memeorandum: The fall of Notre Dame is a body blow to Paris and all it represents (James McAuley/Washington Post)

1:15 PM ET, April 16, 2019

Top Items:

Jonathan Martin / New York Times:

‘Stop Sanders’ Democrats Are Agonizing Over His Momentum — WASHINGTON — When Leah Daughtry, a former Democratic Party official, addressed a closed-door gathering of about 100 wealthy liberal donors in San Francisco last month, all it took was a review of the 2020 primary rules to throw a scare in them.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Common Dreams, Breitbart, Raw Story, Herman Cain, Splinter, Althouse, twitchy.com, Washington Post, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Fox News and Politico

New York Times:

The Rematch: Bernie Sanders vs. a Clinton Loyalist — WASHINGTON — The bad blood started early. — In 2008, Neera Tanden, then a top aide on Hillary Clinton's first presidential campaign, accompanied Mrs. Clinton to what was expected to be an easy interview at the Center for American Progress …

Discussion: Politico, RedState, Washington Monthly, Washington Post, Observer, Splinter, Diane Ravitch's blog, The Resurgent, Fox News, twitchy.com, Center for American …, BuzzFeed News, VICE News and Reason

Holly Otterbein / Politico:

Sanders takes on Fox — and emerges triumphant — BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Bernie Sanders entered the Fox's den on Monday night — and he not only survived the hourlong encounter, but often dominated. — Appearing at a Fox News-hosted town hall, smack in the middle of Trump Country …

Discussion: Washington Post, Talking Points Memo, IJR, The Guardian, CNBC, Breitbart, Joe.My.God. and Jezebel

Daniel Marans / HuffPost:
A ‘Medicare For All’ Question Backfired At Bernie Sanders' Fox News Town Hall

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Bloomberg, Vox and The Federalist

NBC News:

White House officials concerned about being exposed by Mueller report — Some of the dozen-plus officials interviewed by Mueller are concerned about president's “wrath” if they are seen as a source of damaging information in Thursday's report. — WASHINGTON — Some of the more than one dozen current …

Discussion: Raw Story, Daily Kos, Law & Crime, Rolling Stone, Splinter, Talking Points Memo, The Week, New York Times, No More Mister Nice Blog and Axios

Paul Waldman / Washington Post:

Trump's greatest fear: His underlings told Mueller the truth — As we await Attorney General William P. Barr's redacted version of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's report on the investigation into the Russia scandal, some people in the White House are getting nervous.

Discussion: Law & Crime, Raw Story and wabe.org

The Bulwark:

Release it. Read it. — On March 24, Donald Trump tweeted out that The Mueller investigation had resulted in complete exoneration: — On Thursday, when the Department of Justice releases a redacted version of the actual Mueller report, we'll find out how well that has aged.

New York Times:

Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris Catches Fire — PARIS — Notre-Dame cathedral, the iconic symbol of the beauty and history of Paris, was scarred by an extensive fire on Monday evening that caused part of its delicate spire to collapse, bruised the Parisian skies with smoke and further disheartened …

James McAuley / Washington Post: The fall of Notre Dame is a body blow to Paris and all it represents

James Hohmann / Washington Post:
The Daily 202: Tax returns show 2020 candidates gave to charity, but not a ton

Discussion: Fox News and The Daily Caller

Tom O'Connor / Newsweek:
Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque Fire Burns at the Same Time As Flames Engulf Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris

Discussion: Scroll.in and Balloon Juice

Justin Baragona / The Daily Beast:
Fox News Anchors Shut Down Conspiracy Theories About Notre Dame Fire

Discussion: Politico, Associated Press, Newsweek, The Wrap and Mediaite

Daniel González / Arizona Republic:

ICE deports spouse of U.S. soldier killed in Afghanistan — Immigration officials have deported the spouse of a U.S. soldier killed in Afghanistan, leaving the couple's 12-year-old daughter, a U.S. citizen, in Phoenix without parents, according to the deported man's lawyer.

Discussion: Washington Post, Reason, The Guardian, Talking Points Memo, KTLA, CNN, New York Post, Splinter and Fox News

Reid Wilson / The Hill:

Poll: Roy Moore leading Alabama GOP field — Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore leads the field of potential Republicans vying for the chance to challenge Sen. Doug Jones (D), a year and a half after Moore lost what was supposed to be an easy election in a deep-red state.

Discussion: Outside the Beltway and Political Wire

Grace Segers / CBS News:

Roy Moore leads in Alabama Senate poll — Roy Moore, the Republican iconoclast accused of sexual misconduct, is leading among Republican voters in a new poll on the upcoming Alabama Senate race. Moore narrowly lost a special election to fill former Attorney General Jeff Sessions' seat amid allegations …

Michael Hobbes / HuffPost:

Pete Buttigieg Was An Effective Mayor — With A Gaping Blind Spot — South Bend residents describe a technocratic leader who struggled to see beyond spreadsheets. — Like many residents of South Bend, Indiana, Laura Jensen has known Pete Buttigieg for years.

Discussion: LGBTQ Nation, Rolling Stone, VICE News and RealityChek

Shane Goldmacher / New York Times:
9 Takeaways From the Biggest Reveal of the 2020 Money Race So Far

Discussion: Vox and New York Times

Matthew Yglesias / Vox:
What Pete Buttigieg learned from Donald Trump

Discussion: Townhall, The Guardian and Breitbart

NBC News:

Mark Zuckerberg leveraged Facebook user data to fight rivals and help friends, leaked documents show — Facebook's leaders seriously discussed selling access to user data — and privacy was an afterthought. — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg oversaw plans to consolidate the social network's power …

Discussion: Boing Boing, The Daily Caller, CNBC and Mediaite, more at Techmeme »

New York Times:

Gina Haspel Relies on Spy Skills to Connect With Trump. He Doesn't Always Listen. — WASHINGTON — Gina Haspel was trying to brief President Trump early in her tenure as the C.I.A. director, but he appeared distracted. Houseflies buzzing around the Oval Office were drawing his attention, and ire.

Discussion: Washington Post, Splinter and Raw Story

Isaac Chotiner / New Yorker:

Norm Coleman Explains Why Supporters of Israel Should Thank Donald Trump — The journey of Norm Coleman, the former Republican senator from Minnesota, is an instructive one. Coleman, who started his political career as a Democrat, was the mayor of St. Paul, from 1994 to 2002.

Discussion: The American Conservative

Jamelle Bouie / New York Times:
Why Trump Won't Stop Talking About Ilhan Omar

Discussion: The Federalist, The Atlantic, Washington Post, The Takeaway and Religion in Public

Alex Kantrowitz / BuzzFeed News:
Twitter Left Up Ilhan Omar Death Threats So Law Enforcement Could Investigate

Discussion: Washington Post, Mashable, POLITICUSUSA, Breitbart, The Week, Washington Times, Mother Jones, Towleroad Gay News and Media Matters for America, more at Techmeme »

Paul Krugman / New York Times:
Republicans Are the Real Extremists

Discussion: Media Matters for America, CNN, twitchy.com and Raw Story

Wired:

15 Months of Fresh Hell Inside Facebook — Scandals. Backstabbing. Resignations. Record profits. Time Bombs. In early 2018, Mark Zuckerberg set out to fix Facebook. Here's how that turned out. — THE STREETS OF Davos, Switzerland, were iced over on the night of January 25 …

Discussion: Boing Boing, The Verge and Mashable, more at Mediagazer »

Nicholas Confessore / New York Times:

Mick Mulvaney's Master Class in Destroying a Bureaucracy From Within — The C.F.P.B. was created to protect Americans from predatory lenders after the financial crisis. President Trump's new chief of staff took it apart on his way to White House. — One rainy afternoon early in February 2018 …

Discussion: NB Blog and Raw Story

Sandra E. Garcia / New York Times:

White Man Gets 10 Years in Prison for Trying to Hire Hit Man to Lynch Black Neighbor — A white man in South Carolina has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to trying to hire a hit man to kill his black neighbor, hang him from a tree and leave a burning cross in his yard, prosecutors said.

Andrew C. McCarthy / New York Post:

Behind the Obama administration's shady plan to spy on the Trump campaign — In Senate testimony last week, Attorney General William Barr used the word “spying” to refer to the Obama administration, um, spying on the Trump campaign. Of course, fainting spells ensued, with the media-Democrat complex in meltdown.

Discussion: Althouse

Irin Carmon / The Cut:

How the Kavanaugh Hearings Changed American Men and Women — Around five or six hundred traumatic public events ago — which is to say last fall — Republicans declared Democrats would live to regret that they pushed for women accusing now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault or misconduct to be heard.

Discussion: FiveThirtyEight

Jesse Paul / The Colorado Sun:

Democrat Dan Baer, an Obama-era diplomat, jumps into race to unseat Cory Gardner — Baer most recently served as head of Colorado's Department of Higher Education — Dan Baer, a Democrat who served as a diplomat under President Barack Obama, said Monday evening that he will run for U.S. Senate.

Jeff Stein / Newsweek:

‘Fear Is a Very Powerful Force’: How the White House Whistleblower Exposed a National Security Scandal — When Donald Trump and his advisers arrived at the White House for their first real day of work on January 21, 2017, they inherited over 1,800 civil service employees who have more-or-less permanent jobs …

Brad Miller / The Daily Beast:

Here's How the House Can Finally Nail Trump — ‘The scope of the power of inquiry,’ the Supreme Court wrote, ‘is as penetrating and far-reaching as the potential power to enact and appropriate under the Constitution.’ — President Trump may complain on Twitter or Fox News …

Discussion: Hullabaloo and Raw Story

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Trump's 2020 plan: Target seniors on Facebook — The Trump campaign is spending nearly half (44%) of its Facebook ad budget to target users who are over 65 years old, as opposed to Democratic candidates who are only spending 27% of their budget on that demographic, according to data given …

Discussion: Vox and Vanity Fair

Matt Arco / New Jersey Online:

Drivers of state cars really shouldn't give people the finger. But that's exactly what happened. At least 3 times. — When you're behind the wheel of a car with state government license plates, you probably shouldn't be blazing past the speed limit. Or weaving in and out of traffic like crazy.

Discussion: Splinter

Danny Hakim / New York Times:

N.R.A. Sues Contractor Behind NRATV — It's the N.R.A. versus NRATV. — The National Rifle Association sued one of its largest and most enduring contractors late last week and raised concerns about the contractor's relationship to the association's own president, Oliver North …

Discussion: Fox News, Joe.My.God., The Week, Wall Street Journal and Media Matters for America

Brad Reed / Raw Story:

Florida GOP lawmaker calls Jewish man a ‘Judenrat’ over his criticism of Israeli government — Republican Florida State Rep. Randy Fine this week accused a fellow Jewish man of being a Nazi collaborator after he defended a panel discussion that was critical of Israel's current right-wing government.

Discussion: Orlando Sentinel

Julia Horowitz / CNN:

Russia's Rusal was sanctioned by the US. Now it's investing $200 million in a Kentucky mill — London (CNN Business)Russian aluminum giant Rusal spent most of last year under US sanctions. Now it's pumping $200 million into a new project in Kentucky. — Rusal, the largest producer …

Discussion: Raw Story