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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The union representing U.S. diplomats said on Monday it has raised tens of thousands of dollars in the last week alone to help defray the legal costs of foreign service officers who have testified in U.S. President Donald Trump’s impeachment inquiry. The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) also issued a statement defending U.S. diplomats after Trump criticized several of those who have appeared before Congress and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said nothing specific in their support.

"I appreciate all the hard work by Mr. Horowitz and his team regarding the Carter Page FISA warrant application and the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign," Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham said on Monday. “Mr. Horowitz will be appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Dec. 11, where he will deliver a detailed report of what he found regarding his investigation, along with recommendations as to how to make our judicial and investigative systems better," the South Carolina Republican said. “I look forward to hearing from him. He is a good man that has served our nation well." The...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Two correctional officers responsible for guarding Jeffrey Epstein the night before he took his own life are expected to face criminal charges this week for falsifying prison records, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The federal charges could come as soon as Tuesday and are the first in connection with Epstein's death. The wealthy financier died at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York while awaiting trial on charges of sexually abusing teenage girls. The officers on Epstein's unit at the federal jail in New York City are suspected of failing to check...

Pretty much every poll related to President Trump and impeachment should be discounted because the national media is still only providing the public with half of the story.........A perfect example is an ABC survey that came out Monday, declaring that “an overwhelming 70% of Americans” say Trump’s “actions” with Ukraine were “wrong.”......Sorry, but you're not going to convince me that 70% of Americans can point to Ukraine on a map, let alone that they actually know anything about Trump’s “actions” toward it Most people don’t know that Ukraine inserted itself in the 2016 election for the explicit purpose of hurting...

Senior Counterterrorism White House official Kash Patel has filed a $25 million defamation lawsuit in Virginia court, accusing Rep. Adam Schiff of acting "in concert" with Politico by illegally leaking false information relating to the ongoing impeachment inquiry. The lawsuit was filed against Politico reporter Natasha Bertrand and publisher/executive chairman Robert Allbritton and accuses them of defaming Patel.

Posting as a VANITY since it is a DOJ press release only at this point: WASHINGTON – Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today announced that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz will testify before the Committee on Wednesday, December 11, 2019. The Inspector General will discuss the findings of his investigation into DOJ and FBI’s conduct during the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant process as it relates to the 2016 presidential election. “I appreciate all the hard work by Mr. Horowitz and his team regarding the Carter Page FISA warrant application and the counterintelligence...

Mike Francesa: Kaepernick Doesn't Actually Want To Play In NFL "He Wants To Cash In Against The League And Off The Field" On Saturday, free-agent NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick completed a 40-minute workout in front of representatives from eight teams. Originally, 25 teams planned to be in attendance for the workout, that was previously scheduled to be at the Atlanta Falcons training facility. The location of the practice was changed shortly before the start of the workout because of a disagreement over the terms of the workout between Kaepernick's representatives and the NFL. WFAN's Mike Francesa explained his thoughts on...

Next year, the number of Venezuelans fleeing their country will overtake the Syrian exodus. To date, more than 4 million have left. One-third of these refugees and migrants are sheltering in Colombia, which has maintained a very generous open-door policy. However, the strain is beginning to show. We were recently in Colombia, where a senior international official told us, “Colombia is a now a ticking time bomb.” This description may be hyperbole, but the country indeed appears headed towards a tipping point. Such an outcome would exacerbate the regional humanitarian crisis triggered by Venezuela’s collapse. It could also threaten the...

For three years many of journalism’s most prestigious news outlets won acclaim for making and repeating claims President Trump and his team had colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. No accusation, from secret meetings in Prague to tales of prostitutes peeing on beds, was deemed unfit to print. When they wanted to signal to readers that they were conveying claims instead of facts, their hedge words of choice – “unverified” or “not yet proved” were favorites – strongly suggested that confirmation was on the way. Call it the Trump Standard. Now those same news outfits are observing a...

As Chick-fil-A expands globally and into more liberal parts of the U.S., the chicken chain plans to change which charities it donates to after years of bad press and protests from the LGBT community. Beginning next year, Chick-fil-A will move away from its current philanthropic structure, Bisnow has learned. After donating to more than 300 charitable organizations this year, the Atlanta-based fast-food chain will instead focus on three initiatives with one accompanying charity each: education, homelessness and hunger. "There's no question we know that, as we go into new markets, we need to be clear about who we are," Chick-fil-A...

Someone asked this question on Quora:Is there a flaw to the American school system? Why do so many teens have depression? Why don’t people do anything about it?My answer: Okay, let’s suppose you’re a ninth-grade student in the school system. What are some reasons you might feel anxious and depressed? First, you sense from the early grades nothing very serious is going on in your school. People never really learn to read. They don’t know any geography, any history, any science. Many students can hardly add and subtract. People sometimes think that taking it easy is a good idea. Yes,...

Politico reports. "Of course she should get out," said one leading Democratic strategist who declined to speak on the record. "But who's gonna tell her?" Harris is struggling in the polls, but has reportedly told California insiders that she's not planning on dropping out of the race at least until after the Iowa caucus. But there are fears that even that could be too late and harm her reputation in the long run. "It's not happening," a leading grassroots organizer told Politico on the condition of anonymity. "She has her chance [to leave the race] ... she should take it."

Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee next month to testify on a forthcoming report on alleged surveillance abuse during the 2016 campaign. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who oversees the panel, announced on Monday that Horowitz will appear publicly on Dec. 11. Graham’s decision to schedule the hearing is the latest sign that Horowitz’s report is nearing its release. The GOP senator said earlier this month that he expected it within weeks. “I appreciate all the hard work by Mr. Horowitz and his team regarding the Carter Page FISA warrant application and the counterintelligence...

Burger King was sued on Monday by a vegan customer who accused the fast-food chain of contaminating its meatless “Impossible” Whoppers by cooking them on the same grills as its traditional meat burgers. In a proposed class action, Phillip Williams said he bought an Impossible Whopper, a plant-based alternative to Burger King’s regular Whopper, at an Atlanta drive-through, and would not have paid a premium price had he known the cooking would leave it “coated in meat by-products.” The lawsuit filed in Miami federal court seeks damages for all U.S. purchasers of the Impossible Whopper, and an injunction requiring Burger...

Summary: Let’s hit “pause” in the climate wars and see how we got here, where we are going, and what we can learn from this mess. “I can’t use this result. It doesn’t support the narrative.“ At the time I thought this statement was daft. Now I see that she was spot on, but not in the way she meant it. And with results that she did not intend. (snip) But the damage to climate science is effectively forever. Generations of scientists have learned that success is political, and I believe the resulting long slide of research quality has just...

It's of no surprise that Virginia Woolf was well-read in Russian Literature. In fact, Woolf explored Russia through its literature and she went on to write several essays on the subject... Woolf wrote, "... it is the soul that is the chief character in Russian fiction. Delicate and subtle in Tchekov, subject to an infinite number of humours and distempers, it is of greater depth and volume in Dostoevsky; it is liable to violent diseases and raging fevers, but still the predominant concern... The novels of Dostoevsky are seething whirlpools, gyrating sandstorms, waterspouts which hiss and boil and suck us...

Hanson Robotics Limited's Ben Goertzel, Sophia and Han at RISE 2017. Now for something that’s never been done onstage before. While they may not be human, our next guests are ready to discuss the future of humanity, and how they see their types flourish over the coming years. [NOTE: The actual robotic debate starts at 04:11.] LINK

President Richard Nixon’s son-in-law said Monday that House Democrats are being driven by the “AOC effect," arguing that Speaker Nancy Pelosi faced significant pressure from far-left members to pursue impeachment. “Most of her conference is in majority Democratic districts and they are all scared of a primary and that’s what’s driving them in large part,” Ed Cox told “Fox & Friends." Cox said that despite Pelosi’s initial decision to pull back the impeachment push, the lawmaker chose to maintain her position in leadership by going along with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s, D-Calif., impeachment inquiry.

Professor Richard Vatz of Towson University in Towson, Maryland, says that despite academic world priding itself on “supporting the marketplace of ideas and academic freedom,” there has been “an increasing and unremitting effort to eliminate conservatives” in areas of higher education. The professor added that when he brought up his concerns with the National Communication Association, “they couldn’t care less.” “There has been an increasing and unremitting effort to eliminate conservatives and conservative thought in the humanities and social sciences in the American academy,” wrote professor Vatz in his recent Baltimore Sun op-ed, entitled, “Towson professor: Higher ed discriminates against...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday insisted President Trump was “so much worse” than Richard Nixon — suggesting he would quit the White House if he cared about the US. “It’s really a sad thing,” Pelosi said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” calling Trump an “imposter” who was “way over his head” as commander in chief. “I mean, what the president did was so much worse than even what Richard Nixon did, that at some point Richard Nixon cared about the country enough to recognize that this could not continue,” she said of the only US president to ever resign...