memeorandum: Paxton Pleads Not Guilty; Lawyer Quits Case (Morgan Smith/The Texas Tribune)

11:00 PM ET, August 28, 2015

Top Items:

America Is So in Play — In The Wall Street Journal, columnist Peggy Noonan says America is so in play—Donald Trump's staying power in the polls reflects a change in the electorate only now coming into focus.

Discussion: CNN, Washington Monthly, FishbowlDC, alicublog, Chicago Boyz, No More Mister Nice Blog, Mediaite and Althouse

Eugene Scott / CNN:

Church says Donald Trump is not an ‘active member’ — Trump on Charleston forgiveness: ‘an incredible moment’ — Washington (CNN)Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told reporters Thursday that he attends a church in Manhattan, but the church released a statement saying the real estate developer is not an “active member.”

Discussion: Mother Jones, Salon, Mediaite, Talking Points Memo, TheBlaze.com and Balloon Juice

Hamilton Nolan / Gawker: Peggy Noonan's Dominican Friend, Cesar, Works at the Deli Counter

Catherine Herridge / Fox News:

Source: FBI ‘A-team’ leading ‘serious’ Clinton server probe, focusing on defense info — An FBI “A-team” is leading the “extremely serious” investigation into Hillary Clinton's server and the focus includes a provision of the law pertaining to “gathering, transmitting or losing defense information …

Discussion: Bloomberg Business, Business Insider, Hit & Run, Weasel Zippers, The Daily Caller, Washington Free Beacon, Allen West Republic, Politico and National Review

Mark Halperin / Bloomberg Business:

Clinton Camp Claims It's Already Secured One-Fifth the Delegates Needed for Nomination — As Hillary Clinton's campaign seeks to project dominance in a field that could soon include Vice President Joe Biden, her top advisers are touting a decisive edge on a little-discussed metric: superdelegate commitments.

Discussion: Politico, CBS Minnesota, Weasel Zippers, Washington Post, Bloomberg View, Daily Mail, The Gateway Pundit, America Rising and CNN

Jonathan Swan / The Hill:
Hillary: ‘Party of Lincoln has become the party of Trump’

Discussion: JustOneMinute

Jon Swaine / Guardian:

Young black man jailed since April for alleged $5 theft found dead in cell — Jamycheal Mitchell, 24, had been held in Virginia jail without bail for nearly four months, accused of stealing a Mountain Dew, Snickers bar and a Zebra Cake — A young black man arrested by police in Portsmouth …

Discussion: Daily Mail, Common Dreams, Outside the Beltway, Mashable and Shakesville

Sarah Palin / Facebook:

WTH, LAMESTREAM MEDIA! STAY OUT OF MY BIBLE — WTH? Lamestream media asks GOP personal, spiritual “gotchas” that they'd NEVER ask Hillary, or they'd feed the question to her and/or liberal cohorts before they asked it on-air (we know how these things work, lapdog media... the public's on to you) …

Discussion: Mediaite, Hot Air, Raw Story, Political Wire and Business Insider

Jason Howerton / TheBlaze.com:

MSNBC Panel Excoriates Hillary Over ‘Absolutely Disgusting’ Remarks: ‘If a Republican Did This, the World Would Come to a Halt’ — MSNBC's “Morning Joe” panel strongly criticized Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's comments comparing Republicans to terrorist groups over their views on women.

Discussion: The Hill

Bradford Richardson / The Hill:
GOP rips Clinton over ‘terrorist’ comparison

Discussion: Moe Lane, Wall Street Journal, BizPac Review, TheBlaze.com and LifeNews.com

John Stoehr / Washington Spectator:

The Prophetic President — How Jimmy Carter's 1977 voting reform proposals revealed the dark Id of conservative Republicanism — James Earl Carter is nearing the end. In an extraordinary press conference last week, the 39th president discussed his impending death from metastasizing liver cancer …

Discussion: Hullabaloo and Democratic Strategist

Rick Perlstein / Talking Points Memo:
Jimmy Carter: Prophetic President

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Orin Kerr / Washington Post:

A misleading story about Justice Thomas — The home page of the New York Times has this provocative link: — The story begins by presenting Justice Thomas as a real outlier: … It continues: … Sounds significant, right? The implication is that Justice Thomas is not doing his job.

Adam Liptak / New York Times:
Clarence Thomas, a Supreme Court Justice of Few Words, Some Not His Own

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Mediaite, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Weasel Zippers, Crime and Consequences Blog, RedState and National Review

Donald Devine / The American Conservative:

Donald Trump's Napoleon Moment — How America's “fatalists” drive the billionaire's seemingly unstoppable momentum. — Patrick Buchanan gets right to the core of the phenomenon called Donald Trump with his headline, “The Rebirth of Nationalism.” — Because of America's two-party system …

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit

Erik Ortiz / NBC News:

Owen Labrie, Former Student at Elite Prep School, Acquitted of Felony Sexual Assault — A former New Hampshire prep school student accused of raping a freshman girl as part of a campus tradition was acquitted Friday of the most serious charges against him. — Owen Labrie, now 19 …

Discussion: New York Times, ThinkProgress, WMUR, Boston Globe, Associated Press, Talking Points Memo, Fusion, Scared Monkeys, ABC News and Althouse

James Hibberd / EW.com:

THE WALKING DEAD TO SHOW AIRLINE ZOMBIE ATTACK IN STAND-ALONE SPECIAL — Exclusive: Mysterious new character to be introduced via stand-alone content — What if an episode of The Walking Dead was set on a passenger airliner before civilization had fallen?

Discussion: The Verge, Mashable and Wall Street Journal

Shawnmcginnis / KTLA:

Lake Elsinore Man Bitten While Taking Selfie With Rattlesnake — A Lake Elsinore man could lose his hand after being bitten by a rattlesnake he was holding and taking pictures with, family members said Thursday. — Alex Gomez found the 4 foot long snake behind his home on Monday and decided to pick it up.

Discussion: Weasel Zippers, FOX31 Denver and WTVR-TV

Catherine Thompson / Talking Points Memo:

‘Creeping Sharia’ Conspiracy Group Set To Sponsor Joint Cruz-Trump Rally In DC — A think tank founded by a notorious anti-Muslim activist is planning to co-sponsor an upcoming rally against the Iran deal headlined by Republican presidential candidates Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Donald Trump.

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog, Washington Monthly and Politichicks.com

Jonathan Karl / ABC News:

Bill Clinton Sought State Department OK For Paid Speeches Related to North Korea, Congo, New E-mails Show — ABC News has obtained State Department e-mails that shed light on Bill Clinton's lucrative speaking engagements and show he and the Clinton Foundation tried to get approval …

Discussion: Business Insider, Washington Post, The Daily Caller, Hot Air, CANNONFIRE, Outside the Beltway, Daily Mail, Mediaite, America Rising, Washington Free Beacon and The Mahablog

Brad Heath / USA Today:

Lawyers plan challenge to arrests based on secret cellphone tracking — Defense lawyers in Baltimore are examining nearly 2,000 cases in which the police secretly used powerful cellphone tracking devices, and they plan to ask judges to throw out “a large number” of criminal convictions as a result.

Discussion: Daily Kos, Daily Mail and Business Insider

Erick Erickson / Townhall.com:

RIP GOP — In 1854, confronted by the moral evil of slavery and the inability of the Whigs to provide clarity against it, the Republican Party formed. Whig Party leaders either shifted their party allegiances or quit politics altogether. Even Abraham Lincoln got out of politics for a time.

Discussion: Washington Monthly and Bearing Drift

Darren Sands / BuzzFeed:

DNC To Vote On Resolution Supporting Black Lives Matter — On Friday the party will vote on a resolution condemning “extrajudicial killings of unarmed African American men, women and children.” — Michael B. Thomas / Getty Images — The Democratic National Committee is expected on Friday …

Discussion: John Hawkins' Right Wing News and Weasel Zippers

Washington Post:
Black Lives Matter activists disrupt Bowser speech on how to stop killings

Discussion: Crime and Consequences Blog, US News, Power Line, Fusion and Weasel Zippers

Lawrence Hurley / Reuters:

U.S. court hands win to NSA over metadata collection challenge — A U.S. appeals court on Friday threw out a judge's ruling that would have blocked the National Security Agency from collecting phone metadata under a controversial program that has raised privacy concerns.

Discussion: Daily Kos and ThinkProgress

Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:
A D.C. appeals court has lifted an injunction against the NSA phone call records program

Discussion: Bloomberg Business, NPR, Common Dreams, Hot Air and Gizmodo

Philip Messing / New York Post:

Student ‘molested’ by TSA agent in LaGuardia bathroom — A college student was sexually molested at LaGuardia Airport by a uniformed TSA agent who demanded she go into a bathroom with him after she got off a flight so she could be searched for a weapon, sources told The Post.

Discussion: Gothamist, Daily Mail and Washington Free Beacon

Los Angeles Times:

Bison attack: Man ‘played dead’ to escape after being gored — Bleeding and flat on the ground, Chris Baker tried to play dead in hopes the huge bison that had just gored him would lose interest and wander off. — The animal sniffed, snorted and stood over Baker before finally trotting off.

Discussion: Daily Mail and CBS Los Angeles

New York Post:

Reporter's everyday comments deemed racist by on-air killer — Innocent comments made by slain reporter Alison Parker (left) incited Vester Lee Flanagon's racism fueled shooting. — ROANOKE, Va. — The words are a part of everyday conversation — “swinging” by an address and going out in the “field.”