Top Items:
Washington Post:
On Twitter, Trump comes out swinging in many directions — President Trump lashed out Tuesday morning at threats from many directions, taking aim at the special counsel's Russia inquiry, the Federal Reserve, social media companies and undocumented immigrants in tweets that spanned more than two hours.
Discussion:
ABC News, New York Times, Mother Jones and Political Wire
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Eli Lake / Bloomberg:
Michael Flynn Is Owed an Apology — One year after he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, there is still no evidence that he is a traitor. — Remember when Michael Flynn was a traitor? It was early 2017. Democrats were still stinging from their defeat at the hands of Donald Trump.
emptywheel:
Mike Flynn Steps in It: In a Bid to Feed the Frothy Right, He Leads to Release of Damning New Details Showing He Lied to Protect Trump — Last week, I suggested that Mike Flynn's cute trick of publicly releasing information from Andy McCabe's memo and Peter Strzok's 302 might backfire.
Discussion:
Raw Story, Hullabaloo and Salon
Katelyn Polantz / CNN:
Mueller releases memo summarizing FBI's interview with Michael Flynn
Mueller releases memo summarizing FBI's interview with Michael Flynn
Discussion:
KXLF-TV
Arizona Republic:
Martha McSally will be appointed to John McCain's Senate seat — Republican U.S. Rep. Martha McSally will replace retiring U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl to fill for the next two years the Senate seat long held by the late U.S. Sen. John McCain. — Gov. Doug Ducey's decision to appoint McSally …
Discussion:
Axios and Political Wire
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Sean Sullivan / Washington Post:
Arizona governor taps Martha McSally to fill Senate seat once held by McCain — Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has appointed fellow Republican Rep. Martha McSally to the Senate, he announced Tuesday, picking a favorite of GOP leaders to fill the seat John McCain held for decades.
Alex Isenstadt / Politico:
Arizona governor to appoint Martha McSally to Senate
Arizona governor to appoint Martha McSally to Senate
Discussion:
Breitbart
Washington Post:
Russian disinformation teams targeted Robert S. Mueller III, says report prepared for Senate — Months after President Trump took office, Russia's disinformation teams trained their sites on a new target: special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Having worked to help get Trump into the White House …
Discussion:
New Republic, Just Security, Wonkette, Daily Wire, POLITICUSUSA, Raw Story, The Week, twitchy.com, New York Times, Bulletin of the Atomic …, Wall Street Journal, Mother Jones, AOL, CNBC, The Hill, Vox, ABC News, The Atlantic, Boing Boing, The Root, Bloomberg, Mediaite and RedState, more at Mediagazer »
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Washington Post:
Russia's support for Trump's election is no longer disputable — TWO REPORTS prepared for the Senate on Russian disinformation unfold a now-indisputable narrative: The Kremlin engaged in a coordinated campaign to elevate Donald Trump to the presidency, and this country's technology companies were central to its strategy.
Discussion:
HuffPost
Sohrab Ahmari / New York Post:
Why Western elites now can't resist conspiracy theories
Erin Banco / The Daily Beast:
Mueller Ready to Pounce on Trumpworld Concessions to Moscow — New court filings by Mueller's office could answer a central question of the Russia investigation: What did the Kremlin hope to get from its political machinations? — For more than a year, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office …
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, Law & Crime, Raw Story, Just Security and Hill Reporter
RELATED:
Steve Denning / Forbes:
Mueller Exposes Putin's Hold Over Trump
Washington Post:
White House signals it will back down on President Trump's demand for border wall funding and avert a partial government shutdown — The Trump administration wants to avoid a partial government shutdown and has found other ways to get the border wall money it wants, spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Tuesday.
RELATED:
Washington Post:
Top Republicans struggle to persuade Trump not to shut down the government
Top Republicans struggle to persuade Trump not to shut down the government
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, Los Angeles Times, POLITICUSUSA and Politico
Olivia Nuzzi / New York Magazine:
Donald Trump Hates Christmas Parties — On Monday and Wednesday this week, Donald Trump will leave the Oval Office in the West Wing in the late afternoon and walk eastward to the White House residence, where he will meet Melania Trump. Together, they will head downstairs at 5:15 to the Grand Foyer …
Discussion:
Raw Story
Laura Barrón-López / Politico:
Ocasio-Cortez weighs a new primary target: Hakeem Jeffries — Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is eyeing a new member of House Democratic leadership as a 2020 primary target: Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). — Ocasio-Cortez, who ousted House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley earlier …
Discussion:
Washington Free Beacon and Washington Times
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Karl Evers-Hillstrom / OpenSecrets.org:
Ocasio-Cortez enters the House with highest portion of small contributions
Elizabeth Warren / Washington Post:
It's time to let the government manufacture generic drugs — Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, represents Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate. — Forty-seven states and the Justice Department are investigating a price-fixing conspiracy that's driving up the cost of generic drugs in the United States.
Discussion:
Bloomberg, Politico and Boing Boing
RELATED:
David Dayen / The Intercept:
Elizabeth Warren Plan Would Allow the Government to Manufacture Its Own Generic Drugs — If I told you that there are two major efforts on the left to reform the pharmaceutical industry, and one relies on market competition while the other establishes a publicly run office to manufacture prescription drugs …
Wall Street Journal:
Roger Stone Admits Spreading Lies on InfoWars — Trump adviser made the admission in settling a defamation suit brought against him by an exiled Chinese businessman — As questions swirl about his credibility, former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone settled a defamation suit seeking $100 million …
Discussion:
Washington Post, Talking Points Memo, WSVN-TV, The Gateway Pundit, Washington Times, The Week, HuffPost, Mediaite and Splinter, more at Mediagazer »
Kimberly Hefling / Politico:
Trump school safety group goes after Obama civil rights policy, not guns — A Trump administration school safety panel hardly touched on the role of guns in deadly school shootings in its wrap-up Tuesday. — Instead, the advisory group headed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos identified …
Discussion:
Associated Press and Joanne Jacobs
RELATED:
Chris Buskirk / American Greatness:
Death of The Weekly Standard Signals Rebirth of the Right — Neoconservatism is dead, long live American conservatism. That's what I thought when I learned The Weekly Standard would be shuttered by longtime owner Clarity Media. The Standard was a creature of a particular time and place …
Alex Isenstadt / Politico:
Trump launches unprecedented reelection machine — President Donald Trump is planning to roll out an unprecedented structure for his 2020 reelection, a streamlined organization that incorporates the Republican National Committee and the president's campaign into a single entity.
Lawrence Lessig / USA Today:
Democratic House will address most important civil rights issue in half century — A bill of impeachment against the old ways: America has come to expect that its politicians will promise change, yet change nothing. We need a radically comprehensive and practical fix. — CONNECT
Benjamin Hardy / Arkansas Blog, Arkansas Times:
Work requirement ends Medicaid coverage for 4,600 more Arkansans in December — Almost 17,000 Arkansans have now lost their health insurance due to the state's experimental work requirement for certain low-income adult Medicaid beneficiaries, according to a monthly report released by the state Department of Human Services on Monday.
Mark Rober / YouTube:
Package Thief vs. Glitter Bomb Trap … This might be my Magnum Opus. Go to https://NordVPN.com/MarkRober and use code MARKROBER to get 75% off a 3 year plan and an extra month for free. — My buddy Sean posted a video with more details of the build: https://youtu.be/IpMxOmUcfOI
Ben Shapiro / Daily Wire:
Clemson Philosopher In NYT: Maybe We Should All Kill Ourselves, Or At Least Abort All Future Children To Save The Planet — On Monday, The New York Times printed an op-ed from Clemson philosophy professor Todd May. Its cheery, holiday-themed title: “Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?”
RELATED:
Todd May / New York Times:
Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?
Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?
Discussion:
Washington Free Beacon, twitchy.com, The Daily Caller, Breitbart and Small Dead Animals
Charlie Cooper / Politico:
Troops to be on standby in event of no-deal Brexit — LONDON — The U.K. government will move to a full no-deal Brexit footing after Theresa May's Cabinet agreed to trigger all remaining contingency plans for such a scenario. — Some government officials will be required to work …
Discussion:
One America News Network
Isaac Stanley-Becker / Washington Post:
New York Times assailed for Alice Walker interview endorsing ‘anti-Semitic’ conspiracy theorist — Critics call it anti-Semitic, saying it places Holocaust revisionism at the center of an odious and addled worldview. Its title has been borrowed by followers of QAnon, a conspiracy movement …
Discussion:
National Review, Althouse, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Daily Caller, Daily Wire and Breitbart
Maxwell Tani / The Daily Beast:
Advertisers Ditch Fox News' Tucker Carlson for Saying Immigration Makes U.S. ‘Dirtier’ — Four advertisers, including Indeed and Pacific Life, say they have no plans to advertise on the Fox News host's show in the future. — Several advertisers have dropped Tucker Carlson's show …
Discussion:
The Wrap, ThinkProgress, Talking Points Memo, Hill Reporter, Breitbart, TVNewser, Washington Post, Media Matters for America and Splinter
Jessica Schulberg / HuffPost:
The Bible-Thumping Tech CEO Who's Proud Of Keeping Neo-Nazis Online — Rob Monster claims he helped resurrect Gab because of his commitment to free speech. He also has a lot to say about Jews. — Most tech CEOs who provide safe spaces for neo-Nazis to organize, propagandize, and terrorize do so as quietly as possible.
Patti Davis / Washington Post:
A child occupies the White House — and the world knows it — Patti Davis is the author, most recently, of the novel “The Earth Breaks in Colors” and the daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. — Lately, I've been looking at home movies and photographs of my childhood years …
Discussion:
Raw Story
Paul Kane / Washington Post:
Different kind of Blue Dog Coalition intent on being a force in House — Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) is living proof that the Blue Dog Coalition has morphed into something its founders would struggle to recognize. — “This is not your father's Blue Dog caucus anymore,” Murphy, 40, said in a recent interview.