memeorandum: Don't play the race or skinny cards, Ms Minaj … (Daily Mail)

12:20 AM ET, July 23, 2015

Top Items:

Donald Trump, Stealing Spotlight With Caustic Comments, Eclipses His Rivals — The month of July once held great potential for Republican presidential candidates hoping for momentum to carry them into the first primary debates. — Instead, the summer campaign has been dominated by Donald J. Trump …

Discussion: The Hill, Erick on the Radio, The Daily Beast, Yahoo Politics, Politico and PoliticusUSA

Frank Rich / New York Magazine:

The GOP Only Has Itself to Blame for Weaponizing Donald Trump — The candidate's campaign circus keeps gaining steam because of the fault lines within his own party. — Shares … Donald Trump's lead in the polls has been called “the classic pattern of a media-driven surge,” …

Discussion: TVNewser, Addicting Info, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Washington Post and WTVR-TV

Wall Street Journal:

Donald Trump's Financial Disclosure — What We Learned — Republican Donald Trump's federal financial disclosure provides a window into his sprawling network of real-estate and entertainment companies, marking his first-ever public tally of his holdings. Here are some things we learned:

Discussion: New York Times and Business Insider

Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:

Rupert Murdoch Wants to Stop Donald Trump, But First He's Got to Rein In Roger Ailes — Has Fox News spun out of the media mogul's control? — Shares … The mounting problem Donald Trump poses to Republicans is also a mounting problem for the country's most powerful conservative media mogul: Rupert Murdoch.

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog, New York Times, Mediaite, Raw Story, Vanity Fair, Talking Points Memo and Yahoo Politics, more at Mediagazer »

Eric Bradner / CNN:

Poll: Clinton trails top Republicans in battleground states — Washington (CNN)Hillary Clinton trails three top Republican presidential candidates in head-to-head matchups in Colorado, Iowa and Virginia, a new survey shows. — The latest Quinnipiac University swing state polling released Wednesday shows …

Discussion: Daily Mail, Erick on the Radio, Liberal Values, John Hawkins' Right Wing News, JustOneMinute and Common Dreams

Charlie Gasparino / Fox Business:

Trump is Digging His Own Grave...Literally — GOP presidential contender and real estate mogul Donald Trump wants to live in the White House but he's planning to be buried on a golf course—his own. — The flamboyant billionaire has received approval to build a private cemetery …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Liberaland

Tom Jensen / Public Policy Polling:

Trump Still Leads GOP Field But Descent May Be Beginning — PPP's newest national poll finds that Donald Trump is likely facing at least some fallout from his comments about John McCain over the weekend. Nevertheless we do find him narrowly leading the national field in our survey, which went into the field on Monday.

Discussion: Hot Air and Political Wire

Frank Bruni / New York Times:

To Trump or Not to Trump? — Bob Kerrey served in the Senate with John McCain, is also a Vietnam veteran and has run for president, so he has been asked incessantly over recent days to appear on television and weigh in on Donald Trump's vile besmirching of McCain's military record.

Discussion: TVNewser, Salon, Hullabaloo and The Huffington Post

Catherine Thompson / Talking Points Memo:
Conservatives Are Furious That Trump Is Distracting From Planned Parenthood

Discussion: US News, The Daily Signal, Daily Kos, Washington Monthly and Washington Times

Alex Griswold / Mediaite:
Marco Rubio to Trump: We Already Have a President with No Class

Discussion: CNN, Morning Consult, Hot Air, The Week, The Federalist, The Hill and National Review

Rick Wilson / Politico:
Trump voters are Hillary's new best friends

Discussion: The Week, Washington Post and New York Times

New York Times:

The Campaign of Deception Against Planned Parenthood — A hidden-camera video released last week purported to show that Planned Parenthood illegally sells tissue from aborted fetuses. It shows nothing of the sort. But it is the latest in a series of unrelenting attacks on Planned Parenthood …

Sarah Ferris / The Hill:
Dems call for DOJ probe of group behind Planned Parenthood videos

Discussion: Patterico's Pontifications, Washington Free Beacon, The Gateway Pundit and The Daily Caller

Peter Sullivan / The Hill:
DOJ to review Planned Parenthood videos

Discussion: LifeNews.com and Hot Air

FactCheck.org:
Unspinning the Planned Parenthood Video

Discussion: Addicting Info, Raw Story, RedState, Liberal Values, BarbWire.com, Show Me Progress, Right Wing Watch, LifeNews.com, The Federalist, ThinkProgress, Politico and Guardian

St. John Barned-Smith / Houston Chronicle:

Officials: Sandra Bland spoke of previous suicide attempt — The 28-year-old woman who died in the Waller County jail three days after police arrested her in a controversial traffic stop told jailers during her intake that she previously had tried to commit suicide, authorities said Wednesday.

Discussion: Guardian, Daily Mail, The Gateway Pundit, The Week, Mashable and Ben Norton

Henry Farrell / Washington Monthly:

A Brief Theory of Very Serious People — Tyler Cowen argues that the concept of “Very Serious People” refers to people who “realize that common sense morality must, to a considerable extent, rule politics.” I'm not either the originator nor the popularizer of the term, but I think that's wrong.

Discussion: The Mahablog and Booman Tribune

Tyler Cowen / Marginal REVOLUTION: What makes the Very Serious People so very serious?

Bloomberg Business:

These Are the Top 20 Cities Americans Are Ditching — Soaring costs of living meant residents left New York City and its suburbs in droves — New York City, Los Angeles, Honolulu: They're all places you would think would be popular destinations for Americans.

Discussion: WCTX-TV and Crain's Cleveland Business

Patrick McGeehan / New York Times:
New York Plans $15-an-Hour Minimum Wage for Fast Food Workers

Discussion: Daily Kos, Campaign for America's Future, The Albany Project, The Right Scoop and Associated Press

Daily Mail:

Don't play the race or skinny cards, Ms Minaj - you're just a stroppy little piece of work whose video wasn't as good as Taylor Swift's — Superstar rapper Nicki Minaj once worked at a Red Lobster restaurant in the Bronx. — She was fired for ‘discourtesy to customers’.

Discussion: Guardian, Mediaite, Slantpoint, Refinery29, bet.com and Hollywood Life

Matt Flegenheimer / New York Times:

De Blasio Administration Dropping Plan for Uber Cap, for Now — The de Blasio administration has backed away from its fight with the app company Uber, agreeing on Wednesday to drop for now its plan to place a cap on the number of vehicles operated by Uber in New York City.

Discussion: The Hill, Fusion, Washington Free Beacon, TechCrunch, Capital New York, Gothamist, Business Insider, VentureBeat, Mashable, The Verge, American Spectator, The Daily Caller, Engadget, The Week and Hit & Run, more at Mediagazer »

Eliza Griswold / New York Times:

Is This the End of Christianity in the Middle East? … There was something about Diyaa that his wife's brothers didn't like. He was a tyrant, they said, who, after 14 years of marriage, wouldn't let their sister, Rana, 31, have her own mobile phone. He isolated her from friends and family, guarding her jealously.

Discussion: Fox News Insider

Pete Kasperowicz / Washington Examiner:

Obama: New citizens can skip pledge to take up arms and defend the U.S. — Share Tweet Reddit Digg Mail Print SMS More — U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Tuesday said it will no longer require incoming U.S. citizens to pledge that they will “bear arms on behalf of the United States” …

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, BizPac Review, The PJ Tatler, The Week and John Hawkins' Right Wing News

Senator Tom Cotton / Facebook:

On Friday, I had a meeting in Vienna with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), during which the agency conveyed to the lawmakers that two side deals made between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the IAEA as part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) will remain secret …

Discussion: Pamela Geller, John Hawkins' Right Wing News and The Right Scoop

Los Angeles Times:

Dead man with cache of 1,200 guns identified — ‘He was just a loner’ — A man found dead in a vehicle in a Pacific Palisades neighborhood and later tied to a home where police found a massive cache of firearms was a 60-year-old longtime Los Angeles County resident who mostly kept to himself, according to interviews.

Discussion: Daily Mail and KTLA

Richard Rubin / Bloomberg Business:

Donald Trump's Financial Disclosure Form Has Landed—And It's Huge — Donald Trump's personal financial disclosure form is public now, and it's as big as promised. — The 92-page report starts with the 515 entities where the Republican presidential candidate has a title (usually president, chairman or both).

Discussion: Slantpoint

Justin McCarthy / Gallup:

More Than Four in 10 Americans Say They Have Tried Marijuana — Story Highlights — WASHINGTON, D.C. — As Oregon becomes the fourth state to make recreational marijuana use legal, 44% of Americans say they have tried marijuana. This is the highest percentage Gallup has found since it began asking the question in 1969.

Discussion: Slantpoint, Friendly Atheist and Yahoo Politics

Washington Post:

Why Hillary Clinton and her rivals are struggling to grasp Black Lives Matter — Amid the famous politicians, wealthy donors and top Democratic Party officials invited to New York last month to watch Hillary Rodham Clinton announce her candidacy for president sat another VIP guest …

Discussion: Balloon Juice, Corrente and BuzzFeed

Sean Coughlan / BBC:

‘Oldest’ Koran fragments found in Birmingham University — What may be the world's oldest fragments of the Koran have been found by the University of Birmingham. — Radiocarbon dating found the manuscript to be at least 1,370 years old, making it among the earliest in existence.

Discussion: Jihad Watch, The Week, Pamela Geller and NPR

John Marzulli / New York Daily News:

EXCLUSIVE: Video shows cops beating alleged pizza thief as he raises arms to surrender inside Brooklyn grocery store — An aspiring hip hop artist was beaten by NYPD cops throwing punches to his head and blows from a baton as he appeared to be meekly surrendering inside a Brooklyn grocery store, a shocking video shows.

Discussion: Addicting Info, Gothamist and Raw Story