Top Items:
Paul Wood / BBC:
Trump lawyer ‘paid by Ukraine’ to arrange White House talks — Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, received a secret payment of at least $400,000 to fix talks between the Ukrainian president and President Trump, according to sources in Kiev close to those involved.
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, New York Times, Axios, Spectator USA, CNBC, New York Magazine, VICE News, Mediaite and Daily Kos
Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:
Trump's FBI Spy Theory Is Completely Insane — In the face of widening evidence of Trump campaign culpability in the Russia investigation, Republicans have churned through a frequently mutating series of conspiracy theories to defend him. The latest, and possibly final, such theory …
Discussion:
Washington Post, Mother Jones, The Gateway Pundit, NPR, Talking Points Memo and Fox News Insider
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Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
Trump is spinning desperately to distract from his corruption. Democrats should say so. — THE MORNING PLUM: — This morning, President Trump uncorked a series of tweets about how the “Corrupt Deep State” has been caught in a “major SPY scandal” that could prove to be “one of the biggest political scandals in history.”
Discussion:
NBC News, Talking Points Memo, ABC News, ThinkProgress and The Guardian
Steven Shepard / Politico:
Poll: Trump reelection bid begins in a hole — Just 36 percent say they would vote to reelect the president in 2020, compared with 44 percent who would pick the Democrat. — The 2020 presidential election is still two and a half years away, but President Donald Trump's path to a second term …
Discussion:
Breitbart, Vox, Washington Post, ABC News, Axios and Political Wire
Alex Roarty / McClatchy Washington Bureau:
Dem operatives craft Trump-Mueller message for 2018 elections
Josh Feldman / Mediaite:
Comey Rips Trump's ‘Attacks’ on the FBI: ‘How Will Republicans Explain This to Their Grandchildren?’
Comey Rips Trump's ‘Attacks’ on the FBI: ‘How Will Republicans Explain This to Their Grandchildren?’
Discussion:
National Review, CNN, Politico and Axios
Matt Apuzzo / New York Times:
Jared Kushner Gets Security Clearance, Ending Swirl of Questions Over Delay — WASHINGTON — Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and adviser, has been granted his permanent security clearance, a person briefed on the matter said on Wednesday, ending a period of uncertainty …
Matthew Yglesias / Vox:
Most Americans don't realize Robert Mueller's investigation has uncovered crimes — 17 indictments and five guilty pleas so far. — A majority of Americans — 59 percent — say in a new survey that Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia and the 2016 campaign has not yet uncovered evidence …
Discussion:
Political Wire
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David Ignatius / Washington Post:
Stefan Halper is just another middleman
Stefan Halper is just another middleman
Discussion:
National Review and Axios
Victor Mather / New York Times:
N.F.L. Teams Will Be Fined for Players' Anthem Kneeling — The owners of N.F.L. teams agreed on Wednesday to a new policy for player conduct during the playing of the national anthem, an issue that escalated last season into a national debate that involved President Trump.
Discussion:
National Review, Common Dreams, Raw Story, Washington Free Beacon, The Nation, CBS San Francisco and twitchy.com
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Mark Maske / Washington Post:
NFL owners approve new national anthem policy with hope of ending protests
NFL owners approve new national anthem policy with hope of ending protests
Discussion:
Joe.My.God.
Emily Rauhala / Washington Post:
State Department warns U.S. citizens in China after employee suffers possible sonic attack — BEIJING — The U.S. State Department is warning U.S. citizens in China that a government employee reported unusual “sensations of sound and pressure” and was later diagnosed with a mild traumatic brain injury …
Discussion:
New York Times, U.S. Embassy & Consulates …, Bloomberg, Politico, NPR, VICE News, infowars.com and Daily Caller News Foundation
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New Yorker:
Philip Roth, the Seminal American Novelist, Has Died — Philip Roth, the seminal American novelist whose book “American Pastoral” won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, in 1998, has died, at the age of eighty-five. His great subjects, as Claudia Roth Pierpont wrote in this magazine, in 2006 …
Discussion:
New York Magazine and NPR
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Charles McGrath / New York Times:
Philip Roth, Towering Novelist Who Explored Lust, Jewish Life and America, Dies at 85
Philip Roth, Towering Novelist Who Explored Lust, Jewish Life and America, Dies at 85
Discussion:
Vox, Outside the Beltway, New Republic, The Week and Front Page Magazine
Natasha Korecki / Politico:
Prominent donor threatens GOP over DACA — CHICAGO — An influential, multi-millionaire GOP donor is threatening to choke off campaign resources to Republican congressmen who haven't engaged in the latest immigration battle in Congress. — Former Exelon chairman John Rowe …
Discussion:
RedState, ThinkProgress, Daily Caller News Foundation, The Hill, Shareblue Media and Splinter
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David Siders / Politico:
California Republicans bet the House on unknown businessman
Aaron Katersky / ABC News:
Families of Sandy Hook victims, FBI agent file defamation lawsuit against right-wing radio host Alex Jones — Six families of victims killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, as well as an FBI agent who responded to the scene, filed a defamation lawsuit today …
New York Times:
5 Key Takeaways From Tuesday's Primaries — It was a night for upsets and breakthroughs: In Georgia, a black woman was nominated for governor by a major party for the first time in any state. In Kentucky, a math teacher defeated a Republican power broker.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Refinery29, Washington Post, ThinkProgress, Snopes.com, WFAA-TV, NBC News and Shareblue Media
Mark Leibovich / New York Times:
The Risky Business of Speaking for President Trump — Flacks in this White House press office are getting enormous exposure — but potentially at a long-term cost to their credibility. — It was getting late on a Wednesday, and by 2018 standards the evening's news cycle felt almost serene.
Discussion:
Politico
CNNMoney:
EPA again blocks journalists from attending summit: 'They ain't doing the CNN stuff' — Journalists blocked from EPA event — The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday barred journalists for the second consecutive day from attending a national summit focused on water contaminants …
Discussion:
Snopes.com, more at Mediagazer »
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Emily Holden / Politico:
EPA bars reporters from toxic chemicals summit again
EPA bars reporters from toxic chemicals summit again
Discussion:
Shareblue Media
The Daily Beast:
Exclusive: U.S. Government Can't Get Controversial Kaspersky Lab Software Off Its Networks … Federal agencies are so far unable to comply with a law banning Kaspersky Lab software from U.S. government networks by October, The Daily Beast has learned. Multiple divisions of the U.S. government …
Discussion:
Sputnik International, Political Wire and archive.fo
CNBC:
Trump can't block Twitter followers, federal judge says — President Donald Trump cannot block users on his Twitter feed, a federal judge in New York City ruled Wednesday. — The suit was filed in July 2017 by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University …
Discussion:
Breitbart and Joe.My.God.
RELATED:
David Carnoy / CNET:
Would you wear this muzzle around the office for private calling? — A new accessory called Bloxvox muffles your phone conversations in an open office. Just don't share it. — Enlarge Image — Back in January of 2017 I discovered a product at CES called HushMe that I described as …
Seung Min Kim / Washington Post:
Top Senate Republicans ask White House for entry into meeting on classified information — A trio of influential Senate Republicans, cut out of a high-stakes meeting this week on classified information about a confidential FBI source who aided an investigation into Trump campaign advisers …
Discussion:
Politico, ThinkProgress, Lawfare and Hullabaloo, more at Techmeme »
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Nancy Cook / Politico:
Trump demands housecleaning on White House communications team
Trump demands housecleaning on White House communications team
Discussion:
New York Magazine, The Daily Caller, Talking Points Memo and Mediaite
Niall Stanage / The Hill:
Exclusive: Bannon says Rosenstein could be fired ‘very shortly’ — 's former chief strategist Stephen Bannon predicts that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — could be fired “very shortly,” in an interview that will be broadcast Wednesday evening in the United Kingdom.
Discussion:
BBC, Washington Times and Political Wire
Marwa Eltagouri / Washington Post:
A 30-year-old demanded notice for eviction from his parents' house. ‘Outrageous,’ a judge said. — Michael Rotondo refuses to move out of his parents' house. — So much so that the 30-year-old argued for a half-hour with a judge in Upstate New York on Tuesday, saying that while he knew …
Discussion:
CNN, ABC News, CBS Los Angeles and Outside the Beltway
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Lia Eustachewich / New York Post:
Parents win suit to kick 30-year-old deadbeat son out of their house
Parents win suit to kick 30-year-old deadbeat son out of their house
Sean McElwee / New York Times:
The Rising Racial Liberalism of Democratic Voters — In response to both the election of Barack Obama in 2008 and the backlash in favor of Donald Trump in 2016, analysts and commentators have focused mostly on racial attitudes on the right. Both scholarship and journalistic accounts …
Edward-Isaac Dovere / Politico:
The new AG itching to take on Trump — New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal has jurisdiction over 20 Trump properties and is ready to step into Eric Schneiderman's void. — The man aspiring to be the new face of the resistance is a practicing Sikh who likes to call attention to his turban …
Max Fisher / New York Times:
Deep in the Desert, Iran Quietly Advances Missile Technology — When an explosion nearly razed Iran's long-range missile research facility in 2011 — and killed the military scientist who ran it — many Western intelligence analysts viewed it as devastating to Tehran's technological ambitions.
Discussion:
Conservative Review
Kerry Picket / The Daily Caller:
Sources: FBI Agents Want Congress To Issue Them Subpoenas So They Can Reveal The Bureau's Dirt — Sources tell The Daily Caller several FBI agents want congressional subpoenas to testify about the agency's problems. — The sources claim there is a demand within the agency to prosecute former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
Discussion:
Breitbart, CNBC, Townhall, Joe.My.God., The Gateway Pundit, Sputnik International, AOL, Raw Story and IJR
Andrea Butler / WACH-TV:
S.C. community outraged by photo of county council candidate in blackface — BRANTLEY TOMLISON-USER SUBMITTED FACEBOOK.jpg — KERSHAW COUNTY, S.C. (WACH) — A candidate for the Kershaw County Council is the talk of the town after a controversial photo began circulating on social media.
Discussion:
Raw Story
New York Times:
How the Mueller Investigation Could Play Out for Trump — If Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, finds evidence that Mr. Trump broke the law, he will have decisions to make about how to proceed. We explain them.
Bill D'Agostino / NewsBusters:
What Changed? The Same Media Who Excuse Bob Mueller Abused Ken Starr — Today's journalists routinely assert that it is “extreme,” “dangerous,” and possibly even criminal for the White House - or anyone else, for that matter - to criticize an investigation into the President.
Gordon G. Chang / The Daily Beast:
Trump Blames China's Xi Jinping for Sabotaging the Kim Jong Un Summit … President Donald Trump met his South Korean counterpart in the White House on Tuesday, publicly acknowledged his planned summit with Kim Jong Un may never take place, and called out China's ruler for sabotaging the denuclearization process.
Discussion:
The Atlantic, The White House, Washington Post, One America News Network and Townhall
Julia Reinstein / BuzzFeed:
That Viral “Odyssey” Post About Coachella Was Actually By A 28-Year-Old Man Who Catfished His Way Into The Site — Meet the real “Kaycie Allen.” — If you were on Twitter on April 22, you might remember this article. — “Sorry Not Sorry, My Parents Paid For My Coachella Trip,” …
Guy Faulconbridge / Reuters:
Exclusive - Yulia Skripal: Attempted assassination turned my world upside down — LONDON (Reuters) - Yulia Skripal survived an assassination attempt that UK authorities blame on Russia. But the daughter of one of Russia's most famous spies says she wants to return to her country “in the longer term”, despite the poisoning.
Discussion:
Politico
Marisa Schultz / New York Post:
House overwhelmingly passes bipartisan prison reform bill — WASHINGTON — The House by an overwhelming 360-59 vote passed a bipartisan reform bill Tuesday that provides more education for federal prisoners and gives them a second chance after their release.
Discussion:
Fox News, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Mother Jones
Philip Bump / Washington Post:
There is no evidence for ‘Spygate’ — but there is a reason that Trump invented it — In the grand tradition of Gretchen Wieners, President Trump has a new catchphrase that he is trying on for size. … “Spygate” made its debut on Wednesday morning during Trump's “executive time,” …
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, MSNBC, Fox News Insider, Breitbart, CNN and twitchy.com