January 1, Week Two of Public Impeachment Hearings

This Day in History | 1863

“Four score and seven years ago…” President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address. 

Good Morning Middle Americans. 

Here we go again. Get ready for another round of political posturing deluxe. That’s what we’ve come to expect from these public impeachment hearings. One thing that will get tougher for Republicans today — is the ability to discredit the process of the impeachment hearings.  The GOP will still continue to slam House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff. His credibility has taken a hit.  But it will be much harder for them to talk about hearsay. The people who will testify this week, are doing so against the wishes of the White House. They were also direct witnesses to the phone call that started this whole thing. 

Also today, criminal charges expected against Epstein’s guards. Chick-fil-a is dropping it’s affiliations with christian charities because of protests from the LGBTQ+ community. And China begins rounding up protestors in Hong Kong. 

Read all about it below. 

– Fraser Dixon 

Public Impeachment Hearings Resume with Four Witnesses

(LA Times) – Tuesday’s House impeachment inquiry hearings kick off a breakneck week of public testimony, with Democrats bringing in nine witnesses to testify before leaving Thursday for the Thanksgiving recess.

First up will be Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, who said in his deposition that he repeatedly raised concerns in the White House about President Trump’s push on Ukraine for investigations into his political rivals during a July 25 phone call. Vindman was the first current White House official to give a deposition, and was one of the first witnesses to provide direct, firsthand confirmation of numerous details in an anonymous whistleblower’s complaint that first fueled the inquiry.

Read more about this week’s impeachment hearings here

Criminal Charges Expected this Week Against Epstein Guards

(The Daily Beast) – The two prison guards tasked with keeping watch over accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein on the night he committed suicide inside his New York City jail cell are expected to be charged falsifying prison records, a person familiar with the investigation told The Daily Beast. The criminal charges against the two unnamed guards could come as early as Tuesday, the person said. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan declined to comment. The pending charges, first reported by the Washington Post, are the first by federal investigators who have been probing how mysterious financier was allowed to take his own life on the morning of Aug. 10 death inside heavily guarded jail cell inside New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center.

Read more here from the Daily Beast

Chick-fil-A Drops Donations to Christian Charities After LGBT+ Protests

(AP) – Chick-fil-A is ending donations to three groups that oppose gay marriage in an effort to halt protests and broaden its customer base.

But the move has angered some of the fast food chain’s fans.

The Atlanta-based company said Monday that starting next year, it will focus its giving on three areas: hunger, homelessness and education.

“This decision was made to create more clarity — and to better address three critical needs facing children across the communities Chick-fil-A serves,” the company said in a statement.

Learn more here

China Begins Round Up of Hong Kong Protestors

(NY Times) – About a dozen protesters remained holed up inside a Hong Kong university on Tuesday evening, after a three-day standoff between the students and the police turned a prestigious institution into a battlefield and ended with hundreds of young people behind bars.

More than 1,000 protesters who had spent the previous day clashing with the police were detained after heavily armed officers surrounded the school on Sunday and gave the protesters few options but to surrender and face arrest.

Nevertheless, a number of students managed a daring escape, rappelling from a nearby bridge to be whisked away by waiting motorbike drivers. Others failed in an attempt to flee through a sewage pipe.

As much of the territory remained gripped by the drama at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the central government in Beijing on Tuesday condemned a decision by a Hong Kong court that overturned a ban on face masks worn by the protesters.

Learn more here