Welcome to Monday, December 9th, movers and shakers...

The House Judiciary Committee continues its public impeachment hearings with testimony from Democratic and Republican counsels for the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees.

Democrats are trying to build a case that Trump leveraged military and diplomatic aid to Ukraine in exchange for investigations into 1) former vice president Joe Biden and his son, Hunter; 2) a debunked conspiracy theory alleging Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.

Republicans, meanwhile, will argue that the president committed no offenses worthy of impeachment. White House counsel Pat Cipollone called the impeachment process a "charade" in a Friday letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY). The letter claims that Trump is calling on House Democrats to impeach him "fast" (if they're so inclined) so he move on to "a fair trial in the Senate."

But Nadler told CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday: “I think the case we have, if presented to a jury, would be a guilty verdict in about three minutes flat."

What do you think of today's hearing?

On the Radar

Economic Advantage

The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday released its jobs report for November 2019, which found that the U.S. economy added 266,000 jobs ― beating expected job gains of 180,000.

Manufacturing employment rose by 54,000 in November after a decline of 43,000 in October, which in part reflects the return of 41,000 workers who were on strike in October.

Healthcare added 45,000 jobs, an increase over the 15,000 it added in October, which brings the 12 month total to 414,000 jobs.

Additionally, revisions were made to the September and October nonfarm payroll reports: September’s job gains were revised upward by 13,000 to 193,000; while October’s were also revised up by 28,000 to 156,000. After the revisions, job gains averaged 205,000 over the last 3 months.

How do you feel about the U.S. economy?

Sponsored Content

Under the Radar

'Creating the Internet' Anniversary

On December 9, 1991, President George H.W. Bush signed the High Performance Computing Act (commonly known as the Gore Bill) into law, which created the “Information Superhighway” and provided $600 million in funding for high performance computing initiatives.

Authored by then-Sen. Al Gore (D-TN), the bill was developed in response to a report titled Toward a National Research Network which was provided to Congress by a National Research Council committee led by UCLA computer science professor Leonard Kleinrock.

Kleinrock was one of the creators of the ARPANET, an early precursor to the Internet, and argued that a national computer infrastructure network would “greatly promote U.S. competitiveness in a multiplicity of disciplines.” Gore had an longstanding interest in computers, and drafted the bill to bring the committee’s recommendations to fruition.

What do you think of the Gore Bill on its anniversary?

Your Gov't At a Glance

The White House: President Trump in D.C.

At 12:30pm EST, the president will have lunch with the vice president.
At 1:30pm EST, the president will participate in a roundtable on empowering families with education choice.
At 4:15pm EST, the president and first lady will particiapte in a Christmas reception.
At 8:15pm EST, the president and first lady will participate in a Christmas reception.

The House: In

Voting on a bill to reauthorize & reform Homeland Security's Office of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties to protect against violations.
Voting on a bill to enact standards in TSA's covert testing program requiring regular testing & that vulnerabilities are addressed.
Voting on a bill to provide CBP agents with training on synthetic opioids and protective equipment to prevent exposure.
Voting on 13 other bills.