memeorandum: Michigan GOP congressman says Trump's conduct impeachable (Andrew Desiderio/Politico)

8:05 PM ET, May 18, 2019

Top Items:

Dave Philipps / New York Times:

Trump Shows Signs He Will Pardon Servicemen Accused or Convicted of War Crimes — President Trump has requested the immediate preparation of paperwork needed to pardon several American military members accused or convicted of war crimes — including high-profile cases of murder …

Discussion: Mediaite, Common Dreams, New York Post and Task & Purpose

Eli Watkins / CNN:

New York Times: Trump requests paperwork to pardon accused US war criminals — Trump pardons ex-Army officer sentenced for killing Iraqi prisoner — Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump has requested paperwork allowing him to move forward quickly with pardons for accused US war criminals, The New York Times reported Saturday.

Discussion: Mediaite and Balloon Juice

Damien Cave / New York Times:

Australia Election Results: Prime Minister Scott Morrison Seizes a Stunning Win — SYDNEY, Australia — Scott Morrison, Australia's conservative prime minister, scored a surprise victory in federal elections on Saturday, propelled by a populist wave — the “quiet Australians,” he termed it …

Discussion: Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Washington Post, Fox News and Sara A. Carter

Steven Hayward / Power Line:
Breaking: Big Election Upset in Australia

Discussion: Washington Post, Agence France-Presse and NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

BBC:
2019 Australia election: Morrison celebrates ‘miracle’ win

Discussion: The Last Refuge, The New Neo, The Gateway Pundit, Jihad Watch, The Week and New York Times

NEWS.com.au:
Scott Morrison clinches unlikely victory over Bill Shorten in bombshell election result

Discussion: The American Conservative

Michael Heath / Bloomberg:
Ex-Australian PM Abbott Loses Seat in ‘Unprecedented’ Defeat

Discussion: BBC and The Guardian

New York Times:

Austrian Leader Calls for Snap Election After Far-Right Vice Chancellor Resigns — BERLIN — Austria's chancellor called for snap elections after the country's far-right vice chancellor resigned on Saturday over a secretly filmed video from 2017 that showed him promising government contracts …

Discussion: Political Wire, Bloomberg, NPR, Hullabaloo, Radio Free Europe/Radio …, Politico, Washington Monthly and Süddeutsche.de

Matthew Karnitschnig / Politico:
Austrian government collapses over Russia scandal

Discussion: Spiegel Online and Associated Press

Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli / Politico:
Salvini rally rumbled by Austrian far-right scandal

Discussion: One America News Network

Kirsti Knolle / Reuters:
Austrian government collapses after far right leader caught in video sting

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit and 444

Anne Applebaum / Washington Post:
How Europe's ‘Identitarians’ are mainstreaming racism

Discussion: Hullabaloo

Colby Itkowitz / Washington Post:

GOP lawmaker says Trump's conduct meets ‘threshold for impeachment’ — Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), a critic of President Trump who has entertained a run against him in 2020, became the first Republican congressman to say the president “engaged in impeachable conduct” based on the Mueller report.

Discussion: RedState, Townhall, Talking Points Memo, Axios, The Resurgent, Quartz, Daily Caller News Foundation, Sara A. Carter, Raw Story, TheBlaze, Daily Kos, The Gateway Pundit and Progress Pond

Andrew Desiderio / Politico:

Michigan GOP congressman says Trump's conduct impeachable — Michigan Rep. Justin Amash became the first Republican lawmaker to declare that President Donald Trump committed impeachable offenses and that Attorney General William Barr “deliberately misrepresented” special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

Discussion: Rolling Stone, CNN and Bloomberg

Rachel Frazin / The Hill:

USGA investigates after golf scores ‘erroneously’ recorded for Trump — The U.S. Golf Association (USGA) says it is looking into unflattering golf scores that it said were “erroneously” recorded for President Trump this week. — Scores of 101, 100, 108 and 102 were posted Friday under …

Discussion: Golfweek, Lawyers, Guns & Money and CNN

Golfweek:

President Trump's golf scores hacked; USGA confirms it's looking into the matter — President Trump is at the center of another hacking incident, but this one doesn't involve Wikileaks. — Four scores were posted to Trump's USGA-administered GHIN handicap system on Friday …

Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money, Fox News, Washington Times and Axios

Kevin Poulsen / The Daily Beast:

The Hell of Working at Trump's New Favorite Network — Conspiracy theories, racist outbursts, and a whole lot of Putin love. Working for the far-right One America News Network was a deeply weird experience, former employees say. — Ernest Champell realized there was something unusual …

Discussion: Raw Story

Just Security:

The Balance Has Shifted: The Data on Impeachment Favor Moving Ahead — [Editor's note: Just Security is publishing a series in conversation with Sidney Blumenthal's “An Open Memo: Comparison of Clinton Impeachment, Nixon Impeachment and Trump Pre-Impeachment.”

Discussion: Raw Story

Yashar Ali / CNN:

In San Francisco, an attack on press freedoms and echoes of autocracy — PEN America president optimistic in face of press arrests — Yashar Ali is a contributor to HuffPost and New York Magazine. Follow him @yashar. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

Discussion: Mercury News

BuzzFeed News:

Bernie Sanders Has A Plan To Fix Racial Segregation In American Schools — ORANGEBURG, S.C. — Sen. Bernie Sanders released a plan Saturday to repair the American public education system that focuses on ending school segregation and racial discrimination against students …

Discussion: Politics K-12, CANNONFIRE, Common Dreams, The Daily Beast, Joe.My.God. and KTLA

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:
Bernie Sanders Wants to Destroy the Best Schools Poor Urban Kids Have

Discussion: CNN, Conservative News Today and Outside the Beltway

Adam Kelsey / ABC News:
Sen. Bernie Sanders' education plan nixes for-profit charter school funding

Discussion: The Week, Vox and Citizen Times

Jack Shepherd / The Independent:

Arnold Schwarzenegger kicked in the back while attending event in South Africa — The actor was at Arnold Classic Africa when he was attacked — Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was attacked while on a trip to South Africa. — The former Governor of California was attending …

Discussion: RedState and The Daily Caller

NBC News:

Trump administration identifies at least 1,700 additional children it may have separated — The children were separated from their parents before the government's “zero tolerance” policy went into effect in May 2018. — The Trump administration has identified at least 1,712 migrant children …

Sydney Ember / New York Times:

‘I Did My Best to Stop American Foreign Policy’: Bernie Sanders on the 1980s — In an interview, one of the leading candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination discusses his long-held opposition to war and his support for socialist leaders. — As Burlington's mayor from 1981 to 1989 …

Discussion: Fox News

Frank Figliuzzi / NBC News:

AG Barr's FBI investigation, President Trump and the threat from within — By perpetuating Trump's falsehoods about the FBI and Mueller's report, Barr has become the kind of threat capable of doing severe harm. — On Monday, Attorney General William Barr, acting more like defense counsel …

Katie Glueck / New York Times:

Biden Delivers Call for National Unity at Philadelphia Rally — PHILADELPHIA — Joseph R. Biden Jr., sometimes known to Democrats in this city as Pennsylvania's “third senator,” returned to the state of his birth on Saturday to deliver a forceful call for national unity …

Discussion: UPI, The Gateway Pundit and Politico

Matthew Aguilar / Comic Book:

DC Comics Sent Cease And Desist Over Cover Depicting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez As Wonder Woman — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is making waves in Washington DC, but she's also making waves in the comics world too, though for different reasons. Ocasio-Cortez is the subject of a new comic …

Discussion: RedState and Daily Wire

Aída Chávez / The Intercept:

A Genuine Populist is Running for West Virginia Governor. His Donor Rolls Broke the State's Campaign Finance Software. — When Stephen Noble Smith's campaign sought to present its 62-page finance filings to the West Virginia secretary of state, something went wrong.

CBS News:

Democratic governor ready to sign Louisiana abortion ban bill — Nearly three decades ago, when Democratic Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards' wife was 20 weeks pregnant with their first child, a doctor discovered their daughter had spina bifida and encouraged an abortion. They refused.

Discussion: Daily Kos and Associated Press

Errin Haines Whack / Associated Press:

Warren building unlikely connection with black female voters — HOUSTON (AP) — Elizabeth Warren was the last of eight presidential candidates to take the stage at Texas Southern University last month when she was pressed for a solution to black women dying during childbirth at far higher rates than white women.