memeorandum: Michael Oren Doesn't Want To Talk About Israel (Isaac Chotiner/New Yorker)

8:35 PM ET, May 11, 2019

Top Items:

Leaked Letters Reveal Details of NRA Chief's Alleged Spending — Wayne LaPierre expensed $39,000 in clothes in one day, $18,300 for car and driver, ad agency says; NRA says board has ‘full confidence’ in him — National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre billed the group's ad agency $39,000 …

Discussion: Raw Story and Political Wire

Betsy Woodruff / The Daily Beast:

Leaked Documents: NRA Racked Up $24 Million in Legal Bills — The NRA has racked up huge legal bills over the last year that threaten to debilitate the organization, according to documents posted anonymously online that appear to be written by the group's ex-president Oliver North.

Discussion: Slate and Raw Story

Associated Press:

Beto O'Rourke plans ‘reintroduction’ as 2020 buzz fizzles — NEWTON, Iowa (AP) — Beto O'Rourke barreled into the 2020 presidential race with breakneck energy and a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants campaign style that saw him leap atop tables to address overflow crowds with the organic …

Discussion: Townhall and twitchy.com

Sam Dorman / Fox News:
Resurfaced video shows Joe Biden pushing border fence, calling for employers who hired ‘illegals’ to be punished

Discussion: Townhall, IJR and CNN

Harry Enten / CNN:
Beto O'Rourke is polling worse than ever

Discussion: Outside the Beltway, Axios and American Prospect

Benjy Sarlin / NBC News:
Sanders to join Ocasio-Cortez at rally as climate fight heats up

Discussion: New York Times, RedState and Conservative News Today

Marc Caputo / Politico:
Florida takes shape as Joe Biden's firewall

Discussion: The Argo Journal

Jonathan Allen / NBC News:
As Biden predicts a shorter race, rivals dig in for long fight

Discussion: USA Today

Paul Krugman / New York Times:

Killing the Pax Americana — Trump's trade war is about more than economics. — O.K., they weren't supposed to start the trade war until I got back from vacation. And I really have too many kilometers to cover and hills to climb to weigh in on a regular basis or at great length.

Discussion: Hullabaloo and Raw Story

New York Times:

Trump's Tariffs Are a New Tax on Americans — President Trump is undermining the credibility of his trade policies by falsely claiming that China is paying the bill. — The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.

Discussion: Des Moines Register, Fox News, Politico, Slate, Daily Kos, Sputnik International and CNN

Nick Clegg / New York Times:
Breaking Up Facebook Is Not the Answer

Discussion: Engadget, Gizmodo, Variety, The Verge, Breitbart, Deadline, TechCrunch, Mediaite and ABC News, more at Techmeme »

Mitch Smith / New York Times:
Frustration Mounts Among Farmers as China Trade Talks Break Down

Discussion: POLITICUSUSA and Axios

New York Times:
Trump Sees a China Trade Deal Through a New Prism: The 2020 Election

Discussion: Bloomberg

Kenneth P. Vogel / New York Times:

Rudy Giuliani Cancels His Trip to Ukraine, Blaming Democrats' ‘Spin’ — WASHINGTON — Facing withering attacks accusing him of seeking foreign assistance for President Trump's re-election campaign, Rudolph W. Giuliani announced on Friday night that he had canceled a trip to Kiev in which he planned …

Discussion: CNN, RedState, CBS News, Politico, Vox, Vanity Fair, The Last Refuge, Splinter, Joe.My.God., PJ Media Home, Axios, The Week, The Guardian, New York Post, Big League Politics and Mediaite

Washington Post:
Trump's interest in stirring Ukraine investigations sows confusion in Kiev

Discussion: Fox News and Raw Story

Harry Siegel / New York Daily News: Rudy Giuliani's adventures abroad: How the former mayor is helping Trump anywhere he can

Charles Creitz / Fox News:
Giuliani cancels Ukraine trip, says he'd be ‘walking into a group of people that are enemies of the US’

Discussion: Hullabaloo, Talking Points Memo and News Agency UNIAN

Isaac Chotiner / New Yorker:

Michael Oren Doesn't Want To Talk About Israel — Michael Oren, born Michael Bornstein in New York in 1955, emigrated to Israel forty years ago and served in the Israeli Defense Forces. After returning to the U.S. to receive a Ph.D. in Near Eastern studies from Princeton …

Michael Brice-Saddler / Washington Post:

A group raised over $20 million to ‘build the wall.’ Now its supporters want answers. — A December fundraising campaign brought in more than $20 million over the course of a few weeks, its thousands of donors united by a common goal: the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, oft-promised by President Trump.

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Axios, Daily Kos and The Daily Beast

Jacqueline Thomsen / The Hill:

Trump seeks to limit judges' powers on injunctions after legal blows — President Trump is looking to stop lower courts from being able to issue wide-ranging injunctions in a move that could dramatically limit the authority of judges. — The plan comes as groups opposed to Trump have been able …

Discussion: Political Wire

Jamie Raskin / Washington Post: Congress isn't just a co-equal branch. We're first among equals.

Anne Barnard / New York Times:

Inside Syria's Secret Torture Prisons: How Bashar al-Assad Crushed Dissent — GAZIANTEP, Turkey — Syrian security officers hung Muhannad Ghabbash from his wrists for hours, beat him bloody, shocked him with electricity and stuck a gun in his mouth. — Mr. Ghabbash, a law student from Aleppo …

Aaron Blake / Washington Post:

The GOP's increasing embrace of Trump's Russia conspiracy theory — On Friday, the former general counsel of the FBI, Jim Baker, decided to speak out. Frustrated by the burgeoning Republican narrative about how the Russia investigation might have been launched under false pretenses …

Discussion: Hullabaloo and Raw Story

Andrew McCarthy / Fox News:
Politics is front and center for Russiagate probe — and the farce has reached new heights

Discussion: Power Line

Matt Zapotosky / Washington Post: ‘There was no attempted coup’: FBI's former top lawyer defends Russia probe

Eliza Collins / USA Today:

Firestorm erupts around Sen. Richard Burr, man behind Donald Trump Jr. subpoena. He's not backing down — WASHINGTON — North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr is not one to make a splash. — So when the Senate Intelligence Committee, which Burr chairs, issued a subpoena to Donald Trump Jr., it didn't leak out for a couple of weeks.

Discussion: HillReporter.com, Raw Story, The National Interest and ThinkProgress

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Trump Has a Strong Economy to Proclaim. In Wisconsin, It Just Might Work. — COLFAX, Wis. — President Trump came to Wisconsin late last month to boast about the state's unemployment rate, which has been at or near 3 percent for more than a year. “It's never been this low before.

CNN:

Washington is flirting with a debt crisis. No one has a plan to stop it — President Trump: 'It's time to stop this nonsense' — Washington (CNN)The US government is hurtling toward a potential financial crisis, and no one in Washington seems to know how to stop it.

Kate Taylor / New York Times:

Harvard Drops Harvey Weinstein Lawyer as a Faculty Dean — CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Harvard said on Saturday that a law professor who is representing Harvey Weinstein would not continue as faculty dean of an undergraduate house after his term ends on June 30, bowing to months of pressure from students.

Discussion: The Harvard Crimson and Law & Crime

Mike DeBonis / Washington Post:

Liz Cheney confronts a dilemma and the GOP wonders: How high can she go? — Rep. Liz Cheney has spent only six months as a senior House leader, winning rave reviews from fellow Republicans. Now she's suddenly facing a dilemma over whether to take her talents to the other side of the Capitol.