Top Items:
Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
Explosive new revelations just weakened Trump's impeachment defenses — If Mitch McConnell is going to pull off his scheme to turn President Trump's impeachment trial into a quick and painless sham with no witnesses, the Senate majority leader needs the story to be covered …
Discussion:
Alternet.org, Raw Story and Mediaite
RELATED:
Mike Allen / Axios:
Axios AM — Subscribe — Happy Monday! — Situational awareness: A Chinese scientist who set off an ethical debate with claims that he had made the world's first genetically edited babies was sentenced to three years in prison because of his research. (AP)
Discussion:
Associated Press, Raw Story and The Hill
New York Times:
Behind the Ukraine Aid Freeze: 84 Days of Conflict and Confusion — The inside story of President Trump's demand to halt military assistance to an ally shows the price he was willing to pay to carry out his agenda. — WASHINGTON — Deep into a long flight to Japan aboard Air Force …
Jeffrey M. Jones / Gallup:
Obama, Trump Tie as Most Admired Man in 2019 — WASHINGTON, D.C. — Barack Obama and Donald Trump are tied this year as the most admired man. It is Obama's 12th time in the top spot versus the first for Trump. Michelle Obama is the most admired woman for the second year in a row.
Discussion:
Politico, Talking Points Memo, Slate, The Wrap, FOX31 Denver, The Gateway Pundit, The Daily Caller, IJR, Washington Times, Sara A. Carter, The Hill, Mediaite and CNN
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New York Times:
Suspect in Monsey Stabbing Charged With Federal Hate Crimes — The charges came as the police stepped up patrols in Jewish neighborhoods in the New York region. — Federal prosecutors on Monday filed hate crimes charges against the man accused of bursting into a Hasidic rabbi's home …
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John Hinderaker / Power Line:
Are Anti-Semitic Attacks Driven By Politics?
Are Anti-Semitic Attacks Driven By Politics?
Discussion:
The Daily Caller and The Libertarian Republic
Ryan Ledendecker / Daily Sounder:
This Firearms Instructor Is Reportedly The Hero Who Killed Texas Church Gunman With Single Head Shot — On Sunday, during what would otherwise likely be a quiet worship service at the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, an armed gunman entered the church and after talking …
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New York Times:
How Big Companies Won New Tax Breaks From the Trump Administration — As the Treasury Department prepared to enact the 2017 Republican tax overhaul, corporate lobbyists swarmed — and won big. — The overhaul of the federal tax law in 2017 was the signature legislative achievement of Donald J. Trump's presidency.
Judd Legum / Popular Information:
Google's holiday gift to Devin Nunes — In November, Congressman Devin Nunes (R-CA) was in the spotlight — the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, which was leading the impeachment inquiry into President Trump. He used his star turn to push “fantastical conspiracy theories” about Democrats.
Mehdi Hasan / The Intercept:
Ivanka Trump Is a Senior Adviser to the President. She Should Be Asked Tough Questions. — The morning after Donald Trump became only the third president in U.S. history to be impeached, his senior adviser Ivanka Trump — who also doubles as his eldest daughter — sat down for a rare interview with CBS …
Discussion:
Althouse
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CBS News:
Seattle public school students barred from returning until they get vaccinations — Thousands of students in Seattle have 10 days to get vaccinated or they will not be allowed to go to school. This comes after Washington state had two measles outbreaks this year, one forcing a state of emergency.
Discussion:
Associated Press, Townhall, Disrn, FOX59 and fox13now.com
Lachlan Markay / The Daily Beast:
Republican Telemarketer Stiffed the Feds Out of $411K. The Trump White House Gave Him a Job. — Shannon Burns spent years dodging creditors and fighting off lawsuits. He found an angel at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. — BEAST INSIDE — In the final two months of 2016 …
Discussion:
One America News Network and Raw Story
Claire Lee / Agence France-Presse:
All eyes on ‘new way’ in Kim Jong Un's New Year speech — Kim told a meeting of top ruling party officials that ‘positive and offensive measures for fully ensuring the sovereignty and security of the country’ — Seoul (AFP) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has called for “offensive measures” …
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Donald Trump / Reuters:
Greta Thunberg: 'I wouldn't have wasted my time' talking to Trump about climate change — “He's not listening to scientists and experts, so why would he listen to me?,” she said. — LONDON - Teenage climate change activist Greta Thunberg said on Monday that talking to U.S. President Donald Trump …
Discussion:
ABC News
Pat Rynard / Iowa Starting Line:
Pete Buttigieg Shows No Signs Of Slowing Down In Iowa — Pete Buttigieg is barreling toward an Iowa Caucus victory, and there's not a damn thing anyone's tweets can do about it. — The month of December has given the South Bend Mayor his biggest challenges yet, including intense media questions …
Zack Stanton / Politico:
The Worst Political Predictions of 2019 — If you took the sum of political knowledge available at the end of 2018 and projected the course of 2019, the resulting spaghetti models could go in millions of directions. — Perhaps Robert Mueller's findings would devastate President Donald Trump.
Discussion:
Althouse
James Comey / Washington Post:
The four stages of being attacked by Donald Trump — James Comey is a former FBI director and deputy attorney general. — What's it like to be personally and publicly attacked by the president of the United States? Like many others in and out of government, I have some experience.
Nancy French / Washington Post:
I ignored warnings from friends and family not to marry my husband. Was I making a big mistake? — When I was 20, a man I barely knew proposed without a ring — I said yes. — Our friends were alarmed about our fast decisions to marry and move from Tennessee to New York City.
Wall Street Journal:
Sunbelt Set to Gain Congressional Seats, Data Show — Americans are moving to states with warm weather, strong job growth and cheaper housing — WASHINGTON—New state population totals released Monday offer fresh signs of how the Sunbelt will gain political power after the 2020 census.
New York Post:
Woman accused of assaulting 3 Jewish women arrested again day after release — A Brooklyn miscreant accused of slapping three Orthodox Jewish women last week struck again on Sunday and was busted for assaulting another woman. — A day after she was released without bail on charges stemming …
Discussion:
The Daily Caller, The Gateway Pundit, The Daily Wire, Redstate, Sara A. Carter and Breitbart
US Census / The United States Census Bureau:
2019 U.S. Population Estimates Continue to Show the Nation's Growth Is Slowing — Natural Increase Drops Below 1 Million for the First Time in Decades Due to Fewer Births and More Deaths — DEC. 30, 2019 — According to the U.S. Census Bureau's national and state population estimates released today …
New York Times:
Bill Barr Thinks America Is Going to Hell — And he's on a mission to use the “authority” of the executive branch to stop it. — Ms. Stewart is the author of “The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism.” Ms. Fredrickson is president emerita of the American Constitution Society.
Discussion:
Alternet.org and Raw Story
Sarah Scoles / Slate:
The Year UFOs Became a Little More Legit — We didn't find ETs in 2019, but the U.S. government did become a little more chatty about flying saucers. — Not long ago, the world received what seemed like an otherworldly revelation: The Pentagon had been secretly running a UFO research project …
Vladimir Isachenkov / Associated Press:
Putin weighs future options as he marks 20 years in power — MOSCOW (AP) — As Russian President Vladimir Putin marks two decades in power , he boasts about his achievements but remains coy about his political future — a reticence that fuels wild speculation about his intentions.
Cristiano Lima / Politico:
Fight against facial recognition hits wall across the West — Face-scanning technology is inspiring a wave of privacy fears as the software creeps into every corner of life in the United States and Europe — at border crossings, on police vehicles and in stadiums, airports and high schools.
Victor Davis Hanson / American Greatness:
Trump's ‘Failures’ — It is popular on the NeverTrump Right and everyone on the Left to claim that President Trump has “failed” as we head into an election year. But his supposed failures are instructive. — Take the wall. True, Trump certainly in the last three years has not come close …
Charles M. Blow / New York Times:
The Decade We Changed Our Minds — America in the 2010s saw significant cultural and political shifts that pushed us forward. — America is always in a state of flux. The country is an eternal experiment, aiming at evolution, betting on its own betterment.
Discussion:
Hullabaloo
Laura Kelly / The Hill:
Pompeo to visit Ukraine amid impeachment drama — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Ukraine on Friday, meeting with the Ukrainian president for the first time since Congress voted to impeach President Trump on abuse of power for allegedly withholding military aide for that country …
Discussion:
Associated Press and Politico