Top Items:
Nick Coltrain / Des Moines Register:
Biden says he would not comply with a Senate subpoena in the impeachment trial of President Trump — Former Vice President Joe Biden confirmed Friday he would not comply with a subpoena to testify in a Senate trial of President Donald Trump. — The Democratically controlled U.S. House …
Discussion:
Vox, Talking Points Memo, Slate, DNyuz, Washington Times, The Gateway Pundit, The Daily Beast, The Week, UPI, Redstate, BizPac Review, Contemptor, Fox News, The Daily Caller, Bleeding Heartland, Balloon Juice, New York Post, New York Times, The Hill, Mediaite, Townhall, CNN, Raw Story, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Breitbart and Viking Pundit
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Morgan Chalfant / The Hill:
Pelosi gets under Trump's skin on impeachment — President Trump has made attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) a theme of his holiday break at his Mar-a-Lago resort. — Trump's comments suggest he is lingering on impeachment and that Pelosi's central role in it is very much on his mind going into 2020.
Jan Wolfe / Reuters:
Facing blowback, Biden clarifies stance on impeachment trial testimony — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden on Saturday said there would be “no legal basis” for Republicans to subpoena his testimony in President Donald Trump's impeachment trial, clarifying remarks from Friday that drew criticism.
James Arkin / Politico:
Impeachment trial will supercharge battle for Senate
Impeachment trial will supercharge battle for Senate
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, Contemptor and Alternet.org
Bruce Schreiner / Associated Press:
McGrath files to challenge McConnell in Senate race
McGrath files to challenge McConnell in Senate race
Discussion:
The Hill
Bret Stephens / New York Times:
The Secrets of Jewish Genius — It's not about having higher I.Q.s. — An eminent Lithuanian rabbi is annoyed that his yeshiva students devote their lunch breaks to playing soccer instead of discussing Torah. The students, intent on convincing their rav of the game's beauty, invite him to watch a professional match.
Discussion:
Althouse
Greg Robb / MarketWatch:
Fed study finds Trump tariffs backfired — President Donald Trump's strategy to use import tariffs to protect and boost U.S. manufacturers backfired and led to job losses and higher prices, according to a Federal Reserve study released this week. — “We find that the 2018 tariffs …
David Frum / The Atlantic:
A Gangster in the White House — Amid a two-day binge of post-Christmas rage-tweeting, President Trump retweeted the name of the CIA employee widely presumed to be the whistleblower in the Ukraine scandal. On Thursday night, December 26, Trump retweeted his campaign account …
Discussion:
The Guardian
Heather Long / Washington Post:
Trump's stock market rally is very good, but still lags Obama and Clinton — U.S. stocks are closing out a terrific year and President Trump loves it. He's bragged about the stock market hitting record highs six times this week alone on Twitter. — On Friday, be boasted …
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Jeff Stein / Washington Post:
Trump's quest to shatter GOP economics reached its culmination in 2019
Trump's quest to shatter GOP economics reached its culmination in 2019
Discussion:
Mother Jones
Agence France-Presse:
UN approves Russian-sponsored, China-backed bid on new cybercrime convention — The resolution was approved on Friday by the general assembly by a vote of 79-60, with 33 abstentions The US, European powers and rights groups fear that the resolution would legitimise crackdowns on expression …
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Eric Levitz / New York Magazine:
The Public Option Is Politically Superior to M4A — But Only As a Sound Bite — The vast majority of Americans believe that every U.S. citizen has a right to quality, affordable health care, and that it is the federal government's job to uphold that right. — But roughly 70 percent …
Astead W. Herndon / New York Times:
‘Nothing Less Than a Civil War’: These White Voters on the Far Right See Doom Without Trump — Deeply conservative, they organize online and outside the Republican Party apparatus, engaging in more explicit versions of the chest-beating seen at the president's rallies.
Evan Kruegel / FOX31 Denver:
Mysterious drones spotted in 4 Colorado counties — WASHINGTON COUNTY, Colo. —Law enforcement officials in at least 4 Colorado counties are looking for the source of some mysterious drone sightings. — Sheriffs in Phillips, Lincoln, Yuma, and Washington Counties all confirm unusual sightings over the past week.
Lisa Marie Pane / Associated Press:
US mass killings hit new high in 2019, most were shootings — The first one occurred 19 days into the new year when a man used an ax to kill four family members including his infant daughter. Five months later, 12 people were killed in a workplace shooting in Virginia.
Discussion:
Slate, The Hill and New York Post
New York Times:
Russia Deploys Hypersonic Weapon, Potentially Renewing Arms Race — The new Russian weapon system flies at superfast speeds and can evade traditional missile defense systems. The United States is trying to catch up. — WASHINGTON — The Russian military on Friday said it had deployed …
Janie Har / Associated Press:
Even amid affluence of tech capital, local news struggles — OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — The cities and suburbs on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay are home to 2.7 million people, a world-class University of California campus and bedroom communities for Silicon Valley that produce median …
Sebastian Murdock / HuffPost:
Don Imus, Racist Radio Show Host, Dead At 79 — Imus was fired from CBS in 2007 after he referred to members of the Rutgers women's basketball team as “nappy-headed hos.” — Veteran radio broadcaster and known racist Don Imus died Friday. He was 79. — Imus died in the morning …
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Washington Post:
How Ralph Northam came back from the political dead — THE HISTORY of U.S. politics is full of second chances — of scandal-scarred, disgraced and irredeemable public figures staging improbable comebacks — but few back-from-the-dead narratives have been as swift and sure-footed as the one Virginia …
Discussion:
Townhall, The Daily Caller and The Daily Wire
Deborah Pearlstein / The Atlantic:
How the Military Lost Its Proper Place in the Constitutional Order — In his efforts to mask the seriousness of his actions around Russia and Ukraine, President Donald Trump has taken aim at one essential democratic institution after another—questioning the legitimacy of the press …
Laurent Banguet / Yahoo News:
Mars 2020 rover to seek ancient life, prepare human missions — The Mars 2020 rover's driving equipment was given its first test inside a large, sterile room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, near Los Angeles — Pasadena (United States) (AFP) - The Mars 2020 rover …
CBS New York:
NYPD Investigating 9th Anti-Semitic Attack Reported This Week — NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — New information was released Saturday morning about another anti-Semitic incident in Brooklyn. — It follows a series of anti-Semitic attacks this week and an increase in overall hate crimes around the city.
Discussion:
NPR, HuffPost and Conservative Review
Michiko Kakutani / New York Times:
The 2010s Were the End of Normal — TWO OF THE MOST WIDELY QUOTED and shared poems in the closing years of this decade were William Butler Yeats's “The Second Coming” ("Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold"), and W.H. Auden's “September 1, 1939” ("Waves of anger and fear / Circulate …
Tyler Durden / Zero Hedge:
Maddow Meltdown: In Defense To OAN Lawsuit, Host Argues Her Words Are Not Facts — Back in September, we reported that TV network OAN had filed a lawsuit against Rachel Maddow for the time the host said that OAN “really, literally is paid Russian propaganda.”
Discussion:
BizPac Review and The Gateway Pundit
CBS News:
Federal judge to halt latest North Carolina voter ID law — Raleigh, North Carolina — Republican attempts to require photo identification to vote in North Carolina are being thwarted again by judges hearing arguments that the mandate is tainted by bias that would deter black and Latino residents.
John Binder / Breitbart:
New York Jailbreak: Illegal Alien Freed After Allegedly Killing Mother of Three on Christmas Eve — A New York state law that allows accused criminals to be freed from prison the same day they are arrested for violent crimes has freed an illegal alien accused of killing a mother of three on Christmas Eve.