Top Items:
James LaPorta / Newsweek:
Donald Trump Twitter Account Video Reveals Covert U.S. Navy SEAL Deployment During Iraq Visit — President Donald Trump and the White House communications team revealed that a U.S. Navy SEAL team was deployed to Iraq after the president secretly traveled to the region to meet …
Discussion:
Daily Kos, Associated Press, Joe.My.God., The Week, Raw Story, Splinter and Bloomberg
RELATED:
Wall Street Journal:
The Constant Spin Zone — How one publication reported Trump's trip to see troops in Iraq. — By The Editorial Board — President Trump and his wife Melania made a surprise visit to American soldiers in Iraq on Wednesday, and you would think that would be a straightforward event to write up.
Discussion:
Althouse
Kimberly Dozier / The Daily Beast:
Trump Takes a War-Zone Victory Lap—and Trips — The president used his first visit to Iraq to defend his decision to outsource the ISIS fight to a fickle ally. It wasn't a very convincing case. — This should have been a victory lap for a president hailed by the military for letting …
Discussion:
Conservative News Today, The Gateway Pundit and twitchy.com
Reuters:
Iraqi lawmakers criticize Trump visit as blow to Iraqi sovereignty
Iraqi lawmakers criticize Trump visit as blow to Iraqi sovereignty
Discussion:
Washington Post, Hill Reporter and Townhall
Nicholas Fondacaro / NewsBusters:
CNN Decries U.S. Troops in Iraq Who Had Their MAGA Hats Signed by Trump
CNN Decries U.S. Troops in Iraq Who Had Their MAGA Hats Signed by Trump
Discussion:
Washington Times and Townhall
New York Times:
End of Government Shutdown May Depend on the Definition of ‘Wall’ — WASHINGTON — With a partial government shutdown stretching past Day 5, the impasse over funding a wall at the southwestern border has highlighted the debate over effective border security, with a breakthrough possibly hinging on a semantic argument: What is a wall?
Discussion:
Washington Post, The Week and Politico
RELATED:
Eli Okun / Politico:
Trump tries to steer shutdown focus to financial impact for Democrats
Trump tries to steer shutdown focus to financial impact for Democrats
Discussion:
Washington Post, Political Wire and ABC News
Cameron Easley / Morning Consult:
Trump's Popularity Revisits Low as Government Agencies Shut Down
Trump's Popularity Revisits Low as Government Agencies Shut Down
Discussion:
TheStreet, Raw Story, New York Times, Mediaite and The Resurgent
Matt Wilstein / The Daily Beast:
MSNBC Beats Fox News in Weekly Cable News Ratings for First Time Since 2000 — MSNBC ended the week of Dec. 21st with the #1 cable news ratings on television, beating Fox News for the first time in 17 years. For the Monday through Friday leading up to the Christmas holiday …
Discussion:
Politico
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Patrick Radden Keefe / New Yorker:
How Mark Burnett Resurrected Donald Trump as an Icon of American Success — With “The Apprentice,” the TV producer mythologized Trump—then a floundering D-lister—as the ultimate titan, paving his way to the Presidency. — “Expedition: Robinson,” a Swedish reality-television program …
Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Stocks Set to Fall After Wall Street's Record Surge — Stocks in Japan rise sharply, but European equities broadly drift lower — U.S. stocks were poised to drop on Thursday after a record-breaking rally on Wall Street, as anxiety persists about slowing economic growth and uncertain policy out of Washington.
RELATED:
Jessica Menton / Wall Street Journal:
Dow Industrials Leap More Than 1,000 Points
Dow Industrials Leap More Than 1,000 Points
Discussion:
Politico, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, CNBC, Townhall and Mediaite
John Solomon / The Hill:
Giuliani calls for Mueller to be investigated for destruction of FBI evidence — Rudy Giuliani has an unmistakable New Year's message for special counsel Robert Mueller: It is time for the chief investigator in the Russia case to be investigated in 2019. — In wide-ranging interviews …
Jeffrey M. Jones / Gallup:
Michelle Obama Ends Hillary Clinton's Run as Most Admired — WASHINGTON, D.C. — For the first time in 17 years, a woman other than Hillary Clinton has been named by Americans as the woman they admire most. Former first lady Michelle Obama, who finished second to Clinton three times …
Discussion:
Axios, CNN, Hill Reporter, FOX31 Denver and Mediaite
USA Today:
USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll: What do Democrats want in 2020? Someone new - and Biden. But definitely not Hillary — Former Vice President Joe Biden hints at a 2020 run, saying he thinks he's “the most qualified person” in this Country to be president. Veuer's Justin Kircher has the story. — CONNECT
Discussion:
The Week and Joe.My.God.
RELATED:
Chris Smith / Vanity Fair:
“Democrats Don't Like to Be Told Who to Vote For”: Obama Has Flirted with Beto and Other Potential …
“Democrats Don't Like to Be Told Who to Vote For”: Obama Has Flirted with Beto and Other Potential …
Discussion:
Tennessee Star, Breitbart and The Week
Paul Mirengoff / Power Line:
Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Knights of Columbus? — Recently, Sen. Mazie Hirono claimed that Democrats have a hard time connecting with voters because they (Democrats) are so “smart” and “know so much.” If Democrats are smart and knowledgeable, you can't prove it by Hirono.
Discussion:
National Review, American Thinker and Real Clear Politics
New York Times:
Trump Imperils the Planet — Endangered species, climate change — the administration is taking the country, and the world, backward. — The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.
Mitch Daniels / Washington Post:
Things really aren't that bad. But we like to think they are. — Mitch Daniels, a Post contributing columnist, is president of Purdue University and a former governor of Indiana. — Human nature being as it is, every decade or two someone has to write a book to set us straight and cheer us up.
Sho Chandra / Bloomberg:
Jobless Claims Fall to 216,000, Showing Tight U.S. Labor Market — U.S. filings for unemployment benefits decreased for the third time in four weeks, hovering near an almost five- decade low that reflects a robust job market. — Jobless claims fell by 1,000 to 216,000 in the week ended Dec. 22 …
Carla Herreria / HuffPost:
Homeland Security Chief Faults Parents, ‘Open Border’ Supporters In Migrant Kids' Deaths — Kirstjen Nielsen ordered an overhaul of medical screening procedures at the Mexican border after Felipe Gómez Alonzo, 8, died on Christmas Eve. — Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen …
Discussion:
Washington Post, Axios and Los Angeles Times
The Daily Beast:
$800 Million in Taxpayer Money Went to Private Prisons Where Migrants Work for Pennies — Detention for migrants is big business—and a Daily Beast investigation reveals new details about just how lucrative it's become. — For $3 a day, Yesica works the graveyard shift in the kitchens …
Michael Walsh / American Greatness:
Sweet Shutdown, Roll On — It never seems to occur to the Democrats, currently bellyaching about the largely phantom “government shutdown,” that the last people Donald Trump cares about offending are the army of Democrat-voting bureaucrats who will be the only folks inconvenienced by Senator Charles Schumer's latest temper tantrum.
Jonathan Lemire / Associated Press:
Trump's presidency has changed Washington, defied convention — WASHINGTON (AP) — Mr. Trump went to Washington. And he changed it. — In his first two years in office, President Donald Trump has rewritten the rules of the presidency and the norms of the nation's capital …
Andrew Restuccia / Politico:
How Trump gave away his secret war zone trip — The tweets stopped and soon the jig was up. — President Donald Trump's trip to Iraq this week, his first to a war zone as president, was supposed to be a surprise. But the White House couldn't keep the sensitive trip a secret for long.
Discussion:
ABC News, Breitbart and The Gateway Pundit
Max Read / New York Magazine:
How Much of the Internet Is Fake? Turns Out, a Lot of It, Actually. — In late November, the Justice Department unsealed indictments against eight people accused of fleecing advertisers of $36 million in two of the largest digital ad-fraud operations ever uncovered.
Gillian Flaccus / Associated Press:
Legal marijuana industry had banner year in 2018 — The last year was a 12-month champagne toast for the legal marijuana industry as the global market exploded and cannabis pushed its way further into the financial and cultural mainstream. — Liberal California became the largest legal U.S. marketplace …
Ian Livingston / Washington Post:
2018 will be the first year with no violent tornadoes in the United States — In the whirlwind that is 2018, there has been a notable lack of high-end twisters. — We're now days away from this becoming the first year in the modern record with no violent tornadoes touching down in the United States.
Discussion:
Althouse