memeorandum: Half of England Is Owned by Less Than 1% of Its Population, Researcher Says (Palko Karasz/New York Times)

3:15 PM ET, April 20, 2019

Top Items:

CNN:

From ‘total exoneration’ to ‘total bullsh**’: Trump lingers on damning report — Washington (CNN)By the time President Donald Trump had passed through the prime rib buffet at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday to sit for dinner with family and a top aide, the damning picture Robert Mueller's report painted of his presidency had become clear.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, POLITICUSUSA, Washington Free Beacon, The Root, Washington Post, KTLA, Daily Wire and Media Matters for America, more at Mediagazer »

Sohrab Ahmari / New York Post:

Top 10 things the media got wrong about ‘collusion’ and ‘obstruction’ — The prestige press has some explaining to do — for subjecting the nation to a long, cruel ordeal named “collusion” and “obstruction.” Almost two years and millions of column inches later, special counsel Robert Mueller …

Discussion: Daily Wire, Liberty Unyielding and The Federalist

New York Times:

Mueller Report Likely to Renew Scrutiny of Steele Dossier — WASHINGTON — The 35-page dossier, spiced up with tales of prostitutes and spies, sketched out a hair-raising story more than two years ago. Russian intelligence had used bribery and blackmail to try to turn Donald J. Trump …

Discussion: JustOneMinute, Daily Wire, twitchy.com, the daily howler, Wall Street Journal and Althouse

Bret Stephens / New York Times:

Conservatives Should Thank Mueller — A scrupulous report saved an unscrupulous president. — For the better part of two years, Donald Trump and his partisans did everything they could to denigrate and discredit Robert Mueller and his investigation. — They're not done yet.

Discussion: Washington Press, Above the Law, WVSports.com and Mediaite

Chris Kahn / Reuters:
Trump approval drops 3 points to 2019 low after release of Mueller report: Reuters/Ipsos poll

Discussion: Splinter, Rolling Stone and New York Times

New York Times:
Giuliani Attacks McGahn's Account to Mueller

Discussion: Daily Kos, fox8.com, Axios, Politico, The Hill, Washington Press and Mediaite

Sharon LaFraniere / New York Times: Prodded by Putin, Russians Sought Back Channels to Trump Through the Business World

Anne Applebaum / Washington Post:
Why was Trump so afraid of the Mueller investigation? We may never know.

Discussion: Balloon Juice

Jennifer Taub / Slate:
Don McGahn Not Listening to Donald Trump Doesn't Absolve the President of a Crime

Discussion: ABC

Barbara McQuade / The Daily Beast:
Forget Roy Cohn, Future Presidents Would Ask 'Where's My Bill Barr?'

Discussion: Raw Story

Mark Penn / The Hill:
Mueller's done, and Dems should be too — because Trump is no Nixon

Discussion: Liberty Unyielding

New York Times:
The Mueller Report and the Danger Facing American Democracy

Discussion: Press Herald and Raw Story

New York Times: See Which Witnesses the Mueller Report Relied On Most

David French / TIME:
Donald Trump Is Weak and Afraid. The Mueller Report Proves It

Discussion: Vox, Vanity Fair and CANNONFIRE

Michelle Goldberg / New York Times:
In a Functional Country, We Would Be on the Road to Impeachment

Discussion: Outside the Beltway and The Atlantic

Washington Post:

How a legal dispute between Mueller and Barr drove the end of the special counsel's probe — For nearly two years, the public, Congress and the White House waited to learn if special counsel Robert S. Mueller III would find that President Trump had committed crimes.

Discussion: The Week and Daily Kos

Lawfare:

The Mueller Report Demands an Impeachment Inquiry — Here is, as Bill Barr might call it, “the bottom line”: The Mueller Report describes, in excruciating detail and with relatively few redactions, a candidate and a campaign aware of the existence of a plot by a hostile foreign government …

Discussion: Towleroad Gay News, Rolling Stone, TheBlaze, ThinkProgress and Slate

Anna Dubenko / New York Times:

A Reader's Guide to the Journalism Behind the Mueller Report — If some of the revelations in Robert S. Mueller III's long-awaited report sound familiar, it's because many of them were previously published by The New York Times and other news outlets. — Times Insider explains …

Discussion: Political Wire and Raw Story

Adi Robertson / The Verge:
The PDF Association thinks the Mueller report sucks

Discussion: PDF Association and Outside the Beltway

Andrew C. McCarthy / National Review: The Mueller Report Vindicates Bill Barr

Timothy Meads / Townhall:

CNN's April Ryan Accuses Mike Huckabee Of Inciting Violence After He Quotes Her Saying Sarah Sanders' Head Should Be ‘Lopped Off’ — Critical thinking does not seem to be a strong suit of the Democratic Party as of late. In a similar playbook to Ilhan Omar's 9/11 remarks …

Discussion: Mediaite

Andy Borowitz / New Yorker:

Sarah Huckabee Sanders Accuses Media of Anti-Liar Bias — WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Reacting to the journalist April Ryan's call for her to be fired, the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said, on Friday, that she has been the victim of the media's “widespread anti-liar bias.”

Bob Brigham / Raw Story: Trump aides worry Sarah Sanders' collapsed credibility will drag the White House down even more: report

Bonchie / RedState:
CNN's April Ryan Says Sarah Sanders' Head Should Be “Lopped Off”

Discussion: Raw Story, twitchy.com, Breitbart, The Gateway Pundit, Contemptor, TheBlaze, Mediaite, IJR, TIME and NB Blog

New York Times:
Sanders's ‘Slip of the Tongue’ Would Be a Problem in Some White Houses. Not Trump's.

Discussion: Raw Story

New York Times:

Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet — Workers at a 787 Dreamliner plant in South Carolina have complained of defective manufacturing, debris left on planes and pressure to not report violations. — NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — When Boeing broke ground …

Natasha Korecki / Politico:

‘The Democratic base is angry as hell’: Cory Booker's message of love falls flat — SIOUX CITY, IOWA — Sen. Cory Booker launched a bid for the White House in February on a message of love and unity, painting himself as an inspirational leader who would help a polarized America find common ground.

Discussion: Outside the Beltway

New York Times:
Should a White Man Be the Face of the Democratic Party in 2020?

Discussion: Althouse

Peter Baker / New York Times:

‘I Do Not Remember’: Trump Gave a Familiar Reply to the Special Counsel's Queries — WASHINGTON — President Trump has boasted at various points that he has “one of the great memories of all time” or even “the world's greatest memory.” — But the world's greatest memory failed him repeatedly …

Discussion: Washington Post

Kyle Peterson / Wall Street Journal:

After 40 Years, C-Span's Founder Signs Off — Brian Lamb, the man who put Congress on live television, reflects on the results and explains why the Supreme Court ought to be next. — Washington — 'Lying is the word that I would use to describe this town," says Brian Lamb, in his usual Midwestern deadpan. "

Bob Price / Breitbart:

Armed Mexican Soldiers Disarm, Question U.S. Soldiers on Texas Side of Border — A group of armed Mexican soldiers detained and disarmed a pair of U.S. soldiers on the U.S. side of the Texas border with Mexico. The U.S. soldiers were eventually released and their weapons returned.

Anne Helen Petersen / BuzzFeed News:

“Fixer Upper” Is Over, But Waco's Transformation Is Just Beginning — HGTV stars Chip and Joanna Gaines helped convert a sleepy Texas town into a tourist mecca. But not everyone agrees on what Waco's “restoration” should look like. — There are dozens of new stores in Waco, Texas …

Margaret Sullivan / Washington Post:

Mueller's report proves why Trump loves Fox News — and why he needs it now more than ever — It's no secret that Fox News and the Trump administration are deeply entwined with each other: They are the conjoined twins of misinformation. — So it hardly raised an eyebrow when the president took …