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:
Vox, CNN, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Politico, 89.3 KPCC, Talking Points Memo, IJR, Sunlight Foundation, Axios, Defense One, Shakesville, AOL, CNBC, Breitbart, Political Wire, Media Matters for America, Raw Story, Daily Kos, The Week, New York Magazine, WGN-TV, Mediaite and NPR
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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:
RedState, Talking Points Memo, The Week, Raw Story, Task & Purpose and Military Times
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 …
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:
Mother Jones and Daily Kos
New York Times:
Trump Rings Up Roseanne Barr After Her Show Is a Ratings Winner — President Trump made a personal phone call on Wednesday to a political supporter with a huge megaphone — Roseanne Barr. — Mr. Trump called Ms. Barr to congratulate her on the revival of her comedy, “Roseanne,” and to thank her for her support.
Discussion:
ABC News, Breitbart, PinkNews, Talking Points Memo, Fox News Insider, Mashable, VICE News, IJR, IndieWire, Axios, TheBlaze, Political Wire, AOL, Towleroad, The Week, Raw Story, The Daily Caller, CNNMoney, Jezebel, Washington Free Beacon, Mediaite, Joe.My.God. and news.avclub.com
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Nellie Andreeva / Deadline:
‘Roseanne’ Revival's Huge Debut Stuns Hollywood, Prompts Soul-Searching
‘Roseanne’ Revival's Huge Debut Stuns Hollywood, Prompts Soul-Searching
Discussion:
The Last Tradition
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:
Talking Points Memo, The Gateway Pundit, The Daily Caller and Mediaite
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 …
Associated Press:
Rival Korean leaders to meet April 27 in historic summit — PAJU, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in at a border village on April 27, the South announced Thursday, for a rare summit that could prove significant in global efforts …
Discussion:
The Daily Caller, Japan Times and The Week
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Olivia Nuzzi / New York Magazine:
Inside the Cutthroat Battle to Be the Next Hope Hicks — Hope Hicks plans to depart Washington by Good Friday, over a month after she resigned as the White House communications director on February 28. She will leave behind a press operation that is inherently broken …
Discussion:
Washington Post, Politico, Mediaite, No More Mister Nice Blog, CBS News and The Week
Harry Litman / Washington Post:
We may know why Paul Manafort has kept quiet. But his bet is still risky. — Harry Litman practices law at the firm Constantine Cannon and teaches constitutional law at the University of California at San Diego. He served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department …
Discussion:
The Daily Beast, Just Security and Raw Story
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
Aaron Blake / Washington Post:
We finally got an answer about whether Trump knew about the Stormy Daniels payment … The White House and Michael Cohen have spent weeks declining to answer a basic question: Was President Trump involved in the $130,000 hush-money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels? — Well, we finally have a denial.
Discussion:
CNN, Raw Story, AOL and twitchy.com
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Dave Levinthal / Center for Public Integrity:
Stormy Daniels' payoff an illegal contribution? FEC ruling could take years
Stormy Daniels' payoff an illegal contribution? FEC ruling could take years
Discussion:
American Thinker
Jason Stein / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Gov. Scott Walker calls special elections and Senate leader drops bill to sidestep court order — MADISON - After a three-month delay, a lightning-quick lawsuit and three orders from as many judges, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker called two special elections Thursday and GOP senators dropped legislation to block the contests.
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Gregory Katz / Talking Points Memo:
Walker To Schedule WI Special Elections After Deciding Against Appeal To Delay
Walker To Schedule WI Special Elections After Deciding Against Appeal To Delay
Discussion:
WTMJ, The Hill and Balloon Juice
Carly Wanna / Yale Daily News:
Jeb fires Trump barbs at Yale talk — Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush's psychiatrist wants him to move past the 2016 presidential election. — “I'm not going to talk about the 2016 election,” Bush joked on Tuesday in a talk sponsored by the The William F. Buckley, Jr. Program at Yale.
Discussion:
Washington Post, Washington Times, Politico, Breitbart, IJR, Splinter, Bustle, Raw Story, The Daily Caller, thecut, 105.9 FM and AM 630, AOL, The Week and Mediaite
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Jacqueline Thomsen / The Hill:
Jeb Bush hits Trump: I go home to children ‘who actually love me’
Jeb Bush hits Trump: I go home to children ‘who actually love me’
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, twitchy.com, IJR, Political Wire, Splinter and Mediaite
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:
The Daily Caller, Law & Crime, Fox17 and Joe.My.God.
Kevin Johnson / USA Today:
64% of assailants in mass attacks suffered from symptoms of mental illness, Secret Service report finds — WASHINGTON — A striking number of suspects linked to violent attacks in schools and other public places last year were stalked by symptoms of mental illness and nearly half were motivated …
Discussion:
Shakesville
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.
Discussion:
The Week, Fox News Insider, IJR, American Greatness, Washington Post and Washington Free Beacon
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:
Axios
The A.V. Club / news.avclub.com:
Onion Inc. has unionized — We've decided to form a union here at Onion Inc., home of The A.V. Club and our sister sites The Onion and ClickHole. First, all of The A.V. Club staff, along with an overwhelming majority of Onion Inc. staff, signed cards signaling our desire to unionize.
The Daily Beast:
Tom Steyer's Impeachment Campaign Is Building Him a Political Death Star … Ask a professional Democrat for his or her opinion on billionaire political donor Tom Steyer, and the answer you often get is a variation of the following: Why would someone with so much money spend it all on a fruitless attempt to impeach Donald Trump?
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.
Jason Schwartz / Politico:
Ben Shapiro to take his podcast to radio — A favorite of young conservatives enters a talk-radio world dominated by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. — Ben Shapiro, the conservative firebrand whose clashes with liberal academia have helped him attract a huge social media following, will be taking his podcast to old-fashioned radio.
Discussion:
RedState and NewsBusters
New York Times:
‘Kiss Up, Kick Down’: Those Recalling Bolton's U.N. Confirmation Process Say He Hasn't Changed — WASHINGTON — The last time — perhaps the only time — John R. Bolton inspired bipartisan agreement, it was over the shared conclusion that he was perhaps the least diplomatic personality …
Discussion:
Common Dreams
Dana Hull / Bloomberg:
Tesla Urges Workers to Prove the ‘Haters’ Wrong and Ramp Up Production — Some Model S and X workers may switch to Model 3 line Friday — Reaching goal would be ‘incredible victory,’ executive says — Tesla Inc. is pulling out all the stops to hit its production goals …
Discussion:
The Daily Caller
Zachary Fryer-Biggs / Vox:
“Otherwise, they subpoena”: White House lawyer Ty Cobb on why Trump is cooperating with Mueller — Vox speaks with the White House's top Russia lawyer. — White House lawyer Ty Cobb has one of the hardest jobs in Washington: persuading President Trump to continue cooperating …
Osita Nwanevu / Slate:
It's Time to Stop Yammering About Liberal Bias — We're now several days into a roiling debate over whether liberals ought to be upset that the Atlantic hired a man who once argued that a quarter of American women should be executed. Predictably, both sides have progressed from that specific …
Discussion:
alicublog, National Review, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Federalist and thecut
Washington Post:
'You're a mother': Laura Ingraham faces boycott for taunting Parkland teen over college rejections … Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg is calling for advertisers to boycott Laura Ingraham's show after the Fox News host taunted the high school senior over his college rejections.
Discussion:
PerezHilton, New York Daily News and ThinkProgress
Steve Gardner / USA Today:
Los Angeles Rams' male cheerleaders make NFL history — SportsPulse: NFL owners voted on Tuesday to overturn the league's confusing catch rule, but will the new verbiage make a difference? USA TODAY Sports' Mike Jones thinks so. USA TODAY Sports — CONNECT
Discussion:
ABC News, CBS Los Angeles and TheBlaze
Jason Schwartz / Politico:
Conservative outlets take on Facebook — Add another item to Facebook's growing list of headaches: Conservative publishers are complaining that the social media network has unfairly targeted their traffic. — In January, Facebook announced that it would be changing the algorithm for its newsfeed …
Discussion:
Splinter, more at Mediagazer »
Richard Johnson / Page Six:
James Comey cashing in after being fired by Trump — Getting fired by President Trump was the best thing that ever happened to James Comey — at least financially. — The former FBI director — who never made more than a bureaucrat's salary in law enforcement — already …
Dominic Gates / The Seattle Times:
Boeing hit by WannaCry virus, but says no impact on jet production — Boeing was hit by the WannaCry computer virus Wednesday, initially raising fears within the company that airplane production could be affected. Later Boeing played down the impact and called it a “limited intrusion” with production unaffected.
Discussion:
Investor's Business Daily, New York Times, The Daily Caller, Gizmodo, The Week and The Verge, more at Techmeme »
Missy Ryan / Washington Post:
After a long wait, World War II spy service honored for daring acts that helped secure Allied victory … For former military pilot John Billings, the commendation he received on Capitol Hill last week was welcome but late. Seventy-three years late, to be exact.
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.