memeorandum: HUD's Castro violated law with interview about Clinton (Vicki Needham/The Hill)

11:45 PM ET, July 18, 2016

Top Items:

Kyle Cheney / Politico:

Chaos erupts on GOP convention floor after voice vote shuts down Never Trump forces — CLEVELAND — The Republican party came within a whisker of reaching the unity it had long sought Monday. What it got instead was convention floor chaos. — After mounting for weeks …

Dylan Matthews / Vox:

An ex-senator called Trump backers “brownshirts,” in case you wondered how the RNC's going — Former Sen. Gordon Humphrey (R-NH) hasn't been a major national political figure for some time. While he was a leading conservative in the Senate from 1978 to 1990, he faded away after he declined …

Discussion: Weekly Standard and Mediaite

Nick Gass / Politico:

Trump dials into Fox to bash Kasich during convention action — As Pat Smith, the mother of one of the Americans killed in Benghazi tearfully addressed the Republican National Convention on Monday, Donald Trump phoned into Fox News host Bill O'Reilly's show and bashed John Kasich for not showing up to the confab.

Discussion: The Hill, ABC News, Daily Kos and Political Insider blog

Jonathan Easley / The Hill:

Trump fundraiser resigns in anger after floor eruption — CLEVELAND — A top donor raising money for Donald Trump — and the Republican National Committee says he has resigned in disgust after the party muscled through a vote on the convention floor that squashed the “Free the Delegates” movement.

Jenna Johnson / Washington Post:

Donald Trump just can't yield the spotlight — CLEVELAND — Patricia Smith stood on the stage of the Republican National Convention and emotionally blamed the death of her son in Benghazi, Libya, on Hillary Clinton. Suddenly, Fox News Channel cut away to interview the party's presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump.

Discussion: Politico, ABC News and The Hill

Meghan Keneally / ABC News:
5 Things to Know About Melania Trump

Discussion: Politico, Associated Press, KSNG-TV and Breitbart

Jonathan Martin / New York Times:
Trump Campaign Denounces John Kasich in Ohio, Where Convention Begins

Discussion: Politico, Associated Press, Washington Free Beacon, Daily Kos, LGBTQ Nation, Ohio Politics, alan.com, The Daily Caller, Politicus USA, Eschaton and Political Wire

Leon H. Wolf / RedState:
RNC - CHAOS in Cleveland. Chair IGNORES Successfully Filed Petition for Rules Committee Roll Call Vote (UPDATED)

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Washington Post, The Week and Raw Story

Allegra Kirkland / Talking Points Memo:
RNC Speaker Scott Baio Tweeted Meme Referring To Hillary Clinton As A C**t

Discussion: ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES and Rolling Stone

New York Times:
Scrambling, Planners of the Republican Convention Put ‘Showbiz’ Off to the Wings

Kyle Cheney / Politico:
Day 1: GOP civil war breaks out in Cleveland

Discussion: Repository and Washington Monthly

Ryan Struyk / ABC News:
Republican Convention Floor Erupts in Chaos as Never-Trump Forces Thwarted

Discussion: Washington Post, Politico, New York Daily News, Politicus USA, Joe.My.God., Associated Press and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Nick Gass / Politico:
Trump on Obama's police shooting response: 'Look at the body language. There's something going on'

Discussion: BizPac Review, John Hawkins' Right Wing News and Associated Press

Jennifer Jacobs / Bloomberg:
Convention Protests Will Probably Help Trump, Top Aide Says

Discussion: Politico, ABC News, Plain Dealer, Raw Story, Mediaite and Political Insider blog

BBC:

Germany axe attack: Assault on train in Wuerzburg — A teenage Afghan refugee armed with an axe and knife injured four people on a train in southern Germany before being shot dead by police, officials say. — Three people were seriously hurt and one suffered minor injuries in the attack in Wuerzburg, police said.

Discussion: The American Spectator, The Last Refuge, WNEP-TV, The Daily Caller, myfox8.com, The Week and WREG-TV

Daily Mail:
Horror as 19 people are hospitalised by 17-year-old Afghan refugee wielding an AXE and shouting …

Discussion: Power Line and Vox Popoli

Richard Wheatstone / Mirror.co.uk:
Germany train axe attack: Afghan teenage refugee shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ goes on bloody rampage hacking passengers

Discussion: The Local, The Atlantic, RT, Allen B. West, KTLA, Fox 59 and The Right Scoop

Telegraph:
German train ‘axe attack’: more than 20 reported to be injured

Discussion: Hot Air

Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:

Murdochs Have Decided to Remove Roger Ailes — the Only Question Now Is When — Roger Ailes's tenure as the head of Fox News may be coming to an end. Rupert Murdoch and sons Lachlan and James — co-chairmen and CEO, respectively, of parent company 21st Century Fox — have settled on removing …

Josh Rogin / Washington Post:

Trump campaign guts GOP's anti-Russia stance on Ukraine — The Trump campaign worked behind the scenes last week to make sure the new Republican platform won't call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces, contradicting the view of almost all Republican foreign policy leaders in Washington.

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Mediaite, Hot Air, New York Magazine and RedState

Scott Wong / The Hill:
Ryan: Trump ‘not my kind of conservative’

Discussion: Mediaite, Politico and Mashable

Fawn Johnson / Morning Consult:
The Party of Ronald Reagan Isn't So Sure About Itself Now

Discussion: Bloomberg and Red Alert Politics

Rebecca Ballhaus / Wall Street Journal:
Paul Ryan: Trump Not ‘My Kind of Conservative,’ But GOP Must Get Behind Him

Discussion: Politico

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:

And Here's Your First TrumpVention Debacle — I'm a pretty healthy guy. But I had a bad sinus headache this afternoon and went to rest in the TPM nap room. I left with boring speakers droning on the platform in Cleveland. I come back and all hell's broken loose.

Discussion: Hullabaloo

Tierney Sneed / Talking Points Memo:
Never Trumpers Denied Vote In Disruptive Early Moments Of Convention (VIDEO)

Discussion: BNR, Balloon Juice and Shakesville

Ben Kamisar / The Hill:
Anti-Trump delegates say they will force roll call vote on rules

Discussion: Washington Post and Politico

Philip Bump / Washington Post:

Rep. Steve King wonders what ‘sub-groups’ besides whites made contributions to civilization — Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) offered an unusual defense of the racial homogeneity of his party during a panel on MSNBC Monday evening. — The group, led by Chris Hayes, was discussing …

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Business Insider, Jezebel, Politicus USA, Towleroad and Mashable

Vicki Needham / The Hill:

HUD's Castro violated law with interview about Clinton — Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julián Castro violated a law that prohibits federal employees from making personal political statements while appearing in an official capacity, according to a new report.

George Jahn / Associated Press:

AP EXCLUSIVE: SECRET DOCUMENT EASES IRAN NUCLEAR CONSTRAINTS — VIENNA (AP) — Key restrictions on Iran's nuclear program imposed under an internationally negotiated deal will ease in slightly more than a decade, cutting the time Tehran would need to build a bomb to six months from present estimates …

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Washington Free Beacon, Jihad Watch, Hot Air, The Gateway Pundit, The Lid, Allen B. West, The Federalist and Independent Journal Review

Tammy Bush Mayo / Facebook:

My husband is a Deputy Sheriff in Lee County, Alabama and tonight a Deputy on his shift went into Taco Bell in Phenix City, AL and was told that they don't serve cops. A lady waiting for her food spoke up to say that she was about to ask for a refund because she didn't want to eat somewhere with a cop.

Discussion: WTVM-TV, Washington Post, John Hawkins' Right Wing News, Independent Journal Review, AOL, The Daily Caller and myfox8.com

Tim Mak / The Daily Beast:

Michelle Van Etten, Soon-to-Be RNC Star, Peddles Pills that Make Alex Jones ‘Crazed’ — A marketer who sells pills based on pseudoscience just landed a primetime speaking slot at the RNC. Among her fans: Infowars' Alex Jones, who says the supplements make him “crazed and aggressive.”

Discussion: New York Magazine, Guardian and Joe.My.God.

Brian Tashman / Right Wing Watch:
Alex Jones: Donald Trump Is Bringing Our Views Into The Mainstream

Discussion: Little Green Footballs

Clare Malone / FiveThirtyEight:

The End Of A Republican Party — Analysis by Harry Enten. — Research by David Nield. — Legend has it that after leveling Carthage in the Third Punic War, Roman army generals ordered that the city's fields be sown with salt so that they'd lie fallow for years, Roman generals …

Discussion: Little Green Footballs

Ryan Lizza / New Yorker:

The Libertarians' Secret Weapon — The third-party candidacy of Gary Johnson might make the most unpredictable election in modern times even weirder. — Not long ago, Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party's 2016 Presidential candidate, put a halt to his considerable consumption of marijuana.

Discussion: Hit & Run and Althouse