 by Dec. 20 in FOIA suit https://t.co/HuVEZOj3OG
Trump’s ex-press secretary says: ‘I was attacked for everything’
Sanders admitted Comey statement was ‘founded on nothing’
Sarah Sanders, the former White House press secretary who admitted to Robert Mueller that she lied to reporters, told the New York Times: “I don’t like being called a liar.”
Congressional Republicans dug deep in defense of Donald Trump over the weekend, frustrating Democratic hopes that the impeachment inquiry would build bipartisan support following weeks of testimony laying out how Trump attempted to extract a political “favor” from Ukraine in exchange for official acts.
House intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff blasted former national security adviser John Bolton on Sunday, for failing to appear for testimony in the impeachment inquiry while teasing a forthcoming memoir.
Joe Biden had harsh words for his former Senate colleague Lindsey Graham, who has emerged as one of the president’s most prominenet defenders against the House impeachment inquiry.
“Lindsey is about to go down in a way that I think he’s going to regret his whole life,” Biden in a CNN interview. “I say Lindsey, I just -- I’m just embarrassed by what you’re doing, for you. I mean, my Lord.”
Biden tells @donlemon he's "embarrassed by" Graham's actions after senator asks Pompeo to turn over docs related to Hunter and Ukraine
"Lindsey is about to go down in a way that I think he’s going to regret his whole life," Biden says, adding Trump is "holding power" over him pic.twitter.com/sjNjQV7Ogp
John Hendrickson, who wrote the incredible Atlantic article on Joe Biden’s history with stuttering, said in an MSNBC interview that he has received dozens of emails thanking him for exploring the topic.
Hendrickson, who also stutters, said it was his “nightmare” to be doing a television interview and acknowledged he admired Biden for for participating in presidential debates despite his history of stuttering. “I admire his courage,” Hendrickson said.
.@JohnGHendy thought this conversation would be his nightmare. He explained to me why his new piece in @TheAtlantic about how Joe Biden is handling the challenge of stuttering is so personal to him. Watch this: pic.twitter.com/lNlqpovnJI
Maybe you’ve heard Biden talk about his boyhood stutter. A non-stutterer might not notice when he appears to get caught on words as an adult, because he usually maneuvers out of those moments quickly and expertly. But on other occasions, like [the July debate] in Detroit, Biden’s lingering stutter is hard to miss. He stutters—if slightly—on several sounds as we sit across from each other in his office. Before addressing the debate specifically, I mention what I’ve just heard. ‘I want to ask you, as, you know, a … stutterer to, uh, to a … stutterer. When you were … talking a couple minutes ago, it, it seemed to … my ear, my eye … did you have … trouble on s? Or on … m?’
Biden looks down. He pivots to the distant past, telling me that the letter s was hard when he was a kid. ‘But, you know, I haven’t stuttered in so long that it’s hhhhard for me to remember the specific—’ He pauses. ‘What I do remember is the feeling.’
A former White House official has criticised politicians for advancing discredited conspiracy theories about Ukraine during impeachment hearings.
'I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimise an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian government is a US adversary, and that Ukraine – not Russia – attacked us in 2016,' said Fiona Hill in her opening statement.
Republicans have used the hearings to push the idea that Donald Trump was rightly suspicious of Ukraine because of allegations it attempted to meddle in the 2016 election – a widely debunked claim pushed by some of Trump's closest advisers including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
The US president has denied a heart attack prompted an unscheduled trip to the hospital over the weekend. Such reports, he claimed, showed that ‘the press really in this country is dangerous’
Republican representative Chris Stewart pressed Lt Col Alexander Vindman on why he corrected Devin Nunes after the GOP ranking member incorrectly called the Iraq war veteran “Mr Vindman.”
“You always insist on civilians calling you by your rank?” Stewart asked. Vindman, a Purple Heart recipient, replied that he considered the correction appropriate given that he is in his military uniform and because he has been the subject of attacks meant to “marginalize” his service.
Okay guys can we please stop making this a thing? Active duty service members are literally required to wear their dress uniforms when appearing on Capitol Hill in an official capacity. https://t.co/DWXD9LchoU
Lt Col Alexander Vindman testified that after he reported his concerns on Trump’s July call with the Ukrainian president, he was excluded from several meetings he usually would have attended in his capacity as the top Ukraine expert on the NSC.
Vindman says that after he reported on the July 25 call he was excluded from several meetings & “it was out of the course of normal affairs” to not have him participate.
The US official who overheard a key phone conversation between Eu ambassador Gordon Sondland and Donald Trump will testify publicly as part of the House impeachment inquiry, according to CNN.
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Donald Trump cared more about investigating his political rival Joe Biden than the fate of Ukraine, according to dramatic testimony from a key witness in the first impeachment inquiry hearing before the American public. As Adam Schiff, the Democratic chair, gaveled the House intelligence committee into session, cameras from every major network carried the proceedings to millions of Americans, some of whom were encountering the allegations against Trump for the first time
Donald Trump cared more about investigating his political rival Joe Biden than the fate of Ukraine, according to dramatic testimony from a key witness in the first impeachment inquiry hearing before the American public.
Given what’s at stake next year, the effort to prevent people voting will be fierce. We’ve been here before – and we can stop it
America hangs in the balance. The elections in November next year will determine whether the United States continues down the road of authoritarian dynastic rule or reclaims the work of expanding and improving our democracy. Those are the choices.
That expansion was born out of the civil war, which left 1.2 million dead or wounded, but resulted in the 15th amendment, which made clear that the right to vote could not be denied or hampered because of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The subsequent struggles led to women’s right to vote, opening the franchise to those 18 and over, and the “single most effective piece of civil rights legislation ever passed by Congress,” the Voting Rights Act, which protected the franchise from states with a demonstrated history of racial and linguistic discrimination.