Senate Democrats want to subpoena four witnesses in the impeachment trial

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer laid out exactly how Democrats are looking to handle the Senate impeachment trial in a letter on Sunday: They’d like to kick things off on January 6 — and include the testimony of at least four witnesses.

Those witnesses are acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, former National Security Advisor John Bolton, Mulvaney’s senior advisor Robert Blair, and Associate Director for National Security at the Office of Management and Budget Michael Duffey. They’re all current or former members of President Donald Trump’s administration who have direct knowledge of his discussions with Ukraine …

Senate Republicans have already made up their minds on impeachment

Members of the full US House of Representatives are likely to approve articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump this week, moving the impeachment process forward to the Republican-controlled Senate for a trial.

Sunday, Republicans and Democrats made their disagreement on what impeachment means clear, as lawmakers in both parties agreed that the president is unlikely to be removed by the Senate, while each group lamented how partisan politics have shaped impeachment proceedings thus far.

As attention moves to the Senate trial ahead of the historic House vote, Democrats have been quick to argue Republicans in the upper chamber aren’t …

Top Democratic candidates ask the DNC to allow more candidates to participate in debates

Nine Democratic presidential candidates sent a letter to the Democratic National Committee Saturday urging the party to ease the qualification requirements for upcoming debates, highlighting tensions within the party over the decline of candidates of color in a primary field once heralded for being the most diverse in US history.

To make the stage for the December debate — which most candidates have pledged to boycott over a labor dispute at the venue — the party required candidates to receive at least 4 percent in four DNC-approved polls, and have at least 200,000 individual campaign donors.

The requirements for a …

UN climate talks in Madrid ended without resolving their toughest issue

MADRID – An exhausting international negotiation session on climate change concluded Sunday with an agreement among countries to take on more ambitious goals. That agreement, however, failed to resolve the main issues on the table, like creating rules for trading carbon emissions credits and helping developing countries pay for climate damages.

Almost 200 countries at the two-week United Nations meeting known as COP25 did approve a statement calling on them to do more to fight climate change by next year, when the next round of national commitments to curb greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris climate agreement are due.

But …

A House Democrat who opposes impeachment is expected to switch political parties 

Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a moderate Democrat who’s vocally opposed the impeachment of President Donald Trump, intends to switch parties next week, The New York Times reports.

Van Drew’s announcement is poised to take place as the House votes on whether to impeach the president. It’s a development that’s seen as providing an opportune distraction for Trump, which Republicans also view as underscoring the partisan nature of impeachment. Van Drew’s decision comes as he stares down a potentially competitive Democratic primary in 2020 — and a similarly tight general election in a district that Trump won in 2016. …

Former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin’s 428 pardons are upsetting both Democrats and Republicans

Before handing over power to Gov. Andy Beshear (D) last week, former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) used his final days in office to issue hundreds of pardons, including people convicted of sexual assault and murder.

The decision has drawn criticism from both the left and the right, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell calling the pardons “completely inappropriate” and Beshear calling the pardon of Dayton Jones, who was convicted of raping a child, “wrong.”

Overall, the former governor issued 428 pardons, including Jones; a man who was convicted of killing his parents at age 16; and Patrick Brian Baker, …

Omar al-Bashir, deposed president of Sudan, has been sentenced to 2 years in a reform facility 

Omar al-Bashir, the deposed former president of Sudan, was sentenced to two years of incarceration at a state run reform center by a Sudanese court Saturday.

The verdict marked the end of the first major test of the independence of the nation’s judiciary under its new government, and saw a key demand of protesters who helped bring al-Bashir down being met.

Al-Bashir ruled Sudan for 30 years before being removed in April by mass protests triggered by austerity measures. Those protests quickly broadened into a pro-democracy movement that demanded the former president face the courts over allegations of genocide and …

Mississippi’s ban on abortions at 15 weeks gets shut down second time

A federal appeals court blocked Mississippi’s 15 week abortion ban on Friday, simultaneously ensuring abortion access in the state after the 15th week of pregnancy, and paving the way for further legal challenges to current federal abortion regulations.

Jackson Women’s Health Organization — the only abortion clinic left in Mississippi — sued the state in 2018 to block the law banning the procedure; a judge ruled in the clinic’s favor that year.

Friday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals supported that ruling after the clinic argued that no medical evidence shows a fetus would be viable 15 weeks into a …

How meritocracy harms everyone — even the winners

The belief that we live in a meritocracy is one of our oldest and most persistent illusions.

It justifies the gaping inequalities in our society by attributing them to the skill and hard work of successful people and the incompetence and shortcomings of unsuccessful people. But this has always been a fantasy, a way of glossing over how the world actually works.

A new book by Yale Law professor Daniel Markovits, The Meritocracy Trap, is a fascinating attempt to poke holes in our conventional understanding of meritocracy and, in the process, make the case for something better.

We typically …

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The committee has spoken


Tories hold on to power in Thursday’s UK election