Top Items:
David J. Shulkin / New York Times:
Privatizing the V.A. Will Hurt Veterans — It has been my greatest professional honor to serve our country's more than 20 million veterans. Almost three years ago, I left my private sector job running hospitals and came to Washington to repay my gratitude to the men and women who put their lives on the line for our country.
Discussion:
NPR, ABC News, The Atlantic, Politico, Little Green Footballs, Mother Jones, CNBC, Washington Monthly, Common Dreams, ThinkProgress, Sunlight Foundation, Washington Post, Vox, 89.3 KPCC, Defense One, AOL, IJR, Front Page Magazine, The Daily Caller, CBS Denver, Daily Kos, Shakesville, Raw Story, Breitbart, Media Matters for America, VICE News, Talking Points Memo, The Week, Axios and Outside the Beltway
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Jennifer Jacobs / Bloomberg:
Kelly Loses White House Clout as Trump Blazes Own Path — Chief of staff out of loop for several key recent decisions — President and top aide at times now on different wavelengths — White House Chief of Staff John Kelly has lost some of his clout following recent missteps …
Discussion:
Hullabaloo, RedState, Talking Points Memo, Mediaite, AOL, Daily Kos, The Week and Raw Story
Laurel Wamsley / NPR:
Fired VA Secretary Says White House Muzzled Him — Fired Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin tells NPR's Morning Edition that political forces in the Trump administration want to privatize the VA — and he was standing in the way. — “There are many political appointees in the VA …
Discussion:
VICE News, Outside the Beltway, Politico, The Daily Signal, The Daily Caller, Task & Purpose, Fox News, IJR, POLITICUSUSA and New York Magazine
Jen Kirby / Vox:
Ronny Jackson, Trump's pick for VA secretary, is an unknown quantity
Ronny Jackson, Trump's pick for VA secretary, is an unknown quantity
Discussion:
Politico, CNN, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Defense One, Joe.My.God., Splinter and Military Times
Rebecca Savransky / The Hill:
Shulkin after firing: ‘It should not be this hard to serve your country’
Shulkin after firing: ‘It should not be this hard to serve your country’
Discussion:
Fox News, IJR, CNBC, Joe.My.God. and NBC News
Dan Merica / CNN:
House Democrats call for FBI to probe into Kushner's ties to Saudi crown prince
House Democrats call for FBI to probe into Kushner's ties to Saudi crown prince
Discussion:
Daily Kos
Kevin Breuninger / CNBC:
TripAdvisor says it will stop ads for right-wing TV host Laura Ingraham after she criticized Parkland shooting survivor — Online travel website TripAdvisor said it will stop advertising on right-wing host Laura Ingraham's television show after she attacked a survivor of the February Parkland, Florida school shooting on Twitter.
Discussion:
Raw Story, The Hill, Silence is Consent, Vox, Sputnik International, Mother Jones, Breitbart, Bustle, twitchy.com, AOL, Mashable, TVNewser, Refinery29, IJR, Townhall.com, Joe.My.God., ThinkProgress, Hollywood Life, TheBlaze, Common Dreams, RedState, Washington Free Beacon, Axios, Washington Monthly and Mediaite
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Andrew Kirell / The Daily Beast:
Laura Ingraham Apologizes to Parkland Survivor as Advertisers Ditch Her Show … After right-wing star Laura Ingraham publicly mocked Parkland school-shooting survivor David Hogg for being rejected by multiple colleges, several companies have pulled their ads from her primetime Fox News show.
Discussion:
Mediaite, Media Matters for America, ThinkProgress, Lawyers, Guns & Money, twitchy.com, Splinter and Salon
Daniel Victor / New York Times:
Laura Ingraham, Facing Boycott, Apologizes for Taunting Parkland Survivor David Hogg — Laura Ingraham, a Fox News host, apologized under pressure on Thursday for taunting a survivor of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., as three companies confirmed they would pull advertising from her show.
Discussion:
Washington Post, National Review, The Hill, Joe.My.God., Washington Times, RedState, TMZ.com, Mediaite, Common Dreams, twitchy.com, CBS Denver, TheBlaze, AOL, IJR, TVNewser, Washington Free Beacon, PerezHilton and Breitbart
Mark Hosenball / Reuters:
Mueller probing Russia contacts at Republican convention: sources — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Investigators probing whether Donald Trump's presidential campaign colluded with Russia have been questioning witnesses about events at the 2016 Republican National Convention, according to two sources familiar …
Discussion:
RedState, Talking Points Memo, The Daily Beast and Political Wire
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Laura Jarrett / CNN:
Sessions names prosecutor investigating claims of FBI misconduct but declines to appoint special counsel — Washington (CNN)Attorney General Jeff Sessions revealed Thursday that Utah's top federal prosecutor, John Huber, is investigating a cluster of Republican-driven accusations against the FBI …
Discussion:
The Atlantic, Fox News, Axios, The Gateway Pundit, The Week, Power Line and CBS News
Molly Ball / TIME:
Jeff Sessions Is Winning for Donald Trump. If Only He Can Keep His Job — Sessions greets law-enforcement officers in Kentucky. “The fundamental question is, Who rules the streets?” the U.S. Attorney General says. “The government or the outlaws?” Philip Montgomery for TIME
Discussion:
The Gateway Pundit, Towleroad, The Week, The Daily Caller, Talking Points Memo and Mediaite
CNN:
Source: Mueller pushed for Gates' help on collusion — Ex-Trump campaign aide Rick Gates pleads guilty — (CNN)Special counsel Robert Mueller's team last year made clear it wanted former Trump campaign deputy Rick Gates' help, not so much against his former business partner Paul Manafort …
Discussion:
Political Wire, Raw Story, Daily Kos and Washington Post
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Harry Litman / Washington Post:
We may know why Paul Manafort has kept quiet. But his bet is still risky.
We may know why Paul Manafort has kept quiet. But his bet is still risky.
Discussion:
VICE News, The Daily Beast and Raw Story
John Santucci / ABC News:
EXCLUSIVE: More cabinet trouble for Trump? EPA chief lived in condo tied to lobbyist ‘power couple’ — For much of his first year in Washington, President Trump's EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt occupied prime real estate in a townhouse near the U.S. Capitol that is co-owned by the wife …
Discussion:
williamsandjensen.com, Politico, The Guardian, Raw Story, Splinter, Talking Points Memo, The Week, Eschaton and Jezebel
Michael W. Chapman / CNSNews:
Pope Francis: ‘There Is No Hell’ … In another interview with his longtime atheist friend, Eugenio Scalfari, Pope Francis claims that Hell does not exist and that condemned souls just “disappear.” This is a denial of the 2,000-year-old teaching of the Catholic Church about the reality of Hell and the eternal existence of the soul.
Discussion:
RT, The Daily Caller and The Western Journal
Sun-Sentinel:
Crazed girls flood Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz with fan mail — Sun Sentinel — Mass murderer Nikolas Cruz is getting stacks of fan mail and love letters sent to the Broward County jail, along with hundreds of dollars in contributions to his commissary account.
Discussion:
RedState, Daily Wire, AOL, TheBlaze, The Daily Caller, Fox17, The Root, IJR, CBS Miami, WNEP-TV and Law & Crime
Richard Pérez-Peña / New York Times:
Russia Will Expel 150 Diplomats, as Tensions With West Reach Fever Pitch — LONDON — Intensifying Russia's clash with Europe and the United States, the Kremlin on Thursday announced that it would expel 150 Western diplomats and close the American consulate in St. Petersburg.
Discussion:
New York Magazine, Shakesville, Outside the Beltway and The Week
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Anders Aslund / Washington Post:
It's time to go after Vladimir Putin's money in the West
Betsy Woodruff / The Daily Beast:
ICE Now Detaining Pregnant Women, Thanks to Trump Order … Immigration and Customs Enforcement is ending its practice of automatically releasing pregnant women from detention, according to internal communications reviewed by The Daily Beast. — This is because of President Donald Trump's executive order …
Discussion:
CNN, ICE, Talking Points Memo, Law & Crime, Shakesville, Jezebel and Splinter
RELATED:
Rafael Bernal / The Hill:
ICE will detain pregnant women, ending previous policy
ICE will detain pregnant women, ending previous policy
Discussion:
HuffPost, Common Dreams, The Week and thecut
Ari Berman / Mother Jones:
It Took 3 Different Court Orders for Scott Walker To Finally Hold Constitutionally Required Elections — After months of delay and Republican attempts to defy court orders, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker finally agreed to schedule special elections to fill vacant two state legislative seats.
Discussion:
Axios, The Nation, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Talking Points Memo, WisPolitics, POLITICUSUSA, Daily Kos and The Mahablog
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Damian Paletta / Washington Post:
Trouble in candy land — How Peeps, pensions and a lawsuit threaten to upend the American retirement system — On April 1, hundreds of millions of marshmallow chicks and bunnies called Peeps will peer out from Easter baskets at American children. — They are a pastel symbol of Easter joy …
Brendan O'Connor / Splinter:
The Fascist Right Is Bloodied and Soiled — Recently, on a cold, gray Monday afternoon in East Lansing, Michigan, about 500 militant anti-fascists gathered in a parking lot with the intention of stopping Richard Spencer, the high-profile white nationalist, from speaking at Michigan State University.
RELATED:
Burgess Everett / Politico:
Exclusive: Russian ambassador pleads for help in securing Washington meetings — Congressional leaders won't meet with him. Neither will the vice president or the White House chief of staff. — And the Russian ambassador says he is at his wit's end. — In a letter to Sen. Orrin Hatch …
New York Times:
E.P.A. Prepares to Roll Back Rules Requiring Cars to Be Cleaner and More Efficient — The Trump administration is expected to launch an effort in coming days to weaken greenhouse gas emissions and fuel economy standards for automobiles, handing a victory to car manufacturers and giving …
Discussion:
ThinkProgress and The Daily Caller
Jon Swaine / The Guardian:
FBI looked into Trump plans to build hotel in Latvia with Putin supporter — Exclusive: US authorities made inquiries even before 2016 election campaign into Trump property dealings in former Soviet Union … They wanted to build the Las Vegas of the Baltics.
Discussion:
Sputnik International and Raw Story
Helaine Olen / Washington Post:
Fake Kirsten Gillibrand flap reveals double standard in our politics — Here's a sentence I never thought I would need to write: Kirsten Gillibrand is not involved in a sex scandal. — Now I've got your attention, right? — That I even need to devote a blog post to this topic is evidence …
Discussion:
Slate, Lawyers, Guns & Money and Infowars
Scott Rosenberg / Axios:
Media vs. Facebook: This time it's personal — Facebook and Google execs privately complain about the barrage of critical coverage they face, charging that media companies have a financial incentive to attack them and that media execs are settling scores. They're right.
Discussion:
New York Magazine and Scripting News, more at Mediagazer »
Chloe Aiello / CNBC:
Under Armour says data breach affected about 150 million MyFitnessPal accounts — The breach affected an estimated 150 million users of its food and nutrition application, MyFitnessPal. — The investigation indicates that affected information may include usernames, email addresses, and hashed passwords.
Discussion:
The Verge, more at Techmeme »
Dave Itzkoff / New York Times:
Kathy Griffin Is Returning to TV, and Still Taking on Trump — Almost a year after Kathy Griffin appeared in a widely condemned photograph that depicted her holding the severed head of President Trump, this comedian and actress is making a TV comeback of sorts.
CBS Sacramento:
Sacramento Home For Sale, But Not To Trump Supporters — SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A Sacramento area home is up for sale, but it comes with a catch. — The homeowner has a political preference in mind for the next owner of her house, which has been in her family for decades.
Discussion:
Daily Wire, The Gateway Pundit, Breitbart, Raw Story and TheBlaze
TMZ.com:
Larry King Says the Second Amendment Was Created to Fight Off Slave Uprisings — Larry King has an interesting tidbit for why the Second Amendment should be repealed — and it's got to do with what he says is the real reason it was created ... to fight off slaves.
Kyle Kondik / Sabato's Crystal Ball:
The House Exodus — How the historically high number of open seats affects the November calculus — KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — As of this writing, just 379 of 435 House districts will have incumbents running in them this November. That's the second-lowest total of the post-World War II era.
Carol Morello / Washington Post:
More than 200 former diplomats are alarmed at the state of American diplomacy … More than 200 former U.S. ambassadors and veteran diplomats have signed a letter expressing alarm over the slide in U.S. leadership in the world and urging senators to grill Mike Pompeo about his plans to reverse …
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo