Top Items:
Al Weaver / The Hill:
Manchin, Sinema block Democratic control of NLRB — The Senate on Wednesday blocked Lauren McFerran's re-nomination to the National Labor Relations Board, opening the door for Republican control of the board starting next year under President-elect Trump. — Senators voted 49 to 50 …
Discussion:
Associated Press, Politico, Small Business & …, NFIB, RedState, Washington Examiner and The Daily Caller
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Axios:
Schumer torpedoed by Manchin and Sinema on crucial NLRB vote … - Schumer gambled that he had the votes without knowing how Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) would vote on the nomination for Lauren McFerran. — Both voted “No” on a crucial procedural vote that would clear the way for confirmation.
Discussion:
HotAir, Washington Examiner, CBS News, HuffPost, RedState, Raw Story, Fox News, Lawyers, Guns & Money and Daily Caller News Foundation
Miles Klee / Rolling Stone:
Manchin and Sinema Screw Biden Yet Again, Give Trump Control of Labor Board
Manchin and Sinema Screw Biden Yet Again, Give Trump Control of Labor Board
Discussion:
New Republic and RedState
New York Times:
Christopher Wray Says He'll Step Down as F.B.I. Director — The F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, told bureau employees on Wednesday that he intended in January, bowing to the reality that President-elect Donald J. Trump had publicly declared his desire to replace him.
Discussion:
Reuters, ABC News, Fox News, The Hill, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Washington Examiner, freebeacon.com, New Republic, HuffPost, Roll Call, New York Post, CBS News, Alternet.org, Raw Story, UPI, The Guardian, Townhall, New York Daily News, NPR, Must Read Alaska, Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, The Daily Signal, One America News Network, RedState, The Federalist, The American Tribune.com, Associated Press, Mediaite, The Gateway Pundit, Forbes, The Daily Caller, Balloon Juice, Daily Kos and HotAir
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Perry Stein / Washington Post:
FBI Director Christopher Wray to resign before Trump takes office — President-elect Donald Trump has said he will nominate Kash Patel as FBI director, sending a message to Christopher A. Wray that he should resign or prepare to be fired. — FBI Director Christopher A. Wray announced Wednesday …
Discussion:
CNN, Fox News, Associated Press, HotAir, ABC News, NBC News, Scripps News, CNBC, Axios, Daily Caller News Foundation, Breitbart, Raw Story, CBS News, The Post Millennial and Washington Times
John Kelly / The Imprint:
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace Calls Police on Prominent Foster Youth Advocate; Eyewitnesses Dispute Her Assault Allegations — Stunned onlookers say the disturbing turn of events followed a routine celebration of a landmark child welfare law — This breaking news story will be updated as more information becomes available.
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The Hill:
House approves mammoth annual defense policy bill — The House on Wednesday passed the annual defense policy bill, sending the mammoth measure to the Senate for consideration ahead of Congress's end-of-month deadline. — The legislation — known as the National Defense Authorization Act …
Discussion:
Breaking Defense and Louisiana Illuminator
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Jennifer Bendery / HuffPost:
House GOP Uses Must-Pass Defense Bill To Strip Care From Military Families' Trans Kids
House GOP Uses Must-Pass Defense Bill To Strip Care From Military Families' Trans Kids
Discussion:
NOTUS, New York Times, The Hill, Fox News, The Daily Signal, Truthout, The Intercept, Fuck Yeah Marxism-Leninism and Missouri Independent
Kevin Freking / Associated Press:
House approves $895B defense bill with military pay raise, ban on transgender care for minors
House approves $895B defense bill with military pay raise, ban on transgender care for minors
Discussion:
Fox News and Washington Examiner
Alex Rogers / Financial Times:
Mitch McConnell: 'We're in a very, very dangerous world right now' — The Republican Senator on his plans to spend the last two years of his term fighting back against an increasingly isolationist GOP — Mitch McConnell is standing in his office smiling. Hanging on the walls are faces, mostly stern, from Washington's past.
Discussion:
Mediaite, WTTG-TV, The Gateway Pundit, CBS News, American Greatness, Daily Kos and Balloon Juice
Jennifer Agiesta / CNN:
CNN Poll: Most Americans approve how Trump is handling his return to the White House — Most Americans expect President-elect Donald Trump to do a good job upon his return to the White House next month (54%) and a majority approves of how he's handling the presidential transition so far …
Ben Johansen / Politico:
Warren on UnitedHealthcare CEO's killing: ‘People can only be pushed so far’ — The Massachusetts lawmaker condemned the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, but added that the visceral reaction online should be a “warning” to the industry.
Discussion:
CNN, HuffPost, Boston Herald, freebeacon.com, Townhall, Twitchy, Raw Story and Instapundit
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Meridith McGraw / Politico:
Time magazine to name Trump ‘Person of the Year’ — He also won the honor in 2016. — Donald Trump is expected to be named Time magazine's “Person of the Year” — and to celebrate the unveiling of the cover, the president-elect will ring the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday morning …
Patrick Marley / Washington Post:
North Carolina GOP changes election rules before losing supermajority — Republicans in the state legislature gave an ally control over the state's elections board, rewrote ballot-counting rules and chipped away at the power of the incoming Democratic governor.
Discussion:
NBC News, Washington Examiner, Democrats, Crooks and Liars, Associated Press and Tallahassee Democrat
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Politico:
Trump outran the law. His allies haven't. — Dozens of Trump allies face criminal charges in lingering cases over efforts to overturn the 2020 election. — Despite Donald Trump's Houdini act, the criminal cases against his allies are not disappearing. — Dozens of Trump's top aides …
Discussion:
Associated Press, New Republic, The Guardian, Raw Story, USA Today, CNN and Washington Examiner
NBC News:
Trump plans to scrap policy restricting ICE arrests at churches, schools, hospitals — The long-standing policy has prevented ICE agents from arresting immigrants at so-called “sensitive locations” except under certain circumstances. — The incoming Trump administration intends to rescind …
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, The Independent, America Magazine, Vanity Fair, Alternet.org, IJR and Raw Story
Adrienne LaFrance / The Atlantic:
Decivilization May Already Be Under Way — The brazen murder of a CEO in Midtown Manhattan—and the cheering reaction to his execution—amounts to a blinking-and-blaring warning signal for a society that has become already too inured to bloodshed. — The line between a normal …
Aris Folley / The Hill:
Schumer says Senate will vote on Social Security changes — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that he's “doing everything” he can to try to pass legislation that would enact some Social Security before Congress ushers in a new class next month.
Discussion:
GovExec.com
John Herrman / New York Magazine:
Luigi Mangione's Full Story Isn't Online — When the identity of Luigi Mangione, the alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter, was revealed on Monday, the online search — a reporting process that's become a collective online ritual — began. It turns out he left a lot of information online …
Discussion:
The Atlantic, abc7NY, New York Times and New York Post
Jennifer Jacobs / CBS News:10 minutes ago
Trump invites China's Xi Jinping to inauguration — President-elect Donald Trump has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration next month, multiple sources told CBS News, and inauguration officials are making plans for additional foreign dignitaries to attend the swearing-in ceremony.
Politico:
The ultimate marker of Dems' generational shift: AOC's Oversight ascension — Ocasio-Cortez has earned the support of the majority of the panel's Democrats, based on interviews with a dozen members. — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is poised to become the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee …
Discussion:
HuffPost
Paul Krugman / Krugman wonks out:
The Fraudulence of “Waste, Fraud and Abuse” — History repeats itself, the first time as farce, the second as clown show — First things first: welcome to readers new and old. Now that I have written my last column for the New York Times, this newsletter is coming out of dormancy.
Discussion:
Digby's Hullabaloo, Balloon Juice and American Prospect
Danielle Kaye / New York Times:
Albertsons Backs Out of Merger Deal and Sues Kroger After Court Rulings — The supermarket chain had tried to join forces with Kroger, but judges sided with federal and state regulators who charged that the merger would reduce competition. — The grocery chain Albertsons said on Wednesday …
Discussion:
CNN, Forbes, Washington Examiner, Must Read Alaska, The Moderate Voice, Colorado Newsline, Associated Press, Washington State, Los Angeles Times, Iowa Capital Dispatch, CBS News, UPI, Alaska Public Media, New York Post, The Colorado Sun, Lynnwood Times, One America News Network, HuffPost, WTTG-TV, The Hill, NBC News, Wall Street Journal, International Brotherhood …, BIG by Matt Stoller, Arizona Mirror, The Daily Caller, Politico, Raw Story, Colorado Public Radio, Mercury News and Fox Business
Axios:
Exclusive: RFK Jr.'s secret push to prove CIA killed uncle … - RFK Jr. has been telling people that Fox Kennedy — his presidential campaign manager, who is married to his son Bobby Kennedy III — would help get to the bottom of the JFK assassination, two Republican sources told Axios.
Discussion:
HuffPost, New York Post, Daily Mail, New Republic, The Independent, Mediaite, Digby's Hullabaloo and The Daily Caller
Alejandra O'Connell-Domenech / The Hill:
About 1 in 3 US women are accessing family planning services: CDC — About 35 percent of U.S. women ages 15 to 49 said they received a family planning service between 2022 to 2023, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics.
Paul Kiel / ProPublica:
How a Decades-Old Loophole Lets Billionaires Avoid Medicare Taxes — Some of Wall Street's richest and most powerful figures are using a legal loophole to avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes earmarked for health care, a ProPublica investigation found. — The Secret IRS Files: Inside the Tax Records of the .001%
Discussion:
Bloomberg, GovExec.com, Daily Kos and Business Insider
Dave Collins / Associated Press:
Judge rejects sale of Alex Jones' Infowars to The Onion in dispute over bankruptcy auction — A federal judge on Tuesday night rejected the auction sale of Alex Jones' Infowars to The Onion satirical news outlet, criticizing the bidding process as flawed and the amount of money that families …
Discussion:
Washington Post, Mother Jones, Washington Examiner, CNN, NPR, Vanity Fair, abc7NY, NBC News, RedState, Al Jazeera, Block Club Chicago, New York Daily News, The National Pulse, Deadline, The Hill, Consequence, One America News Network, New York Times, Axios, The Hollywood Reporter, Deseret News, New Republic, UPI, CBS News, Rolling Stone, Crooks and Liars, The Verge, The Follow, Fox Business, USA Today, Forbes, Variety, The Post Millennial, WHDH-TV, The Gateway Pundit and Associated Press, more at Mediagazer »
Jerry Lambe / Law & Crime:
Judge tosses Michael Flynn's $50 million lawsuit that claimed he was prosecuted to ‘derail and discredit’ Trump's 2020 presidential bid — A federal judge in Florida has dismissed a $50 million lawsuit filed by former U.S. National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who sued the federal government …
Discussion:
Reason
CNN:
Former top Biden aide slams Hunter Biden pardon rollout strategy — One of President Joe Biden's former top communications advisers ravaged the president's messaging rollout strategy around his decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, lambasting the situation as “exceptionally poor timing” in a major public rebuke of her former boss.
Kyle Cheney / Politico:
Republican lawmakers invite a Jan. 6 felon to Trump's inauguration — The invitation to and praise for a member of the mob underscores the shifting power dynamic in Washington. — Russell Taylor spent weeks planning for chaos on Jan. 6, 2021. He recruited anti-government activists to join …
Discussion:
New Republic, Raw Story, CBS News and Alternet.org
New York Times:
Recent Immigration Surge Has Been Largest in U.S. History — Under President Biden, more than two million immigrants per year have entered, government data shows. — The immigration surge of the past few years has been the largest in U.S. history, surpassing the great immigration boom …
Discussion:
New York Post, New York Magazine, Fox News, Breitbart, PJ Media, Frontpage Mag, Defense One, The Daily Caller, Power Line, The Hill, Twitchy and Unfogged
Will Oremus / Washington Post:
State Dept. disinfo unit faces shutdown amid GOP's war on censorship — The Washington Post's essential guide to tech policy news — Happy Wednesday! If playing Among Us turns you into a real-life assassin, my 9-year-old's entire class should probably be put on a watch list.
Discussion:
The Guardian, RedState and Washington Examiner