memeorandum: Grassley concerned about FBI use of Trump ‘dossier’ in Russia investigation (Elana Schor/Politico)

7:50 PM ET, October 6, 2017

Top Items:

Jeff Sessions Just Issued New Guidance On Protecting “Religious Liberty” — The attorney general issued the guidance Friday. Critics have feared the policy may provide a loophole for discrimination. — Attorney General Jeff Sessions instructed federal agencies and attorneys on Friday …

Discussion: Hit & Run, Human Rights Campaign, Media Matters for America, The Daily Signal, Daily Kos, Towleroad, Common Dreams and Mashable

Washington Post:
Civil liberties groups decry Sessions's guidance on religious freedom

Discussion: The Atlantic, Hit & Run, Right Wing Watch, Washington Free Beacon, FiveThirtyEight, New York Times and LifeNews.com

Washington Post:
Trump administration narrows Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate

Discussion: Romper, IJR, Hit & Run, Conservative News Today, Business Insider, AOL, Refinery29, LifeNews.com, Mashable, Common Dreams and Townhall.com

Sarah Kliff / Vox:
Trump just officially made it easier for employers to stop covering birth control

Discussion: ABC News, ThinkProgress, NPR, Politico, BuzzFeed, Federal Register, The Daily Signal, The Root, Axios, Common Dreams, The Atlantic, Lawyers, Guns & Money and CNBC

ACLU:
ACLU Filing Lawsuit Challenging Trump Administration Contraceptive Coverage Rule

Discussion: BuzzFeed, Mother Jones, NWLC, BostonGlobe.com and Politicus USA

CNN:
Trump administration deals major blow to Obamacare birth control mandate

Discussion: WTVR-TV, Q13 FOX News, IJR, The Guardian, Friendly Atheist, Daily Wire and The Stranger …

Josh Gerstein / Politico:
Sessions outlines broad exemptions for religious freedom

Discussion: Refinery29

Bari Weiss / New York Times:

Will Liberals Give Weinstein the O'Reilly Treatment? — I'll never forget the one time I laid eyes on Harvey Weinstein outside the pages of Vanity Fair. It was at a movie premiere in Manhattan in 2014. My sister and I got up before the film started for a pre-emptive bathroom run.

Discussion: Variety, Business Insider, Washington Post, SARAH PALIN, thecut, Washington Free Beacon, The Guardian, NewsBusters and IJR, more at Mediagazer »

Daily Mail:

EXCLUSIVE: Hillary supporter Harvey Weinstein thinks a ‘right wing conspiracy out to get me’ is reason he has been revealed as serial sexual harasser — Harvey Weinstein believes the revelations of inappropriate sexual behaviour against him are part of a right-wing ‘conspiracy’ to take him down

Discussion: The Wrap, IJR, The Last Refuge, RedState, twitchy.com, Daily Wire, Washington Free Beacon, New York Times and Los Angeles Times, more at Mediagazer »

Marlow Stern / The Daily Beast:
Late-Night Comedy Shows Avoid Harvey Weinstein Allegations... for Now

Rebecca Traister / thecut:
Why the Harvey Weinstein Sexual-Harassment Allegations Didn't Come Out Until Now

Discussion: The Atlantic, Vox, The Daily Beast, neo-neocon, Washington Free Beacon, Jacobin, Variety, East Bay Times, twitchy.com, Axios, The Daily Caller, Breitbart, IndieWire, New York Times and Page Six, more at Mediagazer »

Alexandra Petri / Washington Post:
Harvey Weinstein and that ‘different time’ when hostile workplaces were totally okay

Discussion: John Hawkins' Right Wing News, The Daily Caller, The Atlantic, Vox, Conservative News Today, The Week, TheBlaze, Mediaite, Hollywood Reporter and Taylor Marsh

Dexter Filkins / New Yorker:

Rex Tillerson at the Breaking Point — Will Donald Trump let the Secretary of State do his job? — One afternoon in late September, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called a meeting of the six countries that came together in 2015 to limit Iran's nuclear-weapons program.

Discussion: Business Insider and Raw Story

Kaili Joy Gray / Shareblue:

Watch: Sarah Huckabee Sanders callously laughs at women who will lose their birth control — Donald Trump has utterly failed to deliver on his threat to repeal Obamacare and harm the millions of men and women who have health care because of it. So he's going to punish women directly instead.

Jordan Fabian / The Hill:

Trump: 'You'll find out' what ‘calm before the storm’ means … President Trump on Friday kept the public wondering about his cryptic warning regarding a “calm before the storm.” — “You'll find out,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked what he meant by his comment.

Discussion: RedState and Politico

Chris Cillizza / CNN:

Donald Trump is treating a potential war like a reality show cliffhanger — Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump hosted his top military brass and their spouses for dinner at the White House on Thursday night. The group posed for a photo. Then this exchange with reporters happened:

Discussion: Vox, The Daily Caller, The Root and WTVR-TV

Stephen Young / Dallas Observer:

Meet the Dallas Bartender Who Kicked Milo Yiannopoulos and Some Neo-Nazis Out of Her Bar … One night last spring, infamous right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos and Dallas' homegrown white nationalist, Richard Spencer, walked into a karaoke bar on Abrams Road in Lake Highlands.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, The Stranger …, Splinter, IndieWire, Right Wing Watch, Business Insider, New York Magazine, Mashable, IJR, ThinkProgress, The FADER, Media Matters for America, AOL and Raw Story, more at Mediagazer »

Ezra Klein / Vox:
Harvey Weinstein, Milo Yiannopoulos, and the era of unleashing

Discussion: New York Times, Slate and Washington Post

Martin Longman / Washington Monthly:
Bannon and Breitbart's Nazi Ties

Discussion: Dispatches From the …, Washington Post, The Guardian, New York Magazine and Reveal

NBC News:

Investigators Probing Whether Others Were in Las Vegas Gunman's Suite — Investigators are trying to determine whether someone else was in the Las Vegas gunman's hotel room when he was registered there, senior law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation told NBC News.

Discussion: Raw Story, Business Insider, Doug Ross, NBC News, Blue Lives Matter, TheBlaze, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Instapundit, AOL, twitchy.com, The Week, The Daily Caller, IJR and Daily Wire

CNN:
Las Vegas shooter took 20 cruises, some to foreign ports

Discussion: Geller Report, The Daily Caller and Daily Wire

Euan McKirdy / CNN:
Official: Las Vegas shooter tried to buy tracer rounds before massacre

Discussion: fox13now.com, WTVR-TV, Q13 FOX News, New York Times, Conservative News Today, FOX6Now.com and Townhall.com

Foreign Policy:

The FBI's New U.S. Terrorist Threat: ‘Black Identity Extremists’ — Law enforcement calls it a violent movement. Critics call it racist. — As white supremacists prepared to descend on Charlottesville, Virginia, in August, the FBI warned about a new movement that was violent, growing, and racially motivated.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Virginia Department …, Splinter, Raw Story, The Root and The Daily Caller

Mike Allen / Axios:

Scoop: CIA director Pompeo considered to replace Tillerson — Trump advisers and allies are floating the idea of replacing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with CIA Director Mike Pompeo, age 53 — someone who's already around the table in the Situation Room, and could make the switch without chaos.

Discussion: Politico, Washington Post, Raw Story, The Resurgent, Breitbart, Above the Law, Mediaite, Washington Examiner, AOL, Business Insider, Shakesville, BillMoyers.com, Mother Jones, New York Magazine, RedState, Joe.My.God., IJR and Daily Kos

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:

AIM will shut down after 20 years — It's a sad moment: AIM, AOL's long-running instant messenger service that was core to many people's first social experiences on the internet, will shut down once and for all on December 15th. AOL announced the shutdown today, acknowledging that people …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Boing Boing, thecut, The Week and The FADER, more at Techmeme »

Michael Albers / AOL INSTANT MESSENGER:
One Last Away Message

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Q13 FOX News, WPRI-TV, Engadget, The Verge and Romper

Elana Schor / Politico:

Grassley concerned about FBI use of Trump ‘dossier’ in Russia investigation — Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley on Friday asked the FBI to explain how foreign intelligence sharing has affected its use of an unverified dossier containing salacious allegations about President Donald Trump for its Russia investigation.

Discussion: Raw Story

Ken Dilanian / NBC News: Trump Dossier Author Is in Talks With Senate Intel Committee

BuzzFeed:

US Intelligence Unit Accused Of Illegally Spying On Americans' Financial Records — The Treasury Department's Office of Intelligence and Analysis has been illegally rifling through and filing away the private financial records of US citizens, Treasury employees alleged.

Discussion: Hit & Run and The Week

Jenny Beth Martin / The Hill:

Trump should show no mercy in terminating IRS's John Koskinen — BY JENNY BETH MARTIN, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 10/05/17 04:40 PM EDT THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL — The swamp grows. — It's so far beyond time for President Trump …

Philip Bump / Washington Post:

Nearly six dozen charter and military flights by Cabinet members, mapped — About a half-dozen members of President Trump's Cabinet, past and present, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on charter jets, military planes and other government aircraft for travel that often could have been undertaken …

Discussion: Raw Story and Mother Jones

Brady Dennis / Washington Post:
EPA inspector general now investigating Pruitt's use of military, private flights

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Alayna Treene / Axios:

Most Puerto Ricans still lack power — More than two weeks after Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico, the island is still far from recovered. Fewer than 1 in 8 Puerto Ricans have electricity, and roughly half of the island is still without drinking water.

Discussion: ABC News, Washington Post, The Atlantic and Common Dreams

Felix Contreras / NPR:
Lin-Manuel Miranda Explains How He Made His New Benefit Song For Puerto Rico

Discussion: Splinter, East Bay Times, San Bernardino Sun, Mediaite, Axios and Joe.My.God.

Associated Press:

AP-NORC Poll: Just 24 percent say US heading right direction — https://apnews.com/f7d770542f334a218398 b2f9b2ae1102 — Link copied! — WASHINGTON (AP) — Just 24 percent of Americans believe the country is heading in the right direction after a tumultuous stretch for President Donald Trump …

Discussion: The Guardian

Karen Berkowitz / Chicago Tribune:

Highland Park deli co-owner to leave family business after Vegas shooting tweet sparks outrage — Max's Deli in Highland Park has ousted co-owner Greg Morelli over a controversial tweet that was posted Monday after the mass shootings in Las Vegas. — Deli co-owner Joey Morelli released …

Discussion: Chicagoist, Raw Story and IJR

Tyisha Fernandes / WSB-TV:

Students given homework assignment to create mascot for Nazi party — GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. - Parents are concerned after they say middle school students were asked to create a mascot for the Nazi party as part of a homework assignment. — The assignment was given to sixth grade students at Shiloh Middle School in Snellville.

Discussion: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Boing Boing, Raw Story and The Root

Paul Lewis / The Guardian:

‘Our minds can be hijacked’: the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia — Paul Lewis reports on the Silicon Valley refuseniks who worry the race for human attention has created a world of perpetual distraction that could ultimately end in disaster

Discussion: Shakesville

Sam J. / twitchy.com:

BAKE THE CAKE?! Gay coffee shop owner refuses service to Christians, kicks them out (video) — What happened to bake the cake? Civil rights for these folks? — Or does that not count in this situation? … From theliberator.news: … So much tolerance for Christians, eh? … Bingo.

Discussion: RedState and The Daily Caller