Welcome to Friday, September 27th, fireflies and lightning bugs...

The intel whistleblower complaint was released on Thursday minutes before the acting director of national intelligence testified on Capitol Hill.

The nine-page complaint is at the center of a controversy that prompted House Democrats to formally launch an impeachment probe targeting President Donald Trump.

Some of the key claims in the complaint:

• Senior White House officials intervened to “lock down” all records of the phone call, including the official word-for-word transcript that’s customarily produced, by placing it in a system used to store and handle classified information of a sensitive nature. One official told the whistleblower that this was an abuse of the system, because it didn’t contain anything remotely sensitive.
• Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, privately reached out to Ukrainian officials regarding the Biden and CrowdStrike cases, although the whistleblower didn’t know if those occurred.
• Giuliani was encouraging Ukrainian officials to launch investigations into the Bidens, CrowdStrike, and Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections that would aid Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign.
• That a change in U.S. aid policy to Ukraine seemed to coincide with those meetings.

Does the whistleblower complaint make you support Trump's impeachment?

On the Radar

Countable Helps You Keep Up with Impeachment

How many House members support an impeachment inquiry? Is anyone testifying today? What's the White House saying?

Need answers? Not to worry—Countable's got you covered in more ways than one.

Two, actually.

First, we're dusting off our series "The Latest," last seen during the government shutdown, where we bring you the, yes, latest news on impeachment. The latest The Latest can always be found near the top of our news feed.

Need more context? Not a problem. Click on over to:

Countable's Trump Impeachment Coverage

This Countable Action Center has everything you need to know about this monumental event, the 4th time in history that a U.S. president has faced a viable threat of impeachment. 

GOP: Gun Bill ‘Dead’ After Impeachment Inquiry

Republicans have ended discussions on a bill to expand background checks for gun purchases over the Democratic-led House’s impeachment inquiry of President Trump.

“[G]un legislation is dead, at least for the time being, because of the impeachment inquiry,” a Senate staffer told the Free Beacon. "Hard to imagine Trump doing a signing ceremony of anything with Speaker Pelosi at his side, and Democrats are the only ones agitating for gun control.”

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham also issued a statement saying Democrats have “destroyed any chance of legislative progress” with their impeachment inquiry.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) doesn't see why Congress can't do both.

"I think we can walk and chew gum. Our job is to do a lot of things and do them well, so no, I'm not concerned about that," Swalwell said.

Should impeachment end progress on gun-control bills?

Under the Radar

House Judiciary Holds Hearing on 'Assault Weapons' Ban

The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday held a hearing titled “Protecting America from Assault Weapons” in which lawmakers debated the merits of a ban on the controversial weapons. While no specific legislation was marked up, the Democratic and Republican leaders' opening statements underscored the deep divide between the parties on the issue.

Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) explained that he believes an assault weapons ban would protect the American public. Ranking Member Doug Collins (R-GA) countered that those calling for an “assault weapons ban” are confusing the debate with misleading terminology. 

Casualties from active shooting incidents have been on an upward trend since 2000 and hit an all-time high of 138 killed and 591 wounded in 2017 ― most of which occurred in an October 2017 shooting at a Las Vegas music festival, where 58 people were killed and 489 wounded.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines an active shooter as “an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated space,” although open-space active shooting incidents are included in this data. As this chart from USAFacts shows, active shooting incidents have been on the rise over the last two decades, with a peak of 30 incidents in 2017.

Check out more charts from USAFacts here, then tell your reps:

Should Congress ban "assault weapons"?

What You've Done

Another impressive week, _________________.

I'm Mad Libbing the above because last week I called you the Countable Community, but now I'm not so sure.

That's because I (and other Countable staffers) are asking you, the _____________, to propose collective nouns. It's a murder of crows, a shrewdness of apes, a gulp of cormorants....but what do you call a crowd of concerned citizens who are saving democracy?

We're still soliciting names. Here are some favorites:

• The aCountables
• The Counties or The Counters
• We the People
• The Delegates
• The Concerned Electorate
• The Watchers of Liberty
• “The Countable Community: A Citizen Watchdog Group.”
• Rabble Rousers

Which do you like? Pop over here and let us know. We'll be holding a vote soon.

No matter what you call yourselves, however, the Founding Fathers and Founding Mothers are proud at what you've accomplished this week:

Click here to read the name suggestions we're absolutely never going with, then join the conversation:

How are you feeling about your work week on The Hill?

What You're Saying

Here's how you're answering Should Migrants Apprehended at the Southern Border Receive Standardized Medical Screenings?