memeorandum: Don't let Trump hide brutal LGBTQ record behind ‘religious freedom’ rhetoric in 2020 race (Michelangelo Signorile/USA Today)

10:35 PM ET, May 9, 2019

Top Items:

A Strategy Emerges to Counter House Democrats: Dare Them to Impeach — WASHINGTON — As the White House and Congress escalate their constitutional showdown, President Trump and his team are essentially trying to call what they see as the Democrats' bluff. The message: Put up or shut up.

Discussion: Raw Story

Max Boot / Washington Post:

Republicans are hall-of-fame hypocrites — “In scandals such as this, it is always members of the president's party who have particular leverage, and therefore who have a particular responsibility, to hold the president accountable for his actions.” — So wrote noted Republican moralist Bill Bennett …

Discussion: Tampa Bay Times, HillReporter.com, Raw Story, New York Times and Vox

New York Times:

Trump Suggests Mueller May Testify; Pelosi Declares ‘Constitutional Crisis’ — WASHINGTON — President Trump said Thursday that he would leave it to Attorney General William P. Barr to decide whether the special counsel testifies before Congress, a concession of sorts after Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared …

Discussion: Mother Jones and The Daily Caller

New York Times:
Pelosi Declares Nation Is in a ‘Constitutional Crisis’

Discussion: Fox News, New York Post, The Atlantic, CNN, Slate, The Federalist, ABC News, IJR and Just Security

Rebecca Shabad / NBC News:
Petitions with 10 million signatures to impeach Trump delivered to Congress

Discussion: Axios

David French / National Review:
Against the Persecution of Bill Barr

Discussion: New York Times, Daily Wire and Lawfare

Andrew Napolitano / Fox News:
Judge Andrew Napolitano: Did Attorney General William Barr deceive Congress?

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, The Daily Beast and Contemptor

Jonathan Turley / The Hill:
Democrats showing contempt by holding William Barr in contempt

Discussion: Fox News, Hot Air, Commentary, Townhall, New York Times and CNN

Kenneth P. Vogel / New York Times:

Giuliani Plans Ukraine Trip to Push for Inquiries That Could Help Trump — WASHINGTON — Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump's personal lawyer, is encouraging Ukraine to wade further into sensitive political issues in the United States, seeking to push the incoming government in Kiev …

Discussion: Raw Story, Foreign Policy and CNN

Katelyn Polantz / CNN:

Judge fast-tracks fight over congressional subpoena of Trump financial records — NYT reporter calls Trump business losses ‘unbelievable’ — Washington (CNN)Congress and Donald Trump's fight over his financial records is now on the fast track. — Judge Amit Mehta plans next week to weigh …

Discussion: Law & Crime

Marianne LeVine / Politico:

Burr holds firm despite GOP anger over Don Jr. subpoena — Richard Burr faces intense pressure from Republicans to drop his subpoena of President Donald Trump's eldest son and quickly wrap up the Senate Intelligence Committee's Russia probe. — But despite a day facing attacks …

Discussion: Raw Story, BuzzFeed News and CNBC

Kaitlan Collins / CNN:

Trump's inner circle frustrated by son's subpoena — Washington (CNN)Members of President Donald Trump's inner circle are frustrated that the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr., multiple sources tell CNN. — Those close to Trump are exasperated …

Discussion: Washington Post, Taylor Marsh, Conservative News Today, Progress Pond, The Gateway Pundit, Above the Law, The Daily Caller, Splinter, The Root and twitchy.com

Wall Street Journal:

Burr Draws GOP Scrutiny for Subpoena of Donald Trump Jr. — Senate Intelligence Committee chairman has investigated President Trump in a more bipartisan fashion than some of his fellow Republicans — The Senate Intelligence Committee's decision to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. opened …

Discussion: Political Wire

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
Dem senator: Trump Jr. should be ‘locked up’ if he doesn't comply with subpoena

Discussion: Washington Post, Reuters, Shareblue Media, IJR, The New Civil Rights Movement and Mediaite

Caitlin MacNeal / Talking Points Memo:
Trump Goes On Extended Rant About Subpoena Of Don Jr.

Discussion: Washington Press, HillReporter.com and Hullabaloo

Washington Post:

Alabama Senate passes nation's strictest abortion bill, making performing the procedure a felony with few exceptions — The bill needs Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey's (R) approval before it becomes law. — Conservative governors and legislators are using new highly restrictive abortion laws …

Discussion: Axios, Jezebel, New York Times and Political Wire

Mike Cason / al.com:
Chaos erupts as Alabama Senate strips rape exception from abortion ban, delays vote

Discussion: Raw Story, Talking Points Memo, The Week and Splinter

Alan Blinder / New York Times:
Amid Chaos, Alabama Lawmakers Delay Vote on Far-Reaching Abortion Ban

Discussion: The Root, The Daily Caller and Hullabaloo

Abbey Crain / al.com: Alabama bill would criminalize false rape accusations

Elisha Fieldstadt / NBC News: Alabama bill banning nearly all abortions delayed after fiery debate on Senate floor

Washington Post:
After shouting match breaks out, Alabama Senate reverses course and tables controversial abortion vote

Discussion: Associated Press, RedState, The Hill, The Montgomery Advertiser, 1A, TheBlaze and WHNT-TV

John Solomon / The Hill:

FBI's Steele story falls apart: False intel and media contacts were flagged before FISA — The FBI's sworn story to a federal court about its asset, Christopher Steele, is fraying faster than a $5 souvenir t-shirt bought at a tourist trap. — Newly unearthed memos show a high-ranking government official …

Discussion: The Last Refuge, The Gateway Pundit, American Greatness, RealClearInvestigations, twitchy.com, Townhall and LewRockwell

Tara Palmeri / ABC News:

Kim Jong Un wanted ‘famous’ US basketball players as part of denuclearization deal: Sources — Ahead of the second summit in Hanoi, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un requested as part of the agreement between the countries moving forward that the U.S. send “famous basketball players” …

Discussion: New York Times, Rolling Stone, One America News Network, NPR and Mediaite

Washington Post:

Trump and Kim battled subordinates ahead of spike in tensions — President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shattered more than a year of relative tranquility Thursday with the U.S. seizure of a North Korean vessel and the isolated regime's launch of two short-range ballistic missiles.

Discussion: BBC, New York Times and NPR

Jay Weaver / Miami Herald:

Trump cheered Patriots to Super Bowl victory with founder of spa where Kraft was busted — The FBI has opened a public corruption investigation into Republican donor and South Florida massage-parlor entrepreneur Li “Cindy” Yang, focusing on whether she illegally funneled money from China …

Discussion: Raw Story, New York Post and The Guardian

Chris Kahn / Reuters:

Americans' support for impeaching Trump rises: Reuters/Ipsos poll — NEW YORK (Reuters) - The number of Americans who said President Donald Trump should be impeached rose 5 percentage points to 45 percent since mid-April, while more than half said multiple congressional probes of Trump interfered …

Discussion: The Hill and TheBlaze

Devlin Barrett / Washington Post:

‘Things were often a bit not normal’: Rosenstein gets fond, jokey send-off from Justice Dept. — Rod J. Rosenstein, whose two-year tenure as the Justice Department's No. 2 official was spent in the eye of a public storm surrounding special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation of President Trump …

Brooke Singman / Fox News:
DOJ brass praise Rosenstein's Russia probe leadership at send-off ceremony

Discussion: Politico and Fox News Insider

Charles Leerhsen / Yahoo News:

Exclusive: Trump, the billion-dollar loser — I was his ghostwriter and saw it happen — On Tuesday, the New York Times scooped the world on the news that from 1985 to 1994, Donald Trump incurred the biggest business losses of any single taxpayer in American history.

Discussion: New York Post, Raw Story and The Daily Beast

New York Times:

It's Time to Break Up Facebook — The last time I saw Mark Zuckerberg — was in the summer of 2017, several months before the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke. We met at Facebook's Menlo Park, Calif., office and drove to his house, in a quiet, leafy neighborhood.

Gregg Re / Fox News:

China, US trade reps meet for high-stakes talks with hours to go until $200B in new tariffs take effect — With less than eight hours to go until the Trump administration is set to implement a crippling new volley of tariffs on Chinese goods, trade representatives from the U.S. and China …

Discussion: Politico, Bloomberg, One America News Network, Breitbart and PJ Media Home

Axios:
11 million U.S. workers are affected by Trump's trade war, and they're largely in Trump country

Discussion: Raw Story

New York Times:
Trump Says China Tariffs Will Increase as Trade Deal Hangs in the Balance

Discussion: Media Matters for America

Theodore Schleifer / Vox:

One out of every 11,600 people in San Francisco is a billionaire — Statistics like this throw into sharp relief the challenge for Silicon Valley and its leaders in 2019. — If you want to run into a celebrity, you go to Hollywood. If you want to run into a billionaire, you should move to San Francisco.

Discussion: SFist and Curbed SF

Kate Conger / New York Times:
They Got Rich Off Uber and Lyft. Then They Moved to Low-Tax States.

Discussion: National Review, NPR and Splinter

Polls:

Trump Bigger Factor than Obama for 2020 Dem Primary Voters — West Long Branch, NJ - Former Vice President Joe Biden is the clear front-runner for New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation Democratic primary, according to the first Monmouth University Poll of Granite State primary voters in the 2020 cycle.

Discussion: RedState, Fox News and Washington Free Beacon

Renae Merle / Washington Post:

Bernie Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez want to cap credit card interest rates at 15 percent — They have been reaching record levels as the Fed raised key interest rates and the industry prepares for the next recession. — Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will introduce legislation …

Discussion: CreditCards.com, Daily Kos, The Intercept, Roll Call, Reason, ThinkProgress, Fox News, Mother Jones, Splinter, Politico, Axios, Common Dreams, Breitbart and New York Post

Bonchie / RedState:
AOC and Bernie Have a Brilliant New Idea for Banking

Discussion: Hot Air and PJ Media Home

Anita Hill / New York Times:

Let's Talk About How to End Sexual Violence — That's the most important conversation right now. — Ms. Hill is a professor at Brandeis University. — Last month, Joe Biden called me to talk about his conduct during Clarence Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991.

Discussion: Axios

David Dayen / American Prospect:

Trump's Most Nakedly Corrupt Tweet Yet — As the president props up lobbyists and cronies, Democrats must respond with aggressive oversight. — It used to be that I was concerned that the media was paying too much attention to Donald Trump's tweets; now I'm concerned that they're not paying enough.

Discussion: Splinter, CNBC and CBS Boston

USA Today:

Students walk out of Colorado school shooting vigil, saying their trauma was being politicized — HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. - Gun rights advocates posted support on social media Thursday for students who walked out of a gun-control rally in anger and tears over concerns the event inappropriately politicized their grief.

Discussion: New York Post, twitchy.com, Power Line, Slate, WORLD, Breitbart, VICE News and TheBlaze

U.S. Department of Justice:

Former Intelligence Analyst Charged with Disclosing Classified Information — ALEXANDRIA, Va. - An indictment was unsealed today charging a former intelligence analyst with illegally obtaining classified national defense information and disclosing it to a reporter.

Discussion: New York Times, Vanity Fair, Washington Post, The Gateway Pundit, Reason, KTLA, The Intercept, NPR, Politico, Fox News, CNN, Mediaite, Axios and Law & Crime, more at Mediagazer »

ProPublica:

Listen to TurboTax Lie to Get Out of Refunding Overcharged Customers — TurboTax successfully lobbied to keep the IRS from offering free tax prep. Now it's pretending the government already does it. … The makers of TurboTax have long been luring customers into paying for a service …

Discussion: Above the Law

Dell Cameron / Gizmodo:

Chelsea Manning Has Been Released From Jail — Chelsea Manning was released today from the Virginia jail where she spent 62 days for refusing to testify about her past association with WikiLeaks before a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Discussion: Townhall, The Sparrow Project and TechCrunch

Tim Murphy / Mother Jones:

“I Don't Know Who ‘I’ Am”: Bernie Sanders' Brutally Honest Mayoral Memos — Sometime in the mid-1980s, about halfway through his eight-year tenure as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, Bernie Sanders flipped to a fresh page in a yellow legal pad and poured out his crippling sense of doubt.

Discussion: The Daily Caller

Karen Tumulty / Washington Post:

It turns out Trump's business success was a media-made myth — President Trump has finally proved, beyond any doubt, that there is such a thing as #FakeNews. — In the 1980s and 1990s, the media conspired to perpetrate a vast fraud on the American people.

Discussion: RedState, Hollywood Reporter and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Kate Riga / Talking Points Memo:

Trump Downgrades ‘No Obstruction’ To ... ‘Essentially No Obstruction’ — President Donald Trump seemed to hedge a bit on his months-long chant of “no obstruction, no collusion,” saying that the redacted Mueller report revealed “essentially no obstruction” during a bill signing Thursday.

Discussion: The Week and Political Wire