Top Items:
Washington Post:
Trump's dinner with antisemites provides test of GOP response to extremism — Republicans are showing increasing boldness in criticizing Trump over his meeting with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West who has issued anti-Jewish diatribes
Discussion:
VICE, Vox, Raw Story, Vanity Fair and Michael-In-Norfolk
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A.B. Stoddard / The Bulwark:
Yes, He Will Burn It All Down — Nearly two years ago a prediction was published here, a warning to Republicans that “Donald Trump is going to destroy their party. Not because he wants to or even because he's trying to. But because the destruction of the GOP will be required in order to fill his psychological needs.”
Discussion:
Morning Shots and Raw Story
Politico:
Biden world once ignored Marjorie Taylor Greene. Now it's making her the face of the GOP. — With a fractured Republican party readying to take the reins in the House of Representatives, the White House is doing something it resisted early in office: taking on the more extreme members of the opposition party.
Amanda Carpenter / The Bulwark:
Stuck With Ronna — How does such a loser become the longest-serving RNC chair in modern history? — If you want to know how bad things are for the Republican party, consider this: The person most likely to be selected next month to chair the Republican National Committee has already overseen …
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, Raw Story, Insider and RedState
Newt Gingrich / Gingrich 360:
Quit Underestimating President Biden — If Republicans are going to successfully work through the next two years in Congress - and win the presidency in 2024 - we need to look much more deeply at what worked and what did not work in 2020 and 2022. — by Newt Gingrich
Discussion:
Wide World of News
Kyle Kondik / Sabato's Crystal Ball:
The New Crossover Members of the House
The New Crossover Members of the House
Discussion:
Zandar Versus The Stupid and Polity Research Insights
Brian Steinberg / Variety:
CNN Layoffs Expected to Affect HLN … HLN, the cable network once known as CNN Headline News, is home to a bevy of true-crime series, endless showings of “Forensic Files,” and “Morning Express with Robin Meade,” with a host who has been at the network since 2001. Now, all of that is under the microscope.
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Politico:
POLITICO Playbook PM: Inside the CNN newsroom cuts — CILLIZZA OUT — CNN's mass layoffs have claimed one cornerstone of its Washington coverage: Political analyst CHRIS CILLIZZA is among those who have been laid off from the network this week. People familiar with the decision confirmed the move …
Discussion:
PoliticusUSA and Lawyers, Guns & Money
Roger Sollenberger / The Daily Beast:
Herschel Walker Ex Comes Forward: He Attacked Me in a Rage — Cheryl Parsa says she endured cheating, lying, violence, and multiple personalities during her romance with the gridiron great. … A former longtime girlfriend of Republican senatorial candidate Herschel Walker has come forward …
Discussion:
Insider, New York Magazine, The Hill, CNN, Jezebel, Talking Points Memo, The Guardian, Forbes, Raw Story and Mediaite
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Camille Mumford / Emerson Polling:
Georgia 2022: Warnock Holds Slight Edge Over Walker
Georgia 2022: Warnock Holds Slight Edge Over Walker
Discussion:
Inside Elections, HotAir, New York Daily News, Breitbart, The Hill, Washington Times and Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Will Steakin / ABC News:
Matt Gaetz associate Joel Greenberg gets 11 years as probe into congressman stalls, sources say — Joel Greenberg agreed to cooperate with the probe into Rep. Gaetz, sources said. — Former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg talks to the Orlando Sentinel during an interview at his office in Lake Mary, Fla., in Sept., 2019.
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Mike Schneider / Associated Press:
Gaetz friend gets 11 years for sex crime, other counts — A former Florida tax collector whose arrest led to a federal probe into U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for sex trafficking of a minor and other offenses. Joel Greenberg, former tax collector for Seminole County …
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, The Hill, Axios, Raw Story, Orlando Sentinel, Florida Politics and Associated Press
New York Times:
Former Gaetz Confidant Is Sentenced to 11 Years in Prison — Joel Greenberg, a tax collector in Florida, had been cooperating with the Justice Department in its investigation into Representative Matt Gaetz. — ORLANDO, Fla. — A Florida tax collector who has been cooperating …
Discussion:
CNN, Politico, The Daily Beast, Insider, UPI, Florida Politics, Law & Crime, Raw Story and WKMG
Joseph Zeballos-Roig / Semafor:
'It's all bullshit': Democrats unload on the crypto industry while hearings loom — Sign up for Semafor Principals: An insider's guide to power in D.C. — Your Email addressSign Up — At a moment when Congress is finally debating whether and how to seriously regulate the cryptocurrency industry …
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New York Times:
‘Look, I Screwed Up’: Sam Bankman-Fried Is Challenged on the Collapse of FTX
‘Look, I Screwed Up’: Sam Bankman-Fried Is Challenged on the Collapse of FTX
Discussion:
CNBC, Mediaite, HuffPost, Wall Street Journal, Summit News, The Daily Caller, CoinDesk, The Information, Twitchy, The Daily Wire, Slate, Rolling Stone, Just The News, Vanity Fair and Fortune, more at Techmeme »
Richard Rubin / Wall Street Journal:
IRS Audits That Included Comey, McCabe Were Random Selections, Report Finds — Inspector general's study found no evidence of misconduct by tax agency — WASHINGTON—IRS research audits in 2017 and 2019—the years that FBI leaders James Comey and Andrew McCabe were selected for those intensive exams …
Discussion:
Washington Free Beacon, Associated Press, Politico and Law & Crime
Politico:
Friends to the left of him, critics to the right: McCarthy's stuck in the chase — House Republicans are playing high-stakes tug of war with Kevin McCarthy's speakership dreams. And now both sides are digging in their heels. — On the GOP leader's right, conservatives are meeting …
Discussion:
Patterico's Pontifications, PoliticusUSA, New York Times, Breitbart, RedState, The Dispatch and Axios
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Washington Post:
Rise in Iranian assassination, kidnapping plots alarms Western officials — In the summer of 2021, officers from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service showed up at the Vancouver home of Ramin Seyed Emami, an Iranian Canadian musician and performer who hosts a popular Persian-language podcast.
Washington Post:
Macron, in Washington, says Biden's agenda could ‘fragment the West’ — French leader warns that Europe is taking a back seat as “the U.S. looks first to the U.S.” — French President Emmanuel Macron warned Wednesday that President Biden's signature domestic policies could “fragment the West …
Discussion:
Politico, USA Today, NBC News, Associated Press, France 24, The Hill, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, UPI, Washington Times, NBC Boston, New York Times, CNN, CBS News, TASS and The Guardian
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Rachel Premack / FreightWaves:
We've (probably) averted a rail strike. Now what? — 'I didn't realize how bad it was,' says one farmer about rail workers' struggles … The Senate will likely vote Thursday — What I can share is that we have almost certainly averted the chance of a legal, national rail strike.
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Politico:
House, Senate negotiators agree to add $45B to Biden's defense budget — An emerging compromise on annual defense policy legislation will endorse a $45 billion increase to President Joe Biden's defense spending plans, according to four people familiar with the negotiations.
Discussion:
GovExec.com, The Capitolist, The Hill and Washington Examiner
Cory Turner / NPR:
School principals say culture wars made last year ‘rough as hell’ — “Rough as hell.” — That's how one high school principal in Nevada describes the 2021-'22 school year, when conflicts with parents and community members were all too common. — “Something needs to change or else we will all quit …
Discussion:
Raw Story, Washington Post, news.ucr.edu, Mother Jones and USA Today
Isaac Chotiner / New Yorker:
A Right-Wing Zionist Digests Trump's Anti-Semite Dinner Party — Can the former President be the “best friend Israel ever had in the White House” while also legitimatizing “Jew-haters”? — Three weeks ago, the Zionist Organization of America gave what it called its highest honor to former President Donald Trump.
Discussion:
Althouse
David Z. Morris / CoinDesk:
FTX's Collapse Was a Crime, Not an Accident — Sam Bankman-Fried is a con man and fraudster of historic proportions. But you might not learn that from the New York Times, CoinDesk's Chief Insights Columnist David Z. Morris writes. — In the weeks since Sam Bankman-Fried's cryptocurrency empire …
Discussion:
New York Times, Washington Post, HotAir, Mediaite, Eschaton, ABC News, Bloomberg, Associated Press, New Republic, The Times of Israel, Forbes, TechCrunch, 6abc, Al Jazeera, The Verge, The Hill, National Review, Instapundit, New York Magazine, Politico, Reuters, The Daily Beast, Quartz, NPR, New York Post, CBS News and Gizmodo, more at Techmeme »
Evan Halper / Washington Post:
U.S. gas prices plunge toward $3 a gallon as demand drops worldwide — The average price of gas is back to where it was before Russia invaded Ukraine. It is putting real money back in Americans' wallets. — The cost of gasoline is falling so fast that it is beginning to put real money …
Discussion:
The Daily Caller and The Hill
Alexandra Fouché / BBC:
Russian mercenary videos ‘top 1bn views’ on TikTok — TikTok is hosting dozens of videos that glorify violence by Russia's Wagner Group of mercenaries and they have been viewed more than a billion times, according to a new report. — Wagner has sent mercenaries into Ukraine in big numbers.
Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
Trumpists are vowing to sabotage Biden. Act on this now, Democrats. — It's clear that the incoming House GOP majority will try to use debt-limit extortion to extract all kinds of concessions from Democrats. This will likely focus on refusing to raise the nation's borrowing limit to try to secure deep spending cuts.
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, Raw Story, The Hill and Talking Points Memo
Bloomberg:
Biden Proposes Overhaul of US Biofuel Law to Boost EV Makers Like Tesla — The Biden administration is opening the door to a sweeping rewrite of the 17-year-old US biofuel mandate, including a plan to encourage use of renewable natural gas to power electric vehicles, which could benefit Tesla Inc. and other automakers.
Discussion:
US EPA, The Hill, Washington Examiner and Nebraska Examiner
Saqib Rahim / NBC News:
This California city asked where its recycling went. The answer wasn't pretty. — Four years ago, city officials in Palo Alto, California, posed what they thought was a straightforward question: Where did their recycling go? — Concerned citizens had seen dire headlines about plastic dumping …
Discussion:
Frontpage Mag, Irish Examiner, MIT Technology Review and Politico