Top Items:
CNN:
Exclusive: Trump asked Rosenstein if he was ‘on my team’ — Washington (CNN)Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein visited the White House in December seeking President Donald Trump's help. The top Justice Department official in the Russia investigation wanted Trump's support …
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, Shakesville, Raw Story, Daily Kos and Mediaite
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Bloomberg:
FBI's Wray Opposes GOP Memo Release, Citing Inaccuracies — Trump overheard saying memo ‘100 percent’ should be released — Republicans say memo raises doubts about Russia probe — FBI Director Christopher Wray has informed the White House of his opposition to releasing a controversial …
Discussion:
Reuters, FOX News Radio, Mother Jones, Axios, The Moderate Voice, Washington Monthly, RedState, New York Post, HuffPost, IJR, New York Magazine, Talking Points Memo, Politico, Washington Examiner, CNN, CANNONFIRE, Business Insider, Politicus USA, AOL, The Week, Mediaite, Joe.My.God., repubHub and Washington Post
Eric Boehlert / Shareblue Media:
In rare public rebuke, FBI humiliates GOP for Mueller smear campaign — After meeting with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and White House chief of staff John Kelly and beseeching them not to publicly release a dubious, GOP-concocted hit report on the FBI, the bureau went public with its “grave concerns” on Wednesday.
Discussion:
Raw Story
Mike Levine / ABC News:
DOJ gives special counsel internal docs on thwarted Sessions resignation, source says — In the weeks before special counsel Robert Mueller's team interviewed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Justice Department turned over a cache of internal correspondence, including documents related …
Discussion:
Associated Press, Washington Post, Reuters, Talking Points Memo, The Week, Daily Kos, RedState and Axios
Adam B. Schiff / Washington Post:
Rep. Nunes's memo crosses a dangerous line — Adam B. Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, represents California's 28th District. — Even during the most difficult of times, when Congress had seemingly lost the capacity to govern and partisan storms raged across Capitol Hill …
New York Times:
F.B.I. Condemns Push to Release Secret Republican Memo — WASHINGTON — Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, clashed publicly with the president for the first time on Wednesday, condemning a push by House Republicans to release a secret memo that purports to show how the bureau …
Discussion:
Reuters, Mother Jones, CNBC and Daily Kos
Betsy Woodruff / The Daily Beast:
FBI Launches Preemptive Strike on Nunes Memo
Discussion:
CNN, Washington Post, ThinkProgress, Talking Points Memo, Mother Jones, The Guardian, Hullabaloo, Raw Story, Salon, Breitbart, Shareblue Media, Daily Kos and RedState
Allegra Kirkland / Talking Points Memo:
FBI Publicly Savages Nunes Memo For ‘Material Omissions Of Fact’
Discussion:
Business Insider, Joe.My.God. and The Week
Cristiano Lima / Politico:
Kelly: Nunes memo to be released ‘pretty quick’
Discussion:
Vox, Washington Post, Daily Kos, IJR, Talking Points Memo and CNN
CBS News:
Viewers approve of Trump's first State of the Union address - CBS News poll — Views of the speech — Three in four Americans who tuned in to President Trump's State of the Union address tonight approved of the speech he gave. Just a quarter disapproved. — How did the speech make you feel?
Discussion:
Vox, Washington Times, The Federalist, IJR, Washington Free Beacon, The Week, Front Page Magazine, Business Insider, CBS Chicago, Breitbart, The Gateway Pundit, The Daily Caller, Power Line, bizpacreview.com, Washington Monthly, RedState, NewsBusters, National Review, Liberty Unyielding and twitchy.com
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Judd Legum / ThinkProgress:
Signature line from Trump's speech is already a white nationalist rallying cry — Donald Trump's first State of the Union was a largely banal speech with few policy details and none of his signature asides and bravado. Overall, the reception to the speech has been cool.
Discussion:
CNN, Vox, Washington Times, Al Jazeera English, Raw Story, Right Wing Watch, Mother Jones, New Republic, Joe.My.God. and Politico
Joe Otterson / Variety:
TV Ratings: Trump's First State of the Union Down From 2017 Address in Early Numbers
Discussion:
Hollywood Reporter and Joe.My.God.
CNN:
Exclusive: Controversial FBI agent co-wrote initial draft of explosive Comey letter reopening Clinton email probe — GOP Rep.: FBI texts most biased I've ever seen — Washington (CNN)Emails obtained by CNN show the FBI agent at the center of a Capitol Hill storm played a key role …
Victor Cha / Washington Post:
Giving North Korea a ‘bloody nose’ carries a huge risk to Americans — Victor Cha is a professor at Georgetown University and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. — North Korea, if not stopped, will build an arsenal with multiple nuclear missiles meant …
Discussion:
HuffPost, Defense News, The Atlantic, Breitbart, New York Times, CBS News, NPR, New York Magazine, Vox, Hit & Run, Defense One, Business Insider, Hullabaloo, Financial Times, The Week, Politico, CNN, AOL, ABC News and CNBC
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Shane Harris / Washington Post:
Russian spy chiefs met in Washington with CIA director to discuss counterterrorism
Discussion:
RedState, ThinkProgress, Axios and Shakesville
Ryan Hass / Axios:
Signs of progress in Trump's North Korea pressure campaign
Discussion:
ABC News, Breitbart and One America News Network
Bryan Lowry / Kansas City Star:
Josh Hawley blames sex trafficking on ‘sexual revolution’ of 1960s in leaked audio — During a speech to pastors in Kansas City in December, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley linked the problem of sex trafficking to the sexual revolution of the 1960s. — Hawley, the top Republican prospect …
Discussion:
ThinkProgress, Talking Points Memo and The Week
Ryan Hutchins / Politico:
Justice Department drops corruption case against Menendez — The Justice Department reversed itself and dropped its corruption case against Sen. Bob Menendez on Wednesday, removing a huge burden from the senator — and national Democrats — as he prepares for a reelection campaign.
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Ted Sherman / New Jersey Online:
In shocking move, feds drop all charges against Sen. Bob Menendez
Discussion:
Washington Post, Washington Examiner, Breitbart and New York Magazine
Robbie Gramer / Foreign Policy:
Kellyanne Conway Botched Trump Damage Control Meeting With African Ambassadors — But Conway didn't discuss much on Africa at all, leaving participants bewildered. — In the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's disparaging comments about immigration from countries he considered undesirable …
Discussion:
Raw Story, ThinkProgress and Talking Points Memo
Monmouth University:
Trump Rating Ticks Up; Support for Tax Plan Increases — GOP gains on Dems in generic House ballot — West Long Branch, NJ - Donald Trump's job approval rating has bounced back from the record low registered in last month's Monmouth University Poll , as more Americans now see the president …
Discussion:
New York Magazine, Fox News Insider, Business Insider, the daily howler, Politico and Political Wire
Evan Sernoffsky / San Francisco Chronicle:
SF will wipe thousands of marijuana convictions off the books — San Francisco will retroactively apply California's marijuana-legalization laws to past criminal cases, District Attorney George Gascón said Wednesday — expunging or reducing misdemeanor and felony convictions going back decades.
Discussion:
ThinkProgress, Hit & Run and The Week
Caitlin Yilek / Washington Examiner:
Michael Wolff: Nikki Haley ‘embraced’ rumors of affair with Trump … Controversial author Michael Wolff is hitting back at Nikki Haley after the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations denied having an affair with President Trump. — In an interview with theSkimm, Wolff said Haley “seems to have embraced” the rumor that he started.
Discussion:
Washington Post, IJR, twitchy.com, Washington Free Beacon, The Daily Caller and Mediaite
Philly.com:
Bob Brady is not running for reelection — Bob Brady, the larger-than-life leader of Philadelphia's Democratic Party, announced on Wednesday that he is not running for reelection to the U.S. House. — He revealed the news in a way that seemed all too perfect for the decades-long party boss …
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Yascha Mounk / Slate:
Donald Trump Just Asked Congress to End the Rule of Law — Donald Trump's first State of the Union was a deeply dangerous speech. — It was deeply dangerous because he finally followed in the footsteps of European leaders like Hungarian President Viktor Orban who have long ago learned …
Discussion:
American Greatness and The Federalist
Carter Sherman / VICE News:
EXCLUSIVE: Trump officials discussed “reversing” abortion for undocumented teen — The Trump administration official in charge of the Office of Refugee Resettlement discussed trying to use a controversial, scientifically unproven method to reverse an undocumented teen's abortion, according to documents reviewed by VICE News.
Discussion:
ThinkProgress, Splinter, Political Wire and Raw Story
Dan Mangan / CNBC:
Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, resigns amid tobacco stock furor — Fitzgerald's departure comes less than a day after Politico revealed she bought stock in a tobacco company within a month of taking her job.
Discussion:
Washington Post, Politico, CNN, USA Today, New York Times, The Hill, Business Insider, Weekly Standard, Vox, ThinkProgress, IJR, Mother Jones, TheBlaze, AOL and Joe.My.God.
Washington Post:
White House seeks 72 percent cut to clean energy research, underscoring administration's preference for fossil fuels … The Trump administration is poised to ask Congress for deep budget cuts to the Energy Department's renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, slashing them by 72 percent overall …
Discussion:
Engadget
The Daily Beast:
Florida (Congress)Man Invited Infamous Troll Chuck Johnson to Trump's State of The Union … Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a conservative Republican firebrand, was the lawmaker responsible for inviting the controversial internet troll Chuck Johnson to Tuesday night's State of the Union address.
Discussion:
Little Green Footballs, ThinkProgress, Mediaite and Joe.My.God.
CNN:
Train carrying members of Congress — including House Speaker Paul Ryan — hits a truck — (CNN)A train carrying members of Congress — including House Speaker Paul Ryan — to their legislative retreat in West Virginia hit a truck Wednesday, multiple sources told CNN.
ABC:
The Cabinet Files reveal national security breaches, NBN negotiations, welfare reform plans — Hundreds of top-secret and highly classified cabinet documents have been obtained by the ABC following an extraordinary breach of national security. — This was not a leak — here's what it took to unlock national secrets
Discussion:
Splinter, NPR, NBC News and The Guardian
WSLS-TV:
Virginia Tech freshman had assault rifle, attempted to buy 5,000 rounds of ammo, police say — Man, 19, had been Tech student for six months — BLACKSBURG, Va. - Police have arrested a Virginia Tech student they say illegally had an assault rifle. — Virginia Tech police arrested 19 …
Discussion:
CNN, AOL, NBC News and The Daily Caller
New York Times:
A Paper Tears Apart in a City That Never Quite Came Together — LOS ANGELES — When an ambitious Civil War colonel from Ohio seized control of a fledgling daily newspaper here in the late 19th century, Los Angeles was a rough-hewed frontier town with no paved streets and a population of a few thousand people.
Discussion:
The Week
Washington Post:
‘Using his position for private gain’: HUD lawyers warned Ben Carson risked running afoul of ethics rules by enlisting son … Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson allowed his son to help organize a “listening tour” in Baltimore last summer despite warnings from department lawyers …
Discussion:
New York Magazine
New York Times:
Twitter Followers Vanish Amid Inquiries Into Fake Accounts — Federal and state authorities are investigating the sellers of artificial followers and other fraudulent social media engagement. — More than a million followers have disappeared from the accounts of dozens of prominent Twitter users …
Discussion:
The Daily Beast, Washington Post, Engadget, New York Magazine and Gizmodo, more at Mediagazer »
Ronald Brownstein / The Atlantic:
Trump Is Making 2018 Much Harder for Republicans … Like colliding storm systems, the three central dynamics shaping the 2018 electoral battlefield converged in President Trump's first State of the Union address on Tuesday. And control of Congress may turn on which one of these forces voters weigh most heavily.
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