memeorandum: Icy silence, frayed connections: Impeachment takes a toll (Laurie Kellman/Associated Press)

12:35 AM ET, December 14, 2019

Top Items:

Pete Williams / NBC News:

Supreme Court agrees to consider whether Trump's tax records should be released — By granting review of these cases now, the justices made it possible for them to be heard during the current court term. — WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear President Donald Trump's appeal …

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Politico, Vox, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Disrn

Robert Barnes / Washington Post:

Supreme Court will take up Trump's broad claims of protection from investigation — The Supreme Court announced Friday that it will take up President Trump's broad claims of protection from investigation, raising the prospect of a landmark election-year ruling on the limits of presidential power.

Discussion: POLITICUSUSA, Sputnik News and Mediaite

Adam Liptak / New York Times:

Supreme Court to Rule on Release of Trump's Financial Records — The court's ruling, expected by June, could release information the president has tried to protect. Or the justices could rule that his financial affairs are not legitimate subjects of inquiry so long as he remains in office.

Discussion: HotAir, Bloomberg, Axios and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Tucker Higgins / CNBC:
Supreme Court will hear three cases over Trump's financial records

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit

Mark Sherman / Associated Press:
Justices to take up dispute over subpoenas for Trump records

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Slate and NBC News

Ariane de Vogue / CNN: Supreme Court to hear Trump pleas to block subpoenas for financial records

Washington Post:

On impeachment, Democrats can put Republicans on defense. Here's how. — When Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blithely suggested on Fox News that he will conduct the Senate impeachment trial in full collusion with President Trump's legal team, he handed Democrats a big opening.

Discussion: POLITICUSUSA, Spectator USA and Fox News

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
McConnell's awful Hannity interview shows power of Fox News's disinformation

Discussion: Occupy Democrats, DNyuz, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Fox News, Breitbart and Common Dreams

Isaac Stanley-Becker / Washington Post:
Fact-based impeachment can't penetrate the pro-Trump Web

Discussion: The Federalist

Ed Mazza / HuffPost:
Mitch McConnell Brags About Blocking Obama For 2 Years, Then Laughs About It

Discussion: The Root and Daily Kos

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Judge orders state to purge more than 200,000 Wisconsin voters from the rolls … (Photo: Mike De Sisti / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) — PORT WASHINGTON - An Ozaukee County judge on Friday ordered the state to remove hundreds of thousands of people from Wisconsin's voter rolls because they may have moved.

Discussion: New York Times, Tallahassee Democrat and Real Clear Politics

Scott Bauer / Associated Press:

Wisconsin judge: 234K voter registrations should be tossed — MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin judge on Friday ordered that the registration of up to 234,000 voters be tossed out because they may have moved, a victory for conservatives that could make it more difficult for people to vote next year in the key swing state.

Discussion: The Hill

Andrew Sullivan / New York Magazine:

Boris Johnson Is Showing Western Politicians How to Win — The sea of Tory blue seats that now envelop Labour's heartlands on the electoral map of Britain is one kind of future for Western democracies. Unleashed by a revolt by ordinary people to take back control of their own laws …

Discussion: New York Times, alicublog, Marginal REVOLUTION and Damian J. Penny

Noah Rothman / Commentary:
Bernie Sanders Has a Big Jeremy Corbyn Problem

Discussion: New York Times, Politico, DNyuz, The National Interest and The Sun

Max Boot / Washington Post:
Populist nationalism is on the march. No one seems to know how to stop it.

Discussion: Mother Jones, thedailychrenk.com and Outside the Beltway

New York Times:

A Great Big Gift Not on Trump's Disclosure Form: Giuliani's Legal Advice — For the past 20 months, President Trump has received free personal legal services from one of America's highest-paid lawyers, who has traveled around the country and across the ocean to defend him in the special counsel's inquiry …

Dareh Gregorian / NBC News:

One House Democrat goes on record opposing Trump impeachment — Eight other lawmakers in competitive districts are currently on the fence ahead of the full House vote, according to an NBC News tally. — House Democrats hailing from conservative swing districts are all lining up to vote …

Discussion: U.S. Congressman Max Rose, Breitbart and Hullabaloo

Dave Goldiner / New York Daily News: Staten Island Rep. Max Rose backs impeachment of Trump

Tampa Bay Times:

The case for impeachment — The House has enough reason to justify the impeachment of President Donald Trump. — With reluctance, we conclude the U.S. House of Representatives has enough reason to justify the impeachment of President Donald Trump. We harbor no illusions …

Alexandra Hutzler / Newsweek:
Ethics Experts Slam Trump For Promoting Mar-A-Lago Resort As The ‘Southern White House’: 'It's An Abuse of Power'

Discussion: Hullabaloo and Vox

Laurie Kellman / Associated Press:

Icy silence, frayed connections: Impeachment takes a toll — WASHINGTON (AP) — The most raucous committee in Congress sat stone-faced, barely speaking. — One by one, the members around the Judiciary Committee dais voted on the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.

Discussion: The Hill

Jennifer Medina / New York Times:

Bernie Sanders Retracts Endorsement of Cenk Uygur After Criticism — Mr. Sanders had said Mr. Uygur was “a voice we desperately need in Congress.” But many Democrats condemned the endorsement, citing Mr. Uygur's history of offensive comments. — LOS ANGELES — Can an endorsement be put back in the bottle?

Discussion: Redstate, CNN and The Daily Caller

Washington Post:
Facing blowback, Bernie Sanders retracts endorsement of controversial candidate

Discussion: Washington Free Beacon, Louder With Crowder, The Daily Beast, The Wrap, Associated Press and Mediaite

Quint Forgey / Politico:

Biden warns that Boris Johnson's victory shows dangers of parties leaning too far left — The leading 2020 contender told donors that the UK election holds lessons for the White House race. — Former Vice President Joe Biden. Win McNamee/Getty Images — Former Vice President Joe Biden …

Discussion: Breitbart, Vanity Fair, Associated Press, The Slot, CNN, The Guardian, DNyuz, The Hill, NBC News, Raw Story and Politico

Rick Noack / Washington Post:
If Britain had Germany's electoral system, Boris Johnson may have lost the election

Discussion: Vanity Fair, American Greatness, The Guardian and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Ryan Parry West / Daily Mail:

EXCLUSIVE: Hunter Biden to be a daddy for the FIFTH time! New South African wife of VP's son is seen with a baby bump amid his messy paternity case and concerns over barrage of attacks from Trump loyalists — Hunter Biden's new wife Melissa Cohen Biden, 32, is pregnant and in her second trimester, DailyMailTV can reveal

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, Breitbart and New York Post

Keith Griffith / Daily Mail:

Shocking moment school bus bullies pummel 14-year-old boy leaving him hospitalized with head injuries 'because he'd worn a Trump 2020 hat' — Shocking video has emerged showing a 14-year-old boy being attacked on a school bus, allegedly because he'd previously worn a hat supporting President Donald Trump.

Discussion: BizPac Review and Disrn

Hayley Richardson / Daily Mail:

What is the secret of Hillary Clinton's strangely plumped-up-cheeks? Fillers could be behind more youthful look — Hillary Clinton looked wonderfully youthful at an event on Broadway in New York last night - and aesthetic experts suggest it could be down to regular ‘tweakments’ and cosmetic procedures.

Discussion: PJ Media Home and The Gateway Pundit

Dan Cobb / Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Precinct closures harm voter turnout in Georgia, AJC analysis finds — Closures accelerated after Supreme Court invalidated Voting Rights Act provision, putting thousands farther from the polls. — Until her old concrete-block precinct shut down, Maggie Coleman lived about a mile from a place to cast her ballot in rural Georgia.

Doug Palmer / Politico:

Here's what's in, what's out of U.S.-China trade deal — The United States and China may have turned down the heat on their trade war on Friday, but pressing pause on more tariffs is just the first step in ending a protracted dispute between the world's two largest economies.

Discussion: Breitbart

New York Times:
Initial China Trade Deal Defuses Tensions, but U.S. Still Has Concerns

Discussion: Washington Post, CNBC, Politico, ustr.gov, Daily Kos, Foreign Policy, Vox, UPI and Mediaite, more at Techmeme »

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

‘The story stands’: McClatchy won't back off its Michael Cohen-Prague reporting — McClatchy isn't relenting on Cohen-Prague. “Until we have new reporting that tells us our old reporting is wrong, the story stands,” notes Jeanne Segal, a spokeswoman for the newspaper chain, in an email to the Erik Wemple Blog.

JM Rieger / Washington Post:

Trump has described the same conversation about Israel four times. Each time, the name of his Jewish friend changed. — Touting his accomplishments during a second Hanukkah reception at the White House on Wednesday, President Trump recalled a conversation he said he had with real estate developer Charles Kushner.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Raw Story

Dana R. Fisher / TIME:

Protests in the Trump Era Have Been Mostly Peaceful. Here's How the 2020 Election Could Change That — Dana R. Fisher is a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and the author of American Resistance: From the Women's March to the Blue Wave.

Discussion: Power Line

Michael Wilner / Wichita Eagle:

State Department limited release of Pompeo contacts with Giuliani. A judge wants more — A federal judge ordered the State Department on Friday to expand its search for records of communication between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, regarding Ukraine policy.

Alexander Nazaryan / Yahoo News:

Judge's decision may shine light on secret Trump-Putin meeting notes — WASHINGTON — A district court judge in Washington, D.C., has ordered administration lawyers to explain why, for more than two years, the White House has refused to turn over to the State Department an interpreter's notes …

Discussion: Law & Crime

Alisyn Camerota / Vanity Fair:

“FIRST, YOU HAVE TO DO THESE THINGS I SAY”: INSIDE ROGER AILES'S TWISTED GAME OF MIND CONTROL — During my time at Fox News, Ailes bent reality to fit his own needs. But his racist rants and warped demands—"all you have to do is kill Gretchen"—ultimately allowed the women of Fox to bring him down.

Discussion: Glamour, Raw Story and Mediaite

CNN:

White House further limits officials on Trump's foreign leader calls in wake of Ukraine scandal — Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump's senior aides have further restricted the number of administration officials allowed to listen to the President's phone calls with foreign leaders since …

Discussion: Raw Story, The Hill, Talking Points Memo and Mediaite

CNN:

Former Breitbart Editor: Stephen Miller is a white supremacist. I know, I was one too. — (CNN)She was already a racist when she took a publishing job in Washington, DC. But when she became a reporter for Breitbart News, Katie McHugh says she was taken to new depths of hate with the help of Stephen Miller.

Jeremy Barr / Hollywood Reporter:

Fox News Host Jesse Watters Called Out by Women's Groups Over ‘Richard Jewell’ Remarks — On ‘The Five,’ the host claimed that female journalists sleep with their sources to get stories “all the time.” — As co-host of the sometimes-rowdy daily talk show The Five on Fox News …

Brian Slodysko / Associated Press:

Swarovski crystals, $900 cabernet and a Buttigieg fundraiser — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Hall Rutherford wine caves in the hills of California's Napa Valley boast a chandelier with 1,500 Swarovski crystals, an onyx banquet table to reflect its luminescence and bottles of cabernet sauvignon that sell for as much as $900.

Discussion: Politico and Vox

Dale Kasler / Sacramento Bee:

Gavin Newsom rejects PG&E bankruptcy plan, demands ‘radically restructured’ CA utility — In a stunning rebuke to PG&E Corp., Gov. Gavin Newsom late Friday rejected the utility's plan to pay Northern California wildfire victims and exit bankruptcy. — In a letter to PG&E Chief Executive Bill Johnson …

Discussion: The Hill