Top Items:
Matt Zapotosky / Washington Post:
Mueller adds veteran cyber prosecutor to special-counsel team — Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has added a veteran cyber prosecutor to his team, filling what has long been a gap in expertise and potentially signaling a recent focus on computer crimes.
Discussion:
New York Times, Vox, Axios, Mediaite, Hullabaloo, Raw Story, The Gateway Pundit and Political Wire
RELATED:
Julia Marsh / Page Six:
Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner call off divorce — Say it ain't so, Huma. — Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her jailed sext-a-holic hubby Anthony Weiner have withdrawn their pending divorce case, The Post has learned. — Abedin was scheduled to appear in Manhattan Supreme Court Wednesday afternoon …
Discussion:
Hot Air, RedState, The Gateway Pundit, Washington Post, IJR, Mediaite, Washington Free Beacon, thecut and The Daily Caller
RELATED:
Stephen Rex Brown / New York Daily News:
Anthony Weiner, Huma Abedin opt to settle divorce out of court to spare young son embarrassment — Huma Abedin and convicted perv Anthony Weiner agreed Wednesday to finalize their divorce out of court, seeking to protect their 6-year-old son from an embarrassing public separation.
Discussion:
Political Wire
TMZ.com:
Harvey Weinstein — Attacked at Scottsdale Restaurant — EXCLUSIVE — Harvey Weinstein was attacked Tuesday night at a restaurant ... TMZ has learned. — Weinstein was at Elements restaurant at the Sanctuary Camelback Mountain Resort in Scottsdale, eating dinner with his sober coach when 2 men sat at a table next to them.
Discussion:
RedState, Breitbart, The Daily Caller, AOL, IJR, Washington Free Beacon, Mediaite and thecut
RELATED:
TMZ.com:
Harvey Weinstein Video Shows Attack in Restaurant — Harvey Weinstein was on the receiving end of 2 backhanded slaps to the face ... that's what the newly-obtained video shows. — TMZ broke the story ... Weinstein was dining Tuesday night at Elements restaurant in Scottsdale …
Discussion:
The Gateway Pundit, RedState, IndieWire and Raw Story
Anita Kumar / McClatchy Washington Bureau:
GOP negotiators say Trump aide Stephen Miller is standing in the way of an immigration deal — WASHINGTON — Here's one thing even Republicans negotiating an immigration deal agree on: Trump aide Stephen Miller is hurting their chances of getting anything done.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, New York Magazine, Talking Points Memo, YouTube, The Week, New Republic, Fox News Insider, Washington Post and The Guardian
Elliot Spagat / Associated Press:
APNewsBreak: 7-Eleven probe opens new front on immigration — LOS ANGELES (AP) — U.S. immigration agents descended on dozens of 7-Eleven stores before dawn Wednesday to open employment audits and interview workers in what officials described as the largest operation against an employer under Donald Trump's presidency.
Discussion:
The Stranger …, Splinter, The Daily Caller and The Week
RELATED:
Rasmussen Reports:
Oprah vs. The Donald, and The Winner Is... TV personality Oprah Winfrey is the likely winner over President Trump if the 2020 election were held today, but there are a lot of undecideds. — The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters …
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, HuffPost, Yahoo, Washington Post, Breitbart, CNBC, IJR, TheBlaze, Mediaite, AOL, Business Insider, Althouse, Variety and CBS News
RELATED:
Megan Jula / Mother Jones:
How Oprah Helped Spread Anti-Vaccine Pseudoscience
How Oprah Helped Spread Anti-Vaccine Pseudoscience
Discussion:
The Hill, STAT and Washington Post
Cristina Marcos / The Hill:
Issa retiring from Congress — (R-Calif.) will not seek reelection this year, he announced on Wednesday, increasing Democrats' chances of flipping his swing district in their favor. — Issa barely won reelection in 2016 by just over half a percentage point in a San Diego-area district …
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, Politico, ABC News, New York Magazine, The Gateway Pundit, The Resurgent, Splinter, The Week and Balloon Juice
RELATED:
Jessica Taylor / NPR:
Rep. Darrell Issa To Retire, Adding To Record GOP Exodus From Congress
Rep. Darrell Issa To Retire, Adding To Record GOP Exodus From Congress
Discussion:
Issa, Shareblue Media, Times of San Diego, The Week, TheBlaze and Eschaton
David Folkenflik / NPR:
Top Fox News D.C. Reporter James Rosen Left Network After Harassment Claims — On the Friday before Christmas, Fox News confirmed that its chief Washington correspondent, James Rosen, had left the network. He had worked there for 18 years and had become something of a legend.
Discussion:
Business Insider, twitchy.com and TVNewser, more at Mediagazer »
New York Times:
NYC Sues, Divests From Oil Firms Over Climate Change — NEW YORK — New York City sued five major oil companies, claiming they have contributed to global warming, on the same day officials announced they will sell off billions in fossil fuel investments from the city's pension funds.
Discussion:
Common Dreams
RELATED:
The official website of the City of New York:
Climate Action: Mayor, Comptroller, Trustees Announce First-In-The-Nation Goal to Divest From Fossil Fuels
Climate Action: Mayor, Comptroller, Trustees Announce First-In-The-Nation Goal to Divest From Fossil Fuels
Discussion:
InsideClimate News, The Verge, ThinkProgress, TheBlaze, Grist, Earther and Denver Post
Gloria Pazmino / Politico:
De Blasio plans big oil lawsuit, calls on city pension funds to divest
De Blasio plans big oil lawsuit, calls on city pension funds to divest
Discussion:
Associated Press, New York Post, The Daily Caller and IJR
Brian Beutler / Crooked Media:
The Crime Is Worse Than The Coverup — On multiple occasions in 2016, and perhaps stretching back into the previous year, Donald Trump's presidential campaign fielded solicitations from Russian spies and cutouts offering up stolen Democratic Party emails and other assistance in the election.
Discussion:
Washington Post, Business Insider, New York Magazine, The Daily Beast, Shareblue Media, NBC News and Talking Points Memo
RELATED:
Stephanie Kirchgaessner / The Guardian:
Trump-Russia: transcript reveals ex-spy and FBI's cloak-and-dagger dance
Trump-Russia: transcript reveals ex-spy and FBI's cloak-and-dagger dance
Discussion:
Washington Monthly and Just Security
Paul Farhi / Washington Post:
Post reporter Joel Achenbach suspended for 90 days for ‘inappropriate workplace conduct’ — The Washington Post suspended reporter Joel Achenbach on Wednesday for what it called “inappropriate workplace conduct” involving current and former female colleagues.
Discussion:
The Hill, more at Mediagazer »
New Yorker:
Michael Wolff Says That Washington Will Bury Trump — While I was eating breakfast at the Four Seasons in Georgetown on Tuesday morning, a veteran Washington journalist stopped by my table to say hello. “Nice to see you,” Michael Duffy, a former editor at Time, deadpanned, with a grin on his face …
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo and New York Magazine, more at Mediagazer »
Tamar Lapin / New York Post:
Confused readers are buying the wrong ‘Fire and Fury’ — SEE ALSO — It's “Fire and Fury” fever. — Confused readers are buying a military book in droves all because it has a title similar to Michael Wolff's bombshell “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” according to a new report.
Discussion:
The Guardian, IJR, TheBlaze, Political Wire, The Week and Washington Free Beacon
Associated Press:
Trump calls Norway a ‘great customer’ in welcoming the PM — President Donald Trump and Norway's prime minister bonded over economic ties and military might on Wednesday as the two leaders joined together for talks expected to focus on security issues and jobs.
RELATED:
Josh Dawsey / Washington Post:
Trump declines to say whether he would sit for interview with Mueller's team
Trump declines to say whether he would sit for interview with Mueller's team
Discussion:
Political Wire and The Week
Nick Penzenstadler / USA Today:
Trump sold $35M in real estate in 2017, mostly to secretive buyers — President Trump's companies sold more than $35 million in real estate in 2017, mostly to secretive shell companies that obscure buyers' identities, continuing a dramatic shift in his customers' behavior that began during the election, a USA TODAY review found.
KNXV:
POLL: Joe Arpaio in dead heat with Martha McSally in GOP race for U.S. Senate seat in Arizona — abc15.com staff, wire reports — PHOENIX - A Tuesday poll from ABC15/OHPI shows Joe Arpaio skyrocketing to the top of the Republican Primary for U.S. Senate in Arizona.
Discussion:
HuffPost, RedState, Political Wire, The Hill, IJR, New York Magazine, Notes, ThinkProgress, The Daily Caller and twitchy.com
Jaclyn Peiser / New York Times:
A Feminist Twitter Campaign Targets Harper's Magazine and Katie Roiphe — It started with a tweet on Tuesday afternoon. By the next morning, five writers were said to have pulled stories planned for future issues of Harper's Magazine — an effort to pressure the magazine not to reveal …
Discussion:
Washington Post, Splinter, Fast Company, No More Mister Nice Blog, bradford-delong.com, thecut and Unfogged, more at Mediagazer »
Devin Leonard / Bloomberg:
The Most Awful Transit Center in America Could Get Unimaginably Worse — Think Penn Station is bad? Let's go into the crumbling, disaster-prone tunnels that lie beneath. — To get to New York's Penn Station, every northbound Amtrak passenger makes the last leg of their journey …
Discussion:
Axios
Taffy Brodesser-Akner / New York Times:
Tonya Harding Would Like Her Apology Now — In the movie, “I, Tonya,” the disgraced figure skater looks back on the 1994 Nancy Kerrigan scandal and her struggles to tell her side of the story. — BATTLE GROUND, Wash. — Tonya Harding's name isn't Tonya Harding anymore.
Discussion:
Weekly Standard, The Week and Althouse
Anthony Brooks / WBUR:
WBUR Poll: Baker's Popularity Continues To Soar, While Trump's Continues To Slump 04:58 — Play — Gov. Charlie Baker continues to enjoy the kind of approval ratings that most politicians can only dream of. — That's according to a new WBUR poll (topline results, crosstabs) …
Rob Haskell / Vogue:
Serena Williams on Motherhood, Marriage, and Making Her Comeback — On a moist South Florida morning at the end of a relentless hurricane season, their wedding only a week away, Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian are seated side by side at their long kitchen table discussing the Marshmallow Test.
Discussion:
FOX6Now.com, thecut, AOL, Tom + Lorenzo, Press Association, The FADER, The Root and USA Today
Wilson Ring / Associated Press:
Vermont poised to enact legal pot through Legislature — MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — The state Senate on Wednesday gave final approval to a bill that would allow the recreational use of marijuana, putting Vermont on course to become the first state in the country to legalize pot by an act …
Discussion:
Axios
Matthew Yglesias / Vox:
Tuesday's DACA negotiation stunt showed how dangerously we've lowered the bar for Trump — He remembers names (that are written on placards) — congratulations, America! — Donald Trump's entire political career has been a bizarre exercise in large-scale lowering of the bar …
Discussion:
Salon, Washington Post, Mother Jones, Politico, Townhall.com, Common Dreams, Axios, BBC, Mediaite, New Republic, The Week, New York Magazine, Raw Story and Shareblue Media
Mike Fleming / Deadline:
Michael Douglas Gets Out Front Of Potential Harassment Story To Preemptively Deny Sordid Accusation — Groundbreaking journalism that exposed decades old accusations of sexual harassment and sexual assault beginning with Harvey Weinstein has ended the careers of a growing list of powerful Hollywood men.
Discussion:
FOX6Now.com, KTLA, The Daily Caller, Page Six, The Daily Beast, IndieWire, Mashable, Boing Boing, The Week, Mediaite, The Guardian and AOL
David Sirota / International Business Times:
Trump Administration Waives Punishment For Convicted Banks, Including Deutsche — Which Trump Owes Millions — The Trump administration has waived part of the punishment for five megabanks whose affiliates were convicted and fined for manipulating global interest rates.
Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
Are Democrats' Senate Chances In 2018 Overrated? — After Democrat Doug Jones won a stunning victory in Alabama's special election for the U.S. Senate last month, lots of smart people whose work I read and follow, such as The New York Times's Nate Cohn, declared that the battle for Senate control in 2018 was a “toss-up.”
Anne Blythe / Raleigh News & Observer:
NC congressional districts struck down as unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders — RALEIGH — A panel of federal judges struck down North Carolina's election districts for U.S. Congress on Tuesday as unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders and gave lawmakers until Jan. 29 to bring them new maps to correct the problem.
Discussion:
Campaign Legal Center, Washington Post, The Atlantic, TheBlaze, Politico, Splinter, electionlawblog.org, New Republic, The Resurgent, IJR, NPR and Shareblue Media
James Queally / Los Angeles Times:
Death toll from slides rises to 15 with air rescues set to begin in Montecito — The death toll from a massive debris flow that buried homes and cars under a torrent of mud and boulders has risen to 15 in Montecito, where local personnel and the U.S. Coast Guard are planning to continue rescue operations Wednesday morning.
Discussion:
Washington Post and Mashable
Reuters:
South Korea's Moon says Trump deserves ‘big’ credit for North Korea talks — SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean President Moon Jae-in credited U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday for helping to spark the first inter-Korean talks in more than two years, and warned that Pyongyang would face stronger sanctions if provocations continued.
Discussion:
ABC News, Fox News, National Review, Politico, The Daily Caller, Washington Post, bizpacreview.com, IJR, The Gateway Pundit, New York Magazine and Mother Jones
Kevin McCoy / USA Today:
IRS private debt-collection program hurts low-income Americans — The Internal Revenue Service's handling of its private debt-collection program is harming lower-income Americans who can least afford to repay tax debts, a federal watchdog warned Wednesday. — The program also may be a waste …
Discussion:
KFOR-TV and New York Times
David Ljunggren / Reuters:
Exclusive: Canada convinced Trump will soon pull plug on NAFTA - sources — LONDON, Ontario (Reuters) - Canada is increasingly convinced that U.S. President Donald Trump will soon announce that the United States intends to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement, two government sources said on Wednesday.
Discussion:
Axios, Political Wire and The Week