After nearly 14 hours of debate, the House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, charging him with lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice. Clinton, the second president in American history to be impeached, vowed to finish his term.

Good rule of thumb – if you are the President of the United States, do not send a Birthday Card to the woman you are thinking of fooling around with …

The eerily beautiful, enrapturing second track of Beyoncé’s self titled album comes in two parts: one titled “Ghost”, and the other “Haunted”.

The former track – “Ghost” – is a stream of consciousness that gives the most honest perspective on the record on why she created the album in the first place – she’s gotten bored with the typical process of releasing a record, and that albums have lost their function as works of art. A separate video was shot for “Ghost”, despite it being released with “Haunted” under the latter’s name on the musical album. The video for “Ghost” has even influenced the architects of a to-be-built skyscraper in Melbourne, Australia to model said skyscraper after a particular pose in the “Ghost” video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY9vZv7HCvo

The latter track – “Haunted” – describes her relationship with her image and her past, relating them as “ghosts” or things that follow her around consistently, a shadow of what they once were. The video to accompany “Haunted” was directed by Jonas Åkerlund, who also directed “Superpower”, and is embedded above. The visual for “Haunted” was cited as one of the most boundary pushing and artistic pieces on the record’s videography, showcasing a variety of mysterious and avant-garde images and scenes.

On December 11th 2013, Uruguay became the first country to legalize the growing, sale and smoking of marijuana. This social experiment will be closely watched by other nations debating drug liberalization.

Here, we have a statement released by the International Narcotics Control Board decrying Uruguay’s decision and criticizing its breaking of international narcotics treaties.

People attend a demonstration in support of the legalization of marijuana outside the Congress in Montevideo, Uruguay, on Tuesday December 10th 2013.

Kweli’s reflections on the great leader

via Complex

Ben Horowitz with Kanye West

On December 13th 2000, 36 days after the night of the Presidential Election, Al Gore delivered his concession speech and made George W. Bush the president-elect of the United States.

Supreme Court decided in Bush v. Gore to halt the recount that was occurring in Florida – which would have likely caused the election to be decided in Gore’s favor. While the Court ruled overwhelmingly 7-2 that there was an Equal Protection Clause violation in using different standards of counting in different counties, the decision of how to remedy the problem was much closer – 4 Justices dissented from the Majority Opinion.

Justices Breyer and Souter wanted to remand the case to the Florida Supreme Court to permit that court to establish uniform standards of what constituted a legal vote and then manually recount all ballots using those standards.