memeorandum: They Sat in Hypocrisy — Congressional Republicans made a show … (David Leonhardt/New York Times)

10:55 AM ET, September 3, 2018

Top Items:

Jeffrey Toobin / New Yorker:

How Rudy Giuliani Turned Into Trump's Clown — The former mayor's theatrical, combative style of politics anticipated—and perfectly aligns with—the President's. — Although it has been almost a generation since Rudolph Giuliani was the mayor of New York, there is one place in the city …

New York Times:

A Coveted Lawyer's Juggling Act May Be Good, and Bad, for Trump — WASHINGTON — It was a typically hectic day for William A. Burck as he juggled the demands of managing one of Washington's premier white-collar law firms while he was in Paris for meetings on behalf of a corporate client facing corruption charges.

Discussion: Politico and Washington Post

Juan Williams / The Hill:

Trump's ‘majority’ is fake — likes to complain about “Fake News.” — So, here's some very real news for him: — Republican control of Capitol Hill and the White House is based on a “fake majority.” — “A majority of the Senate now represents just 18 percent of the nation's population …

Discussion: Raw Story

Adam Liptak / New York Times: How Brett Kavanaugh Would Transform the Supreme Court

Dom Phillips / The Guardian:

Brazil museum fire: ‘incalculable’ loss as 200-year-old Rio institution gutted — The Museu Nacional houses artefacts from Egypt, Greco-Roman art and some of the first fossils found in Brazil — Play Video — Brazil's oldest and most important historical and scientific museum has been consumed by fire …

Discussion: The Week

Daniel Victor / New York Times: What Artifacts Were in the National Museum of Brazil?

BNO News: Brazil's National Museum, home to 20 million items, destroyed in fire

John Fund / National Review:

Media Obituaries Didn't Give Us ‘The Full McCain’ — The sugary praise, often from former critics, does his memory no favors. — The past week has featured so much extravagant praise of John McCain that Jill Abramson, the former editor of the New York Times, had to admit …

David Leonhardt / New York Times:

They Sat in Hypocrisy — Congressional Republicans made a show of honoring John McCain, even as they continue to reject his principles. — They sat in seats of honor, near the front of Washington National Cathedral. They bowed their heads when appropriate. They looked up pensively and listened.

Discussion: Washington Post, Informed Comment and HuffPost

Katie Rogers / New York Times:

Meghan McCain, Forged in Her Father's Image — WASHINGTON — As Meghan McCain delivered a eulogy for her father on Saturday, she was at times too grief-stricken to catch her breath. As she described his sickness from brain cancer or his love for her, she struggled to look up at a crowd full …

Discussion: IJR

BBC:

Reuters journalists jailed in Myanmar over secrets act — A court in Myanmar has sentenced two Reuters journalists to seven years in prison for violating a state secrets act while investigating violence against the Rohingya minority. — Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, nationals of Myanmar …

Discussion: CNN and The Guardian

New York Times:

Companies Say Trump Is Hurting Business by Limiting Legal Immigration — The Trump administration is using the country's vast and nearly opaque immigration bureaucracy to constrict the flow of foreign workers into the United States by throwing up new roadblocks to limit legal arrivals.

Discussion: Breitbart

David Brennan / Newsweek:

Fox News' Jeanine Pirro Says Trump Is Innocent and Has Been Framed — Fox News' Jeanine Pirro, one of Donald Trump's most impassioned supporters, said on Sunday that Trump is being framed by establishment forces in Washington, D.C. — The Hill reported that during an interview aired on AM 970 New York …

Discussion: The Hill

Tamara Keith / NPR:
President Trump's Description of What's ‘Fake’ Is Expanding

Discussion: POLITICUSUSA

The Moscow Times:

Putin Gets Love From New State TV Show as Poll Ratings Slide — Russian state television started a new weekly show devoted to Vladimir Putin, lauding the president's leadership qualities, physical energy and attentiveness to public needs. — The first hour-long episode of “Moscow. Kremlin.

Discussion: BloombergQuint

Washington Post:

The ‘Trump effect’ — How a norm-scrambling presidency and a viral video are changing the way black and white residents in Summerville, S.C., talk about race — Before he heard from neighbors about the confrontation at his subdivision swimming pool, Jovan Hyman saw a shaky video of it online, where it was quickly going viral.

Alayna Treene / Axios:

Scoop: How Omarosa secretly taped her victims — Omarosa taped nearly every conversation she had while working in the White House, including ones with “all of the Trumps,” a source who watched her make many of the tapes tells Axios. Omarosa did this with a personal phone, almost always on record mode.

Discussion: theGrio, Mediaite and The Root

Tom Boggioni / Raw Story:

GOP strategists fear candidates will get steamrolled in midterms: They only know how to ‘run against Obama’ — GOP strategists and campaign managers are looking on with dismay at the upcoming midterm elections, believing their candidates — particularly the incumbents …

Discussion: Political Wire and Wall Street Journal

Jim Brunner / The Seattle Times:
Seahawks owner Paul Allen gives $100,000 to help Republicans keep control of U.S. House

Discussion: HuffPost and Forbes

Washington Post:

Trump blasted ‘Lyin’ Ted' Cruz again and again. Activists want to remind Texans with a billboard. — Deep in the heart of Texas, a billboard truck will soon hit the road with a curated list of President Trump's tweets — attacks on Sen. Ted Cruz, a former political foe.

Discussion: Spectator USA, HuffPost, Associated Press and twitchy.com

Avery Anapol / The Hill:
GoFundMe raises thousands to place billboard of Trump's anti-Cruz tweet in Texas

Discussion: POLITICUSUSA, ABC News, Splinter, Daily Wire, twitchy.com, Washington Post, Hullabaloo, Axios, Talking Points Memo, Mashable, Breitbart and gofundme.com

Michael Schulman / New Yorker:

The Shaming of Geoffrey Owens and the Inability to See Actors as Laborers, Too — Not long ago, I was visiting the set of a popular TV show for a story and recognized an actor who was there shooting a guest spot. I remembered Geoffrey Owens not from “The Cosby Show,” on which he played Elvin Tibideaux …

Discussion: Mashable, Deadline and IJR

Byron York / Washington Examiner:

Congress waits, waits, waits for Sally Yates documents — Obama appointee Sally Yates was acting attorney general under President Trump for just 10 days — from Jan. 20, 2017 until Jan. 30, 2017 — but by any measure they were consequential days. Even now, two issues from Yates' brief tenure …

Steven Greenhouse / New York Times:

How Trump Betrays ‘Forgotten’ Americans — From the Supreme Court to labor organizing rules, the president undermines workers' greatest champions — Mr. Greenhouse is a former labor and workplace reporter for the Times. — Donald Trump promotes himself as a friend of “forgotten” …

Robin Wright / New Yorker:

A Palestinian Memoir to Counter Trump's Troubles in the Middle East — Yousef Bashir is an unlikely peace-builder at one of the darkest times in the elusive effort to end the conflict in the Middle East. He was eleven when the second intifada erupted, in 2000, and the Israel Defense Forces took over the family farm in Gaza.