memeorandum: Trump GOP Candidacy Blows Up (Stephen F. Hayes/Weekly Standard)

10:50 PM ET, July 18, 2015

Top Items:

Stephen F. Hayes / Weekly Standard:

Trump GOP Candidacy Blows Up — Donald Trump confirmed two things during a stop in this central Iowa town Saturday: He has no class and he may well run as an independent when he does not win the Republican nomination. — There had been considerable public evidence of both long …

Discussion: New York Times, Liberal Values, National Review and Mediaite

Ben Schreckinger / Politico:

Trump attacks McCain: 'I like people who weren't captured' — Donald Trump might finally have crossed the line. — Appearing on Saturday at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, the real estate mogul took his running feud with Arizona Sen. John McCain to a new level. — Story Continued Below

Discussion: ABC News, The Hill, Addicting Info, PoliticusUSA, CANNONFIRE, JSOnline, The Week, Outside the Beltway, Yahoo Politics and Mashable

Daniel Halper / Weekly Standard:

Trump Attacks McCain for Being Prisoner of War: 'I Like People That Weren't Captured' — Speaking today in Iowa, Donald Trump attacked John McCain for being a former prisoner of war. Watch here: — “He's not a war hero,” Trump, a Republican running for president, said of McCain.

Discussion: Hot Air, Washington Post, Liberty Unyielding, John Hawkins' Right Wing News, Hit & Run, Scared Monkeys, No More Mister Nice Blog, Guardian, NPR, The PJ Tatler and Salon

Philip Rucker / Washington Post:

Trump slams McCain for being ‘captured’ in Vietnam; other Republicans quickly condemn him — AMES, Iowa — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump slammed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a decorated Vietnam War veteran, on Saturday by saying McCain was not a war hero because he was captured by the North Vietnamese.

Discussion: Hit & Run, CNN, BuzzFeed, Hinterland Gazette, Talking Points Memo, Mediaite, Betsy's Page, PoliticusUSA, Daily Mail, Firedoglake, The Daily Caller, WGN-TV, JustOneMinute, Fox News Insider, Townhall.com and The Spot

New York Times:

Donald Trump Says John McCain Is No War Hero, Setting Off Another Storm — AMES, Iowa — Donald J. Trump upended a Republican presidential forum here Saturday with incendiary comments about Senator John McCain's war record, drawing widespread condemnation. — Mr. Trump and Mr. McCain …

Discussion: Liberaland

Andrew Husband / Mediaite:

Donald Trump Ignores Draft Deferment Questions After Criticizing McCain, Vietnam — In case you hadn't noticed, Donald Trump is not having a very good day. During a talk at the Family Leadership Summit, the 2016 GOP hopeful launched a tirade of verbal garbage at Arizona Sen. John McCain …

Discussion: Hinterland Gazette and Liberaland

Sean Davis / The Federalist:

Donald Trump Mocks John McCain: “I Like People That Weren't Captured” — While campaigning in Iowa this weekend, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump lashed out at Sen. John McCain's military record, saying, “I like people that weren't captured.” — McCain, a former Navy pilot …

Discussion: Perry for President, Mediaite, Hot Air, WREG-TV, New York Times and Talking Points Memo

Sahil Kapur / Bloomberg Business:
Trump on John McCain: 'I Like People That Weren't Captured, Okay?'

Discussion: Washington Post, Gothamist, The Week, The Daily Caller, Des Moines Register and Raw Story

Dante Chinni / Wall Street Journal: Trump Surge Leaves All but Jeb Bush in Donald's Dust

Martin Pengelly / Guardian:

O'Malley and Sanders interrupted by Black Lives Matter protesters in Phoenix — The Democratic presidential candidates Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders were heckled and constantly interrupted during an appearance at the Netroots Nation conference on Saturday, as protesters …

Discussion: Hit & Run, Hot Air, The Daily Caller and Patterico's Pontifications

Daily Mail:

Hillary is outdone in first major Iowa test as Bernie Sanders calls for a ‘revolution’ and Martin O'Malley has some Clinton partisans on their feet - and she talks mostly about HERSELF — In the Democrats' first ‘cattle call’ event of 2015, all five presidential candidates appeared on the same stage

Discussion: Weekly Standard, Althouse and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Paul Sperry / New York Post:

Obama collecting personal data for a secret race database — A key part of President Obama's legacy will be the fed's unprecedented collection of sensitive data on Americans by race. The government is prying into our most personal information at the most local levels, all for the purpose of “racial and economic justice.”

Discussion: The PJ Tatler

Jamil Smith / The New Republic:

Structural Racism Needs to Be a Presidential Campaign Issue — After the year we've endured since Eric Garner's death, every candidate should have a plan — This year, as with every other year, nearly every presidential candidate is white, with the only exceptions being long shots in the mushrooming Republican field.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, New York Times, Guardian and Washington Post

Neil Irwin / New York Times:

Forecasters Expect a Strong Economy for the 2016 Presidential Election — When it comes to elections, fundamentals matter. A lot. — A wide range of political science research suggests that if you want to know who will win the presidency, the state of the economy …

Discussion: Washington Monthly and US News

WANE-TV:

Sailor from Paulding one of Chattanooga shooting victims — Darlene Proxmire, the step-grandmother of Randall Smith, called NewsChannel 15 Saturday morning and said he passed away around 4 a.m. — This is an update to the previously published story: — PAULDING COUNTY, Ohio (WANE) …

Discussion: WCMH-TV, Guardian, WKRN-TV, The Gateway Pundit and KXAN-TV