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President Trump Directed His Attorney Michael Cohen To Lie To Congress About The Moscow Tower Project

President Donald Trump directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, according to two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter.

Trump also supported a plan, set up by Cohen, to visit Russia during the presidential campaign, in order to personally meet President Vladimir Putin and jump-start the tower negotiations. “Make it happen,” the sources said Trump told Cohen.

The special counsel’s office learned about Trump’s directive for Cohen to lie to Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents. Cohen then acknowledged those instructions during his interviews with that office.

If that's all true, then:

Presidential historian: First impeachment article against Nixon was ‘obstruction by directing others to lie’

Presidential historian Jon Meacham on Friday resurfaced the first article of impeachment brought against former President Nixon in a discussion following a bombshell report that President Trump directed his former longtime lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress.

“The first article of impeachment against Nixon was just this: obstruction by directing others to lie,” Meacham tweeted early Friday morning. “This is not hysteria or hyperventilating. It’s history.”

Pence declares 'ISIS has been defeated' on the same day as deadly Syria attack

On the same day that an ISIS-claimed attack killed US service members in Syria, Vice President Mike Pence declared that "the caliphate has crumbled and ISIS has been defeated."

Pence's remark to the Global Chiefs of Mission conference at the US State Department came about an hour after the US-led coalition confirmed that American troops had been killed in an explosion in Manbij.

"U.S. service members were killed during an explosion while conducting a routine patrol in Syria today. We are still gathering information and will share additional details at a later time," the tweet from Operation Inherent Resolve said.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, which the ISIS-affiliated Amaq agency said was carried out by a suicide bomber with an explosive vest.

Pence Declares ISIS ‘Defeated’ Hours after Group Brags of Killing U.S. Troops

Mission Accomplished.

As Coast Guard paychecks went undelivered Tuesday as the result of an ongoing partial government shutdown, the service's top officer urged its members to stay the course.

In a public letter published Tuesday afternoon on his social media pages, Adm. Karl Schultz said the day's missed paycheck, to his knowledge, marked the first time in the history of the nation "that service members in a U.S. Armed Force have not been paid during a lapse in government appropriations."

The Coast Guard, the only military service to fall under the Department of Homeland Security, is also the only service with payroll affected by the shutdown, which began Dec. 22. The Coast Guard was able to issue final paychecks for the year, but will be unable to distribute further pay until a budget deal is reached or another appropriation agreement is made.

In all, some 55,000 Coast Guard active-duty, reserve and civilian members are going without pay; the number includes 42,000 active-duty service members.

Coast Guard civilians have been on furlough or working without pay since the shutdown began.

For the First Time in History, a US Military Service Is Working Without Pay

Gunman who killed officer left a note accusing police of hitting him with 'sonic waves'

The gunman who killed an officer in Northern California left behind a letter accusing the Davis police department of hitting him with "ultra sonic waves."

A man on a bicycle shot Davis police Officer Natalie Corona, 22, Thursday night as she responded to a triple-car crash in the city of Davis. He was later found dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

[...] Limbaugh left behind a letter, according to Davis police spokesman Lt. Paul Doroshov, who read the letter on camera to CNN affiliate KMAX.

"The Davis police department has been hitting me with ultra sonic waves meant to keep dogs from barking. I notified the press, internal affairs, and even the FBI about it. I am highly sensitive to its affect [sic] on my inner ear," the letter reads. "I did my best to appease them, but they have continued for years and I can't live this way anymore."

The letter is signed "Citizen Kevin Limbaugh."

Lawyers for Trump’s disgraced former campaign chairman, who was convicted of tax and bank fraud last year, submitted a filing in Washington, D.C., federal court responding to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s assertion that Manafort had lied to Mueller’s office and so violated his plea agreement. Manafort’s lawyers pushed back on that claim by saying that he had extensively cooperated with Mueller, meeting with the government lawyers and investigators a dozen times and twice testifying before a grand jury.

But Manafort’s team screwed up.

They tried to redact four different passages in their filing, but failed to do so properly, leaving the redacted text in plain sight. For instance, Manafort’s lawyers responded to Mueller’s allegation that Manafort lied to the government about his interactions with a man named Konstantin Kilimnik, who was Manafort’s right-hand man during his time as a powerful political consultant in Ukraine. What’s more noteworthy is that Kilimnik has alleged connections to Russian intelligence.

What the redacted text says is that Manafort allegedly misled Mueller about meeting with Kilimnik during the 2016 presidential campaign and discussing a “Ukraine peace plan” with Kilimnik “on more than one occasion.” Another improperly redacted section revealed that Mueller has alleged that Manafort “lied about sharing polling data with Mr. Kilimnik related to the 2016 presidential campaign.”

Paul Manafort’s Lawyers Appear to Accidentally Blow the Door Open on Collusion

Oops! Not a mistake I would expect out of "the best people!"

Fox News' Shep Smith and Andrew Napolitano now see proof of 'collusion' between Trump's team and Russia

"This shows that Bob Mueller can demonstrate to a court, without the testimony of Paul Manafort, that the campaign had a connection to Russian intelligence and the connection involved information going from the campaign to the Russians," Napolitano said. "The question is, was this in return for a promise of something from the Russians, and did the candidate, now the president, know about it?” That would be "a conspiracy," he added, regardless of whether the Trump campaign actually got anything of value from the Russians.

Facebook Removes Page That Aimed to 'Expose' R. Kelly Accusers

A newly launched Facebook page that sought to defend R. Kelly and "expose" his accusers in the aftermath of Surviving R. Kelly has been pulled off the social network for violating terms of service.

On Monday, after the six-part docuseries' weekend run on Lifetime, TMZ reported that "[Kelly] and his camp" were behind a pair of sites – a Facebook page called Surviving Lies and an in-the-works website bearing the same name – that aimed to clear his name and discredit his accusers. It has not been confirmed whether Kelly is actually behind the pages.

After the Facebook page launched Monday, its operators posted a previously surfaced audio recording that allegedly contradicted the story of one of the women who appeared on Surviving R. Kelly.

Also at Vulture and Billboard.

Uber driver pleads guilty to killing six people between rides

An Uber driver charged with killing six strangers in between picking up passengers pleaded guilty to murder in Michigan on Monday, just before attorneys were set to interview jurors for his trial.

[...] The 48-year-old Dalton answered “yes” to a series of questions, admitting that he shot eight people at three locations. After his arrest, police quoted Dalton as saying a “devil figure” on Uber’s app was controlling him on the day of the shootings.

Could this "devil figure" be an undocumented feature of Uber's app that is being pushed out to some drivers to test mind control?

This morning, as I'm having my first morning cigarette and getting my first sips of coffee in me, The Roomie joins me outside and starts telling me about how this highly educated youtuber has declared war on IQ tests. Which goes to show two things:

1. The Roomie is a bastard.
2. Education offers no warranty against idiocy.

IQ tests are quite good at testing what they actually test. They're also astoundingly bad at testing what they don't actually test. Unless you're talking about the extreme ends of the scale and you think they aren't very good tests, you don't understand what they really test and need to shut up now before you look like an even bigger dumbass. You're basically saying that screwdrivers are shitty tools because they make lousy hammers. That a high school dropout understands this while a guy with a PhD by his name doesn't demonstrates my second point quite nicely.

Arizona police investigate after 'vegetative patient gives birth'

Police in the US state of Arizona have launched a sexual assault investigation amid reports a patient in a vegetative state for a decade gave birth.

The woman is a patient in a clinic run by Hacienda HealthCare near Phoenix.

Hacienda HealthCare gave no details but said it was aware of a "deeply disturbing incident".

A local CBS station said the baby was healthy and quoted a source as saying that staff had been unaware the woman was pregnant.

The woman has not been identified.

"It's a miracle!" says an Anonymous Coward.

On Thursday, the first day of the 116th Congress, Congressman Ted Deutch (D-FL), Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA), Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD), and Congressman John Katko (R-NY) introduced a bipartisan constitutional amendment to get big money out of politics and restore democratic power to the American people.

The Democracy for All Amendment affirms the right of states and the federal government to pass laws that regulate spending in elections, reversing the concentration of political influence held by the wealthiest Americans and large corporations capable of spending millions of dollars in our elections. This legislation comes days before the ninth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s disastrous ruling in the Citizens United case.

For more information on the amendment, click here for a background summary and click here for a section-by-section and answered FAQs.