In what has to be considered a huge upset, Democrat Doug Jones has just been projected to be the winner in the Alabama senate race, defeating sex abuser and molester of teens Roy Moore by a margin of 49.5 to 48.7% with 91% of precincts reporting, in one of the Republican party’s strongest of strongholds.
I am off to bed feeling great and will discuss what this might mean tomorrow.
It is telling that lawyers who are defending three men accused of a hate crime against Somali immigrants are demanding that the jury include people who are more likely to be supporters of Donald Trump.
Three men accused of plotting to bomb a mosque and apartment complex housing Somali refugees asked a federal judge Friday to include prospective jurors from rural western Kansas because they are twice as likely to have voted for President Donald Trump.
A defense motion argues that plans to only summon citizens in the more urban counties closest to the federal courthouse in Wichita is a discriminatory practice that excludes rural and conservative jurors. The trial begins March 19.
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Yesterday Roy Moore, the Republican candidate for senator in Alabama who had been off the campaign trail and hiding for the past week, emerged to hold a final rally before the vote today. Olivia Nuzzi was there and says that it was fittingly weird, and in attendance were well-known Republican loonies: Steve Bannon, Representative Louie Gohmert, and Sheriff David Clarke.
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It turns out that if you microwave eggs, they will explode. Here is a video showing it.
I have never used Airbnb, the system where people can rent out rooms in their homes (or even the entire residence) to other people. This is attractive for low-budget travelers for whom hotels may be too expensive or in cases where there is no hotel near where they want to be. But Brad Esposito writes that there is a danger of staying in the home of someone you don’t know because you may be the target of a voyeur.
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One of the most aggravating aspects of the recent deluge of sexual abuse and harassment allegations has been that the country’s abuser-in-chief Donald Trump seems to be getting away with it simply by denying, denying, denying, and having his loyal army of surrogates back him up. So I was glad to see that three of his accusers, Jessica Leeds, Samantha Holvey, and Rachel Crooks, are upping the ante and coming forward and today demanded a full congressional inquiry into their allegations.
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Given the veneration that Americans seem to have for the military, it is not surprising that some people try to appropriate some of that by lying about having served in the military or even having received military honors. This practice had become so common that Congress even passed the Stolen Valor Act of 2013 that makes it a crime “for a person to fraudulently claim having received a valor award specified in the Act, with the intention of obtaining money, property, or other tangible benefit by convincing another that he or she received the award.”
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In a welcome move, by a unanimous vote, the party’s Unity Reform Commission, made up of 21 members selected by Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and DNC Chair Tom Perez, reduced the number of so-called super-delegates to the party’s presidential nominating convention from 715 to 315 and also required them to vote according to the wishes of their respective states.
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