The three firefighters who died after their plane crashed and exploded while battling bushfires have been remembered as "brave Americans"

> The three firefighters who died after their plane crashed while battling raging bushfires in southern NSW have been remembered as "brave Americans" as authorities paid tribute to the trio.

@BradC I mean, this is true, but OTOH the Republican reaction to "you have violated your oaths of office" has been "yes, and?" for basically my entire politically-aware lifetime

> @ChuckGrassley is calling for a DoD IG investigation after whistleblowers came to him with concerns about how the department handled reports that Lockheed was mishandling chemicals, with some workers worried about health/safety

Wikipedia has reached 6 million articles

pretty cool

I contributed one article that isn't a redirect or deleted

(but actually have done like 5000 edits)

The Saudis are trying to kidnap people in the US to return them for punishment

House Dems give compelling McGahn's testimony another go now that Trump's defense has undermined the DoJ position the court can't decide the matter

Schiff's closing

@TimStone they've been doing that to women for a long time aswell

I know the Republicans keep trying to frame this as if it were a criminal trial but if it were jury tampering would uhhh be an issue

@TimStone that was actually a great short speech, not just clickbait

Woman sues Applebees, claims she was fired for asking customer to leave over anti-Muslim remarks

> According to Breaud, the general manager of the store called her after her shift and chewed her out, allegedly telling her that she should have asked the offended customers to move to a different section of the restaurant.

yes, how dare she tell a racist customer to leave instead of directing them to the section of the restaurant that's reserved for racists

@Memor-X Yes, this is how you normalize racism. I suspect she'll lose her case, though, sadly. Isn't America essentially just "At-Will" employment, meaning they can fire you for literally any reason?

@TimStone It's pretty sad that none of this is going to matter, since the GOP will just "acquit" him :/

@TimStone I'm not even remotely surprised.

In fact, I'd be surprised if that didn't happen.

@Wipqozn it depends on the state

@TimStone I am reeeaaaaalllyyy glad my friend didn't go to live and work there for two years...

Also cause, ya know, bi translady even if I was closeted >.>

But aaallllll of that shit

Donald Trump is livid on Twitter again... About his Impeachment defense starting on TV on a Saturday

Unsurprisingly, this was the GOP's fault

I mean outside even the fact that McConnell controls the rules to begin with, they had a chance to specifically avoid this

The best worst part of all this is that even if Trump is impeached, that then Mike Pence just takes over.

@Wipqozn When Pelosi said this in the House at the start of the Impeachment hearings, the GOP reps literally started applauding

Tinder is adding a panic button in case your date is making you feel unsafe

@TimStone Worth another mention. From your link:

> CBS News reports that GOP Senators have been warned by Trump team: "Vote against the president, and your head will be on a pike." How is this acceptable?

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Thursday came up with a bizarre explanation for why President Donald Trump shouldn’t be removed from office: He didn’t think he was doing anything wrong.

@BradC Jury intimidation is a form of obstruction of justice, right?

@MBraedley Yep. If I was feeling optimistic, I might suggest that this kind of pressure might backfire; that GOP Senators might finally see him for what he is and the danger he poses.

But I'm not feeling optimistic.

They're already suffering from Stockholm Syndrome

@MBraedley It's even a felony. Hoffa went to jail for it

Add another notch to Trump's Obstruction Grip

So not news, per say, but a usable source of impeachment news, for those who can't or don't want to watch 12 hours of testimony per day:

lawfareblog.com/introducing-report-season-2-impeachment

Lawfare is dedicating season 2 of their "The Report" podcasts to daily brief-ish summaries of the day's happenings in the impeachment trial

Note that this isn't commentary, this is like an hour of the most important clips from the speeches themselves

Here's an article on the above threats from the White House: Trump is reportedly threatening Republicans to keep them in line on impeachment

> Trump has also been "rewarding senators who have his back on impeachment" by helping them raise campaign cash, "and sending a message to those who don't to get on board," Politico reported in October. And Trump, U.S. Chamber of Commerce strategist Scott Reed noted, "has the ability to turn on the money spigot like no one else."

Carrot and stick

Trump impeachment team looks at shorter trial defense

(because their only defense is putting poop in a blender with no lid)

The latest episode of the Opening Arguments Podcast (OA353: Duplicity and Impeachment) talks about one of the more obscure (but still flawed) defenses of Trump in his team's filing: an obscure legal defense about "duplicity" which, if I have properly digested the explanation, is about consolidating too many only partially-related charges under a single criminal charge

He explains what multiplicity and duplicity mean in a legal context, and why this isn't a good argument against the impeachment charges in this case.

Mostly they put out this episode to be pre-emptive, just in case this is something Trump's team attempts to flummox listeners with during their turn

The Biden campaign pushed Iowa staffers to drive in dangerous weather according to messages received by The Nation

So when do they tell us that they managed to find Trump innocent despite the overwhelming evidence?

@SaintWacko That'll be at the very least for next week

I mean, one of the biggest ironic twists right now would be that a couple of moderate senators would vote against additional witness testimony, from their own personal conviction that the current evidence already is enough to vote to remove Trump

The honest Trump defense that is too embarrassing to advance

> In other words, Trump is so mentally and emotionally defective, he cannot understand the import of his actions or concepts such as right vs. wrong, true vs. false and personal vs. national interests.

Hah very nice

So either Trump is guilty, or Trump is unfit for office. Choose, GOP senators. Choose wisely.

I've, got to be honest it's actually quite annoying that we're still on this "woah, conservatives don't care about the rules as long as they're winning"

yeah they don't we've known this for decades

I didn't! But then I'm not an american

I've known this for 30 years which is impressive given that I'm 25

there are no reasonable republicans, and there sure as heck aren't 6 of them in the senate or whatever

Time to set up the guillotines

@Elva That's... Actually what some people are proposing, in some respect. Because Trump just claimed he would assert executive privilege over additional evidence, and McConnell ordered his senators to just deny all further witnesses and evidence because it would take too long to fight Trump. EXACTLY what the GOP is slamming the Dems about.

this would effectively be the end of the Rule of Law

the law is fake

Because at this point the GOP, Trump and Russia would then have free reign to rig the elections

So some constitutional experts, like Seth Abramson, are proposing to peacefully and lawfully protest in DC until new elections are called, like what happened during the Arab spring

I don't exactly remember but

I seem to recall that being both unlawful and ineffective in most cases?

not that lawfulness is a good metric

as it turns out you don't get anything done inside a designated protest zone, in general

@Unionhawk I'm basing based on twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1220490303318253570

Because they did the same in Ukraine back in 2014. Though if I recall correctly, right after that Russia invaded Crimea

Which does Russia support, Trump/GOP, democratic establishment, democratic progressive wing, Green party? I have heard of the first and the last two.

from democratic establishment

It's a bit of a false premise here. The Russian government, which is to say Putin, doesn't so much care about one particular side or another in US politics so much as it desires to destabilize US politics.

The more that the US focuses inward on its own growing problems, the less able the US is to project outward influence.

And Russia is more than willing to fill in the gaps internationally. You can see this already in the Middle East.

But primarily, Russia's been supporting the GOP because so far it seems like it's more able to influence the GOP. Multiple Republican representatives have traveled to Russia for purposes that are a bit more than your average murkiness in politics.

@Nzall Oh, okay

'Take her out': Recording appears to capture Trump at private dinner saying he wants Ukraine ambassador fired

Note that this is in a small gathering, where Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman are active participants in the conversation, and can be heard on the recording as well

Did someone already link this earlier story?

GOP warns of 'drawn out' executive privilege battle over Bolton testimony

"nah, we shouldn't subpoena Bolton because it would lead to a protracted legal dispute"

> Republicans are using the threat of a protracted executive privilege battle as a cudgel to dissuade their colleagues from calling former national security adviser John Bolton to testify at President Trump’s impeachment trial.

@BradC Note that one of the things the GOP is complaining about on the impeachment trial front is that the House did exactly that (not go into a protracted legal dispute about executive privilege)

@Nzall Right. This is so clearly bad faith, since one of their other arguments is that the charges are insufficiently proven since the US House failed to pursue all possible legal battles through to the very end

Again, their strategy is to put poop in a blender on high with the lid off.

"whatever sticks"

@BradC yeah, and if the House did do that, the GOP would probably complain they took too long

@Nzall Exactly

Judge sets high bar for former Trump adviser Flynn to withdraw guilty plea

> Such a hearing, the judge said, might include "testimony from Mr. Flynn and other witnesses under oath, subject to cross-examination, to show any 'fair and just reason' for this court to grant his motion to withdraw."

In other words, Flynn must testify under oath, that his prior sworn testimony under oath admitting to the crime was false

@BradC So essentially, he must admit under oath to perjury?

tfw you're really concerned about the vote of the people but lost your election and had to be appointed to office

@TimStone Also, his tweet is has absolutely nothing to do with what Schiff said and he damn well knows it

@BradC well this isn't actually anything new, we've always know that those who support Trump get his money

@BradC in other words, not fit for office and thus that Article for removing an unfit president should be used

which is just as bad. "you can't convict the president for a crime because he's unfit to be president......why are you looking at us as if we're stupid"

though at this point we know that Trump disowns everyone he knows when they get into trouble. can probably assume the same for anyone in his family

@Memor-X Yeah, you'd think they would've learned by now that he doesn't actually cover for those who do his dirty work

@TimStone also

if Trump lost the popular vote again but was re-elected, what would the failure rate be?

i think when the accuracy drops bellow 90%, you're using RNG then

actually just thinking on it, how big are the places Trump has been having his rallies? because i would not be surprised if he's doing the very thing that contradicts one of the defences for the Electoral College and has only been having them in big states

Modern presidential campaigning strategy isn't so much about "big states" as "swing states"

California has more electoral votes than any other state by a wide margin, but nobody campaigns here or about issues that matter here because the state will almost definitely vote Democrat in any case