January 20, 2020

2 dead, 15 wounded in shooting outside Kansas City bar, police say

Source: Washington Post

Two people were killed and 15 others wounded Sunday in Kansas City, Mo., when a gunman opened fire on a line of people outside a bar, police said.

The shooting began about 11:30 p.m., following a disturbance among the crowd of people waiting to get inside the 9ine Ultra Lounge, southeast of the city’s downtown, Kansas City Police Chief Richard Smith said at a Monday news conference. The suspect killed one woman before an armed security guard confronted, shot and killed him, Smith said.

Authorities described “a chaotic scene” as hundreds fled the venue by foot and in cars, the violence shattering the city’s celebration of its football team, the Kansas City Chiefs, who had just advanced to the Super Bowl — what was “an exciting night, a euphoric night,” Mayor Quinton Lucas said.

“Last night was a night many people in Kansas City have been dreaming of for 50 years,” Lucas said at the news conference. “This is very disappointing for us. It’s heartbreaking.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/01/20/2-dead-15-wounded-shooting-outside-kansas-city-bar-police-say/

January 20, 2020

George Conway: The worst thing about Trump's answer to the impeachment articles

President Trump has filed his answer to the articles of impeachment against him. In legal parlance, an “answer” is a document filed at the beginning of a proceeding, typically a civil case, in which the defending side gives its response to factual allegations and lists the basic grounds for its defense.

Trump’s answer did neither, not in any serious way. His arguments are wrong on the facts and wrong on the law, but that’s not the worst part. At its core, his submission represents an attack on the impeachment process — and on the Constitution itself.

The answer doesn’t bother to present any coherent factual response to the impeachment charges. Instead, it declares that Trump “categorically and unequivocally denies each and every allegation.” Is Trump denying, say, that he demanded that Ukraine announce it was investigating the Bidens? Or that he ordered documents to be withheld and witnesses not to testify before Congress? The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.

Beyond that, on the facts, Trump’s answer presents only a few bare conclusions, pointless irrelevances — and outright misstatements. It tells us, once again, that Trump’s July 25, 2019, call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was “perfectly legal” and “completely appropriate.” Trump “raised the important issue of Ukrainian corruption,” the answer asserts. Read the transcript, as the president might say. He did not.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/20/george-conway-oped-trump-impeachment-answer/

January 20, 2020

Trump's lawyers shouldn't be allowed to use bogus legal arguments on impeachment

By Laurence H. Tribe

The president’s lawyers have made the sweeping assertion that the articles of impeachment against President Trump must be dismissed because they fail to allege that he committed a crime — and are, therefore, as they said in a filing with the Senate, “constitutionally invalid on their face.”

Another of his lawyers, my former Harvard Law School colleague Alan Dershowitz, claiming to represent the Constitution rather than the president as such, makes the backup argument that the articles must be dismissed because neither abuse of power nor obstruction of Congress can count as impeachable offenses.

Both of these arguments are baseless. Senators weighing the articles of impeachment shouldn’t think that they offer an excuse for not performing their constitutional duty.

The argument that only criminal offenses are impeachable has died a thousand deaths in the writings of all the experts on the subject, but it staggers on like a vengeful zombie. In fact, there is no evidence that the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” was understood in the 1780s to mean indictable crimes.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/19/trumps-lawyers-shouldnt-be-allowed-use-bogus-legal-arguments-impeachment/

January 20, 2020

Hawaii Shooting: 2 Police Officers Are Killed, Officials Say

Source: New York Times

A gunman opened fire in Honolulu on Sunday, killing two police officers, and set fire to a house he was in, starting a blaze that spread to several other houses, the authorities and witnesses said.

The Honolulu mayor’s office confirmed the two fatalities and on Twitter offered “deepest condolences to the family and friends of the two officers as well as the entire Honolulu Police Department.”

A police spokesman, John McCarthy, did not offer additional details about what led to the shooting. The police did not say whether anyone was in custody.

Patricia Cooper, 71, who lives in the area where the shooting occurred, said the police had ordered her and her family to evacuate after the gunman set the house he was in on fire and the blaze spread to other houses.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/19/us/diamond-head-shooting-hawaii.html

January 19, 2020

Even C-Span Is Piqued: Senate Puts Limits on Trial Coverage

News coverage of President Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate began last week with a Republican senator calling a CNN reporter “a liberal hack” in the halls of Congress and laughing about it later that night during a Fox News interview.

Things haven’t improved much since.

Journalists are up in arms about new restrictions on their movement inside the Capitol, which they say will prevent them from easily interviewing lawmakers about the proceedings. The rules, negotiated by Republican Senate leadership, have yet to be written down, causing confusion among reporters and the Capitol Police expected to enforce them.

Even sedate C-Span is aggrieved, calling on the Senate to allow its television crews to document the trial, instead of the government-controlled cameras that — as was the case during Bill Clinton’s trial 21 years ago — will limit what viewers see and hear inside the Senate chamber.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/19/business/media/senate-impeachment-trial-media.html

January 18, 2020

Republican Senators Maintain They'll Weigh All Evidence Before Carrying Trump Out On Shoulders

WASHINGTON—Stressing that their duty to uphold the Constitution required impartiality in their role as jurors, Republican senators told reporters Friday that they would weigh all evidence before lifting President Donald Trump into the air and carrying him outside on their shoulders.

“Look, as senators, we swore a solemn oath to deliver justice, and I intend to abide by that precisely as we use this trial to scrutinize the facts and then determine exactly how—and indeed, if—we will storm into the Oval Office, hoist the delighted president aloft, and regale him with spirited rounds of ‘Hip, hip, hurray,’” said Sen. Mitch McConnell, noting that his awesome responsibility as the chamber’s majority leader required him to tamp down on any partisan speculation on whether Senate Republicans would rush to raise the president up onto their shoulders while singing “He’s A Jolly Good Fellow” or if Senate Republicans would opt for a more stately procession in which they conveyed the recently acquitted Trump past each and every Democratic congressperson’s office.

“Unlike some of my liberal colleagues, I understand my solemn role in this trial is to examine all the information at hand before passing judgment. Then, and only then, can we know whether it’s a reasonable course of action to deploy some form of red-white-and-blue confetti while repeatedly tossing President Trump into the air. Until then, it would simply be irresponsible to comment on whether or not we will incorporate party horns, noisemakers, or a big cake covered with lit sparklers into the proceedings.”

At press time, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin had commended McConnell on his commitment to impartiality as they came to a swift conclusion on whether or not they should cue up Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” on the Senate’s speaker system.

https://politics.theonion.com/republican-senators-maintain-they-ll-weigh-all-evidence-1841067235

January 17, 2020

Stephen Miller Hurt At Being Passed Over For Job Stalking Female Ambassador

WASHINGTON—After learning that Ukraine police had opened an investigation into whether associates of the president had surveilled the diplomat in Kyiv last year, White House senior advisor Stephen Miller was reportedly upset Thursday at being passed over for a job stalking female U.S. ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.

“When I found out that some of Giuliani’s goons had been tailing the ambassador around Ukraine, my heart just sank—I mean, how could they decide to follow a lady around and not pick me to do the job?” said Miller, who added that after all the thankless tasks he had performed for the Trump administration over three-plus years in office, he figured he would be at the top of the list when a plum gig like stalking a woman on the administration’s behalf came along.

“If I had known there was an opening for shadowing an important lady, I would’ve absolutely thrown my hat in the ring. Maybe I got passed over because I’m already stalking a bunch of women here in the U.S., but I still would’ve been able to manage my time and make it work. It really hurts that they didn’t even bother to ask. It would be one thing if I didn’t have any experience in tracking women without them knowing, but I’m really good at it. I can keep quiet in an alleyway, or stay awake idling in the car, or huddle in a closet without a peep for hours. And I’m really good at gathering hair and undergarments. I just wish they’d given me a chance.”

At press time, Miller had decided to cheer himself up by lying below the former ambassador’s bed wearing her clothing while she was asleep.

https://politics.theonion.com/stephen-miller-hurt-at-being-passed-over-for-job-stalki-1841048749

January 16, 2020

Scientists Still Unable To Determine Whether Yes A Good Band

CAMBRIDGE, MA—Following a three-decade-long, multimillion-dollar study to evaluate the progressive rock group’s music, a team of scientists at Harvard University announced Wednesday that they were no closer to determining if the British band Yes is good or not.

“While deep sonic analysis reveals technically interesting aspects to the band’s discography—1971’s The Yes Album and 1983’s 90125, in particular—we continue to struggle in our efforts to conclusively demonstrate whether Yes is actually a decent band,” said head researcher Dr. Jeremy Loach, confirming his team successfully replicated the findings of earlier studies that concluded the band’s album covers are pretty trippy and the bass guitar groove on “Roundabout” fucking rocks, but could establish little else with certainty.

“Take a song like ‘Close To The Edge’: The organ performance and the vocal harmonies certainly sound as if they’ve been recorded by a good band. But then you realize they’re tucked inside an 18-minute, multi-movement song with lyrics about witches, and it’s unclear exactly what Yes was even going for, let alone whether this is good music. At the same time, the band has been together for more than 50 years now, and if they were bad, surely they would have called it quits long ago. Right?”

While research into Yes remains inconclusive, Loach noted that his team long ago uncovered hard scientific evidence definitively proving that Emerson, Lake, and Palmer sucks.

https://www.theonion.com/scientists-still-unable-to-determine-whether-yes-a-good-1841023829

January 14, 2020

God Struggling To Feign Happiness After Jesus Announces He Marrying Exotic Dancer From Place Off I95

THE HEAVENS—Straining to react to the surprising engagement announcement with a measure of enthusiasm, God, Our Heavenly Father and the Creator of the Universe, reportedly struggled to feign happiness Monday after Jesus Christ informed Him that He would be marrying an exotic dancer from a place off I-95.

“I should have paid more attention when He kept making earthly appearances at some place off the Jersey turnpike called Centerfolds, but I never expected He’d suddenly be telling me He proposed to some stripper He barely knows,” said Our Lord, stressing that while He held nothing against the 22-year-old beauty school graduate and had always encouraged His son to reach out to those at the margins of society, there was “no way in hell” that He would be allowing Christ to get married to someone named Cinnamon.

“All I could do was keep smiling and nodding while He went on about how artistic she was and how He already felt like a father to her two kids. I can tell you this much, though: There is no goddamn way I’m letting the son I sent to die for humanity’s sin throw away His life like this.”

At press time, He Who Commanded the Light to Shine Forth From The Darkness went on to note that He would be changing His will in the next few days just in case His son disobeyed His wishes.

https://www.theonion.com/god-struggling-to-feign-happiness-after-jesus-announces-1840974315

January 13, 2020

Mike Bloomberg wants to be president, but he also has a fallback plan: Defeat Donald Trump

By the time Mike Bloomberg sniffed the hydroponic basil growing in an old tire factory here, he had already traveled 1,700 miles in three hops on his chartered plane, met with the mayor of Chicago and climbed into a soybean tractor on the frozen plains of southern Minnesota.

It was a show of force — four states in less than 17 hours on Wednesday, each event meticulously produced for local press, with separate rented motorcades and a button-down advance staff that choreographed his movements like a ballet. No other presidential candidate in the Democratic field would have tried to pull this off in January.

As the cameras shuttered before the purple grow lights of an urban farm, he asked if anyone knew the difference between a good salesman and a great salesman. The good salesman, he explained, can face rejection at one door and move on to the next just as convinced he will make the sale. “The great salesman knocks on the same door,” he said with a sly smile.

The thing that makes Bloomberg different is he can knock on all doors at once. Bloomberg is running aggressively to win the Democratic nomination but he is simultaneously building out a general election machine to defeat President Trump, with a new structure — data, field organizing, advertising and policy — that aims to elect Democrats up and down the ballot even if the party’s voters reject the former New York mayor this spring.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mike-bloomberg-wants-to-be-president-but-he-also-has-a-fallback-plan-defeat-donald-trump-and-remake-the-democratic-party/2020/01/12/8ebe580e-3346-11ea-9313-6cba89b1b9fb_story.html