Top Items:
Washington Post:
Airstrike at Baghdad airport kills Iran's most revered military leader, Qassem Soleimani, Iraqi state television reports — BREAKING: It was not clear who carried out the strike, but the death of Soleimani, the Iranian Quds Force commander, seems certain to send tensions soaring between the United States and Iran.
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Qassim Abdul-zahra / Associated Press:
Iran's Gen. Soleimani killed in airstrike at Baghdad airport — Baghdad (AP) — Gen. Qassim Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite Quds Force, was killed in an airstrike at Baghdad's international airport Friday, Iraqi television and three Iraqi officials said.
Andrew Exum / The Atlantic:
Iran Loses Its Indispensable Man — Today the United States killed Major General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps's Quds Force. The United States is now in a hot war with Iran after having waged war via proxies for the past several decades.
New York Times:
Top Iranian General Qassim Suleimani Is Killed on Trump's Orders, Officials Say — Suleimani was planning attacks on Americans in Iraq and throughout the region, leading to an airstrike in Baghdad, the Pentagon statement said. — WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The commander …
Discussion:
Mediaite, The Daily Wire, NBC News, National Review, Breitbart, The Drive, Denver Post, DNyuz and Reason
Daniel Byman / Vox:
Killing Iran's Qassem Suleimani changes the game in the Middle East — But has Trump really thought out what comes next? — On Thursday night, the Pentagon announced that the United States killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran's paramilitary forces, in an airstrike in Iraq “at the direction of the President.”
Discussion:
FDD's Long War Journal, Breitbart and DNyuz
Zachary Basu / Axios:
Republicans celebrate death of Qasem Soleimani — The Pentagon's confirmation Thursday night that Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian military commander and one of the regime's most powerful figures, was killed in airstrike ordered by President Trump set off immediate shock waves throughout Washington.
Discussion:
The Daily Beast, Politico, Breitbart and The Hill
Stanley McChrystal / Foreign Policy:
Iran's Deadly Puppet Master — Gen. Stanley McChrystal explains exactly why Qassem Suleimani is so dangerous. — The decision not to act is often the hardest one to make—and it isn't always right. In 2007, I watched a string of vehicles pass from Iran into northern Iraq.
The Daily Beast:
U.S. Strike Kills Iran's Most Important Military Commander — Qassem Soleimani, the leader of the Iranian Qods Force, is dead in Iraq, perhaps turning a proxy war into a direct one. — In a drastic escalation of the U.S.' generation-long wars in the Middle East, a U.S. strike on Thursday …
Discussion:
Associated Press, Politico, Breitbart, One America News Network, Informed Comment, The Hill, DNyuz and Balloon Juice
Jake Novak / CNBC:
America just took out the world's no. 1 bad guy — The killing of Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani doesn't have the emotional power of the takedown of Osama bin Laden, but taking him out means much more in terms of saving current lives, writes Jake Novak. — So, just who is this top Iranian general the U.S. just eliminated?
Discussion:
Defense One and Commentary
Wendy R. Sherman / USA Today:
Attack on US Embassy in Iraq shows Trump is failing. He walked into Iran's trap.
Discussion:
Hullabaloo, Breitbart, Raw Story and NB Blog
Frank Miles / Fox News:
Rockets fired toward Baghdad airport, at least 7 dead, officials say
Discussion:
Power Line, South China Morning Post, Daily Sounder, The Captain's Journal, The National Interest, PJ Media Home and WND
Jason Leopold / BuzzFeed News:
Robert Mueller's Secret Memos, Part 3: The Documents The Justice Department Didn't Want Congress To See — BuzzFeed News sued the US government for the right to see all the work that Robert Mueller's team kept secret. Today we are publishing the third installment of the FBI's summaries of interviews with key witnesses.
Discussion:
Associated Press, DNyuz, Contemptor and Raw Story
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Maxwell Tani / The Daily Beast:
Manafort Said Hannity Served as His Trump-Backchannel: Docs — The former campaign chairman “understood his conversations with Hannity to be a message from Trump” after he came under scrutiny by the feds, according to newly released memos. — Paul Manafort said he used Fox News host Sean Hannity …
Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:
Trump Covering Up Scheme to Use Justice Department to Punish CNN
Discussion:
Vox, Hullabaloo, Deep Left Field, POLITICUSUSA, Raw Story, BizPac Review, The Atlantic and Mediaite
Kate Brannen / Just Security:
Exclusive: Unredacted Ukraine Documents Reveal Extent of Pentagon's Legal Concerns — “Clear direction from POTUS to continue to hold.” — This is what Michael Duffey, associate director of national security programs at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), told Elaine McCusker …
Discussion:
The American Independent, Center for Public Integrity, Law & Crime, Sputnik News, ABC News, NBC News, New York Post, Washington Post, Talking Points Memo, DNyuz, Fox News, The Underground Bunker, Mediaite, UPI, The Independent, Hullabaloo, POLITICUSUSA, The Week, Alternet.org, Mother Jones, The Hill, Daily Kos, Bloomberg and Raw Story
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Jennifer Rubin / Washington Post:
Susan Collins sounds like she's covering for Trump
Discussion:
The Hill and Law & Crime
Aaron Blake / Washington Post:
New coverup questions in Trump's Ukraine scandal
Discussion:
Alternet.org
Robert Costa / Washington Post:
Ascendant Bernie Sanders turns his focus to Joe Biden as Iowa nears — DES MOINES — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — who has reignited his presidential campaign in the weeks since a heart attack put his political future in doubt — is now making a direct and sharpened case …
Discussion:
POLITICUSUSA, New York Times, Breitbart, The Hill, Washington Free Beacon, The Daily Caller, DNyuz, Fox News, Axios, Mediaite, Politico and Balloon Juice
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Karen Tumulty / Washington Post:
Democrats are the ones who stand to suffer by delaying the Senate impeachment trial
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, NBC News and Daily Kos
Andrew Bradford / Deep Left Field:
Congressman Accuses Trump Of Stock Market Fraud And Opens Investigation — The House of Representatives may soon be able to add a new high crime and misdemeanor to the growing list of articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. — Specifically, Trump is suspected of manipulating futures …
Bob Fredericks / New York Post:
Andrew McCabe said he lied to FBI about Wall Street Journal leak — Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe apologized for lying to agents who spent weeks investigating the source of a leak to the Wall Street Journal that actually came from him, new documents reveal.
Discussion:
Breitbart, Power Line, Fox News and DNyuz
Kyle Mantyla / Right Wing Watch:
Liz Crokin Predicts That Tom Hanks Will Soon Be Arrested for Involvement in Occult Pedophilia — Last year, right-wing “journalist” and Trump-worshiping conspiracy theorist Liz Crokin publicly declared that if the mass arrests long promised by those promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory …
Wall Street Journal:
Police Tracked a Terror Suspect—Until His Phone Went Dark After a Facebook Warning — Faced with strong encryption, law-enforcement agencies in Western Europe turned to Israeli company NSO Group to pursue data on WhatsApp messaging tool — A team of European law-enforcement officials …
CNN:
An immensely frustrating time for Julián Castro — Julián Castro ends bid for White House — Raul A. Reyes is an attorney and a member of the USA Today board of contributors. Follow him on Twitter @RaulAReyes. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
Discussion:
Redstate, The Right Scoop and Twitchy
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New York Times:
Julián Castro Ends Presidential Run: 'It Simply Isn't Our Time'
Discussion:
Associated Press, NPR, Power Line, Breitbart, DNyuz, Daily Kos, Politico, FiveThirtyEight, The Guardian, Slate, HotAir, Common Dreams, WGN-TV, HuffPost, Axios, Raw Story, Mediaite, Talking Points Memo, CNBC, UPI, Sara A. Carter, The Daily Caller, The Week, The Root, ABC News and Disrn
John DiStaso / WMUR:
Democrat Marianne Williamson lays off campaign staff nationally, including NH — Financial issues force spiritual author, lecturer to drastically scale back her unorthodox presidential campaign — MANCHESTER, N.H. — Marianne Williamson, who has been campaigning …
Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
A deceptively edited video of Joe Biden signals what's coming — If you thought the 2016 election was awash in disinformation and lies, get ready: The 2020 election is going to make that affair look like a knitting session. — A video that was edited in a monumentally dishonest fashion …
Discussion:
Vox, Latest from Crooks and Liars, Quartz, Mother Jones, Raw Story, Hullabaloo and The Gateway Pundit
Jay Greene / Greenwich Time:
Amazon threatens to fire critics who are outspoken on its environmental policies — SEATTLE - Amazon has warned at least two employees who publicly criticized the company's environmental policies that they could be fired for future violations of its communications policy.
Kaley Johnson / Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
Judge rules baby at Cook Children's can be taken off life support against family's wishes — A judge ruled Thursday that a 11-month-old baby can be taken off life support at Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth against the family's wishes. — The family of Tinslee Lewis …
Discussion:
The Daily Caller
Dominic Cummings's Blog:
‘Two hands are a lot’ — we're hiring data scientists, project managers, policy experts, assorted weirdos... 'This is possibly the single largest design flaw contributing to the bad Nash equilibrium in which ... many governments are stuck. Every individual high-functioning competent person knows …
Discussion:
Sputnik News, The Guardian, Financial Times, DNyuz and Politico
Alex Tanzi / Yahoo News:
Florida Poised to Surpass New York in Congressional Seats — (Bloomberg) — Florida is expected to control more seats in the U.S. Congress than New York after April's decennial census, according to a study by Election Data Services Inc. — New York and California are projected to each lose …
Adam Kredo / Washington Free Beacon:
Manhattan DA Declines to Prosecute Anti-Semitic Attack as Hate Crime — The Manhattan district attorney's office has declined to prosecute a recent anti-Semitic attack on a Jewish subway passenger as a hate crime, according to lawyers representing the victim.
Discussion:
The Lid, HotAir and The Right Scoop
Emma Dumain / The State:
Trey Gowdy won't join Trump's legal team. 'He doesn't need another lawyer' — Amid confusion late last year regarding his status on President Donald Trump's legal team, former Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy said Thursday he has no plans to formally assist the White House in its effort to defend …
Robbie Meredith / BBC:
Hillary Clinton appointed chancellor of Queen's University, Belfast — Hillary Clinton is to be the new chancellor of Queen's University, Belfast (QUB). — She is the university's 11th chancellor and first woman to take up the post. — In a statement, Mrs Clinton said it was a “great privilege” to become the chancellor of QUB.
Ross LaJeunesse / Medium:
I Was Google's Head of International Relations. Here's Why I Left. — The company's motto used to be “Don't be evil.” Things have changed. — When I walked out the door on my last day as Google's Head of International Relations, I couldn't help but think of my first day at the company.
Discussion:
The Hill, Washington Post, Breitbart, DNyuz, Bangor Daily News, Gizmodo, Yahoo News, Mercury News, The Daily Caller, TechCrunch, Mashable, New York Post, Press Herald, Engadget, Mediaite and The Week, more at Techmeme »
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks / Jewish Telegraphic Agency:
The keys to understanding American anti-Semitism — and fighting back — LONDON (JTA) — The last two festivals to be added to the Jewish calendar prior to modern times — Purim and Hanukkah — are both about anti-Semitism. There is one obvious difference between them: Haman, of the Purim story, wanted to kill Jews.
Miriam Berger / Washington Post:
Australia's prime minister visited families devastated by the wildfires. It did not go well. — The fire mercilessly tore through Cobargo, a small town near the coast in southern New South Wales, on Monday night, burning down the main street and killing two people, a father and son, caught in its destructive path.
Discussion:
New York Times, CBS San Francisco, New York Post and Daily Kos
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