memeorandum: Pastor to drop lawsuit against Whole Foods over anti-gay slur on cake (Austin American-Statesman)

3:40 PM ET, May 16, 2016

Top Items:

Grassley's court maneuver threatens his legacy, reputation — In late February, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley was taking increasing fire for his refusal to hold hearings to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He dismissed questions about the impact the public uproar might have on his legacy.

Discussion: Washington Monthly and Media Matters for America

Tierney Sneed / Talking Points Memo:

BREAKING: SCOTUS Punts On Obamacare Contraceptive Case — In a surprise move Monday, the Supreme Court punted on a major Obamacare case challenging the law's contraceptive mandate, and specifically, how it accommodates religious nonprofits that object to birth control.

Discussion: Daily Kos and The Week

Lawrence Hurley / Reuters:
U.S. top court tosses rulings backing Obamacare contraception coverage

Discussion: Infowars and John Hawkins' Right Wing News

Jennifer Haberkorn / Politico:
Supreme Court asks for Obamacare birth control compromise

Discussion: Mother Jones, ABC News and Washington Post

Sarah Ferris / The Hill:
Supreme Court calls for compromise on contraceptive mandate

Discussion: RedState

Patrick Healy / New York Times:

Little Is Off Limits as Donald Trump Plans Attacks on Hillary Clinton's Character — Donald J. Trump plans to throw Bill Clinton's infidelities in Hillary Clinton's face on live television during the presidential debates this fall, questioning whether she enabled his behavior and sought to discredit the women involved.

Discussion: Washington Post, No More Mister Nice Blog, Washington Free Beacon, Mediaite, Blue Nation Review, NBC News, The Week and Washington Monthly

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:

How the Clinton team will go after Donald Trump — Can Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in part by laying out a programmatic economic agenda that is designed to make a concrete difference in Americans' lives? Or does that risk being too conventional an approach that fails to reckon with the unpredictable nature of Trump's appeal?

Discussion: The Daily Beast, CBS News and Althouse

New York Times:
Inside Donald Trump's Plans to Attack the Clintons, and Why They Might Fail

Discussion: Daily Kos

Jessie Hellmann / The Hill:
Clinton: I'd put Bill ‘in charge of revitalizing the economy’

Discussion: RedState, Forbes, John Hawkins' Right Wing News, Hot Air, New York Times, TPNN, ABC News, BizPac Review and Politico

CNN:

Trump: London mayor made ‘very rude statements’ about me — (CNN)Donald Trump said Monday London's new mayor made “very rude statements” about him — and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee warned he won't have a good relationship with British Prime Minister David Cameron if he's elected.

Discussion: Mother Jones, The Gateway Pundit and Mediaite

Reuters: Donald Trump Slams Cameron And Khan On Islam Comments: 'Don't Pretend It's Not A Problem'

Donald Trump / ITV:
Trump warns of poor relationship with Cameron over PM's refusal to withdraw ‘divisive, stupid and wrong’ comment

Discussion: ThinkProgress, New York Times, Politico, Guardian, Washington Times and Mashable

Ruth Davidson / The ITV Hub:
It can't be good if Donald Trump is US President

Discussion: NBC News, Reuters, Politico, Guardian, Washington Post, Washington Times and The Daily Caller

Mirror.co.uk:
Donald Trump slams Sadiq Khan and warns he may not have ‘good relationship’ with David Cameron

Discussion: alan.com

People.com:

Inside Donald Trump's '91 Apology for Pretending to Be His Own Spokesman - How Marla Maples Shamed Him Into Fessing Up — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump flatly denied Friday that he posed as his own spokesman during a June 26, 1991, phone call to then-PEOPLE reporter Sue Carswell …

Discussion: WhoWhatWhy

Nathan McDermott / BuzzFeed:
Trump Ally Roger Stone Admits That Trump Posed As His Own PR Man

Discussion: Political Wire, Washington Post and American Prospect

Michael Falcone / ABC News:
The Note: More Troubles for Trump

Discussion: Politico and FiveThirtyEight

Jillian Kay Melchior / Heat Street:

BREAKING: Burlington College Closes Due To “Crushing Weight of Debt” Acquired By Jane Sanders — Burlington College announced today that it will close on May 27 after it found itself unable to recover from “the crushing weight of the debt” incurred under Jane O'Meara Sanders, the college's former president and wife of Bernie Sanders.

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit

Zach Despart / Burlington Free Press:
Burlington College to shut down programs

Discussion: Politico, Washington Post and The Week

Austin American-Statesman:

Pastor to drop lawsuit against Whole Foods over anti-gay slur on cake — The man who accused Whole Foods Market of writing a homophobic slur on a cake will drop a lawsuit against the grocery chain. — “The company did nothing wrong,” Pastor Jordan Brown said in a statement.

Discussion: New York Times and Raw Story

Sinead O'Connor / TMZ.com:

Missing, Possibly ‘Suicidal’ — Sinead O'Connor has gone missing, and police have reason to believe she's at risk of suicide. — The singer went out on a bicycle ride Sunday around 1 PM in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette, and has not been seen since. Someone called cops to report …

Discussion: Chicago Tribune, Mediaite, KTLA, Raw Story, AOL, WREG-TV, WGN-TV and Fox 59

Maria Puente / USA Today:
Police in Chicago suburb looking for missing Sinead O'Connor

Discussion: The Week and The Daily Caller

David Horowitz / Breitbart:

Bill Kristol: Republican Spoiler, Renegade Jew — While millions of Republican primary voters have chosen Donald Trump as the party's nominee, Bill Kristol and a small but well-heeled group of Washington insiders are preparing a third party effort to block Trump's path to the White House.

Discussion: Front Page Magazine, Slate, neo-neocon, Talking Points Memo, Washington Post, Mother Jones, The Daily Caller, The Federalist Papers, The American Spectator and The Week

Heidi M Przybyla / USA Today:

Clinton team looking for a VP who will be fighter, excite Sanders supporters — Hillary Clinton is considering a running mate who could make a direct appeal to supporters of Bernie Sanders, bridging a generational and political divide, according to four people close to the campaign.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, The Week and Los Angeles Times

Goldie Taylor / The Daily Beast:
Wendell Pierce of ‘The Wire’ Arrested After Fight Over Bernie Sanders

Discussion: Washington Post, The Daily Caller, Radio and TV Talk, Chicago Tribune, Heat Street, AOL, New York Magazine, Truth Revolt, Independent Journal …, TMZ.com, ABC News, Drudge Retort, Raw Story, Liberty Unyielding and LawNewz

National Review:

Exclusive: In Koch World ‘Realignment,’ Less National Politics — On a frigid Tuesday in February, a team of top political operatives from the Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the umbrella group that controls political activities for the sprawling donor network led by billionaire industrialists Charles …

Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D. / Breitbart:

Princeton Prof: Transgenderism Not Scientific, ‘Superstitious Belief’ — A noted Princeton University professor has attacked the very notion of transgenderism, saying that the belief “that a woman can be trapped inside a man's body” is ludicrous and superstitious, with no basis in medical fact.

Discussion: John Hawkins' Right Wing News, The Federalist Papers and The Daily Caller

Denise Grady / New York Times:

Man Receives First Penis Transplant in the United States — A man whose penis was removed because of cancer has received the first penis transplant in the United States, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. — Thomas Manning, 64, a bank courier from Halifax, Mass., underwent the 15-hour transplant operation on May 8 and 9.

Discussion: The Atlantic, USA Today, CNN, The Week, Mental Floss, Independent Journal …, KFOR-TV, Gizmodo, STAT, The Verge, Washington Post, CBS New York and Clash Daily

Nick Gass / Politico:

Former Trump girlfriend hits back at ‘upsetting’ NYT cover story — The New York Times' article published Saturday with the headline “Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private” begins with an anecdote from a woman named Rowanne Brewer Lane, who as a 26-year-old model …

Michael Isikoff / Yahoo:

Senate report on CIA torture is one step closer to disappearing — CIA Director John Brennan, Sen. Dianne Feinstein. (Photo Illustration: Yahoo News; photos: AP, Reuters) — The CIA inspector general's office — the spy agency's internal watchdog — has acknowledged it “mistakenly” …

Discussion: New Republic, Daily Kos, Techdirt, Mediaite and Hit & Run

Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:

Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit — Company said to make the change in next couple of weeks — CEO Jack Dorsey aims to make it easier to compose tweets — Twitter Inc. will soon stop counting photos and links in their 140-character limit for tweets, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Discussion: VentureBeat and Gizmodo

Caitlin Yilek / The Hill:

Trump on Warren: ‘You mean Pocahontas?’ — Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump — is not reining in his attacks against Sen. Elizabeth Warren — (D-Mass.). — When New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd asked Trump if “he had been chided by any Republicans” …

Discussion: Daily Kos and RedState

Charles M. Blow / New York Times:

Trump's Asymmetric Warfare — It has been somewhat fascinating and sometimes fun to watch Elizabeth Warren do battle with Donald Trump in alternating salvos of tweets, but in the end I fear that this approach of trying to “beat a bully,” as Warren put it in one of her tweets, is a futile effort.

Discussion: Daily Kos