memeorandum: What you need to know before 2020 Census starts in Alaska (Associated Press)

3:40 PM ET, January 17, 2020

Top Items:

'You're a bunch of dopes and babies': Inside Trump's stunning tirade against generals — There is no more sacred room for military officers than 2E924 of the Pentagon, a windowless and secure vault where the Joint Chiefs of Staff meet regularly to wrestle with classified matters.

Discussion: The Daily Beast, The Hill, Talking Points Memo, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Root, Eschaton, VICE, Balloon Juice, Task & Purpose, Raw Story, CNN, Little Green Footballs, Althouse and Contemptor

Josh Wingrove / Bloomberg:

White House Considers Changes to Law Banning Overseas Bribes — Kudlow says administration has heard complaints from companies — Book says Trump clashed with Tillerson over bribery law — President Donald Trump's administration is weighing whether to seek changes to a 1977 law …

Discussion: Raw Story

Leo Shane III / Military Times:

Trump blasted top military generals as ‘a bunch of dopes and babies’ according to new book — President Donald Trump blasted top military officials as “losers” and “a bunch of dopes and babies” for a lack of success in the recent wars during a tense meeting early in his presidency that set …

Discussion: Washington Post, Political Wire and Raw Story

KUSA-TV:

We caught up with Sen. Gardner at the airport to ask if he supports new witnesses in impeachment trial — Some Senate Republicans may break ranks to add witness testimony in President Trump's impeachment trial. — DENVER — Colorado's U.S. Senators, Democrat Michael Bennet and Republican Cory Gardner …

Discussion: Raw Story

NBC News:
History shows Chief Justice John Roberts could cast tie-breaking votes at Trump's impeachment trial

Discussion: Breitbart, MSNBC, New York Post and Los Angeles Times

Washington Post:
Impeachment trial live updates: Trump expands legal team to include Alan Dershowitz, Kenneth Starr and others

Discussion: Politico, NBC News, MSNBC, Daily Kos, Raw Story, Talking Points Memo, PJ Media Home, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Fox News, The Crime Report and Althouse

CNN:
Trump expected to add Ken Starr and Alan Dershowitz to impeachment defense team

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Associated Press, The Daily Beast, New York Times, New York Post, Redstate, Power Line, CNBC, VICE, Above the Law, Breitbart, The Daily Caller and The Week

Politico:
Trump finally gets his TV-ready lawyers — thanks to impeachment

Discussion: CNN, The American Independent, Media Matters for America, Slate, Law & Crime, Twitchy, Common Dreams, Contemptor, UPI and The Root

Jonathan Swan / Axios:
Trump impeachment team includes Ken Starr and Alan Dershowitz

Discussion: The Federalist, Townhall, National Review, Boston Magazine, Raw Story, Mediaite, Roll Call, Florida Politics and Boston Herald

Justin Baragona / The Daily Beast:

Meghan McCain: McSally 'Didn't Earn' the Senate Seat She Inherited From My Dad — “She didn't win that seat. I think that's important.” — The View's Meghan McCain took some shots at Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) on Friday after the lawmaker personally insulted a CNN reporter …

Discussion: Twitchy and Contemptor

Tim Miller / The Bulwark:

The McSally Maneuver — At this point, the goal of impeachment is simply forcing Republican senators to admit the truth. — On Thursday, in the halls of Congress, Senator Martha McSally was asked a simple question by reporter Manu Raju: “Should the Senate consider new evidence as part of the impeachment trial?”

Discussion: Washington Monthly, NBC News, Politico, CNSNews, Vanity Fair and CNN

Sister Toldjah / Redstate:
‘Liberal Hacks’: Ted Cruz Dropkicks Chris Cuomo After His Nasty Attack Against Martha McSally

Discussion: Twitchy, Mediaite and The Hill

Chris Cillizza / CNN:
Martha McSally's staggering cynicism

Discussion: The American Independent, Talking Points Memo and The Sun

David Marcus / The Federalist: If CNN Can't Take Punches, They Shouldn't Be Throwing Them

New York Times:

Joe Biden: Former vice president of the United States — The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. — This interview was conducted by the editorial board of The New York Times …

Discussion: Mediaite, Variety, Reason, Common Dreams, Engadget, Mashable, Politico, Washington Free Beacon, The Week and East Bay Times, more at Mediagazer »

Makena Kelly / The Verge: Joe Biden wants to revoke Section 230

Matthew Lee / Associated Press:

Pompeo breaks silence on alleged threats to envoy in Ukraine — WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday broke nearly 72 hours of silence over alleged surveillance and threats to the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, saying he believed the allegations would prove to be wrong …

Discussion: The Daily Caller and CNN

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:

Hannity previews Trump's final defense: So what if he's guilty? — It has long been obvious that Republicans would ultimately converge on this final defense of President Trump: Even if he did everything he's been accused of doing, and perhaps a lot more that we don't know about, it's absolutely fine!

Discussion: Raw Story, The Bulwark, Digby's Hullabaloo, NBC News, Political Wire, Fox News and HuffPost

David Knowles / Yahoo News: Parnas said he is speaking out because he is afraid of William Barr

Variety:

Disney Drops Fox Name, Will Rebrand as 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures — The mouse has officially killed the fox. — In a move at once unsurprising and highly symbolic, the Walt Disney Company is dropping the “Fox” brand from the 21st Century Fox assets it acquired last March, Variety has learned.

Discussion: globalnews.ca, The Week and The Verge, more at Mediagazer »

Brooks Barnes / New York Times: Disney Drops Fox From Names of Studios It Bought From Rupert Murdoch

Laura Reiley / Washington Post:

USDA proposes changing school menus to allow more fries and fewer vegetables, reversing a Michelle Obama effort — The U.S. Department of Agriculture has taken another whack at former first lady Michelle Obama's signature achievement: Establishing stricter nutritional standards for school breakfasts and lunches.

Discussion: Mother Jones

Noah Berlatsky / NBC News:

Trump voters motivated by racism may be violating the Constitution. Can they be stopped? — Republicans and Democrats alike have been unwilling to reprimand voters or to hold them accountable. But racist voting isn't an accident. — If the Trump era has taught us anything …

Discussion: Twitchy and CNN

Washington Post:

Black Americans deeply pessimistic about country under Trump, whom more than 8 in 10 describe as ‘a racist,’ Post-Ipsos poll finds — President Trump made a stark appeal to black Americans during the 2016 election when he asked, “What have you got to lose?”

Discussion: The Hill, Raw Story, The American Independent and Axios

David Siders / Politico:

Democrats stop betting on a Biden implosion — DES MOINES — It took more than a year, but the Democratic presidential primary is finally coming to terms with the fact that Joe Biden isn't going to collapse before the first votes are cast. — If anything, the landscape is tilting more in his favor.

Caitlin Oprysko / Politico:
Trump accuses Dems of using impeachment trial to hurt Sanders campaign

Discussion: Associated Press and The Hill

Joe Otterson / Variety:

Hillary Clinton Urges Dems to ‘Vote for the Person Most Likely to Win’ in 2020 — Hillary Clinton called for Americans to come to grips with “basic facts” of reality in an appearance at the Television Critics Association winter press tour on Friday. — “We've got to somehow understand …

Wall Street Journal:

Men Discussed Opening Fire at Pro-Gun Rally in Richmond, Officials Say — Other suspected members of white-supremacist group the Base arrested in Georgia — Three suspected white supremacists arrested in Maryland and Delaware this week had discussed opening fire from different positions …

Discussion: The Crime Report

FiveThirtyEight:

Trump May Be Even More Unpopular Than His Approval Rating Shows — Polls have consistently shown that President Trump is pretty unpopular, with only about 42 percent of the American public approving of the job he is doing as president. These numbers are much lower than what one might expect given the bustling economy.

Yaron Steinbuch / New York Post:

ISIS leader dubbed ‘Jabba the Jihadi’ captured in Iraq — He put the fat in fatwa. — A morbidly obese ISIS fanatic dubbed “Jabba the Jihadi” has been captured by Iraqi forces — who loaded him onto a flatbed truck because he couldn't fit in a police car.

Discussion: Task & Purpose

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:

William Barr Is Going After Trump's Enemies One by One — In May of 2016, shortly after Donald Trump had wrapped up his party's nomination, but when the notion he might win the presidency seemed remote at best, Benjamin Wittes wrote one of the very early essays attempting to analyze …

Discussion: Raw Story, CNN, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, JONATHAN TURLEY and The Crime Report

Thomas Chatterton Williams / Harper's:

An Incoherent Truth — Last fall, Tobi Haslett, a young writer and critic with Marxist leanings, noticed a shift in the contours of popular intellectual debate. “Something is happening out there in the dark fields of ‘the discourse,’ ” Haslett wrote in Bookforum. “Incoherence is now a virtue.”

David Z. Morris / Fortune:

Yandex, Russia's biggest search engine, is an on-ramp for child sexual imagery, experts say — Experts say the spread of images of child sexual exploitation online has reached unprecedented levels, calling the situation a major social crisis. While much of this material spreads through …

Michael Harriot / The Root:

Black History, According to White People — Mithridates the Great was one of the Roman Empire's greatest foes and claimed to be a descendant of Alexander the Great, who died by poisoning. Mithridates' father died from poison. His father died from poison. His mother tried to poison him.

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Twitchy and National Review

Jonathan V. Last / The Bulwark:

Donald Trump, Impeachment, and the Houston Astros — Here is a question for you: Is Major League Baseball overreacting to the sign-stealing systems employed over the last couple of years by the Houston Astros and Boston Red Sox? — In case you haven't been following it …

ABC News:

New software issues could delay return of Boeing's 737 Max — The company says it doesn't know if the fix will take days or weeks. — Boeing potentially faces more delays for the return of its 737 Max jets after another software issue surfaced during an audit meeting with regulators last weekend, sources tell ABC News.

Discussion: One America News Network

Associated Press:

What you need to know before 2020 Census starts in Alaska — ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The 2020 Census kicks off Tuesday in remote Alaska. U.S. Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham will be there to conduct the first count in the Bering Sea community of Toksook Bay.

David Brooks / New York Times:

The Bernie Sanders Fallacy — No, Virginia, there is no class war. — This is a golden age for “Theyism.” This is the belief that there is some malevolent, elite “they” out there and “they” are destroying life for the rest of us. — There is Donald Trump's culture-war Theyism …

Discussion: BIG by Matt Stoller and No More Mister Nice Blog

BBC:

Brazil's culture minister fired after echoing Goebbels — Brazil's culture minister has been sacked after using parts of a speech by Nazi Germany's propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels in a video, sparking outrage. — In the clip posted on the ministry's Twitter page, Roberto Alvim detailed an award for “heroic” and “national” art.

Discussion: New York Times, Bloomberg and Marginal REVOLUTION

Solomon Gustavo / Orlando Weekly:

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz accused of creating sex game with ‘points’ for sleeping with staff — In a Twitter clapback for the Capitol Hill ages, Florida state Rep. Chris Latvala accused Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz of designing a “game” with a point system for “sleeping with aides, interns, lobbyists, and married legislators.”

Discussion: Fox News

Amy Walter / The Cook Political Report:

Checking in on Wisconsin — One of the hallmarks of the Trump presidency is that no matter how unpredictable and erratic he may be, opinions of him are incredibly stable. At this point in 2019, for example, the FiveThirtyEight tracker showed President Trump's job approval rating at 41percent …