memeorandum: Media Keep Giving Adam Schiff the Benefit of a Doubt (Mark Hemingway/Real Clear Politics)

10:45 AM ET, January 23, 2020

Top Items:

Dems unload ‘overwhelming’ impeachment case on the Senate — even as they press for more — And on the first day, Democrats unleashed the flood. — One by one, the seven House impeachment prosecutors seeking President Donald Trump's removal from office reconstructed a case against the president …

Discussion: New York Times, Associated Press, Reuters, Letters from an American, The Daily Beast, Raw Story, NBC News, The Hill, Breitbart, Washington Post and Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Greg Sargent / Associated Press:

Schiff asked GOP senators a tough question. The answer is awful. — As Rep. Adam Schiff continued building his case against President Trump late into Wednesday evening, Trump fired off one angry Twitter missive after another, until he finally crossed the 140 mark, perhaps his most prolific day of tweeting and retweeting ever.

Discussion: New York Times

Susan B. Glasser / New Yorker:

Adam Schiff's Moment — On Day 2 of the Senate impeachment trial, the House presents its case—and a senator has a cold glass of milk. — Leaving the Senate chamber on Wednesday afternoon for a short break, the Washington Post reporter Paul Kane called over to his colleague Dana Milbank, a Post columnist.

Discussion: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Week and The Hill

Los Angeles Times: Trump shows anxiety as Democrats lay out case against him in Senate impeachment trial

Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
‘S.O.S.! PLEASE HELP ME!’ The world's greatest deliberative body falls to pettifoggery.

Discussion: Redstate, The Hill, Sputnik News and The Daily Caller

Mollie Hemingway / The Federalist: 6 Democratic Senators To Watch In Impeachment Trial

Mark Hemingway / Real Clear Politics:
Media Keep Giving Adam Schiff the Benefit of a Doubt

Discussion: Power Line, PJ Media Home, Breitbart and New York Post

Charlie Nash / Mediaite:

Fox & Friends Airs Brutal Bloomberg Ad Highlighting Trump's ‘Erratic and Out of Control’ Attacks on the Military — Fox News' Fox & Friends, often reported to be one of President Donald Trump's favorite shows, aired an attack ad on the president from 2020 Democratic presidential candidate …

Discussion: Fox News and Contemptor

Joe Garofoli / San Francisco Chronicle:

San Francisco Mayor London Breed endorses Mike Bloomberg for president — San Francisco Mayor London Breed endorsed Mike Bloomberg for the Democratic presidential nomination, boosting the billionaire's chances in a delegate-rich state where he got off to a late start but is now spending millions to try to win.

Discussion: The Hill

Axios:

Mike Bloomberg copies Trump to beat Trump — To beat President Trump, Mike Bloomberg wants to be candidate Trump. — The state of play: Axios visited Bloomberg's new campaign HQ in Times Square yesterday, and we were struck by how much his 1,000+-person team is learning from …

Sam Meredith / CNBC:

Mnuchin says Thunberg can tell us what to do ‘after she goes and studies economics in college’ — Speaking at a press briefing at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mnuchin was asked whether the world's largest economy needed to completely and immediately divest from fossil fuels.

Discussion: Common Dreams and The Daily Beast

Maria Cramer / New York Times:

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin Takes Jab at Greta Thunberg at Davos — At a Swiss economic forum, Mr. Mnuchin dismissed criticisms by Ms. Thunberg, the teenage environmental activist. — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin dismissed criticisms by the climate activist Greta Thunberg on Thursday …

Discussion: Axios, Bloomberg, One America News Network, National Observer and Breitbart

Coral Davenport / New York Times:

Trump Removes Pollution Controls on Streams and Wetlands — WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Thursday will finalize a rule to strip away environmental protections for streams, wetlands and other water bodies, handing a victory to farmers, fossil fuel producers and real estate developers …

Discussion: CNN, Associated Press, courthousenews.com, HuffPost, Axios, The Week, Common Dreams, Raw Story and The Guardian

Politico:

Matt Gaetz sees ‘brush back’ in being kept off Trump's impeachment team — Rep. Matt Gaetz, one of President Donald Trump's staunchest allies on Capitol Hill, suspects a senior White House aide pushed to keep him off the president's impeachment defense team — weeks after the Florida Republican voted to rein in Trump's war powers.

Discussion: CNBC

Politico:
POLITICO Playbook: How one top Democrat's impeachment fears came true

Discussion: CNN, Washington Post and NBC News

Darren Samuelsohn / Politico:
Trump's lawyers are also on trial

Discussion: Raw Story, Breitbart and New York Times

CNN:

Susan Collins sent note to dais before John Roberts admonished legal teams, source says — Chief justice admonishes discourse during impeachment trial — Washington (CNN)Sen. Susan Collins sent a written note early Wednesday morning during President Donald Trump's impeachment trial minutes …

Discussion: FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV and Above the Law

Joe Scarborough / Washington Post: Mitch McConnell has failed the Republican Party

E.J. Dionne / Washington Post:
Why Democrats owe a debt to Mitch McConnell

Discussion: New York Times, Daily Kos, Raw Story, CNN and NB Blog

CNN:

Snakes could be the source of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak — (CNN)Snakes — the Chinese krait and the Chinese cobra — may be the original source of the newly discovered coronavirus that has triggered an outbreak of a deadly infectious respiratory illness in China this winter.

Anna Fifield / Washington Post:
Chinese cities cancel New Year celebrations, travel ban widens in effort to stop coronavirus outbreak

Discussion: Sixth Tone

Louise Boyle / Daily Mail:

Ghislaine Maxwell's personal emails were HACKED sparking fears that damaging information about high-profile individuals linked to Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking case, including Prince Andrew, could be leaked — Lawyers for the British socialite revealed the hack while discussing …

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Fox News and Big League Politics

Anthony Brooks / WBUR:

Sanders Widens Lead In N.H. In New WBUR Poll — With the New Hampshire presidential primary less than three weeks away, a new WBUR poll suggests Bernie Sanders might be peaking at just the right time. The survey of more than 426 likely Democratic primary voters finds Sanders in the lead …

Discussion: Politico, Reason, The Week, The Hill, Washington Times, Mediaite, TheBlaze and FiveThirtyEight

HuffPost:

Trump's Doral Resort Spikes Its Room Rates Ahead Of His RNC Visit — The near doubling of rates may have increased taxpayer costs for housing Secret Service and other staff who traveled there ahead of the president's trip. — DORAL, Fla. ― The president's Miami golf resort that puts money …

Scott Bixby / The Daily Beast:

Bernie Sanders Once Compared Vermont Workers to Black ‘Slaves’ — As the leading member of a self-described “radical political party” in the 1970s, Bernie Sanders repeatedly compared Vermont workers to enslaved black people. — In recent weeks, Sen. Bernie Sanders has criticized his rivals …

Discussion: Sara A. Carter and Politico

Jennifer Rubin / Washington Post:

Republicans, think about this carefully — We know virtually all, if not all, Senate Republicans will vote to acquit President Trump. They told us up front they were going to let him off, removing even the pretense of adhering to their oaths. They told us they were unserious about their oaths …

Discussion: The Hill

Washington Examiner:

Ralph Northam is demonizing gun owners to distract from his racist past — Ralph Northam, Virginia's Democratic governor, declared a public emergency despite knowing there were no grounds for doing so. The governor, who recently overcame his history of racism to hang on to his current elected office …

Jamelle Bouie / New York Times:
The Iconic Man With a Gun Is a White Man

Discussion: Washington Post and Bearing Arms

Aaron Rupar / Vox:

Fox News devised a way to cover the impeachment trial without covering it at all — Viewers were shown video without the audio, allowing hosts to spin the proceedings in real time. — As the impeachment trial got underway in the Senate on Wednesday, Fox News covered it in a way that gave …

Will Thorne / Variety:
TV Ratings: Trump Impeachment First Day Draws 11 Million Viewers

Discussion: NBC News, Fortune, Bloomberg and New York Post

Meg Kinnard / Associated Press:

S. Carolina elected official now backing Sanders over Biden — COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina elected official who endorsed Joe Biden last month is switching her allegiance to Bernie Sanders in the state's first-in-the-South presidential primary, saying she had viewed the former vice president …

Discussion: Common Dreams

Harriet Sherwood / The Guardian:

Sex is for married heterosexual couples only, says Church of England — Pastoral guidance also calls for Christians in gay or straight civil unions to be abstinent — The Church of England has stated that sex belongs only within heterosexual marriage, and that Christians in gay …

Discussion: PinkNews

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian / Axios:

University of Minnesota student jailed in China over tweets — A University of Minnesota student has been arrested in China and sentenced to six months in prison for tweets he posted while in the United States, according to a Chinese court document viewed by Axios.

Discussion: Bloomberg, The Dispatch, New York Post and TheBlaze

Washington Post:

Trump promised his mileage standards would make cars cheaper and safer. New documents raise doubts about that. — Top Senate Democrat argues that revised rule “will lead to vehicles that are neither safer, nor more affordable or fuel-efficient.” — President Trump has said his plan …

The Seattle Times:

1 dead and 7 injured, including 9-year-old boy, in mass shooting on downtown Seattle sidewalk — The area around Third Avenue and Pine Street has long been one of the grittiest in downtown Seattle, a grim reputation underscored Wednesday when gunfire erupted during the evening commute …

Discussion: The Week, Associated Press, KTLA, fox8.com and New York Post

Alex Isenstadt / Politico:

Club for Growth works to defeat House GOP incumbent — The prominent conservative group Club for Growth is throwing its weight behind a primary challenge to veteran Rep. Kay Granger of Texas — a move that is likely to anger Republican leaders who've rushed to her aid.

Discussion: The Hill

BuzzFeed News:

Clearview AI Says Its Facial Recognition Software Identified A Terrorism Suspect. The Cops Say That's Not True. … Clearview AI, a facial recognition company that says it's amassed a database of billions of photos, has a fantastic selling point it offers up to police departments nationwide …

Discussion: San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times and FORWARD, more at Techmeme »

USA Today:

In four top 2020 battlegrounds, it's not the economy, stupid. It's Donald Trump. — Our new polls show the star of the 2020 election will be Donald Trump. No matter who they nominate, Democrats would be wise to keep him center stage. — President Donald Trump recently tweeted: " …

Charlotte Alter / TIME:

How Millennial Leaders Will Change America — Love 'em or hate 'em, this much is true: one day soon, millennials will rule America. — This is neither wish nor warning but fact, rooted in the physics of time and the biology of human cells. Millennials-born between 1981 and 1996-are already …

Tresa Baldas / Detroit Free Press:

Detroit man settles race discrimination lawsuit, then bank won't cash his check — Sauntore Thomas is reeling from a one-two punch. — First, the Detroiter sued his employer alleging racial discrimination in a lawsuit that settled confidentially. Then he went to the bank this week to cash …

Axios:

Facebook's big 2020 fear is a Democrat in the White House — One of Facebook's biggest headaches leading up to 2020 isn't election interference or fake news — it's worrying about what a Democrat in the White House could mean for the business. — Why it matters: The Obama administration's warm embrace …

George Neumayr / The American Spectator:

Trump's Trial by Charlatans — Since when have the Dems cared about the Constitution? — YouTube screenshot — 🔊 Listen to this article — The attacks of the Democrats on Trump never made any sense. First, they tried to portray him as an unpatriotic shill for Putin.

Julia Marsh / New York Post:

Here's how Mike Bloomberg is luring 2020 campaign staffers with lavish perks — Billionaire presidential long shot Michael Bloomberg is trying to poach staff from other campaigns with outsized salaries and fancy perks like three catered meals a day, an iPhone 11 and a MacBook Pro, according to sources.