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Trump impeached for 'inciting' US Capitol riots:
The US House of Representatives has impeached President Donald Trump for "incitement of insurrection" at last week's Capitol riot.
Ten Republicans sided with Democrats to impeach the president by 232-197.
He is the first president in US history to be impeached twice, or charged with crimes by Congress.
Mr Trump, a Republican, will now face a trial in the Senate, where if convicted he could face being barred from ever holding office again.
But Mr Trump will not have to quit the White House before his term in office ends in one week because the Senate will not reconvene in time.
Mr Trump will leave office on 20 January, following his election defeat last November to Democrat Joe Biden.
The Democratic-controlled House voted after several hours of impassioned debate on Wednesday as armed National Guard troops stood guard inside and outside the Capitol.
[...] Impeachment charges are political, not criminal.
Also at Newsweek, c|net, Al Jazeera, Washington Post.
[Ed Note - The linked article has been revised since submission. The quoted text has been revised accordingly. - Fnord]
2021-01-07 14:44:44 UTC: UPDATE (See below the fold).
Pro-Trump rioters breach the US Capitol on historic day in Congress:
Supporters of President Donald Trump breached the US Capitol on Wednesday while Congress was meeting to certify the Electoral College's votes for president and vice president.
The Capitol has been put on lockdown and the certification vote has been paused. Vice President Mike Pence was evacuated from the building. House and Senate leadership is safe and in undisclosed locations, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Congress' counting of electoral votes is typically little more than an afterthought. But this joint session was expected to be a contentious affair that would last late into the evening and possibly on Thursday. Some Republicans are objecting to the count and delaying the inevitable certification of President-elect Joe Biden's win.
Also at AlJazeera (In Pictures: Pro-trump mob storms US Capitol building) and c|net (Mob storms Capitol forcing halt of election vote count).
[2021-01-06 22:33:53 UTC; UPDATE] NOTE: This is a chaotic time.
The Electoral College votes are currently being confirmed and tallied. Runoff votes in Georgia are being tallied and the results may swing the balance of power in the US Senate. The Georgia secretary of state [has been] relocated from [State] Capitol for security reasons. Mitch McConnell goes off on Trump. Pro-Trump reporter gloats over access to fleeing Hill staffer's computer. And Trump hand-picks replacement for Atlanta's US attorney after surprise resignation.
Let's please try and keep the discussion civil.
Also, please be polite and share your popcorn!
(1) Fox News reports Biden's Electoral College victory certified -- hours after Capitol chaos:
The U.S. Congress early Thursday certified the Electoral College vote that gave Democrat Joe Biden his presidential victory -- after a day in Washington that was marred by pro-Trump protesters storming the U.S. Capitol.
Vice President Mike Pence, who had announced he would not overturn the will of voters, confirmed the Biden victory at 3:41 a.m. ET.
Lawmakers had returned to the chamber in an act of defiance, with some Republicans who initially vowed to challenge states' results due to voter fraud concerns announcing they'd instead vote to certify.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called the breach of the Capitol a "failed insurrection," adding that those who "tried to disrupt our democracy" had not succeeded.
(2) President Trump "Responds" via Staffer's Twitter Account after His Account was Suspended:
Statement by President Donald J. Trump on the Electoral Certification:
"Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th. I have always said we would continue our...
...fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it's only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!"
(3) Facebook, Twitter lock Trump's account following video addressing Washington rioters:
- Twitter and Facebook on Wednesday said they would lock the account of President Donald Trump after he continued to make false claims about the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
- Facebook, YouTube and Twitter on Wednesday removed a video by President Donald Trump addressing Washington rioters.
- Meanwhile, calls are mounting for Twitter and Facebook to suspend Trump's accounts.
(4) The Associated Press has called the results for the Georgia Senate elections: both Democratic candidates defeated their GOP opponents:
With projected victories in the twin races of Warnock and Ossoff, President-elect Joe Biden will have the narrowest majority in the Senate, with both parties holding 50-50 seats apiece, allowing the tie-breaking vote to be cast by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
Also at The New York Times.
LA Paramedics Told Not To Transport Some Patients With Low Chance Of Survival:
The Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency issued a directive Monday that ambulance crews should only administer bottled oxygen to patients whose oxygen saturation levels fall below 90%.
In a separate memo from the county's EMS Agency, paramedic crews have been told not to transfer patients who experience cardiac arrest unless spontaneous circulation can be restored on the scene.
Both measures announced Monday, which were issued by the agency's medical director, Dr. Marianne Gausche-Hill, were taken in an attempt to get ahead of an expected surge to come following the winter holidays.
Many hospitals in the region "have reached a point of crisis and are having to make very tough decisions about patient care," Dr. Christina Ghaly, the LA County director of health services said at a briefing Monday.
[...] "We do not believe that we are yet seeing the cases that stemmed from the Christmas holiday," Ghaly added. "This, sadly, and the cases from the recent New Year's holiday, is still before us, and hospitals across the region are doing everything they can to prepare."
Los Angeles County hospitals are so inundated, officials said they're just trying to provide the best care they can for the people who need it.
The memo sent out on December 28 by the medical director of L.A. County's Emergency Medical Services agency, Dr. Marianne Gausche-Hill, addressed how first responders should treat stroke and heart attack patients, saying a patient should be treated at the scene first and have a pulse during resuscitation before transporting them to the hospital.
[...] The medical director of L.A. County's Emergency Services Agency, Dr. Marianne Gausche-Hill, assured CBS2 that officials continue to do all they can to save patients' lives at the scene and the hospital, as they always have.
"We are not abandoning resuscitation," Gausche-Hill said. "We are absolutely doing best practice resuscitation and that is do it in the field, do it right away... What we're asking is that — which is slightly different than before — is that we are emphasizing the fact that transporting these patients arrested leads to very poor outcomes.
A UK judge has just announced that Assange cannot be extradited to the USA because his treatment by the US would cause him to be a suicide risk. However, he is not released as the prosecution and the USA may decide to appeal. He remains in Belmarsh prison but the courts still have to decide whether he should be released.
The political arguments were all dismissed by the Judge but her decision is based solely on the treatment he will receive in the USA.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55528241
Also:
The UK Westminster Magistrates' Court decision is now public, Wikileaks journalist Julian Assange will not be extradited from the UK to the US...
407. The defence complains that the late service of the second superseding indictment has resulted in unfairness in the preparation of its case. Mindful of any potential unfairness flowing from the late service of this amended indictment, on Friday 14 August 2020, I invited the defence to consider applying to adjourn the evidential hearing which was due to commence on 7 September 2020. I gave them the opportunity to consider this invitation over the course of a week but, on 21 August 2020, the defence confirmed that itwould not be seeking to adjourn proceedings. No further applications were made between that date and 7 September 2020.
408. In my judgment the appropriate remedy for any unfairness arising from the late indictment would have been to allow the defence sufficient time prepare its case and advance any relevant arguments. That time was offered in August 2020 and declined.
409. I reject the defence submissions concerning staying extradition as an abuse of the process of this court.
... unless the decision is appealed by either the outgoing US administration or the incoming one.
Many sources are reporting that Trump finally signed the pandemic relief bill:
Not gonna summarize all the bits in it - it's some 5k pages of legalese gobbledygook, but I understand it continues augmented unemployment benefits, eviction suspension, funding to prevent government shutdown, and another direct cash payment.
I'm sure it also has a bunch of "porky pork", but the people are suffering, time is of essence, and it should have been done months ago.
Standing up for developers: youtube-dl is back
Today we reinstated youtube-dl, a popular project on GitHub, after we received additional information about the project that enabled us to reverse a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown.
[...] GitHub handles DMCA claims to maximize protections for developers, and we designed our DMCA Takedown Policy with developers in mind. Nearly every platform with user-generated content accepts and processes DMCA takedown notices to comply with the law. For GitHub, many of those notices come from developers wanting us to enforce the terms of their open source licenses, for example, when someone is using their code without the proper attribution required by the open source license they adopted.
[...] As we explained, the key claim in the youtube-dl takedown is circumvention. Although we did initially take the project down, we understand that just because code can be used to access copyrighted works doesn't mean it can't also be used to access works in non-infringing ways. We also understood that this project's code has many legitimate purposes, including changing playback speeds for accessibility, preserving evidence in the fight for human rights, aiding journalists in fact-checking, and downloading Creative Commons-licensed or public domain videos. When we see it is possible to modify a project to remove allegedly infringing content, we give the owners a chance to fix problems before we take content down. If not, they can always respond to the notification disabling the repository and offer to make changes, or file a counter notice.
That's what happened in this case. First, we were able to reinstate a fork of youtube-dl after one of the fork owners applied a patch with changes in response to the notice.
Then, after we received new information that showed the youtube-dl project does not in fact violate the DMCA's anticircumvention prohibitions, we concluded that the allegations did not establish a violation of the law. In addition, the maintainer submitted a patch to the project addressing the allegations of infringement based on unit tests referencing copyrighted videos. Based on all of this, we reinstated the youtube-dl project and will be providing options for reinstatement to all of its forks.
So it was all because a unit test mentioned several certain videos which happened to be copyrighted by someone who was offended their link was used in a test case? And the patch changed the test case video links to some that would not cause problems in the future? And that was used to stretch this into a circumvention device claim?
It is interesting that GitHub is taking this stand. GitHub is o1wned by Microsoft.
Fox News (among many other outlets[*]) is reporting: Biden wins presidency, Trump denied second term in White House:
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has defeated President Trump, denying him a second term after a bitter campaign and dramatic, prolonged vote count in battleground states that sparked a flurry of lawsuits.
The Fox News Decision Desk projected Saturday that Biden will win the state of Nevada and the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, giving the former vice president the electoral votes he needs to win the White House.
[...] "I am honored and humbled by the trust the American people have placed in me and in Vice President-elect Harris," Biden said in a statement. "In the face of unprecedented obstacles, a record number of Americans voted. Proving once again, that democracy beats deep in the heart of America."
He added: "With the campaign over, it's time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation."
Biden's campaign announced that the president-elect and Harris, his running mate, will speak at an event in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware at 8 p.m. ET.
Joseph Biden would become the 46th President of the US; U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California, the 49th Vice President.
Also at: NY Post, CBS News, ABC News, CNN, CNBC, and USA Today.
IMPORTANT: There are still votes to be counted, a recount has been requested in one state, and there are numerous court challenges launched by the Trump campaign. Further, nothing is official until the actual vote by the Electoral College.