memeorandum: Rob Reiner, Morgan Freeman Help Launch Committee to Investigate Russia (Vladimir Kozlov/Hollywood Reporter)

9:40 PM ET, September 21, 2017

Top Items:

Haley Byrd / IJR:

Republicans Attempt to Buy Murkowski's Vote in New Draft of Health Care Bill — A Republican Senate aide told Independent Journal Review Thursday that Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) are attempting to buy Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski's support through new changes …

Discussion: Hit & Run, Washington Monthly, New York Magazine, Washington Post, Shareblue, Vox, The Daily Caller, ACA Signups, Axios and Political Wire

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation:

State-by-State Estimates of Changes in Federal Spending on Health Care Under the Graham-Cassidy Bill — A new health care bill recently introduced by a number of senators led by Senators Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy would repeal major elements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) …

Discussion: Daily Kos, Breitbart, Talking Points Memo, Vox, Washington Post, New York Times, Center For Children …, New York Magazine, FiveThirtyEight and No More Mister Nice Blog

Jennifer Haberkorn / Politico:
Alaska could get relief from Senate repeal bill's Medicaid cuts

Discussion: Vox, ABC News, Shareblue, The Hill, Washington Examiner, ThinkProgress, Politicus USA, The Week and Associated Press

Daniella Diaz / CNN:
CNN to host town hall debate Monday with Graham, Cassidy, Sanders and Klobuchar

Discussion: The Atlantic, Axios, Washington Free Beacon, KTLA and The Daily Beast

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
Cassidy-Graham could still blow up in the GOP's face. Here's how.

Margot Sanger-Katz / New York Times:
The G.O.P. Bill Forces States to Build Health Systems From Scratch. That's Hard.

Discussion: Washington Post, Daily Kos, New York Magazine, The Mahablog, Balloon Juice and NPR

Dylan Scott / Vox:
Graham-Cassidy needs to pass this final test before it can come to a vote

Discussion: Daily Kos, Whatever Source Derived, ABC News and Politico

Brian Galle / Whatever Source Derived:
The “Alaska Purchase” Is Probably Unconstitutional

Discussion: New York Magazine

Associated Press:

Kim Jong Un: ‘Deranged’ Trump will ‘pay dearly’ for threat — UNITED NATIONS — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called President Donald Trump “deranged” and said, in a statement carried by the state news agency, that the U.S. president will “pay dearly” for his threats.

Discussion: Axios and IJR

John Cassidy / New Yorker:

There is No Trump Doctrine, Only Contradictions and Bluster — The things our President says. At a lunch with African leaders on Wednesday, Donald Trump praised the continent's business potential by noting that many of his friends were “going to your countries to get rich.”

Discussion: CNN, Salon, The Nation, American Greatness, The Federalist, CNBC, Washington Post, The American Conservative, Hot Air, Wall Street Journal and Mediaite

Reuters:
China's central bank tells banks to stop doing business with North Korea: sources

Discussion: Fox News, The Guardian, The Daily Caller, IJR, Conservative News Today, The Atlantic, Fox News Insider, Talking Points Memo and Associated Press

David Nakamura / Washington Post:
Trump imposes new sanctions on North Korea, Kim says will ‘tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire’

Discussion: Mashable, RedState, Mediaite and New York Magazine

Rebecca Savransky / The Hill:
North Korea likens Trump's UN speech to sound of a ‘dog barking’

Discussion: USA Today and IJR

Joshua Berlinger / CNN:
North Korea: Trump's UN speech amounted to ‘the sound of a dog barking’

Discussion: WTVR-TV, KTLA and The Week

CNN:
Trump turns to sanctions, diplomacy on North Korea after threatening destruction

Discussion: Reuters, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Daily Wire and The Week

Mark Zuckerberg:

I just went live a minute ago. Here's what I said: — Today is my first day back in the office after taking parental leave. It was really special to be with Priscilla and August after she was born, and to get to spend some more time with Max. — While I was out on leave …

Discussion: The Daily Caller, NPR, New York Magazine, Mashable, The Verge, Gizmodo, Sunlight Foundation and Engadget, more at Mediagazer »

Colin Stretch / Facebook:
Facebook to Provide Congress With Ads Linked to Internet Research Agency

Discussion: CNNMoney, BuzzFeed, Mother Jones, The Guardian, GeekWire, Mashable, Engadget, The Verge, IJR, KTLA, The Week and Business Insider, more at Mediagazer »

Washington Post: Facebook to give Congress copies of 3,000 political ads bought through Russian accounts, reversing previous decision

Elliot Schrage / Facebook:
Hard Questions: More on Russian Ads

Discussion: CNNMoney, Axios, Talking Points Memo, Deadline and RT

Dan Diamond / Politico:

Price traveled by private plane at least 24 times — Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price has taken at least 24 flights on private charter planes at taxpayers' expense since early May, according to people with knowledge of his travel plans and a review of HHS documents.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Politicus USA, Washington Post, Mediaite, FierceHealthcare, baker, CNBC and New York Times

Maria Danilova / Associated Press:
On work trips, DeVos flies on her plane at own expense

Discussion: Politico, The Daily Caller and Hit & Run

Josh Dawsey / Politico:

Mueller requested phone records about Air Force One statement — The special counsel has also recently made requests for documents concerning a statement made by Sean Spicer in the days preceding James Comey's firing as FBI director. — Special counsel Robert Mueller has sought phone records concerning …

Discussion: The Hill, Daily Kos, Politicus USA, The Atlantic, Raw Story, Axios, Hullabaloo, IJR, Business Insider and AOL

Mike Allen / Axios:

Another potential Mueller honey pot: Spicer's notebooks — The Watergate resonance of the Bob Mueller probe rose this week with a CNN report that the special counsel has details of wiretaps of “former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election.”

Catherine Thorbecke / Yahoo:
Sean Spicer defends brief WH tenure: I 'don't think' I lied to American people

Discussion: Daily Wire, The Week, twitchy.com, Talking Points Memo, Axios, Political Wire and Mother Jones

Maxwell Tani / Business Insider:

Former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson offers epic apology after tweeting anti-Semitic story: ‘One should not tweet while moving’ — Valerie Plame Wilson offered another apology Thursday hours after tweeting an anti-Semitic article titled “America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars,” …

Discussion: twitchy.com and Instapundit

The Unz Review:
America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars

Discussion: RedState, IJR, Washington Free Beacon, The Federalist, The First Street Journal, NTK Network, The Daily Caller, CBS Los Angeles, JustOneMinute, Business Insider, Raw Story and Mediaite

Jonathan Capriel / Tampa Bay Times:

Tampa girl, 4, dies of gunshot reaching for candy — TAMPA — One day last week, 4-year-old Yanelly Zoller reached into her grandmother's purse looking for candy, her father says. — Instead, she found a gun. She accidently pulled the trigger and was shot in the chest.

Discussion: The Daily Caller, abc7ny.com, KTLA, PerezHilton, Raw Story, AOL and FOX40

Ken Belson / New York Times:

Aaron Hernandez Found to Have Severe C.T.E. — Aaron Hernandez, the former New England Patriots tight end who committed suicide in April while serving a life sentence for murder, was found to have a severe form of C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma …

Discussion: Deadspin, NPR, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Root, ProFootballTalk, New York Magazine and The Week

CNN:

Senate candidate Roy Moore in 2005: ‘Homosexual conduct should be illegal’ — STORY HIGHLIGHTS — (CNN)Roy Moore, a Republican US Senate candidate in Alabama, said in a 2005 interview that he believes “homosexual conduct” should be illegal. — Moore, a hardline conservative Christian …

Discussion: Business Insider, Booman Tribune, Washington Post, The Daily Caller and Mediaite

New York Times:

Skadden, Big New York Law Firm, Faces Questions on Work With Manafort — The Justice Department wants information about Skadden's work on behalf of a Russia-aligned former president of Ukraine. — September 21, 2017 — Mueller Seeks White House Documents Related to Trump's Actions as President

Discussion: Daily Kos, The Daily Caller, Talking Points Memo and Raw Story

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed:

Trump Supporters Quietly Built A Massive List With The Personal Information Of Thousands Of People — The list began traveling the dark corners of the internet around April as a scattered collection of names, addresses, phone numbers and social media accounts. It's now a massive organized database of thousands of people.

Discussion: Raw Story

New York Times:

Trump Poised to Drop Some Limits on Drone Strikes and Commando Raids — WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing to dismantle key Obama-era limits on drone strikes and commando raids outside conventional battlefields, according to officials familiar with internal deliberations.

Financial Times:

Steve Bannon held secret meeting in Beijing — Steve Bannon flew to Beijing last week for a secret meeting with the second most powerful Chinese Communist party official, less than a month after the former chief White House strategist declared that America was at “economic war with China”.

Discussion: Raw Story

Louis Nelson / Politico:

Poll: Trump sees slight uptick in approval rating — President Donald Trump's approval rating is on the upswing in a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday, matching a trend from other polls that also show the president's ratings inching upward.

Discussion: Outside the Beltway and National Review