Ilhan Omar’s Republican opponent banned from Twitter over ‘hanging’ post

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.

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Trump’s EU envoy Gordon Sondland accused of sexual misconduct – live

Sondland, a key figure in the impeachment inquiry, is alleged to have retaliated against three women after they rejected his advances

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.

Related: How the US government created a fake university to snare immigrant students

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The 2020 election has too many candidates – but there’s an easy fix | David Daley

None of the four top Democratic candidates poll consistently above 30% – ranked-choice voting, however, can determine who people actually support

Democrats in Iowa will caucus in early February, barely two months away, and finally cast the first votes of presidential nomination season.

There’s an elite tier of four candidates: former vice-president Joe Biden, South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg, the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren. None of them, however, poll consistently above 30% in national surveys. Many Democrats see one or more of them as too old or too inexperienced; too far left or too moderate.

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Buttigieg returns donations from lawyers who represented Brett Kavanaugh

Following Guardian queries, 2020 hopeful says Kavanaugh should never have been placed on supreme court

Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 campaign is returning thousands of dollars in donations from two top Washington lawyers who represented Brett Kavanaugh in his controversial confirmation hearing, saying it will not accept funds from people who helped secure the justice’s seat on the supreme court.

Buttigieg’s campaign received $7,200 from Alexandra Walsh – $3,150 of which had already been returned because it exceeded limits – and attended a fundraiser in July that was co-hosted by the Washington lawyer. Buttigieg also received $2,800 from Beth Wilkinson, Walsh’s law partner, who also represented Kavanaugh.

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Don McGahn: former White House counsel must testify, judge rules – live

Federal judge rules McGahn must testify to House judiciary committee, putting pressure on other Trump officials tied to impeachment inquiry

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/6FeuuCrO5g pic.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

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Michael Bloomberg vows to refuse donations as presidential bid looms

  • Adviser: billionaire eyeing White House ‘cannot be bought’
  • Ex-New York mayor cannot debate if he does not take cash

Michael Bloomberg will not accept political donations if he runs for president and will not take a salary if he wins, according to senior aides discussing the New York billionaire’s plans as he marches toward a formal 2020 announcement.

Related: 'No one out there': could Democrats' lack of star power see Trump re-elected by default?

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Trump suggests he wants to be impeached and says ‘I want a trial’ – live

President sounded off on public hearings on Fox & Friends, praised Giuliani as ‘one of the great crime fighters’ and called Pelosi ‘crazy as a bedbug’

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.’

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Can Elizabeth Warren fix her problem with African American voters?

Protesters interrupted a speech at a historically black college, as the 2020 hopeful struggles to attract essential support

Elizabeth Warren was only a couple of minutes into her prepared remarks celebrating the history of black female protesters when modern-day protesters, many of them also black women, decided to cut her off.

Just as the Massachusetts senator was about to launch into her reflections on the Atlanta washerwomen’s strike of 1881, stomping feet and shouting were heard from the corner of Clark Atlanta University’s gymnasium. Soon, Warren’s prepared speech was eclipsed by cheers of “Our children, our choice!” and “We will be heard!”

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Joe Biden’s boast of African American voter support backfires – video

Joe Biden boasted about his support among African American voters during the fifth Democratic presidential debate in Atlanta on Wednesday. 'I come out of the black community in terms of my support,' Biden said and listed 'the only black African American woman who had ever been elected to the United States Senate' as one of his endorsements, at which the candidate and senator Kamala Harris threw her hands in the air, laughing: 'Nope. That's not true. The other one is here.'

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Democratic debate takeaways: Buttigieg unscathed as candidates focus on impeachment

A surging Pete Buttigieg avoided major criticism while Tulsi Gabbard reinforced her outsider status in Atlanta debate

Some of the candidates used the explosive congressional testimony from the ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, earlier in the day as a launchpad to renew calls for Donald Trump’s impeachment.

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Impeachment hearings: Sondland says quid pro quo was pushed by Giuliani and ordered by Trump – live updates

The US ambassador to the EU has delivered bombshell testimony that deals serious blows to Trump’s defense of his role on Ukraine

Nunes is up first. “Once again the Democrats have seen the preposterous failure of their conspiracy theory,” he says.

Nunes notes that Democrats have said Sondland’s other two amigos – Rick Perry and Kurt Volker – have left him behind.

And a late-stage zinger from Sondland. Krishnamoorthi notes he had been referred to by NSC officials as “the Gordon problem.”

“That’s what my wife calls me,” Sondland said, to ready laughter. “Maybe they’re talking. Should I be worried?”

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Michael Bloomberg apologizes for stop-and-frisk as he mulls presidential run

Prominent activists express skepticism after ex-New York mayor apologizes for program that disproportionately affected minorities

Potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg has apologized for his longstanding support of the controversial “stop-and-frisk” police strategy, a practice that he embraced as New York’s mayor and continued to defend despite its disproportionate impact on people of color.

The apology, however, was received skeptically by many prominent activists who noted that it was made as he is taking steps to enter the presidential race ahead of the 2020 US election.

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Democratic candidates reject Obama’s warning of going too far left

‘I’m not tearing down the system,’ Bernie Sanders says in response to former president’s message

Democratic 2020 presidential candidates have rejected criticism from former president Barack Obama, after he warned the field of White House hopefuls not to veer too far to the left because it would alienate voters.

Though Obama did not mention anyone by name, the message he delivered before a room of Democratic donors in Washington on Friday was a clear word of caution about the candidacies of Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who are seen as two of the top-tier candidates in the crowded field.

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Bernie Sanders’ message increasingly resonates with Latino voters

As growing numbers of Latinos are voting, Sanders has gained their support in California simply by outworking the competition

It’s Friday night, and the moments before US Senator and 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is due to appear at Fresno City College feel more like a rock festival than a political rally.

Vendors hawk swag – hats with “Feel the Bern” and “Eat the Rich” slogans, T-shirts featuring the photo of the young Sanders being arrested at a protest – while an already raucous crowd nods to songs about revolution and wave signs reading: “Unidos con Bernie.”

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‘A little out of touch’: the quest to find Joe Biden’s millennial supporters

Young people are getting Bernie Sanders tattoos and Andrew Yang even has his own ‘Yang Gang’ – but at Biden rallies, the youth vote is conspicuously absent

Young people like Bernie Sanders. They flock to his rallies and tattoo his spectacles on to body parts. Young people like Elizabeth Warren – just take a look at the memes. Pete Buttigieg, despite his unradical, centrist policies and general air of clean-shirtedness, draws out the youth. Andrew Yang’s “Yang Gang” are an often youthful phenomenon of their own.

Joe Biden? Not so much.

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Donald Trump says US military presence in Syria ‘only for the oil’ – live

Bill Taylor and George Kent testify in first day of public impeachment inquiry – follow for live updates

Some non-impeachment news courtesy of The Guardian’s Nina Lakhani:

The Guardian’s Washington correspondent David Smith:

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The five ways Republicans will crack down on voting rights in 2020 | Carol Anderson

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.

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Elizabeth Warren hits back at Biden ‘angry’ criticism: ‘I am angry and I own it’

Hitting back at criticism from Joe Biden that many people said was sexist, Elizabeth Warren told supporters: “I am angry and I own it.”

Related: Michael Bloomberg: billionaire eyes centre lane in Democratic presidential race

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Warren and Booker lead candidates at environmental justice forum

  • National Black Caucus of State Legislators hosts event
  • Booker defends support for nuclear power

Only six candidates turned out for the first ever presidential forum on environmental justice, at South Carolina State University on Friday night.

Related: Michael Bloomberg: billionaire eyes centre lane in Democratic presidential race

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‘I would love to go’: Trump considers Putin invite to Russia – video

Donald Trump has said he is considering attending a Russian military parade in May, claiming he has been invited by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The US president spoke to reporters on the White House lawn, where he also talked about Michael Bloomberg entering the Democratic primary. 'He’s not going to do well, but I think he’s going to hurt Biden actually … There’s nobody I’d rather run against than little Michael,' he said

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