memeorandum: Thousands of Southerners Planted Trees for Retirement. It Didn't Work. (Ryan Dezember/Wall Street Journal)

9:00 PM ET, October 9, 2018

Top Items:

Jonathan Swan / Axios:

Scoop: Trump has accepted Nikki Haley's resignation — President Trump has accepted Nikki Haley's resignation as UN Ambassador, according to two sources briefed on their conversation. The timing of her departure is still unclear. — What we're hearing: Haley discussed her resignation …

Andy Shain / Post and Courier:

Nikki Haley has up to $1 million in debt as she steps down as U.N. ambassador — Nikki Haley's political capital and foreign policy credentials skyrocketed during her time as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, but one aspect of the former South Carolina governor's life didn't

Discussion: Raw Story and Politico

Aaron Blake / Washington Post:

'Something doesn't smell right': The curious timing of Nikki Haley's exit — This post has been updated. — Nikki Haley is resigning as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. And the timing is raising eyebrows. — President Trump and Haley held a quickly arranged media availability Tuesday morning …

Discussion: Post and Courier, HuffPost, Breitbart, Louder With Crowder and LifeZette

Elizabeth Dias / New York Times:

Beto O'Rourke May Benefit From an Unlikely Support Group: White Evangelical Women — In the Texas race, any small shift among evangelical voters could be a significant loss for Senator Ted Cruz — and a signal to Democrats. — October 9, 2018 — Nikki Haley to Resign as Trump's Ambassador to the U.N.

Discussion: Raw Story

Eliana Johnson / Politico:

Nikki Haley flips the script on Trump — The United Nations ambassador managed to resign on her own terms and get a glowing sendoff from the president along the way. — Rumors circulated for months that President Donald Trump was poised to fire his secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, before he finally did so in March.

Discussion: CNN, Townhall and The Daily Beast

Brian Schwartz / CNBC:
Trump officials have talked to Goldman Sachs' Dina Powell about possibly replacing Nikki Haley as UN ambassador

Discussion: The Hill, American Greatness, Breitbart, TheBlaze, Joe.My.God. and The Week

Maggie Haberman / New York Times:
Nikki Haley Resigned as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations

Zack Beauchamp / Vox:
How Nikki Haley played the White House game — and won

Discussion: Townhall, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Chicks On The Right

Toluse Olorunnipa / Bloomberg:
Trump Says He's Considering Goldman's Dina Powell for UN Ambassador

Discussion: Breitbart

New York Times:

Turkish Officials Say Khashoggi Was Killed on Order of Saudi Leadership — ISTANBUL — Investigators are examining the movements of Saudi officials who flew to Istanbul and went to the Saudi Consulate there on the same day that a Saudi dissident journalist disappeared after going to the building …

Discussion: Washington Post, Politico, Vox and HuffPost, more at Mediagazer »

Martin Chulov / The Guardian:

Khashoggi case: CCTV disappears from Saudi consulate in Turkey — Security footage removed and Turkish staff told to go home on day missing journalist visits — Security camera footage was removed from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and Turkish staff were abruptly told to take a holiday …

more at Mediagazer »

David Gauthier-Villars / Wall Street Journal:
Turkish Investigation of Missing Saudi Journalist Shifts Focus to Mercedes Van

Discussion: Boing Boing

Andrew Desiderio / The Daily Beast: Saudi Story About Journalist Jamal Khashoggi Doesn't Hold Up, Says Bob Corker: ‘Everything Points’ to Murder

Daniel W. Drezner / Washington Post:
The end of the Saudi Whisperer

Discussion: Mondoweiss, The New Arab and New York Times

Grace Sparks / CNN:

CNN poll: Democrats are fired up and maintain a strong 2018 lead — Washington (CNN)Four weeks out from Election Day, Democrats remain well ahead of Republicans in a generic ballot matchup, with 54% of likely voters saying they support the Democrat in their district and 41% backing a Republican …

Discussion: Mother Jones, The Week, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Talking Points Memo, Vox, Axios, Daily Kos, IJR and Political Wire

Mark Murray / NBC News:

Poll: Races in Nevada are a dead heat — Both the gubernatorial and Senate races are neck and neck. — Democrats and Republicans are running neck and neck in Nevada's key contests for U.S. Senate and governor, according to a new NBC News/Marist poll of the state released Tuesday, four weeks before Election Day.

Philip Bump / Washington Post:

This is not what a pro-Kavanaugh electoral backlash looks like — There are certainly signs that the partisan fight over Brett M. Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court goosed Republican enthusiasm for the midterm elections. — “This has actually produced an incredible surge …

Discussion: Roll Call, New York Times and CNN

Bloomberg:

New Evidence of Hacked Supermicro Hardware Found in U.S. Telecom — A major U.S. telecommunications company discovered manipulated hardware from Super Micro Computer Inc. in its network and removed it in August, fresh evidence of tampering in China of critical technology components bound for the U.S. …

Discussion: South China Morning Post, Bend Bulletin, Breitbart, The Verge and The Constitution, more at Techmeme »

Motherboard:
The Cybersecurity World Is Debating WTF Is Going on With Bloomberg's Chinese Microchip Stories

Discussion: Engadget, VICE News and VentureBeat, more at Techmeme »

Talking Points Memo:

‘They Told Me I Would Never See Her Again’: Deported Parents Lose Kids To Adoption — As the deportees were led off the plane onto the steamy San Salvador tarmac, an anguished Araceli Ramos Bonilla burst into tears, her face contorted with pain: “They want to steal my daughter!”

Discussion: Daily Kos, Shakesville and Jezebel

The Moscow Times:

Infamous St. Petersburg ‘Troll Factory’ Set on Fire — The office of Russia's infamous troll factory believed to be at the vanguard of Russia's information war has been set on fire in St. Petersburg overnight. — An investigation revealed last year that the secretive troll factory …

Discussion: Raw Story

Kevin Daley / The Daily Caller:

Anger Recedes As Normalcy, Good Humor Characterize Kavanaugh's First Day On The Supreme Court — Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared at oral arguments for the first time Tuesday, where the bitterness attending his confirmation appeared to break, if only a little.

Discussion: SCOTUSblog and Daily Caller News Foundation

CNN: Roger Stone aide hopes Kavanaugh will support his case against Mueller

Stephanie Ebbs / ABC News:

Administration mum on climate change report as Trump says: ‘I want to look at who drew it’ — The day after an international panel of scientists issued a stark warning about the short window in which world leaders can act to avoid catastrophic climate change, the president of the United States …

Discussion: Axios, ThinkProgress, The Daily Caller and ipcc.ch

Alexander C. Kaufman / HuffPost:

EPA Chief Andrew Wheeler Engaged With Racist, Conspiratorial Posts On Social Media — Exclusive: The agency head brushed off his interactions with a Pizzagater and said he doesn't remember liking a racist picture of the Obamas. — Andrew Wheeler, the acting administrator …

Discussion: Bloomberg, Raw Story and Boing Boing

Kevin Breuninger / CNBC:

Barnes & Noble says political book sales have skyrocketed and it released a map that shows how polarized the sales are — Data published Tuesday by book store chain Barnes & Noble show a 57 percent boost in political book sales compared to the prior year.

Discussion: IJR

Taegan Goddard / Political Wire:
Political Book Sales Mirror a Divided Country

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Ashe Schow / Daily Wire:

Five Teenage ‘Mean Girls’ Falsely Accused A Boy Of Sexual Assault. They Weren't Punished. — Several high school girls - dubbed “mean girls” - claimed a male student sexually assaulted them because they “just don't like him.” Now the school district and district attorney are facing heat …

Discussion: Greensburg Tribune-Review and twitchy.com

Brittany Miller / WGCL-TV:

White woman calls police on black man babysitting children — It's a case of babysitting while black. — A white woman called the police on a black man as he babysat two white children. — Corey Lewis documented the entire ordeal on Facebook Live. — In an exclusive interview …

Discussion: Raw Story, The Root and Boing Boing

Rachel Ventresca / CNN:

Clinton: ‘You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for’ — Clinton: Civility starts by electing Democrats — Washington (CNN)Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that civility in America can only begin again if Democrats win back the House or Senate this fall.

Robby Soave / Hit & Run:

Two Students Hooked Up. It Was Clearly Consensual. He Still Spent $12,000 Defending Himself. — James, a freshman at the University of California-Davis, was on his way to math class when he received an email that would derail his life for the next few months: The university's Title IX office …

Discussion: The American Conservative and The Daily Caller

Jared Holt / Right Wing Watch:

Underage Girls Allege That Michael Moates Sent Them Inappropriate Messages — Michael Moates, a conservative writer with more than 200,000 followers online and an occasional presence in the White House press room, allegedly sent multiple inappropriate messages to teenage women in conservative circles, knowing they were underage.

Discussion: Raw Story

Julia Ainsley / NBC News:

Abrupt release of hundreds of migrants in Phoenix is ‘start of dam breaking’ — “You'll start to see this all across the southern border soon,” a senior DHS official told NBC News. — WASHINGTON — Hundreds of migrant families seeking asylum in the U.S. were released from detention …

Discussion: ThinkProgress

Ryan Dezember / Wall Street Journal:

Thousands of Southerners Planted Trees for Retirement. It Didn't Work. — Too much pine and not enough saw mills spell years of depressed prices for plantations — STARKVILLE, Miss.—Over the past hundred years, the George family's farm has been sharecropped, grazed by cattle and planted with cotton.

Discussion: Daily Caller News Foundation

Kansas City Star:

GOP official on Davids: radical socialist, lesbian will be sent back to reservation — A local Kansas GOP official lashed out at Democratic congressional candidate Sharice Davids on social media earlier this week, saying “your radical socialist kick boxing lesbian will be sent back packing to the reservation.”

Discussion: Splinter

Pema Levy / Mother Jones:

Supreme Court Makes It Harder for Tribal North Dakotans to Vote — The order could hurt the reelection chances of Heidi Heitkamp, the most vulnerable Democratic senator. … The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a lower-court order requiring voters in North Dakota to present certain forms …

Discussion: Splinter

Washington Post:

Rosenstein faces congressional confrontation amid new claim he seriously suggested wiretapping Trump — Soon after Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein suggested using a wiretap to record President Trump'scommunications, then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe went to the bureau's top …

Discussion: Fox News, The Hill and The Gateway Pundit

Washington Post:

Gov. Larry Hogan leads Democrat Ben Jealous by 20 points, Post-U. Md. poll finds — With less than a month until Election Day, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has built a formidable lead over Democratic challenger Ben Jealous, with few voters undecided and most preferring the incumbent Republican …

Discussion: New Republic and Political Wire

Isabel Debre / Associated Press:

US student detained in Israel for alleged boycott support — JERUSALEM (AP) — In a first-of-its-kind case, Israel has held an American graduate student at its international airport for a whole week, accusing her of supporting a Palestinian-led boycott movement against the Jewish state.

Discussion: Haaretz, Daily Caller News Foundation and ThinkProgress

Asha Rangappa / New York Times:

The Mueller Investigation Is Bigger Than Rod Rosenstein — Even if he got fired, a replacement dead set on shutting down the investigation would find it nearly impossible to pull off. — Ms. Rangappa was an F.B.I. special agent focusing on counterintelligence investigations.

Discussion: The Last Refuge, Fox News Insider, Raw Story, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and CNN

WXIX-TV:

Owner of popular burger restaurant fires woman; his comments spark outrage — CINCINNATI, OH (FOX19) - The owner of Terry's Turf Club in the East End is under fire after a video surfaced of him on social media where he allegedly made sexual remarks after he fired a worker.

Discussion: Law & Crime and Raw Story

Peter Sullivan / The Hill:

Trump officials plan maintenance downtime for healthcare.gov during ObamaCare sign-ups — The Trump administration is planning hours-long downtimes for maintenance on healthcare.gov during the coming ObamaCare sign-up period. — The administration drew criticism for a similar move last year …

Discussion: Hullabaloo and Shareblue Media

Lawrence Summers / Financial Times:

I discovered the rest of America on my summer holiday — Economists like me see the world through the prism of models, fitted to statistical data and tested against market realities. Economic models provide uniquely powerful perspectives: I have used them to argue that had the economy been left to itself …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Shakesville and Splinter

Ryan Gallagher / The Intercept:

Leaked Transcript of Private Meeting Contradicts Google's Official Story on China — “We have to be focused on what we want to enable,” said Ben Gomes, Google's search engine chief. “And then when the opening happens, we are ready for it.” — It was Wednesday, July 18 …

Discussion: Washington Free Beacon, more at Techmeme »

Lisa Hagen / The Hill:

Sinema announces raising nearly $7 million in third quarter — Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) says she raised nearly $7 million in the third fundraising quarter of the year, shattering her previous fundraising records in the Senate race against Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.).

Discussion: Arizona Republic