After hours of speculation, Sarah Palin finally came out and endorsed Donald Trump -- meaning reporters can stop using "rumors are swirling" and "speculation has arisen" as stand-ins for “I glanced at my Twitter feed." Jihadi John was killed in an airstrike and will now spend eternity wallowing in his disappointment that his 72 virgins are a bunch of dudes named Wayne who doxed people on the internet for fun. And Paul Ryan will make good on his anti-poverty agenda by bring another Obamacare repeal measure up for a vote next week. Let the poor help themselves. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Tuesday, January 19th, 2016:
PERFECT - Previously, Sarah Palin and Donald Trump had been seen together in another universe, selling juicers on TV at three in the morning. Maggie Haberman, with a huge get for the lamestream media: "Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice-presidential nominee who became a Tea Party sensation and a favorite of grass-roots conservatives, will endorse Donald J. Trump in Iowa on Tuesday, officials with his campaign confirmed. The endorsement provides Mr. Trump with a potentially significant boost just 13 days before the state’s caucuses. 'I’m proud to endorse Donald J. Trump for president,' Ms. Palin said in a statement provided by his campaign. Her support is the highest-profile backing for a Republican contender so far. 'I am greatly honored to receive Sarah’s endorsement,' Mr. Trump said in a statement trumpeting Mrs. Palin’s decision. 'She is a friend, and a high-quality person whom I have great respect for. I am proud to have her support.'" [NYT]
Moments after the news broke, Jeb Bush was on Twitter, touting his endorsement of Lindsey Graham's New Hampshire state chairman, Gary Lambert. Take that, news cycle!
@mviser: Martin O’Malley leads in one category: 26% of likely Dem primary voters in NH said they would not vote for him under any circumstances.
RYAN TO BRING OBAMACARE REPEAL UP FOR VETO OVERRIDE VOTE - At some point this country needs to have an intervention with congressional Republicans about their debilitating addiction. Erin Kelly: "The House will vote next Tuesday on overriding President Obama's veto of legislation that would repeal key portions of Obamacare and defund Planned Parenthood, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced. Ryan, R-Wis., does not have the votes needed to override Obama's veto of the bill, which was passed by the House on Jan. 6 by a vote of 240-181 and vetoed two days later. The Senate passed the bill in December using a budget procedure that prevented Democrats from blocking the vote. It takes two-thirds of the House and Senate to override a veto, and Republican leaders do not have enough support in either chamber to thwart the White House. But Ryan sees the symbolic Jan. 26 vote as an important message for Republicans to deliver in an election year as the GOP fights to win the White House. Ryan has unveiled an agenda for 2016 that is aimed largely at giving the Republican presidential candidate a platform on which to run." [USA Today]
This weekend's snow forecast is getting some insane hype. Remember the snowquester, y'all.
DELANEY DOWNER - Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson on Tuesday became the first GOP presidential candidate to speak out on the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, blaming local leadership and federal authorities for failing to address the high levels of lead that have left the city's tap water largely unusable. "Unfortunately, the leaders of Flint have failed to place the well-being of their residents as a top priority," said Carson, a Michigan native, in a statement to The Huffington Post. "The people deserve better from their local elected officials, but the federal bureaucracy is not innocent in this as well. Reports show that the Environmental Protection Agency knew well-beforehand about the lack of corrosion controls in the city’s water supply, but was either unwilling or unable to address the issue." True. [w/ HuffPost's Nick Wing]
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XENOPHOBIA USEFUL, POLITICIAN FINDS - Jordain Carney: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is pressuring Democrats ahead of a procedural vote Wednesday on legislation freezing the acceptance of refugees from Syria and Iraq.'I would urge colleagues across the aisle to treat this issue with the seriousness that it deserves,' the Republican leader said Tuesday. 'This debate should be driven by facts and common sense, not fear mongering about targeting widows and orphans or other straw man arguments that the White House has made from time to time.' The Senate is expected to hold a procedural vote Wednesday on a House-approved bill that would effectively freeze the acceptance of refugees until the administration can certify they aren't a national security threat. Republicans will need 60 votes to move the legislation forward, meaning they need at least six Democratic votes." [The Hill]
HIGH COURT TO CONSIDER OBAMA'S EXECUTIVE ACTION ON IMMIGRATION - Cristian Farias and Elise Foley: "President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration, stuck in legal limbo for the past year, will get a Supreme Court hearing before the 2016 presidential election. The justices announced their decision to hear the case, known as United States v. Texas, on Tuesday, after their private conference meeting Friday morning. For weeks, the federal government and Texas had fought a procedural battle over whether the justices should take up the case before the end of June, the close of the court's current term. The president can now seek Supreme Court vindication of his decision in November 2014 to defer the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants, who have waited for years for comprehensive immigration reform. But the court added an unexpected wrinkle when it agreed to hear the case: It asked the federal government and the states suing it to address whether the executive actions on immigration violate the Constitution's take care clause -- an issue that was not definitively decided by lower courts that have ruled on the case. " [HuffPost]
PRO TIP: DON'T LET A DOCUMENTARY CREW FOLLOW YOU AROUND - On that note, go ahead and delete your Snapchat account for good measure. Amy Chozick and Brooks Barnes: "In May 2013, Huma Abedin and Anthony D. Weiner allowed filmmakers full access to his mayoral campaign with the hopes that the end result would document a spectacular political comeback, with Mr. Weiner being sworn in as mayor of New York having emerged from a scandal centered on explicit texting that forced him to resign from Congress. Things did not go quite according to plan. Instead, 'Weiner,' a new documentary that The New York Times was allowed to view exclusively ahead of its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, provides an unfettered look at the implosion of Mr. Weiner’s mayoral campaign and a wrenching inside account of the couple’s interactions in the aftermath of his second explicit texting scandal." [NYT]
PLEASE STOP DOING THIS - The exception being a politician who has literally hid their spouse in an undisclosed location. Tim Murphy: "Hillary Clinton was nodding to tradition when she jokingly referred to her husband Bill, the former president of the United States, as her 'secret weapon.' Puff pieces that describe a candidate's spouse as the campaign's 'secret weapon' are as much a part of presidential campaigns as kissing babies and self-important Iowans...Neither of Trump's two previous wives are considered secret weapons by the political press, but his daughter, Ivanka--whom Trump has said he would consider marrying if they weren't related--is… In addition to his wife, Tipper, Al Gore had a second secret weapon--his oldest daughter, Karenna." [MoJo]
Poor Rick: "GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum is now going even further than saying deportations would be good for the U.S. -- he said Monday that it would 'a blessing' to undocumented immigrants' home countries since they could be leaders there. He made the comments at a not-so-well-attended event -- about 10 people -- in Gladbrook, Iowa, according to the Des Moines Register. The former Pennsylvania senator told the group he had dismissed a teacher's concerns about his deportation plan because of the undocumented students she knows." [HuffPost's Elise Foley]
ENDORSE - We know too many journalists. Meg Kinnard: "South Carolina journalists would be required to register with the government before reporting the state's news under a bill introduced Tuesday by a Republican state lawmaker. The proposal would establish a 'responsible journalism registry' with requirements that journalists must meet before working for a news outlet in the state. Those requirements weren't laid out in the bill's summary, which was available online Tuesday. The measure's full text has not yet been posted. Fees could be charged to be listed in the registry, which would be operated by the Secretary of State's Office. The bill also would authorize 'fines and criminal penalties' for violating the law.The bill has been referred to a committee for debate." [AP]
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Here's a dog trying to mediate a chicken dispute.
MAYBE PEOPLE WILL READ FUSION NOW - David Folkenflik: "Univision Communications Inc., the parent company to the nation's leading Spanish-language broadcast channel, has acquired a controlling stake in the satirical news site The Onion, NPR has learned. The agreement between two seemingly disparate media outfits was described to NPR by a person with direct involvement in the negotiations. A second person who was briefed on the deal by Univision executives also confirmed its broad strokes. The amount of money involved in the deal was not disclosed. NPR has also obtained a memo from the CEO of The Onion announcing the deal to staffers." [NPR]
COMFORT FOOD
- Happy birthday, Edgar Allan Poe! Here's a Poe story generator.
- Drones don't just deliver Amazon paper products to your doorstep, they alsocan fly into glaciers.
- The 25 worst passwords of 2015.
TWITTERAMA
@robojojo: There needs to be a Millennial Olympics honoring prowess in feats like mailing a letter, returning a phone call or faxing paperwork
@daveweigel: Kasich talking to seniors about his Reagan campaign work: "Guess who I met? Jimmy Stewart! That was about as cool as meeting Ronald Reagan."
@swin24: .@tedcruz: "i love sarah palin…"
@SarahPalinUSA: new phone who dis
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