monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

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The cops were there because of the fear mongering of the pussy liberals that are as scared of their own shadows as they are of guns.

"Pussy liberals" — see, this is why gun apologists are so often suspected of harboring some weird need to prove their manhood*.

Do you really think that the only reason that anyone might want to tighten gun laws is out of fear?

Gun control people aren't "scared" — they're outraged at the unnecessary loss of life in gun violence and disgusted by the political power of the gun lobby. They're not even asking for anything that drastic —

I think if anyone's afraid of their own shadows and susceptible to fear mongering it's the people like the ones openly carrying weapons in yesterday's demonstration. "Safest spot in the nation" — haha! — yeah, so safe all ten thousand of the scaredy-cats felt the need to carry a firearm!

*And I'm not accusing McGentrix personally here — the fact is, this argument is so commonly trotted out by the pro-gun side that it's become a cliche, a handy phrase to throw into an argument like a little grenade. But think about it...why the sexual connotation? And why so blatant?

[Amy Goodman]:Rick Epstein [sic] , let’s begin with you. You covered the — rather, Rick Perlstein, let’s begin with you. I’m sorry for getting that wrong. Can you talk about what we are about to see?

RICK PERLSTEIN: A show trial. I’m really struck by the fact that the guy running this, Mitch McConnell, comes out of this tradition of Southern politics that all of us should go back and study. The fact of the matter is, for most of the 20th century, and of course all of the 19th, the South was basically an authoritarian society. It wasn’t really a democracy. And it used all kinds of strategies and stratagems to evade democratic accountability. I mean, when they said, you know, African Americans can’t vote, the laws didn’t say African Americans can’t vote. They used things like literacy tests. They used things like property qualifications. They used intimidation.

So, much the same way now, we see the Republicans running the Senate manipulating the rules in order to make it impossible to basically achieve a fair trial or anything approaching justice. So, we have this situation where they’re only going to be able to introduce the actual evidence and witnesses after they make their arguments. So that means anything that comes out tomorrow, we won’t be able to see. You know, Lev Parnas says that he’s not been able to present his evidence of Rudy Giuliani’s implication in these events to the Southern District of New York. That probably has something to do with William Barr. So, from every angle, we see the kind of walls closing in.

The big picture, I think, is, you can think of the kind of right-wing takeover of American politics as the Southernization of the United States. And this is sort of like what you saw when Southern juries would always acquit whites accused of crimes against African Americans and always convict African Americans accused of crimes against whites, no matter the evidence. Right? So we see this kind of pattern, that’s deeply embedded in American history, rising up to the highest levels of American justice. And it’s horrifying, and we shouldn’t have any illusions about what’s going on here.

RICK PERLSTEIN: A show trial

It's 1:32 EST, and Adam Schiff has just made a brilliant move

Saudi Arabia has denied that its crown prince was responsible for hacking Amazon boss Jeff Bezos' phone.

A message from a phone number used by the prince has been implicated in the data breach, according to reports.

The kingdom's US embassy said the stories were "absurd" and called for an investigation into them.

It was previously claimed the alleged hack was linked to the murder of Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

As well as being the founder of online retail giant Amazon, Mr Bezos owns the Washington Post.

Mr Bezos' phone was hacked after receiving a WhatsApp message sent from Mohammed bin Salman's personal account, according to the UK's Guardian newspaper.

The Financial Times reported that an investigation into the data breach found the billionaire's phone started secretly sharing huge amounts of data after he received an encrypted video file from the prince.

The Twitter account of the kingdom's US embassy issued an outright denial and called for the claims to be investigated.

The only abuse of power here is on the part of the Democrats who are perpetrating this witch hunt.

Is that why there were so many women at the protest?

They are afraid of guns because they don't understand them.

By questioning an opponents manhood by referring to them, or their argument or their stance or their whatever in terms of womanly parts it exaggerates the idea.

What people don't understand is why some gun owners become so emotionally attached to them.

What people don't understand is why some gun owners are so opposed to putting restrictions on their sale to people who shouldn't have them.

What people don't understand is why some gun owners believe their constitutional rights are violated if they can't purchase more than one handgun a month.

If you have one firearm you're effectively enjoying your constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

Some gun owners confuse this with a non-existent right to buy arms.

What’s even more remarkable about the flap is that the White House actually stood by Sekulow’s allegation. Asked about the remark by reporters later in the night, White House legislative affairs director Eric Ueland reportedly walked away, only to return a while later — apparently after checking? — and suggest that Sekulow had not erred.

“When you read the transcript, it says ‘lawyer lawsuit,’ ” he said.

It’s not clear to what transcript Ueland is referring, but the Federal Document Clearing House transcript includes no references to “lawyer lawsuits” besides Sekulow’s. And video of Demings’s remarks are clear that she did, in fact, say “FOIA lawsuits” both times.

With so many law enforcement professionals on the scene the protestors figured it was smarter to behave themselves.

After several days of serving in a largely passive role overseeing the trial, Roberts interjected after a particularly pointed exchange between House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and two lawyers for Trump, Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow.

“I think it is appropriate at this point for me to admonish both the House managers and president’s counsel in equal terms to remember that they are addressing the world’s greatest deliberative body,” Roberts said.

I don't know what might better illustrate the hollowness of this proceeding than the chief justice stepping in when somebody says "fart" or "poo poo" thus risking citizens' diminished respect for "the world's greatest deliberative body".

How did you feel about the investigation in the House of Representatives?

The president’s attorneys were more emotional — with the prevailing emotion being anger.

Masked gunmen on Wednesday ambushed and killed the local commander of a paramilitary security force in southwest Iran, an associate of Iran's top general recently killed in an American drone strike in Baghdad.

The slain commander, Abdolhossein Mojaddami, headed the Basij forces, a paramilitary wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) used for internal security and other tasks, in the town of Darkhoein.

He was shot in front of his home in the town in the country's oil-rich Khuzestan province, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Two gunmen on a motorcycle - armed with an assault rifle and a hunting rifle - ambushed Mojaddami, IRNA said. Other Iranian media said the gunmen's faces were covered with masks and that four shots were fired.

The case is under investigation and a motive was not immediately clear, but Basij units had been involved in violent clashes with demonstrators in the area in November, in which many protesters were injured and killed.

Amnesty International has reported that more than 300 people were killed in the unrest across the country, though Iran has not announced a death toll.

Mojaddami's killing is seen as another blow to the IRGC, following the death of top general Qassem Soleimani earlier this month in a US drone strike in Iraq. Mojaddami was described by IRNA as an associate of Soleimani, who was the head of the Quds Forces, the foreign wing of the IRGC.