Poll: Americans remain divided on Trump’s removal as the GOP prepares to acquit

With President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial hurtling towards its conclusion, a new poll finds the first week of the proceedings — which contained arguments from the House impeachment managers as well as from Trump’s legal counsel — did little to change public opinion about whether the president should be removed from office.

According to a Politico/Morning Consult national poll that was conducted from January 29-30, 50 percent of registered voters approve of removing President Trump from office while 43 percent disapprove. Those numbers were only slightly different from last week’s version of the same poll, which found 47 …

Tlaib promises to help preserve party unity after wading into a Clinton-Sanders row

Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib has apologized for booing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Friday night over comments Clinton has made in recent weeks about Sen. Bernie Sanders, who Tlaib is a prominent campaign surrogate for.

“In this instance, I allowed my disappointment with Secretary Clinton’s latest comments about Senator Sanders and his supporters get the best of me,” Tlaib said Saturday on Twitter. “You all, my sisters-in-service on stage, and our movement deserve better.”

The comments, the booing, and the apology are merely the latest flare-up in a conflict that has been going on since the 2016 primary, …

2020 Democratic candidates aren’t happy about new debate rules that seem to benefit Bloomberg

After resisting calls to amend its rules to give more candidates the opportunity to appear on its debate stages, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has announced it will relax its debate criteria after all.

Previously, the DNC required candidates reach a certain threshold in polling and receive contributions from a certain number of individual campaign donors to receive a debate invitation.

Friday, it was announced candidates will no longer need to meet any donor requirements. Instead, to qualify for February 19’s debate in Las Vegas, Nevada, candidates must either: hit 10 percent in four qualifying national polls, 12 percent in …

A new social network makes an old bet: That we want to hear from rich people

Billionaires have enormous influence in American society, whether we like it or not. Do they really need another bullhorn for talking to the non-billionaire public?

That’s one of the core questions surrounding Column, a work-in-progress social network that seems to be centered on leveraging the aphorisms of Silicon Valley billionaires (think Peter Thiel, Marc Benioff) to win attention from fans of the megarich.

Column is a proposal for a “democratized” version of a social media platform like Facebook, where influential people like Thiel — who Column has claimed as a backer — can spread their thoughts to the masses who …

8 questions about the coronavirus outbreak, answered

The coronavirus outbreak, centered in China, is evolving at a dizzying speed. And so is the global response. In the past 48 hours alone, Russia and Singapore have sealed their borders to China and the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global public health emergency. Meanwhile, the US government dramatically escalated its response — issuing its highest-level travel advisory, quarantining 195 citizens evacuated from China, and temporarily banning foreign nationals who have recently been to China from coming in.

With the case toll rising steeply, reaching over 11,000 on February 1, with 259 deaths, and face masks