President Donald Trump says he plans to “strongly consider” testifying in the House impeachment inquiry against him – but only in writing. In a tweet the President said, “Even though I did nothing wrong, and don’t like giving credibility to this No Due Process Hoax, I like the idea & will, in order to get Congress focused again, strongly consider it!” He was responding to a suggestion that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made in an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation over the weekend. Pelosi said, “If he has information that is exculpatory, that means ex, taking away, culpable, blame, then we look forward to seeing it.” She added that he, “could come right before the committee and talk, speak all the truth that he wants if he wants.” 

Testimonies from witnesses in the impeachment inquiry continued with Vice President Mike Pence’s aide Jennifer Williams denouncing Trump’s conduct with Ukraine’s President as “unusual,” and “inappropriate.” Williams served as Pence’s special advisor for Russia and Europe and was the on the infamous July 25th phone call between Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky. She said to House committees that the phone call, “shed some light on possible other motivations” that the President may have had to hold back US military aid from Ukraine. Trump predictably denounced her as a “never Trumper,” and urged her to read the transcript of an earlier call to Zelensky where Trump did not pressure him for political favors. Another deposition from former National Security Council member Tim Morrison over the weekend shed greater light on the matter. According to CNN, “Morrison testified that he had heard from Sondland that US aid to Ukraine was conditioned on the country announcing an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.” Republican Mike Turner who sits on the committees conducting the impeachment inquiry and who was in the room when Morrison testified, said in an interview that he found the information, “alarming.” Turner added, “As I’ve said from the beginning, I think this is not OK. The President of the United States shouldn’t even in the original phone call be on the phone with the president of another country and raise his political opponent.” Coming this week on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are eight more witnesses being interviewed for a second week of public hearings.

A shooting in Duncan, Oklahoma, at a Walmart store parking lot has claimed the lives of three people, two men and one woman. The incident comes just a day after four people were killed and six injured at a house party in Fresno, California.

FEATURING CRAIG HOLMAN – Former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch gave several hours of testimony on Friday in what was the second day of public hearings in the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. The purpose of the hearing was to expose how Yovanovitch was improperly ousted from her position as Ambassador after refusing to cooperate with the Trump administration’s desire to trade political favors for US military aid. 

Trump denigrated her in a phone call he had with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky which Yovanovitch said amounted to a threat. During the live testimony Trump tweeted his opinion once more, leading to House Intelligence committee chair Adam Schiff reading out the tweets and warning against the President’s attempt at witness intimidation. 

Craig Holman, Government Affairs Lobbyist for Public Citizen.

FEATURING BERNICE HAUSMAN – Few things generate as much controversy and emotional responses than the current debate around vaccines and mandatory vaccinations. The so-called Anti-Vax movement has gained steam over years of misinformation and fear-mongering around the dangers of vaccines and their links to autism among other things – all of which have been thoroughly debunked but continue to fuel lower vaccination rates. 

Now with previously eradicated diseases like measles making a comeback precisely because vaccination rates are falling, states and municipalities are passing laws to enforce mandatory vaccinations. The anti-vaxxers are responding with assertions of bodily autonomy. 

Bernice Hausman, Chair of the Department of Humanities at Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Her earlier books include Viral Mothers, Mother’s Milk, and Changing Sex. Her new book is called ‘Anti/Vax: Reframing the Vaccination Controversy‘.

The former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, testified to House committees in a televised hearing related to the House impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump on Friday morning. Yovanovitch was removed from her position earlier this year after pressure from Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. In her opening statement, Yovanovitch, who spent decades as a career diplomat, said she was told that “there had been a concerted campaign against me, that the president no longer wished me to serve as Ambassador to Ukraine, and that in fact, the President had been pushing for my removal since the prior summer.” Later, Democratic Counsel Daniel Goldman quoted from the rough transcript of President Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s President Zelensky and asked Yovanovitch to respond. House Intelligence Chief Adam Schiff paused the questioning to quote Trump’s tweets that the President was posting during the actual hearing.

President Trump chose to release a rough transcript of a prior phone call he had with Zelensky in April on the same day as the Yovanovitch hearing. House Republican representative and Trump loyalist Devin Nunes, who is a member of the Intelligence Committee, read the transcript in his opening remarks at the hearing and Trump posted images of the document on his Twitter feed. That phone call did not mention corruption in Ukraine, which may be why Trump and his allies are attempting to focus on it.

Meanwhile Trump’s close associate Roger Stone has been found guilty on all charges in a major federal case that emerged as an offshoot of the Special Counsel’s investigation into 2016 election wrongdoing. A federal jury convicted him on charges of witness tampering related to the leaking of DNC emails by the group Wikileaks. Stone has also been convicted of lying to Congress. A sentencing trial has been set for February. Stone faces up to 50 years in prison. The Washington Post offered this context for Stone’s conviction: “Stone joins a long line of Trump advisers and confidantes either convicted or who have pleaded guilty in connection with the special counsel probe, including former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former Trump deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos.” 

In other news Trump on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to block the release of his tax returns from a former accounting firm to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow called the demand for the returns as “Politically motivated subpoenas,” and said they are, “a perfect illustration of why a sitting president should be categorically immune from state criminal process.”

The US State Department’s internal watchdog group released a long-anticipated report on Thursday into the mistreatment of one of its staffers, Sahar Nowrouzzadeh,

FEATURING MATT GERTZ – As the public hearings by House committees conducting an impeachment inquiry began this week, the Republican Party appeared to be unified in a determined response to defend President Donald Trump no matter what the facts are. During the Wednesday hearings GOP Congressmen raised a number of talking points that were essentially conspiracy theories casting Democrats as villains, heard more often than not on Fox News. 

Now, a new report by Media Matters for America found that six Republican Congressmen including Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan, who are part of the committees, have made more than 50 appearances on Fox News to defend Trump since September 24th. And not only is Fox News the key outlet for the Republican defense of Trump, it is also where the President gets most of his policy ideas that often get him into trouble in the first place.

Matt Gertz, Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America.

FEATURING KSHAMA SAWANT – It took several days to count all the votes in Seattle, Washington’s nail-biting city council elections but the council’s first Socialist member Kshama Sawant surged past her opponent to win. The day after the contentious November 5th election, Sawant’s opponent, Egan Orion, heavily backed by the retail giant Amazon, had tallied up more votes. But after mail-in ballots were counted the incumbent prevailed. The battle over her seat is a national story of how billionaires are desperately trying, but often failing, to subvert democratic systems with wads of cash. Sawant put it succinctly during her speech once her victory was formalized. 

Kshama Sawant, a member of Seattle’s City Council and the first socialist to be elected to that body. She is affiliated with the Socialist Alternative party and just won a high-profile race to keep her seat.

House Committees conducting the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump are scheduled to hear testimony on Friday from David Holmes, a political counselor at the US Embassy in Kyiv. Mr. Holmes is apparently the person that the US’s top diplomat to Ukraine, William Taylor referenced during his public hearing on Wednesday as having heard a conversation that Gordon Sondland had on the phone with Trump. The gist of that phone call, according to Taylor’s testimony, confirmed that President Trump was hinging US military aid to Ukraine on political investigations of his rival. Now, AP is reporting that, “A second U.S. Embassy staffer in Kyiv overheard” the same call that Holmes reportedly overheard. That person is apparently, “Suriya Jayanti, a foreign service officer based in Kyiv.” Democrats also plan to seek closed-door testimony on Saturday from an official at the Office of Management and Budget named Mark Sandy, to try to get to the bottom of whether US military aid to Ukraine was held up. But public hearings will continue with the televised testimony on Friday of former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who is expected to share how Trump administration officials improperly ousted her at the direction of Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.  There will be a slew of public impeachment hearings next week on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, mostly from officials that Congressmembers have privately questioned. 

Meanwhile House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave a press conference on Thursday and slammed Trump’s conduct as far worse that Richard Nixon’s. She also challenged Trump to bring forward any evidence he might have to exonerate him – even going as far as explaining a word that the President may not understand.

With Republicans forcefully defending President Trump during the impeachment process in the face of damning evidence, Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released the result of a poll on disinformation. The poll found that many Americans have trouble telling truth from falsehoods when they read the news. According to AP, “47% of Americans believe it’s difficult to know if the information they encounter is true, compared with 31% who find it easy to do so.” Additionally, “Democrats are more likely to say they rely on scientists and academics, while Republicans are more likely to trust what they hear from President Donald Trump.” 

In Southern California, news emerged early in the day of a school shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita. So far one person is dead and 4 injured. The suspect is a 15-year old boy who has apparently been taken into custody. According to the Los Angeles Times, “Four people from the school were transported to Henry Mayo Hospital for treatment. One patient, a female, died there. Two male patients are in critical condition and one male is in good condition.”  

President Trump’s battle to keep his taxes secret lost in yet another court this week. A Federal Appeals Court on Wednesday ruled that Congress has the right to review his records. Trump’s legal team said it plans to appeal the ruling at the Sup...

FEATURING RON FEIN – The highly anticipated first day of public hearings in the Democrat-led House Impeachment inquiry took place on Wednesday with testimonies from George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary at the State Department, and William Taylor, former US Ambassador to Ukraine and top US diplomat in that country currently. 

House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff laid out his goals for the hearing and before he could get opening remarks from the two witnesses, he was interrupted by several House Republicans. Kent and Taylor appeared to confirm the gist of what the original whistleblower was alarmed by – that President Trump was hinging US military aid to Ukraine on a political favor to investigate Joe Biden. 

They also confirmed a number of irregularities such as Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s disturbing role in setting foreign policy and how Ambassador Marie Yovanovytch was improperly pushed out of her position. 

Republicans attempted to deflect the conversation to conspiracy theories about Democratic wrongdoing, which Kent and Taylor seemed at a loss to respond to. 

Ron Fein, Legal Director of Free Speech for People, and a constitutional lawyer who previously served as Assistant Regional Counsel in the US EPA. He is the co-author with John Bonifaz and Ben Clements or the new book The Constitution Demands It: The Case for The Impeachment of Donald Trump.

The first day of public hearings in the impeachment inquiry facing President Donald Trump began on Wednesday morning with testimonies from George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary at the State Department, and William Taylor, US Ambassador to Ukraine who was serving as the top diplomat in that country when events unfolded around the President’s withholding of US military aid in exchange for political favors. House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff of California made his opening statements, focusing on Trump’s conduct as well as efforts at obstructing the inquiry.  The State Department’s George Kent then gave his opening statements. He was followed by William Taylor, the top US diplomat to Ukraine who revealed an incident that was previously not publicly known.

President Trump meanwhile fired off a series of angry tweets as the hearings began, accusing witnesses of being “NEVER TRUMPERS,” and demanding that people “read the transcript” of his phone call with Ukraine’s President. Meanwhile a new poll found that support for the impeachment inquiry remains steady at about 50% while 41% of Americans oppose it. Progressives, watching the impeachment proceedings, have criticized them for being too narrowly focused on Trump’s conduct in Ukraine and a number of groups including Free Speech for People, Courage Campaign, and the Women’s March marked the first day of public hearings with a document outlining their own articles of impeachment that includes a broader framework for removing the President. 

Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who is seen as the main architect of Trump’s Ukraine policy, has remained under the radar given his penchant for making incriminating remarks on live television. But on Monday night he penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal outlining a defense of the President and claiming as a defense that, “out of a five-page transcript Mr. Trump spent only six lines on Joe Biden.” His strategy appears to have backfired however with critics offering counter-examples such as, “Out of all the days he was president, Nixon only spent a handful orchestrating a burglary and cover-up.”

Meanwhile, eclipsed by the impeachment hearing is the news that the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday released its report on Wikileaks and the hacking of the Democratic National Committee email servers in 2016. The committee analyzed data obtained from Facebook and found that Russian hackers tried to publicize details from the hacked emails but it wasn’t until Wikileaks ste...

FEATURING ANDY LEE ROTH – Public opinion is deeply shaped by what we read, see, and hear. It is why the role of a free press is critical to a democracy – only a well-informed electorate can best govern themselves. But given the skewed coverage of critically important stories in today’s corporate-dominated media landscape, it’s no wonder that our democracy is in deep trouble. 

Each year the group Project Censored gathers together the most censored or under covered stories of the past year and edits them into a book and today we’ll learn what some of those stories were from the past year.

Andy Lee Roth is associate director of Project Censored. He coordinates the Project’s Validated Independent News program and has co-edited several editions of the Censored yearbook including the latest Censored 2020.