Beto O'Rourke Drops Out of the Presidential Race  —  The former Texas congressman, who energized Democrats in a Senate race last year, began his White House run to great fanfare but failed to build significant support.  —  Former Representative Beto O'Rourke of Texas announced that he is dropping …

Testimony: White House lawyer told Vindman not to discuss Ukraine call  —  The senior White House lawyer who placed a record of President Donald Trump's July 25 call with Ukraine's president in a top-secret system also instructed at least one official who heard the call not to tell anyone about it …

Growing number of GOP senators consider acknowledging Trump's quid pro quo on Ukraine  —  A growing number of Senate Republicans are ready to acknowledge that President Trump used U.S. military aid as leverage to force Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his family …

'It's like nothing we have come across before': UK intelligence officials shaken by Trump administration's requests for help with counter-impeachment inquiry  —  As impeachment inquiries heat up, president's people are busy pursuing a counter offensive aimed at discrediting Mueller's findings that Russia interfered in 2016 election

'I'm the best-paid interpreter in the world': Indicted Giuliani associate Lev Parnas touted windfall from Ukrainian oligarch  —  New York (CNN)Earlier this year, Lev Parnas, the indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani, received a sudden windfall of money from a prominent Ukrainian oligarch …

Memo: Polling Medicare for All  —  By Sean McElwee, co-founder of Data for Progress; John Ray, Senior Political Analyst, YouGov Blue  —  As the Democratic primary heats up, Democratic presidential candidates have begun sharing their plans to pay for Medicare for All.

Pelosi Expects Public Impeachment Hearings to Begin This Month  — House speaker discusses inquiry with Bloomberg News after vote  — Investigation becomes a battleground in the 2020 election  —  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she expects the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry …

The Whimpering Terrorist Only Trump Seems to Have Heard  —  President Trump offered a vivid account of the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi “crying and screaming” in the final minutes before his death.  The only problem: No one else knows what he's talking about.

Kamala Harris shutters offices throughout New Hampshire  —  MANCHESTER, N.H. — Sen. Kamala Harris' campaign has almost completely shuttered its New Hampshire campaign, with no visible activity at any of her offices in the state.  —  The campaign confirmed it is largely abandoning New Hampshire …

Progressive Latino pollster: 98% of Latinos do not identify with “Latinx” label  —  One of the greatest challenges facing marketing departments and political campaigns today is the inability to discern signals from noise.  As a professional market researcher, I see this on a daily basis.

Devin Nunes in Twitter lawsuit demands emails from Democratic strategist  —  Rep. Devin Nunes wants to compel a former Democratic National Committee employee and a Democrat-supporting law firm to turn over their communications with anonymous writers who criticize him on Twitter.

Trump refuses to defend Mick Mulvaney, heightening indications chief of staff on the way out  —  President Trump declined to defend embattled acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, an indication he is considering a change.  —  Asked during an Oval Office interview with the Washington Examiner …

Revealed: Trump wanted to build a megachurch  —  Of all the projects real estate mogul Donald Trump wanted to build, here's one that nobody saw.  —  According to his long-time personal pastor, Paula White-Cain, Trump, in 2006 was taking steps to build a glass cathedral.

Beto O'Rourke ends 2020 presidential campaign  —  Beto O'Rourke, the former Texas congressman, announced on Twitter that he's dropping out of the 2020 presidential race.  —  The Democrat announced his candidacy in March, prompting media attention and polling numbers that put him among …

Apple Podcasts Preview  —  The impeachment of Donald Trump is one of the biggest political stories of our lifetimes.  It's a test of whether accountability, election integrity, and the rules of our democracy can withstand the corrupt acts of powerful people.  It's also a story that's unfolding at such a break-neck pace, it's absurd.

'Why I'm Leaving New York,' by Donald Trump  —  When you have great and unmatched wisdom like me, it's not so hard to see the beginnings of things, and it is not hard to see the ends of things, either.  Pretty easy, actually!  Everything is easy for me because I have a great brain …

The New Republic's Newest Editor Moves Left  —  Chris Lehmann is The New Republic's fifth editor in five years.  A veteran of The Baffler, Lehmann is taking advantage of the resurgence of leftism to build a magazine that's part politics Twitter and part Old Gawker, with a staff to match.

K Street's newest star built business on dubious claims of Trump ties  —  Since President Trump took office, the lobbyist Michael Esposito has been wildly successful, turning a family business that once focused on municipal transportation issues into one of the fastest-growing lobbying firms in Washington.

In His Dealings with Ukraine, Did Donald Trump Commit a Crime?  —  It's long been clear that Presidents can be impeached for “high crimes and misdemeanors” that are not actual violations of federal criminal law.  In an oft-cited passage from Federalist No. 65, Alexander Hamilton wrote …

Exclusive: U.S. opens national security investigation into TikTok - sources  —  NEW YORK/BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government has launched a national security review of TikTok owner Beijing ByteDance Technology Co's $1 billion acquisition of U.S. social media app Musical.ly …

DHS official Wolf named acting head of Homeland Security  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has named Chad Wolf to be the next acting head of Homeland Security, the fifth person in the job for this administration.  —  While speaking to reporters Friday outside the White House en route …

Impeachment investigators ask Rick Perry to testify  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — Energy Secretary Rick Perry is being called to testify in the House impeachment inquiry.  —  Perry, the first member of President Donald Trump's Cabinet who has been asked to appear before House investigators …

Johnson and Cummings under fire as police hand criminal evidence on Vote Leave to prosecution agency  —  Exclusive: After 16-month investigation, Met Police refer Vote Leave to the CPS for possible criminal charges.  But will the timing of the election mean further delay?

U.S. Navy Officer, His Wife, and Two Chinese Nationals Charged with Conspiring to Smuggle Military Style Inflatable Boats and Evinrude Military Outboard Motors to China  —  Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers and U.S. Attorney Maria Chapa Lopez for the Middle District of Florida announces …

Ghislaine Maxwell Was a Guest at Jeff Bezos's Secret Book Retreat  —  Motherboard has learned Jeffrey Epstein's alleged fixer attended the Amazon CEO's exclusive book retreat ‘Campfire’ last year.  —  Every fall, the elite of the literary world and Hollywood convene at a highly secretive …

2020 Meme Team, Assemble … A long time ago, on a different internet — where Photoshopped images of “God Emperor” Donald Trump riding atop a velociraptor were just a faint glimmer in a young meme lord's eye — the Republicans were in trouble.  Barack Obama's 2008 win over John McCain was heralded as a digital over an analog.