memeorandum: Key Republicans signal satisfaction with FBI report, increasing confirmation odds for Kavanaugh (Washington Post)

2:50 PM ET, October 4, 2018

Top Items:

Bret Stephens / New York Times:

For Once, I'm Grateful for Trump — In the president, one big bully stands up to others. — For the first time since Donald Trump entered the political fray, I find myself grateful that he's in it. I'm reluctant to admit it and astonished to say it, especially since …

Discussion: Power Line, New York Post, HuffPost, Media Matters for America, Washington Post, Splinter, No More Mister Nice Blog, RealClearPolitics, ThinkProgress, The American Conservative and Instapundit

Kevin Wallevand / WDAY-TV:

EXCLUSIVE: Heitkamp reveals Kavanaugh vote and reasoning to WDAY News — FARGO — U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp will vote NO on U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh's nomination. — Heitkamp sat down exclusively with WDAY News to share what she will do when the U.S. Senate votes …

Discussion: Townhall, Talking Points Memo, The Hill, Axios, Washington Free Beacon, NPR and Mediaite

Dow Jones Newswires:

White House Finds No Corroboration of Sexual Misconduct Allegations Against Kavanaugh in FBI Report — It is unclear whether White House had finalized its review of FBI interview reports — WASHINGTON—The White House has found no corroboration of the allegations of sexual misconduct …

New Yorker:

The F.B.I. Probe Ignored Testimonies from Former Classmates of Kavanaugh — Frustrated potential witnesses who have been unable to speak with the F.B.I agents conducting the investigation into sexual-assault allegations against Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh …

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:

Flake: No corroboration for Ford's claims in FBI report — Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), a key swing Republican vote, said Thursday that a new FBI report on Brett Kavanaugh has failed to corroborate Christine Blasey Ford's allegation of sexual assault against the Supreme Court nominee.

Discussion: Townhall, Breitbart, Political Wire, Conservative News Today, IJR, Daily Wire, Politico, Raw Story and Splinter

James Roche / Slate:

I Was Brett Kavanaugh's College Roommate — There's Nothing Like Seeing a Headline About the President Inheriting a Fortune via Fraud and Knowing He'll Definitely Get Away With It — In 1983, I was one of Brett Kavanaugh's freshman roommates at Yale University.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, The Guardian, VICE, Raw Story, Common Dreams, CNN, MacIver Institute, Splinter and NBC News

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:

Is Kavanaugh Helping Republicans' Midterm Chances? — In midterm elections, with different candidates on the ballot in every state and district, it's rare to see the sort of sharp, turn-on-a-dime shifts in the polls that we frequently saw during the 2016 presidential election, for example.

Discussion: The Federalist, Balloon Juice, The Root, HuffPost, The Right Scoop and Raw Story

Jennifer Rubin / Washington Post:

Republicans' misogyny will come back to haunt them — Republicans under President Trump have adopted a distinct political methodology evocative of autocratic regimes: Eschew rationality and facts, whip up hate, play to the mob. They cannot make winning, rational arguments on immigration …

Discussion: Hot Air, Raw Story, LifeZette, The Federalist and Daily Wire

David Corn / Mother Jones:

The Real Reason the White House Told the FBI Not to Interview Christine Blasey Ford? — The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have a theory. … On Wednesday night, the lawyers for Christine Blasey Ford responded sharply to the news that the Trump White House had blocked the FBI …

Discussion: The Hill, The Daily Beast, Common Dreams and Daily Kos

Wall Street Journal:

The Never Conservatives — The Kavanaugh fight isn't about Trump. We're all deplorables now. — The Editorial Board — Donald Trump didn't help Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation with his crude mockery of Christine Blasey Ford on Tuesday night in Tennessee, but then this Supreme Court moshpit isn't about this President.

Discussion: Front Page Magazine, Outside the Beltway and Breitbart

Charles C. W. Cooke / National Review:

In The New Yorker, Ronan Farrow Disgraces Himself Once Again — At The New Yorker, Ronan Farrow ties himself and his reputation to another preposterous Jane Mayer effort, and thereby continues what has been a baffling self-immolation. One might have thought that, after the rank embarrassment …

Discussion: Politico and Raw Story

Axios:
An October surprise: The Brett bounce

Discussion: CNN, Townhall, The Rush Limbaugh Show, National Review, The Resurgent, Roll Call, NTK Network, The Week and twitchy.com

Jordan Valinsky / CNN:
Time magazine puts Christine Blasey Ford on the cover

Discussion: TIME, Mother Jones, twitchy.com, The Daily Caller, Axios and Mashable

Brandon Morse / RedState:
It's Over: Flake And Collins Agree Kavanaugh FBI Report Is Good As Democrats Leave Chuck Schumer's Office “Stone-Faced”

Discussion: The Rush Limbaugh Show and Mediaite

New York Times:
The Senate Should Not Confirm Kavanaugh, Signed, 1,700+ Law Professors (and Counting)

Discussion: Townhall, Bloomberg, Times of San Diego, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Common Dreams, BloombergQuint, Associated Press, Shareblue Media, Althouse, Roll Call, Daily Wire, Axios, Politico and Mediaite

Matt Zapotosky / Washington Post:
As FBI background check of Kavanaugh nears its end, probe appears to have been highly curtailed

Discussion: Splinter, Daily Kos, The Week, Media Matters for America, Mother Jones, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Breitbart, Talking Points Memo, Weekly Standard, CNN, Political Wire and Jezebel

James Hohmann / Washington Post:
The Daily 202: How Senate Republicans could win the battle and the war on Kavanaugh

Discussion: Daily Wire, The Federalist, Conservative News Today, The Week and RedState

John Bresnahan / Politico:
Manchin stays on the fence during Kavanaugh battle

Discussion: Townhall, HuffPost, The Week, Talking Points Memo, The Hill, Breitbart and Al Jazeera English

NBC News:
FBI confidential Kavanaugh report handed to White House, Senate

John McCormack / Weekly Standard:
How Jeff Flake's One-Week Delay Helped Clear Brett Kavanaugh's Name

Discussion: USA Today, New Republic, HuffPost and The Week

Amber Phillips / Washington Post:
Another big Mitch McConnell Supreme Court gamble looks set to pay off

Discussion: Political Wire

CNN:
Collins: “It appears to be a very thorough investigation”

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and The Intellectualist

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:
Republicans Have Decided to Ignore All of Brett Kavanaugh's Lies

Discussion: Washington Post, Gothamist and The Week

Margaret Sullivan / Washington Post:
Dishing up lies while proclaiming the love of facts, Trump and Sarah Sanders gaslight America

Discussion: The Guardian, CBS Boston and New York Times

McClatchy Washington Bureau:
Republican enthusiasm surges amid Supreme Court battle

Discussion: Raw Story

Washington Post:
Key Republicans signal satisfaction with FBI report, increasing confirmation odds for Kavanaugh

Discussion: ABC News, Vox, Politico, CNN, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Roll Call, Breitbart, Raw Story, Chicks On The Right, Associated Press and IJR

Sinéad Baker / Business Insider:
The FBI reportedly interviewed only 9 people about the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh …

Discussion: New York Times, The Intellectualist and Splinter

Phil Mattingly / CNN:
The single copy of the FBI's Kavanaugh report is behind closed doors. Here's what senators have to do to see it

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, The Nation and The Root

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
Here's a list of people the FBI did NOT interview. Okay with this, Flake and Collins?

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Daily Kos and Common Dreams

Thomas Novelly / Courier-Journal:
Video: Kavanaugh protesters chase down Rand Paul at DC airport

Discussion: The Daily Signal, Daily Caller News Foundation and The Daily Caller

Jennifer Rubin / Washington Post:
What's going on with that FBI investigation?

Discussion: USA Today and ThinkProgress

Bloomberg:

The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies — In 2015, Amazon.com Inc. began quietly evaluating a startup called Elemental Technologies, a potential acquisition to help with a major expansion of its streaming video service, known today as Amazon Prime Video.

Kate Fazzini / CNBC:
Chinese spy chips are found in hardware used by Apple, Amazon, Bloomberg says; Apple, AWS say no way

Discussion: Bloomberg and BloombergQuint

Andrew Seidman / Philly.com:

Alex Trebek apologizes for his performance as moderator of Pa. Gov. debate — Alex Trebek, the Jeopardy! host roundly criticized for his Monday night performance as moderator of the lone Pennsylvania gubernatorial debate this fall, apologized Wednesday, saying he had “failed to recognize the seriousness of the event for the voters.”

Discussion: HuffPost

Colin Dwyer / NPR:

Here Are The Winners Of The 2018 MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grants — What could possibly bring together a painter, an economist, a pastor and a planetary scientist? If you ask the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the answer is simpler than you may think: They've all shown creativity …

Discussion: New York Times and UW News

Charleston Gazette-Mail:
Local journalism makes a difference

more at Mediagazer »

Jennifer E. Duffy / The Cook Political Report:

Senate: Rating Changes in Four Races — Two things tend to happen in the final weeks of an election cycle: a few races that we've been watching become more competitive while others that had the potential to become very close recede to safer columns for the party holding the seats.

bellingcat:

305 Car Registrations May Point to Massive GRU Security Breach — In an unprecedented step, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) and the United Kingdom's Ministry of Justice on October 4, 2018 disclosed the identities under which four Russian individuals …

Discussion: TheBlaze, more at Techmeme »

Washington Post:

Congressional Republicans tentatively agree to raise federal worker pay, rebuffing Trump — Congressional Republicans have tentatively agreed to a 1.9 percent pay raise for the nation's 2 million civilian federal workers, overruling President Trump who sought to freeze their pay.

Discussion: Political Wire

Steve Lopez / Los Angeles Times:

The busboy who tried to help a wounded Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 dies. His life was haunted by the violence — Juan Romero struggled for decades with a memory he could not escape. — He left Los Angeles and moved to Wyoming, later came back west and settled in San Jose, raised a family and devoted himself to construction work.

Discussion: NPR

David Lauter / Los Angeles Times:

Republicans face big risks in contested California races as Democrats fight for control of the House … Republicans are at risk of a wipeout in California's six most hotly contested congressional races, a new poll shows — a result that could radically reshape the state's political map, with major consequences nationally.

Nico Hines / The Daily Beast:

Russian Official Linked to Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Trump Tower Lawyer, Is Dead — Russia's Deputy Attorney General Saak Karapetyan was exposed this year for running a foreign recruitment operation with Natalia Veselnitskaya. — A Russian official accused of directing the foreign operations …

Joshua Green / Bloomberg:

A Former Obama Operative Built a New Anti-Republican Attack Machine — One evening in September, Tanya, a consultant at a big New York firm, was on her laptop scrutinizing public records and reading posts on VKontakte, the Russian social network, involving Representative Dana Rohrabacher, the Republican congressman from California.

Discussion: Raw Story

Brett Samuels / The Hill:

Cook Political Report shifts 7 more races towards Dems — The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election forecaster, shifted seven congressional races on Wednesday toward Democrats less than five weeks before the midterm elections. — Cook moved two races that were previously considered “toss-ups” to “lean Democrat.”