memeorandum: Trump's reputation precedes him. So does Woodward's. (Washington Post)

10:20 AM ET, September 6, 2018

Top Items:

I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration — We work for the president but we have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations. … President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader. — It's not just that the special counsel looms large.

Discussion: USA Today, Washington Post, CNN, The Atlantic, The Intercept, Weekly Standard, The Federalist, Wall Street Journal, The Moderate Voice, Townhall, The Guardian, Raw Story, Politico, The Daily Beast, Business Insider, Washington Examiner, Fox News Insider, Mediaite, Hit & Run, MSNBC, Axios, Breitbart, Talking Points Memo, YouTube, IJR, Associated Press, Roll Call, Splinter, twitchy.com, Washington Monthly, Post On Politics, No More Mister Nice Blog, POLITICUSUSA, Media Matters for America, CNBC, ABC News, Althouse, Daily Wire, National Review, Newsweek, HuffPost, Real Clear Politics, Vox, The Hill, The Daily Caller, JustOneMinute, Informed Comment, The American Conservative, NY State of Politics, Al Jazeera English, Power Line, NPR, The Gateway Pundit, American Greatness, RedState, The Reality-Based Community, The Poke, The Mahablog, Rantt, FOX News Radio, The Last Refuge, Hullabaloo, Mother Jones, The Root, Patterico's Pontifications, Conservative Review, France 24, Law & Crime, TheBlaze, CBS Chicago, Above the Law, FOX31 Denver, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Jamie Dupree - AJC, Full Feed, the way of improvement …, BloombergQuint, abc7chicago.com, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Daily Kos, alicublog, CANNONFIRE, Hot Air, Mashable, Washington Times, AOL, New Republic, Washington Free Beacon, illegal immigration …, Sputnik International, Booman Tribune, Little Green Footballs, ImmigrationProf Blog, Instapundit, PJ Media Home, Outside the Beltway, Balloon Juice and Deadline, more at Mediagazer »

Axios:

Exclusive: Trump's nightmare: “The snakes are everywhere” — President Trump is not just seething about Bob Woodward. He's deeply suspicious of much of the government he oversees — from the hordes of folks inside agencies, right up to some of the senior-most political appointees …

Philip Rucker / Washington Post:

‘The sleeper cells have awoken’: Trump and aides shaken by ‘resistance’ op-ed — President Trump and his aides reacted with indignation Wednesday to an unsigned opinion column from a senior official blasting the president's “amorality” and launched a frantic hunt for the author …

Brian Stelter / CNNMoney:

The story behind the New York Times' anonymous op-ed blasting Trump — Several days ago a senior official in the Trump administration used an intermediary to contact New York Times op-ed page editor Jim Dao. — Through the go-between, the senior official expressed interest in writing …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Washington Post and Mediaite, more at Mediagazer »

Washington Post:

Trump's reputation precedes him. So does Woodward's. — BOB WOODWARD'S new book, “Fear,” does not paint a different picture of the early Trump White House than the one that has already emerged from credible news organizations in daily reporting on President Trump.

Discussion: Mashable, CNN, Raw Story, The Guardian, POLITICUSUSA and Breitbart

BuzzFeed News:

I Am Part Of The Resistance Inside The New York Times Opinion Desk — BuzzFeed News today is taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous, and entirely satirical, op-ed essay. We have done so at the request of the author, a senior editor for the New York Times Opinion page …

David Frum / The Atlantic:

This Is a Constitutional Crisis — Impeachment is a constitutional mechanism. The Twenty-Fifth Amendment is a constitutional mechanism. Mass resignations followed by voluntary testimony to congressional committees are a constitutional mechanism. Overt defiance of presidential authority …

Politico:

POLITICO Playbook: Trump, alone — DRIVING THE DAY — ALONE. — THAT IS WHAT PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP must be feeling this morning. In the last two days, the Washington establishment has pummeled him like no president has been pummeled before. BOB WOODWARD's book “Fear” …

Discussion: Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and ABC News

Eileen Sullivan / New York Times:

Pence and Pompeo Deny Writing Op-Ed Critical of the Trump Administration — WASHINGTON — A day after a senior administration official described President Trump as amoral, impetuous, petty and ineffective in an anonymous essay, the denials from the upper echelon of the administration started to roll in.

Discussion: Politico, Washington Post and CNBC

Josh Rogin / Washington Post:
The White House is discussing potential replacements for Jim Mattis

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Breitbart, The Atlantic, Defense One, CNN, Slate, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, Hot Air, Raw Story, Fox News Insider, Investor's Business Daily and AOL

David A. Graham / The Atlantic:
We're Watching an Antidemocratic Coup Unfold

Discussion: Washington Post, The Guardian, Breitbart and HuffPost

Timothy L. O'Brien / Bloomberg:
Trump Staff's Resistance Can't Avert a Crisis. It Is One.

Discussion: The Atlantic, BloombergQuint, Washington Post and MSNBC

Associated Press: Trump rips searing Times op-ed from unnamed senior official

Ramesh Ponnuru / Bloomberg:
An Insider's Lament About Trump Serves No Public Good

Discussion: Media Matters for America, Washington Post and Raw Story

NBC News:
Trump admin rejected report showing refugees did not pose major security threat

Discussion: Splinter

Jessica Roy / Los Angeles Times:
No, anonymous Trump official, you're not ‘part of the resistance.’ You're a coward

Discussion: Washington Post, The Gateway Pundit and Breitbart

Charlie Savage / New York Times:

Leaked Documents From Kavanaugh's Time in White House Discuss Abortion and Affirmative Action — WASHINGTON — As a White House lawyer in the Bush administration, Judge Brett Kavanaugh challenged the accuracy of deeming the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision to be …

Discussion: Jamie Dupree - AJC

Hugh Hewitt / The Hugh Hewitt Show:

Senator Ben Sasse On Day Two Of The Kavanaugh Hearings — Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, a member of the Judiciary Committee, joined me this morning: — 09-06hhs-sasse — Transcript: — HH: Joined by Ben Sasse, Senator from Nebraska. Senator, welcome back.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Elana Schor / Politico:
Kavanaugh stumbles when grilled on whether he discussed Mueller probe

Discussion: ThinkProgress, The Daily Beast, Shareblue Media, Washington Post, twitchy.com, Political Wire, HuffPost, SCOTUSblog and IJR

Sean Wilentz / New York Times: Why Was Kavanaugh Obsessed With Vince Foster?

Jon Swaine / The Guardian:

Revealed: Trump inauguration crowd photos were edited after he intervened — Exclusive: documents released to Guardian reveal government photographer cropped space ‘where crowd ended’ — A government photographer edited official pictures of Donald Trump's inauguration …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Raw Story and Mediaite

The Daily Beast:

Government Photographer Edited Inauguration Pics to Make Crowd Look Bigger: Documents — A U.S. government photographer edited the official pictures of Donald Trump's January 2017 inauguration to make the crowd appear bigger, following a personal intervention from the president …

Washington Post:

Trump administration to circumvent court limits on detention of child migrants — The Trump administration said Thursday it is preparing to circumvent limits on the government's ability to hold minors in immigration jails by withdrawing from the Flores Settlement Agreement …

Jesse McKinley / New York Times:

Want to Be the Next Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Be Careful What You Wish. — Politics, like Hollywood, often looks to repeat a good thing: Find a formula that works, and stick with it. — That strategy has led Democrats across the country, in races large and small, to search for candidates …

Discussion: Front Page Magazine, The Forward and Vox

Politico:
Liberal insurgency targets Delaware senator next

Discussion: The Hill and Washington Monthly

David Siders / Politico:
‘This is the first wave of an invasion’

Discussion: Washington Post and illegal immigration …

Molly Ball / TIME:

Nancy Pelosi Doesn't Care What You Think of Her. And She Isn't Going Anywhere — Nancy Pelosi stopped caring about what people think of her a long time ago, so she has no qualms about eating ice cream for breakfast with a stranger. Dark chocolate, two scoops, waffle cone.

Discussion: Raw Story

Politico: Pelosi vs. McConnell could dominate Congress in 2019

Daily Mail:

Four UFOs are spotted flying over US president's Scottish golf course — Trump's visitors! Four UFOs are spotted flying over US president's Scottish golf course — Four UFOs were spotted flying over US President Donald Trump's golf course in Scotland. — A golf fan shared a picture …

Justin Sink / Bloomberg:

Trump Hits Campaign Trail as Prospect of Midterm Defeat Looms — Democrats need to pick up 23 seats to gain control of House — President to hold rallies in Montana, Dakotas this week — Donald Trump takes his fight to keep his party in control of Congress to the Great Plains this week …

Discussion: HuffPost, Raw Story and Front Page Magazine

Reuters:
In quick reversal, Trump threatens shutdown over border wall

Discussion: HuffPost

Betsy Woodruff / The Daily Beast:

Putin's ‘Friend’ Had Early Access to Trump's Infamous Pro-Russia Speech — Photos obtained by The Daily Beast show that think tank chief Dimitri Simes—whom Putin called a ‘friend and colleague’—was closer than previously known to the speech's drafting. — In the morning of April 21 …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal

Ellen Barry / New York Times:

From Mountain of CCTV Footage, Pay Dirt: 2 Russians Are Named in Spy Poisoning — LONDON — In March, when British detectives began their investigation into the poisoning of Sergei V. Skripal, the former Russian spy, they had little to work with but mounds of CCTV footage.

Discussion: New York Times

Elaina Plott / The Atlantic:

The Bullet in My Arm — I was shot on a Sunday. It was late and it was hot and I was 21, on my way home from dinner during summer break. I'd rolled the windows down because the breeze felt good. — I pulled up to a red light, about half a mile from my home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Paul Sperry / RealClearInvestigations:

Exclusive: FBI Kept From U.S. Spy Court Russian View of Carter Page as ‘an Idiot’ — The FBI omitted from its application to spy on Carter Page the fact that Russian spies had dismissed the former Trump campaign adviser as unreliable - or as one put it, an “idiot” - and therefore unworthy of recruiting …

Discussion: Real Clear Politics

Danielle Decker Jones / Virginian-Pilot:

A campaign to beat cancer — YOU OR SOMEONE in your life has been touched by cancer. Ideally you have celebrated successes: the cures cooperated, science and prayer prevailed, and you or your loved one “beat cancer.” — Likely you've also witnessed someone “lose the fight” …

Johnathan Silver / Austin American-Statesman:

Unapproved O'Rourke text message asks for ‘undocumented immigrant’ vote — A person who a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke's Senate campaign said was pretending to be a “texting team” volunteer sent an unauthorized message to voters Wednesday asking them to help “transport undocumented immigrants” to the polls.

Discussion: The Texas Tribune, Washington Free Beacon, Splinter, Dallas Morning News, New York Times and Roll Call

Mike Wall / NBC News:

Weird hexagon on Saturn is way bigger than scientists thought — The sharp-cornered structure extends a staggering 180 miles above the ringed planet's cloud tops. — The weird hexagon swirling around Saturn's north pole is much taller than scientists had thought, a new study suggests.

Discussion: FiveThirtyEight