Senate vote

Harvard University law professor Larry Lessig, who has been providing free legal counsel to "faithless electors" from the GOP considering voting against Trump, claims that 20 GOP Electoral College voters have contacted him and are seriously considering flipping their vote.  Of course, with 306 Electoral College votes assigned to Trump, it would only take 37 faithless GOP electors to block his presidency and push the election to Congress to decide.  Per Politico:

Donald Trump could have the election legally stolen from him on either December 19th when the Electoral College casts their votes or on January 6th when a joint session of Congress gathers to count those votes.

A furious Iran threatened to retaliate early Friday against a U.S. Senate vote to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for 10 years, saying it violated last year's deal with six major powers that curbed its nuclear program.  The ISA was first adopted in 1996 to punish investments in Iran's energy industry and deter its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons; it was due to expire on Dec. 31. Lawmakers said the extension would make it easier for sanctions to be reimposed if Iran violated the nuclear settlement. The extension was passed unanimously on Thursday.

Submitted by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has been suspended from office following a senate vote to initiate her impeachment trial on corruption allegations that lead back to state-run Petrobras, leaving vice-president Michel Temer to take over in the interim, while foreign oil companies wait anxiously to see what this will mean for the industry.

Rousseff has denied any wrongdoing and refers to the impeachment process as a ‘’coup’’.

Following today's Brazilian Senate vote, which as reported earlier was expected to vote overwhelmingly to endorse Dilma Rousseff's impeachment and did just that in a 55-22 vote, Rousseff appealed to the public in a televized broadcast and condemned the move to impeach her as a "coup" and a "farce", denying she has committed any crimes.