Perfect timing  We hope you’re keeping up, because as Patrick LaForge says, “Sometimes a process takes on a life of its own.” Yesterday, John Bolton decided that he’s willing to testify in the Senate impeachment trial (87,000+ shares). Nicholas Fandos and Michael Schmidt of The New York Times write that the announcement marks “a dramatic turn that could alter the political dynamic of the impeachment process in the Senate and raise the risks for Mr. Trump of Republican defections.” You can read the statement here, and as Kara Swisher says, “Now the dark prince strikes with nearly perfect timing.”
On Twitter, Fandos notes, “Bolton is essentially proactively telling senators he has relevant information for them to consider and wants to share it.” Still, as Jeff Yang says, “I’ll believe it when I see it and smell it and it reaches out and punches me in the face.” Stunning, nuts, wacko bananas Also yesterday, Defense Secretary Mike Esper acknowledged that striking cultural sites with no military value would be a war crime (287,000+ shares), which of course contradicts what you heard from the President, as Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman report at The New York Times. “‘Putting him at odds with the president.’ The US military contradicts the commander in chief. Notable,” tweets Jesse Pesta. But in the meantime, the Trump administration is barring Iran’s top diplomat, Mohammad Javad Zarif, from entering the U.S. to attend the U.N. Security Council meeting this week, a move that violates the terms of a 1947 headquarters agreement requiring Washington to permit foreign officials into the country to conduct U.N. business. Colum Lynch and Robbie Gramer of Foreign Policy have that scoop, citing three diplomatic sources. The Trump administration has also begun drafting possible sanctions against Iraq following Trump’s economic threat. Jeff Stein and Josh Dawsey of The Washington Post report that no decision has been made on whether to implement economic penalties, but a warning directed at Baghdad has aides scrambling. 
Andrew deGrandpre calls the revelations in this story “Stunning. One official tells The Post that the administration’s plan is to wait ‘at least a little while’ on the making a decision to sanction Baghdad — to see if the Iraqis actually make good on their threat to evict American troops.” Jennifer Rubin just thinks, “This is nuts. Anyone associated with this mess will permanently mar their career.” And Mike Pesca offers, “Let me translate from the High Brow Journalismese to the common tongue. ‘Highly Unusual= completely insane wacko bananas.’” Justin Ling reminds us, “Trump has done an incredible job of firing or forcing out the sensible people around him who could avert such insanity. He's forged paths to get totally batshit decisions through with, apparently, no serious objection.” Meanwhile, “As the US bizarrely attacks Iraq with threats of sanctions, Russia swoops in offering an air defense system along with support and solidarity. Another opportunity for Russia in the region at the expense of US unpredictability,” tweets Bianna Golodryga, who links to the news that Russia is offering Iraq their S-400 air defense system to protect their airspace. AMN News has that story, based on a report from RIA Novosti, which cites the Russian Ministry of Defense. Nothing going on here We’re hearing more from Iranian-Americans who’ve been detained at the US-Canada border. Speaking to Richard Read and Sarah Parvini of the Los Angeles Times, several described the ordeal of the detention, and Sewell Chan calls the whole thing “Surreal: Iranian-Americans offer detailed, on-the-record accounts of being detained and questioned at the US-Canada border—as DHS officials deny that anything is going on.” Mike Baker and Caitlin Dickerson of The New York Times also interviewed some of the up to 200 people who were held by agents at the border in Washington State, as well as a historian returning from Egypt via Kennedy Airport in New York, where he was asked about his recent travels to Iran and sent off for additional screening. Baker and Dickerson note that some of those detained were reportedly asked to share their opinions about the situation in Iran and Iraq. This growing threat 
Disinformation For Hire, a new investigation by Craig Silverman, Jane Lytvynenko and William Kung—published in partnership with BuzzFeed News and the Reporter, an investigative news site in Taiwan—reveals how a new breed of PR firms is selling lies online. Silverman explains: “NEW: Around the world, a new breed of shady PR firms is offering professional disinformation services. Fake accounts, trolling, AI-generated articles to manipulate search rankings — it’s all available for the right price. A look inside this growing threat.” As Johny Cassidy says, “Whoops there goes reality.” Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, told BuzzFeed News “the professionalization of deception” is a growing threat, and the scoop from Tony Romm, Drew Harwell and Isaac Stanley-Becker of The Washington Post is that Facebook plans to ban deepfakes—but the new policy may not cover the controversial Pelosi video. Tweets Romm, “Updated from last night: Biden campaign calls new Facebook deepfake policy ‘illusion of progress,’ given the kinds of videos it would not target for removal. Click here for the full nuance of what is/isnt okay.” Paul Barrett thinks “Facebook’s new ban on AI-driven deepfakes is a step in the right direction. But it’s disappointing that the new policy apparently won’t result in removal of provably false videos doctored by less advanced means, such as the Nancy Pelosi ‘drunk’ video.” Hell of a story Here’s a “Hell of a story from @m_tsvetkova about the clinic with ties to Putin’s friends and family where Russian mercenaries go to treat wounds sustained in secret foreign wars.” Max Seddon links to the exclusive by Maria Tsvetkova of Reuters, Russian clinic treated mercenaries injured in secret wars. “What do you do when you’re a Russian mercenary injured in Putin’s secret wars abroad that the Kremlin denies are even taking place? You go to a secret medical facility, owned by people with links to Putin, to get treated on the DL. Incredible story,” says Julia Macfarlane. This is a hell of a thing Ilya Lozovsky links to the story, by Norimitsu Onishi of The New York Times, about how a victim’s account is fueling a reckoning over sex with children in France. Yes, you read that correctly. Onishi explains that “the French writer Gabriel Matzneff never hid the fact that he engaged in sex with girls and boys in their early teens or even younger. He wrote countless books detailing his insatiable pursuits and appeared on television boasting about them.” 
But rather than facing any repercussions, the author of books like “Under 16 Years Old” was celebrated by France’s literary and journalism elite, again and again, winning awards and continuing to be published by prestigious publishing houses. As Sophie Gilbert puts it, “WTAF, France???” To reiterate, “What in the literal hell is wrong with France,” tweets Alex Griswold. Also in that piece, we learn that Bernard Pivot, who had Matzneff on his literary show, “Apostrophes,” said that back in the 1980s “literature was more important than morality.” As you might have guessed, “This story is stomach-turning,” tweets Julie Bosman. “But the publication, last Thursday, of an account by one of his victims, Vanessa Springora, has suddenly fueled an intense debate in France over its historically lax attitude toward sex with minors,” writes Oshni. Happy birthday, Zora! On to some better literary news. In honor of Zora Neale Hurston’s birthday, ZORA Magazine is celebrating more than 150 years of African American literature with The ZORA Canon: 100 Best Books by African American Women Authors. Tweets Damon Beres, “This is an outstanding project from my colleagues at @zoramag. The #ZORA100 represents a canon of American literature written by Black women from 1859 to 2019. It is an inspiring documentation of a history that we must be stewards of. Please read.” Am I high, too? 
Finally today, you should know that people are seeing “Cats” while high out of their minds, and a big thanks to Maura Judkis of The Washington Post, because These are their stories. David Malitz shares, “I know it's only Jan. 6 but it will be extremely tough to find a better quote in a story this year than ‘Vomited four times but ultimately understood the film on a deep level’ from this @MauraJudkis piece on people who get high as hell and go see Cats.” Samantha Rollins points out, “True journalism is collecting viewers’ stories of seeing CATS on drugs!!!” In fact, Philip Gourevitch thinks “this should be a regular sort of review column.” Molly Ball dubs it “Just a perfect piece of journalism here.” And as Alex Stuckey points out, “Most papers can’t afford someone to cover city hall. @washingtonpost can talk to 100s of ppl about getting high and watching Cats. It’s absolutely glorious: ‘It was unclear, on balance, whether getting high made ‘Cats’ better, or much, much worse.” Also, “The ‘to be clear’ graf is a J-school scourge upon the world, but, this one, I’ll allow,” says Adam Cancryn, referring to the note: “To be clear, The Washington Post does not endorse illicit drug use. And for most people, ‘Cats’ is unnerving enough sober.” Robert Samuels wonders, “Does this loosely connected collection of hilarious vignettes have the structure that ‘Cats’ was supposed to have - or am I high, too?” Who’s to say, Robert, but the point is, “I passed two drug tests to work at the Washington Post and this is how they repay me,” tweets Dylan Matthews. A few more - Danica Coto of AP News reports on the latest heavy seismic activity in Puerto Rico: A 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck Puerto Rico before dawn on Tuesday, killing one man, injuring at least eight other people and collapsing buildings in the southern part of the island. It was followed three hours later by an aftershock measuring 6.0.
- HuffPost’s Josephine Harvey spoke with ecologists at the University of Sydney and WWF Australia who say the number of animals feared dead in Australia’s wildfires has soared to over 1 billion and, in fact, that “would be a very conservative figure.” On Instagram, Chris Hemsworth announced that his family is contributing $1 million to support the fight against the bushfires, urging others to chip in as well.
- Tess A. Owen of Vice reports that Travis Frey, a senior employee at a for-profit immigrant detention center in Nevada was on a neo-Nazi website and wanted to start a white nationalist group (49,000+ shares). Frey is currently employed as a captain at the Nevada Southern Detention Center, which is run by private prison behemoth CoreCivic and contracted with ICE.
- In what James Queally calls a “Good get by @MarkPuente & @LAcrimes,” Richard Winton and Mark Puente of the Los Angeles Times have discovered that more than a dozen Los Angeles police officers are being investigated on suspicion of falsifying information they gathered during stops and portraying people as gang members or associates. As Noah Hurowitz says, “Man, who coulda seen it coming that cops would take a murky gang database and falsely accuse innocent people of having gang ties??”
- Mike Pompeo has decided against running for Senate in Kansas, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns report at The New York Times.
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