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The Absurdity of Today’s Impeachment Vote Captured in One Tweet

On the United States House of Representatives floor today, representatives have lined up to speak in solemn tones about how they are fulfilling of their oaths of office and defending America from grave danger by voting to impeach President Donald Trump.

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Secession Is Far More Ordinary Than Many People Suggest

Advocacy for secession, both in America and abroad, is often scoffed at as unrealistic. Yet, far from an impossible goal, secession has happened much in history.

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Removing Marijuana Restrictions for Baseball Players

Some American professional sports organizations, such as the National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB), have served as auxiliary enforcers of the United States government’s marijuana prohibition, testing players for marijuana use and imposing penalties on them if it is determined they have used marijuana. On Thursday, MLB, along with the Major League Baseball Players Association, announced a reversal of that policy for baseball players, starting with the 2020 spring training.

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Edward Snowden Speaks Out for Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning

Julian Assange of WikiLeaks has been silenced. Assange was prevented from communicating with the outside world in his final 13 months at the Ecuador embassy in London, where he had obtained sanctuary from extradition to the United States. The silencing has continued in a British prison where Assange has been detained pending extradition to the US since British police forcibly removed him from the embassy in April.

Similarly, communication by Chelsea Manning has been much curtailed after Manning reveled United States military secrets. First, Manning served seven years in United States military prison after being convicted for the leak. Released from prison in 2017, Manning has been condemned to jail for most of the time since March of this year for refusing to testify for a grand jury involved in the US government’s effort to prosecute Assange.

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Mehdi Hasan Has Some Advice for Mark Zuckerberg: Suppress Speech More at Facebook

You may be concerned about Facebook and other companies restricting what may be communicated and who may communicate on the companies’ social media platforms, as well as those companies limiting the ability of people to easily see the posts of people and organizations they follow. The Intercept writer Mehdi Hasan is concerned about something else. He thinks Facebook is doing too little to suppress speech, especially speech critical of Islam and Muslim people.

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How About Cutting Darius Khalil Gordon Some Slack?

A Thursday Free Beacon article by Joe Schoffstall purports to expose Darius Khalil Gordon, a newly hired Bernie Sanders presidential campaign employee, as having “a history of racial slurs and denigrating remarks directed at gays, Jews, and women.” Some Twitter posts attributed to Gordon are presented in the article as evidence for this conclusion.

All the Gordon tweets but one included in the article are from a period in 2010 through 2012. Do they represent Gordon’s current thinking? It has been seven to nine years since he posted those tweets. It is even worth considering to what extent these years-old tweets ever really represented Gordon’s views.

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Jonathan Turley Versus the Impeachment Steamroller

Following up on his previous call for caution in the effort in the United States House of Representatives to impeach President Donald Trump, George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley on Wednesday presented to the House Judiciary Committee oral testimony and an extensive written statement regarding the case as it now stands for impeaching the president. Unlike other witnesses at the hearing, Turley did not give the deed his blessing.

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Fuddy-Duddies Strike Again, Maryland College Cancels The Foreigner Performance

In a March episode of Five Minutes Five Issues, I talked about some fuddy-duddies’ complaints about actors wearing Ku Klux Klan costumes in a South Dakota high school performance of The Foreigner. The complaints led to an apology from the school’s school district for the play having been performed.

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Oregon Supreme Court Limits Police Actions at Traffic Stops

When police stop vehicles for purported driving rules infractions, police will often take advantage of the situation to inquire about other matters in a “fishing expedition” to establish suspicion of unrelated lawbreaking. They also may ask drivers for permission to search the stopped vehicles. This can end up badly for drivers and other vehicle occupants, especially those who do not adhere to the basic self-protections rules of saying as little as possible to cops and refusing permission for searches.

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State DMVs Making Millions Off Selling Personal Information Drivers are Required to Provide

State Departments of Motor Vehicles are notorious for slow or bad service. They are also becoming more well known for aiding in the invasion of individuals’ privacy.