-
Mike Pence crams 3 inaccuracies about 9/11 into 1 tweet while trying to justify Soleimani strike
January 3, 2020 -
You can finally stop previews from automatically playing on Netflix
3:58 p.m. -
Andrew Yang reportedly lays off 'dozens' of staffers after Iowa caucus flop
3:00 p.m. -
Prosecutors rest their case against Harvey Weinstein following testimony from final accuser
2:48 p.m. -
Bernie Sanders claims 'very strong victory' in Iowa based on popular vote count
1:48 p.m. -
Trump goes after Pelosi, Romney, and more 'very evil and sick people' in wild post-acquittal speech
1:33 p.m. -
Republican senator follows Trump's acquittal with a new Hillary Clinton email probe
1:13 p.m. -
DNC chair calls for Iowa recanvass as analysis finds results are 'riddled with inconsistencies'
12:41 p.m.
Vice President Mike Pence may want to check a middle-school history textbook for this one.
The U.S. carried out an airstrike Friday morning that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite Quds Force and one of the country's top leaders. After President Trump gave his first remarks acknowledging the strike, Pence tweeted out a thread outlining Soleimani's "worst atrocities," including one that wasn't exactly accurate.
Pence's most questionable tweet outlined Soleimani's alleged role in the 9/11 attacks. Soleimani, Pence said, "assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States."
The most obviously incorrect bit of information here is the number of hijackers: There were 19, and "8-10" of them "traveled into or out of Iran between October 2000 and February 2001," per the 9/11 commission report. And while the report does conclude "there is strong evidence Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11," Charlotte Clymer of the Human Rights Campaign says Soleimani probably wouldn't have been involved in that.
Wow, where to start with how wrong this is...
1. There were 19 hijackers on 9/11, not twelve.
2. Soleimani, an Iranian Shiite, would not have assisted Sunnis.
3. Soleimani quite literally helped the U.S. with post-9/11 intelligence in Afghanistan because he hated the Taliban. https://t.co/a9t5pKePcK— Charlotte Clymer️ (@cmclymer) January 3, 2020
A New Yorker article from 2013 also points out that the U.S. actually worked with Soleimani "to help the United States destroy their mutual enemy, the Taliban." That lasted until former President George W. Bush declared Iran part of his "Axis of Evil" in the Middle East. Kathryn Krawczyk
Our long national nightmare of autoplaying Netflix previews has finally come to an end.
The streaming service on Thursday announced it's rolling out a long-awaited feature: the ability to turn off previews that automatically play while users are browsing the service. This has been a common complaint about Netflix's user experience for quite some time, as subscribers found themselves darting around the Netflix app as not to settle on a movie or TV show for too long and spark a trailer. Search the phrase "Netflix" and "autoplay" any given day on Twitter, and you'd find no shortage of grievances.
In fact, that may be what Netflix did on Thursday, responding to a tweet begging for a way to turn these off by announcing that one now exists, although Netflix made the bold claim that "some people" actually like the autoplay previews. For that reason, they're not turning autoplay previews off entirely, but just allowing users to opt-out by going to "manage profiles," clicking your profile, and unchecking "autoplay previews while browsing on all devices." While you're at, you can also opt out of having the next episode in a series play automatically.
Some people find this feature helpful. Others not so much.
We’ve heard the feedback loud and clear — members can now control whether or not they see autoplay previews on Netflix. Here's how: https://t.co/6V2TjEW6HD https://t.co/zbz4E8fVab
— Netflix US (@netflix) February 6, 2020
Immediately, a sigh of relief swept through Twitter and indeed the nation, as if a weight had been collectively lifted off all 167 million Netflix subscribers' shoulders. "I just fixed my settings and loaded the Netflix homepage and heard.....silence," Insider's Kim Renfro tweeted. "It was overwhelmingly beautiful. Pure bliss. Like I had ascended to a new plane of existence." Brendan Morrow
Andrew Yang reportedly cut down his campaign staff, and it didn't go too smoothly.
"Dozens" of staffers working for the entrepreneur and Democratic presidential candidate were laid off after Yang earned just a small percentage of the reported votes in Monday's Iowa caucus, four fired staffers tell Politico. Those laid off employees say dismissals weren't expected until after the New Hampshire primaries, but Yang's campaign is insisting this was the plan all along.
Yang's national political director and their deputy, as well as Yang's policy director, were all laid off, with those affected spanning from Yang's New York headquarters to Iowa. This was all part of the campaign's "original plans following the Iowa caucuses," campaign manager Zach Graumann said in a statement to Politico, calling it "a natural evolution of the campaign."
Yet those fired staffers disagree, saying many of them expected to stay onboard until after New Hampshire, and that they found out the news in a disorderly way. "Some people were shut out of their email, before getting an official phone call" that let them know they were laid off, one of the former staffers said.
All of the released staffers reportedly received at least a month's severance, and one former staffer was sure to say they didn't "want to paint this situation over him or the campaign in any negative way." Read more at Politico. Kathryn Krawczyk
The prosecution has officially rested its case in the Harvey Weinstein rape trial.
Following weeks of testimony from six women accusing the former movie producer of sexual misconduct, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi said in court Thursday prosecutors had concluded their case, USA Today reports.
This followed some additional questioning of Lauren Young, an actress and model who on Wednesday became the sixth and final accuser to testify in the trial, alleging Weinstein in 2013 groped her in a hotel bathroom. Her allegations are not part of Weinstein's criminal charges, but she was called as one of several women to establish a pattern of behavior.
Previously, the two women at the center of the case testified, with Jessica Mann alleging Weinstein raped her in 2013 and Mimi Haleyi alleging he forcibly performed oral sex on her in 2006. Additionally, Tarale Wulff and Annabella Sciorra testified that Weinstein raped them, and Dawn Dunning testified he groped her, per CNN. Other women were also called to corroborate the accusers' accounts.
Weinstein's attorney grilled Young on Thursday about the details of her allegation, with Young conceding a detail she told prosecutors in 2019 was incorrect and that she had since "recollected all my memories and retraced all my steps," per USA Today. Over the course of the trial, Weinstein's defense has also sought to undermine his accusers' accounts by pointing to friendly emails they wrote to him afterward. Judge James Burke said Thursday the jury would hear from the defense's witnesses "over the next three to four days. Maybe more, maybe less."
Weinstein, who CNN reports is not expected to testify, has pleaded not guilty to the sexual assault and rape charges against him. If convicted, he faces potential life in prison. Based on the trial's faster-than-expected pace, The Associated Press writes it "could be decided by mid-February." Brendan Morrow
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) isn't waiting around anymore.
As uncertainty still swirls around the results of the Iowa caucuses, Sanders on Thursday declared a "very strong victory" in the state nearly three days after its election began. Preliminary — and reportedly flawed — results show former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg with a slight edge when it comes to delegate counts in the state, but Sanders says his "decisive margin of victory" is based on the fact that "6,000 more Iowans came out to support us than any other candidate."
I want to thank the people of Iowa for the very strong victory they gave us at the Iowa caucuses on Monday night.
Some 6,000 more Iowans came out to support us than any other candidate.
With eight strong candidates competing, that is a decisive margin of victory.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 6, 2020
Sanders' Thursday tweet coincided with his half-hour press conference on the Iowa results and the campaign's future, which made the same case for his victory. Just before Sanders spoke, Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez called for "the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass" of its caucuses to "assure public confidence in the results." Kathryn Krawczyk
Two days after his closer-to-conventional State of the Union address, President Trump just delivered a ... different sort of speech.
After being officially acquitted in the Senate's impeachment trial, Trump on Thursday gave what he called "not a speech" but rather a "celebration," spending more than an hour riffing on impeachment related topics, thanking Republicans, and attacking various "horrible" people.
"Adam Schiff is a vicious, horrible person," Trump said. "Nancy Pelosi is a horrible person. ... I doubt she prays at all. And these are vicious people."
Trump, of course, also went after Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), the only Republican senator to vote for his conviction, calling him a "failed presidential candidate" and suggesting he "used religion as a crutch."
While thanking Republicans, Trump, let's just say, went a bit off script. "He's obviously very proud of his body," he at one point said of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). "I'm looking at those ears, and I say, those ears have something going on there." Later, he spoke for several minutes about Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) being shot in 2017 during practice for the Congressional Baseball Game, repeatedly emphasizing that he could have died.
"He got whacked," Trump said of Scalise. "He got whacked. My Steve. ... Honestly, I think you're better looking now. You're more handsome now. You weren't that good looking. You look good now."
Finally wrapping up at the end of the address — or "celebration," rather — that lasted about as long as a typical campaign rally, Trump said he wanted to "apologize to my family for having them have to go through a phony, rotten deal by some very evil and sick people." Brendan Morrow
Republicans have been begging to end impeachment so they can "get back to work" and accomplish "the priorities that matter most to the American people."
Apparently, those priorities involve whatever former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was doing in 2009. Because less than a day after voting for President Trump's acquittal, Republicans are turning to investigate Clinton's private email server, with Senate Homeland Security Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) requesting more information on the subject from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a Thursday letter.
In the letter, Johnson discusses how he's spent the past five years "conduct[ing] oversight of Clinton's private email server" even though she hasn't worked in the federal government for that entire time. He then brings up a September 2019 State Department report that found security violations regarding "the handling of classified information" on that server, and asks Pompeo for a 14-point list of information that delves further into the report's findings.
It's unclear just why Johnson would want to touch the Clinton email investigation now that Trump has finally escaped the impeachment cloud hanging over his head. After all, questions about the 2016 election and unfounded claims about where that server physically ended up are a big piece of what launched Trump into impeachment in the first place. Kathryn Krawczyk
The chair of the Democratic National Committee is calling for a recanvass in Iowa as a new report suggests the latest batch of results are "riddled with inconsistencies and other flaws."
Iowa Democrats on Wednesday continued to slowly but surely release results from Monday's caucuses, which were held up as the party cited inconsistencies and an app used to report results presented technical issues. As of Thursday morning, results from 97 percent of precincts had been reported, showing former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are nearly tied.
But The New York Times on Thursday reported that the Wednesday results are "riddled with inconsistencies and other flaws." The Times' analysis found that "more than 100 precincts reported results that were internally inconsistent, that were missing data or that were not possible under the complex rules of the Iowa caucuses." These issues, the Times wrote, raised "questions about whether the public will ever get a completely precise account of the Iowa results."
Later on Thursday, DNC Chair Tom Perez tweeted, "in light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass." This came before 100 percent of precincts have actually been reported; The Washington Post's Josh Dawsey asked, "Can you do a recount before you finish the first count?"