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:
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 …
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 Dallas Morning News
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:
Talking Points Memo, Slate, The Wrap, IJR, Washington Times, Sara A. Carter, The Hill and Mediaite
RELATED:
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 …
RELATED:
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 …
RELATED:
Bill Barrow / Associated Press:
2020 Watch: Messy primary finally meets election year
2020 Watch: Messy primary finally meets election year
Discussion:
BizPac Review, The Daily Beast, Raw Story and DNyuz
Shayna Jacobs / Greenwich Time:
Acts of anti-Semitism are on the rise in New York and elsewhere, rattling Jews and communities — NEW YORK - Hours after a knife-wielding man barged into a Hannukah party in a New York suburb, stabbing five people, top officials condemned the crime as part of a disturbing trend.
Discussion:
The American Independent, HuffPost and New York Times
RELATED:
John Hinderaker / Power Line:
Are Anti-Semitic Attacks Driven By Politics?
Are Anti-Semitic Attacks Driven By Politics?
Discussion:
The Libertarian Republic
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.
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
RELATED:
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” …
RELATED:
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
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.
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
Tina Nguyen / Politico:
When John Solomon was Rudy Giuliani's toughest critic — Long before they entered a symbiotic relationship to pick apart the Bidens' alleged ties to Ukrainian corruption, John Solomon and Rudy Giuliani had a completely different dynamic: an investigative reporter focused …
Discussion:
Washington Post, Raw Story, Slate and The Hill
RELATED:
Paul LeBlanc / CNN:
Washington Post: Giuliani held back channel phone call with Venezuelan President
Washington Post: Giuliani held back channel phone call with Venezuelan President
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, The Week and Contemptor
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 Daily Wire, The Gateway Pundit, Sara A. Carter, Redstate and Breitbart
Congressman John Lewis:
Rep. John Lewis Undergoing Cancer Treatment — He released this statement today regarding his prognosis and his plans to continue to serve the people of the 5th Congressional District of Georgia: — “I have been in some kind of fight - for freedom, equality, basic human rights - for nearly my entire life.
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, NPR, Roll Call, New York Times, Townhall, Washington Post, The Root, The Dispatch, BizPac Review, Outside the Beltway, Axios, DNyuz, NBC News, Alternet.org, Blue Virginia, Sputnik News, HuffPost, Mediaite and UPI
RELATED:
Rebecca Klar / The Hill:
Bloomberg campaign moves offices into Times Square as staff tops 300 — Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg's campaign is set to move to a new location in Times Square as the campaign swells to more than 300 staffers. — The former New York City mayor's campaign headquarters …
Discussion:
Politico
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
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.
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
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 …
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 …