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Jan 29, 2020: McConnell EmBoltoned
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TODAY'S HEADLINES:

Joe Biden wants any online Biden Bros to step up their posting, according to a report by Bloomberg News, which says the former Vice President’s campaign is actively encouraging supporters to duke it out with Bernie Sanders’s extremely online fans.

Meanwhile, the John Bolton show continues to dominate impeachment proceedings, as all eyes turn to the small core of Republican moderates, led by Mitt Romney, to see if they’ll provide the votes to get Bolton his day in court.

And lastly, the Trump administration unveils its plan for Israel and Palestine and well, let’s just say calling it a quote “peace” plan is quite a stretch.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Calling all Biden Bros: Uncle Joe needs your good tweets and posts.

According to Bloomberg News, the Biden campaign is urging its supporters to get active online and defend their gaffe-prone candidate from the terrifying hordes of Bernie Sanders supporters on social media.

Bloomberg reports that the Biden camp thinks Sanders’ online army is quote “getting ugly.” This makes sense: it can’t be fun for Biden to get confronted by his own terrible voting record every day.

Sanders isn’t the only candidate with a legion of devoted fans online, but he’s almost certainly got more than Joe, considering he’s polling almost 30 percent higher than Biden in the internet-fluent 18-29 age group.

Biden may also be losing support among older voters as well, the Intercept reported on Tuesday. His polling numbers among the 45-64 age group have swung 17 points toward Sanders in recent days.

The Sanders camp, meanwhile, is digging in for an onslaught of attack ads placed by a P-A-C called the Democratic Majority for Israel, which will begin to run on Wednesday. Whatever happens this week, it looks like the tweets will continue to fly.

We are now entering day number three of the John Bolton impeachment decision, as the Senate continues to deliberate on whether or not to subpoena the former national security advisor to testify.

Bolton, for those of you catching up, alleged in a draft of his new book that Trump had said he wanted to keep aid for Ukraine on ice until the country agreed to investigate the Bidens. If he says that under oath in front of the Senate, it could shake up the whole impeachment trial.

On Tuesday, Trump’s lawyers essentially told the Senate to ignore Bolton. In any other context, that’s great advice, but for the precious few moderate-leaning Republicans in the Senate, it may not be good enough.

As it stands, Democrats need four Republicans to vote their way to allow witnesses in the impeachment trial and subpoena Bolton. The New York Times reports that Mitt Romney seems like a good bet, as does Susan Collins of Maine.

Of the rest, the Wall Street Journal reports that Senators Lisa Murkowski and Lamar Alexander are quote “open to the idea,” which basically means they’re waiting to see which way the political winds blow before coming down on one side or the other.

This indecision, however, has got to be making Majority Leader Mitch McConnell nervous. The Journal reports that he acknowledged Republicans don’t quite have the votes to block Bolton from testifying, likely because of the maybes we just mentioned.

And everywhere, people are losing patience. On Tuesday night, a twitter hashtag popped up to encourage Romney to, well, Mitt Or Get Off The Pot. You can sort out that pun.

The Trump Administration released its long-awaited Middle East quote “peace plan” endquote, which does not appear to be particularly peaceful for some of the parties involved.

The plan, which would annex large swathes of Palestine’s ever-shrinking territory into Israel, is basically a gift to Israel’s hard-right regime under Benjamin Netanyahu, who was at Trump’s side as he made the announcement.

The plan’s resulting map looks like a heavily gerrymandered Congressional district, as the Trump and Netanyahu administration cut up Palestine to make sure Israel retained control of Jerusalem and its colonialist settlements outside the city.

Palestinian leadership is largely not on speaking terms with Trump, but their response was swift and decisive. Palestinian authority President Mahmoud Abbas called the plan a quote “conspiracy deal,” and immediately rejected the proposal, which appears to have been deemed downright insulting.

Bernie Sanders and other progressive leaders immediately denounced the plan as well.

Jared Kushner, the supposed architect of the plan, wasted no time in blaming the Palestinians for not accepting their lot, saying quote “It’s a big opportunity for the Palestinians, and they have a perfect track record of blowing every opportunity they’ve had in their past,” endquote. Sounds like Jared’s the one who blew this opportunity, but who’s counting besides the entire Middle East anyway?

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

A Maryland police officer who shot and killed a handcuffed, unarmed black man in the back of a police car has been arrested and charged with murder less than 24 hours after the shooting, in a shocking departure from the usual narrative of a police killing.

The U.S. Air Force dropped more bombs on Afghanistan this year than any other year since they started recording statistics in 2006. With little to show for it, it’s a complete mystery why we continue to inflict such violence on the country after 18 years of war.

Locust swarms fueled by the climate crisis are decimating crops in East Africa, alarming U.N. officials who fear for the region’s food supply.

A new poll shows Bernie Sanders with a massive lead in the early-voting state of New Hampshire, clocking in at 28 percent support. His closest rival, Biden, has a meagre 13 percent.

#AMQuickie: Monday, January 29th, 2020

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Jack Crosbie

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn