POLITICO Playbook: How to think about today's Mueller extravaganza  —  DRIVING THE DAY  —  THERE'S NO WAY to adequately encapsulate the gravity of today's pair of hearings with ROBERT MUELLER.  They're absolutely huge politically, substantively and optically.

Ilhan Omar's Anti-Semitism Is Becoming A Load-Bearing Myth For American Politics  —  When House Rep. Ilhan Omar's comments about the Israel lobby took over the news cycle earlier this year, they struck some as innocuously accurate, others as impolitic, while for others they were outrageous and inflammatory.

Justice Ginsburg: ‘I Am Very Much Alive’  —  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in an interview Tuesday that she does not favor proposals put forth by some Democratic presidential candidates who have advocated changing the number of Supreme Court justices if the Democrats win the presidency.

While bemoaning Mueller probe, Trump falsely says the Constitution gives him ‘the right to do whatever I want’  —  President Trump believes the Constitution gives him a wide breadth of power.  That's the message he delivered ― not for the first time — on Tuesday while addressing a crowd …

Neil Armstrong's Death, and a Stormy, Secret $6 Million Settlement  —  When Neil Armstrong died in a Cincinnati hospital two weeks after undergoing heart surgery in 2012, his family released a touching tribute addressing the astronaut's millions of admirers around the globe.

Joe Biden says he didn't think anyone thought Trump ‘would be as bad as he is’ during the 2016 presidential election  — Former Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview that he didn't believe anyone thought during the 2016 presidential election that President Trump would be as divisive as he turned out to be.

ICE releases US citizen, 18, wrongfully detained near border  —  HOUSTON (AP) — A U.S.-born 18-year-old was released from immigration custody Tuesday after wrongfully being detained for more than three weeks.  —  Francisco Erwin Galicia left a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Pearsall, Texas, on Tuesday.

Robert Mueller soon may be exposed as the ‘magician of omission’ on Russia  —  While most of the political world focused its attention elsewhere, special prosecutor John Durham's team quietly reached out this summer to a lawyer representing European academic Joseph Mifsud …

Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man: A Profile of Boris Johnson  —  I first set eyes on Boris Johnson in the autumn of 1983 when we went up to Oxford at the same time.  I knew who he was since my uncle Christopher was an ex-boyfriend of his mother's and he had told me to keep an eye out for him …

Bonfire Of The Trannities  —  Sit down, my people, and read the craziest true story you will read this year or maybe even this decade.  —  It is written by a journalist named Kera Bolonik, who has made an extremely complicated story comprehensible, in the sense that she recalls a logical progression of events.

Sanders White House Campaign Hit with Federal Labor Complaint  —  Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) 2020 presidential campaign has been hit with an unfair labor practice complaint alleging illegal employee interrogation and retaliation against staffers.  —  The July 19 complaint …

Dearborn burger franchise founded in Israel delays opening after backlash, threats  —  A franchisee has delayed the scheduled opening of his Burgerim restaurant in Dearborn amid backlash from the Arab-American community over the popular burger company's Israeli roots.

Senator Franken Regrets  —  Al Franken's regrets over resigning from the Senate add up to a tragedy for our times.  They are relayed by Jane Mayer in an illuminating scoop in the New Yorker.  It's a long, reported dispatch to which it's hard to do justice in a short editorial.

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló is expected to resign today, source says  —  (CNN)Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló is expected to resign Wednesday after more than a week of protests that rocked the island's capital city, a source familiar with the situation told CNN.

Trump Sues New York and Congress to Shield His State Tax Returns  —  WASHINGTON — President Trump sued New York State officials and the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday to try to block congressional Democrats from using a recently enacted New York law to obtain his state tax returns.

The Man Who Built The Retweet: “We Handed A Loaded Weapon To 4-Year-Olds”  —  Developer Chris Wetherell built Twitter's retweet button.  And he regrets what he did to this day.  —  “We might have just handed a 4-year-old a loaded weapon,” Wetherell recalled thinking as he watched the first Twitter mob use the tool he created.

Beyond Pelosi  —  Every time I see Nancy Pelosi patiently spell out the higher political wisdom of refraining from impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump, I think of Alan Greenspan.  That's obviously not because the speaker of the House and the famously tight-lipped former Fed chair …