memeorandum: No, the White House didn't ‘dissolve’ its pandemic response office. I was there. (Tim Morrison/Washington Post)

8:55 PM ET, March 16, 2020

Top Items:

Trump Gives New Guidelines for Containment in the U.S. — President Trump announced new guidelines to control the spread of the virus, advising against gatherings of more than 10 people, as European nations sealed their borders. — RIGHT NOW Health officials ordered millions in six counties …

Discussion: The Week, Breitbart, The Daily Beast, Townhall, CNN, Minnesota Reformer, UPI, Foreign Policy, Forbes, HuffPost, The Daily Caller, Bloomberg, Mediaite, Talking Points Memo, The Gateway Pundit, The Hill, Twitchy and VICE

Jonathan Martin / New York Times:

Trump to Governors on Ventilators: ‘Try Getting It Yourselves’ — On a conference call with the nation's governors, President Trump said they should try to get ventilators on their own ahead of an expected crush of coronavirus cases. — WASHINGTON — President Trump told a group of governors …

Discussion: Vanity Fair, Talking Points Memo, Washington Post, Breitbart, IJR, The American Independent, Raw Story, Daily Kos and UPI

Ben Smith / New York Times:

Andrew Cuomo Is the Control Freak We Need Right Now — In ordinary times, Mr. Cuomo's relentlessness and bullying drive New Yorkers crazy. In the age of the coronavirus, they soothe our battered nerves. — “A crisis shows you a person's soul,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo mused during a conference call with reporters on Sunday.

Discussion: Security, Redstate, Townhall, The Hill and Gothamist

New York Times:
Coronavirus Live Updates: Trump Says to Limit Gatherings to 10 People

Discussion: The Hill, Breitbart, Common Dreams, POLITICUSUSA, Rolling Stone and Daily Kos

Alex Wickham / BuzzFeed:

The UK Only Realised “In The Last Few Days” That Its Coronavirus Strategy Would “Likely Result In Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths” — Scientists advising the government say an aggressive new approach adopted to attempt to “suppress” the virus may have to be in place for 18 months.

Discussion: Redstate

New York Times:

Justice Dept. Moves to Drop Charges Against Russian Firms Filed by Mueller — The companies funded Russia's social media-fueled interference in the 2016 election, prosecutors said. But they tried to weaponize the case instead of fight it. — WASHINGTON — The Justice Department moved …

Spencer Hsu / Washington Post:

U.S. Justice Dept. abandons prosecution of Russian firm indicted in Mueller election interference probe — The U.S. Justice Department moved Monday to drop its two-year-long prosecution of a Russian company charged with orchestrating a social media campaign to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

John Solomon / Just The News: Obama DOJ officials privately told Mueller they were alarmed by FBI treatment of Flynn

Josh Gerstein / Politico:
Justice Department drops plans for trial over Russian interference in 2016 U.S. election

Discussion: Associated Press and The Daily Caller

Laura Hancock / Plain Dealer:

Judge denies request to delay Ohio primary election until June over coronavirus — COLUMBUS, Ohio - A Franklin County judge on Monday night denied an effort backed by Gov. Mike DeWine, who sought to move Ohio's primary election until June over concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.

Rick Rouan / The Columbus Dispatch:

Coronavirus: Judge denies request to move Ohio Primary to June 2 — A Franklin County judge Monday night denied the state's attempt to postpone Election Day until June 2. — Common Pleas Court Judge Richard Frye said it would be a “terrible precedent” for a judge to step in 12 hours before polls open to rewrite the election code.

Discussion: New York Post

ABC News:
Coronavirus live updates: Major cities shutdown

Discussion: Raw Story, The Hill, PJ Media Home, HuffPost, Associated Press, Mediaite, The Gateway Pundit, Townhall and One America News Network

Laura Hancock / Plain Dealer: Judge denies request to delay Ohio primary election until June over coronavirus

Justine Coleman / The Hill:
Judge refuses to reschedule Ohio primary amid coronavirus fears

Discussion: The Verge

Washington Post:

On Fox News, suddenly a very different tune about the coronavirus — For weeks, some of Fox News's most popular hosts downplayed the threat of the coronavirus, characterizing it as a conspiracy by media organizations and Democrats to undermine President Trump.

Discussion: Rolling Stone

Tim Morrison / Washington Post:

No, the White House didn't ‘dissolve’ its pandemic response office. I was there. — Tim Morrison is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense on the National Security Council. — President Trump gets his share of criticism — some warranted, much not.

Discussion: Redstate, Erick Erickson's Confessions …, Twitchy and The Independent, more at Mediagazer »

Jeremy Konyndyk / Just Security:
Lessons Ignored: John Bolton's Bogus Defense of “Streamlining” Away Our Bio-Readiness

Discussion: Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Gabriel Sherman / Vanity Fair:

“There's No Boogeyman He Can Attack”: Angry at Kushner, Trump Awakens to the COVID-19 Danger — For weeks, Trump and his son-in-law saw the novel coronavirus mostly as a media and political problem. But the spiraling cases, plunging markets, and a Mar-a-Lago cluster finally opened eyes.

Discussion: HuffPost, Political Flare, Raw Story, DCReport.org and New York Post

Politico:

‘This is a very bad one’: Trump issues new guidelines to stem coronavirus spread — President Donald Trump on Monday acknowledged the gravity of the coronavirus pandemic, releasing strict new guidelines to limit people's interactions in an increasingly urgent bid to slow the virus in the next …

Discussion: ABC News, Hollywood Reporter, Politico, No More Mister Nice Blog, Eater, Breitbart and The Verge, more at Mediagazer »

CNN:
White House press secretary works from home after exposure to Brazil delegation with coronavirus

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Deseret News

Erin Allday / San Francisco Chronicle:

Bay Area ‘shelter in place’ expected: Only essential businesses open in 6 counties with 6.7 million people until April 7 — The San Francisco Chronicle has lifted the paywall on our coverage of this developing story to provide critical information to our community.

Discussion: Townhall, Los Angeles Times, TechCrunch, National Review, The Week, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Gateway Pundit, Herald, The Verge, WND and Balloon Juice

Politico:

Before Trump's inauguration, a warning: ‘The worst influenza pandemic since 1918’ — Seven days before Donald Trump took office, his aides faced a major test: the rapid, global spread of a dangerous virus in cities like London and Seoul, one serious enough that some countries were imposing travel bans.

Rebecca Shabad / NBC News:

Rep. Louie Gohmert delays House coronavirus relief bill from moving to Senate — The House was expected to make technical corrections to the bipartisan measure, passed by the House early Saturday, on Monday, but Gohmert is insisting on reading them. — WASHINGTON — Rep. Louie Gohmert …

Discussion: Washington Post, Fox News, Townhall, Daily Kos, Lawyers, Guns & Money and MSNBC

Politico:
House passes revised coronavirus package, paving way for Senate to take up

Discussion: Associated Press, The Hill, The National Interest, One America News Network, Daily Kos, The Independent, PJ Media Home, The Gateway Pundit, Gothamist and The American Independent

Politico: Senate GOP punts on surveillance bill amid coronavirus crisis

Carl Hulse / New York Times:

McConnell Has a Request for Veteran Federal Judges: Please Quit — The Senate majority leader has encouraged judges thinking about stepping down to do so soon to ensure that Republicans confirm their replacements this year. — WASHINGTON — Running out of federal court vacancies to fill …

Discussion: The American Independent, New Republic, Political Flare, TheBlaze and Daily Kos

Lindsay Schnell / USA Today:

California, Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington close bars and restaurants in effort to slow coronavirus — The governors in five states — California, Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington — closed bars, restaurants and wineries in an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus.

Discussion: DCist, New York Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Root, TheBlaze, The Tennessean, Deseret News, NBC News, Reason and Slate

Nolan D. McCaskill / Politico: America begins drinking at home

Mark Weiner / Syracuse Post-Standard:

Former Rep. Richard Hanna, GOP moderate from Upstate NY, dies at 69 — WASHINGTON - Former U.S. Rep. Richard Hanna, a fiercely independent Republican from Upstate New York who championed LGBT and women's rights, died Sunday at a hospital in Oneida County. He was 69.

New York Times:

Mayor Resisted Harsh Steps on Virus. Then Aides Said They'd Quit. — Mayor Bill de Blasio hesitated to close schools and restaurants, but pushback from advisers changed his mind. He still went to the gym Monday. — For most of last week, as Mayor Bill de Blasio continued to urge …

Discussion: Mediaite, Politico and CNN

Ben Collins / NBC News:

False coronavirus rumors surge in ‘hidden viral’ text messages — Some users, even those who have no intention of spreading wrong information, are forwarding along viral rumors and urban legends. — The various false text messages forwarded to many Americans on Sunday and Monday all started …

Mihir Zaveri / New York Times:
Be Wary of Those Texts From a Friend of a Friend's Aunt

Discussion: Mother Jones, Bloomberg and POLITICUSUSA, more at Techmeme »

CNBC:

White House braces for political fight as it readies coronavirus airline bailout package — The Trump administration is grappling with which industries to bail out as thousands of businesses in the U.S. grind to a halt amid severe measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Tim Wu / New York Times:
Don't Feel Sorry for the Airlines

Discussion: HuffPost, Boondoggle and BIG by Matt Stoller

Associated Press:

Coronavirus vaccine test opens as US volunteer gets 1st shot — SEATTLE (AP) — U.S. researchers gave the first shot to the first person in a test of an experimental coronavirus vaccine Monday — leading off a worldwide hunt for protection even as the pandemic surges.

Discussion: Redstate, Breitbart, The Daily Caller and TheBlaze

Mariya Petkova / Al Jazeera:

Concern mounts of ‘catastrophic’ coronavirus outbreak in Syria — Gov't says no cases have been logged but fears grow war-hit country will not be able to cope with a COVID-19 outbreak. — As the coronavirus takes a firmer hold across the Middle East, there is growing concern that Syria might face …

Jonathan Capehart / Washington Post:

The buck never, ever stops with Trump — My conversation with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute on March 7 in Birmingham, Ala., was quick. It was on the sidelines of the Faith and Politics Institute's annual civil rights pilgrimage and just moments …

Discussion: Common Dreams

Christina Johnsen / Polls:

State Takes on a Purple Hue; Partisans Divided Over Coronavirus — Kelly leads McSally in Senate race — West Long Branch, NJ - Arizona's Electoral College votes could be in play in November, according to a Monmouth ("Mon-muth") University Poll of registered voters in the state.

Discussion: NBC News, Fox News, Washington Post, Washington Times, The Hill and Politico

Washington Post:

How U.S. coronavirus testing stalled: Flawed tests, red tape and resistance to using the millions of tests produced by the WHO — When Olfert Landt heard about the novel coronavirus, he got busy. — Founder of a small Berlin-based company, the ponytailed 54-year-old first raced …

CNN:

Elizabeth Warren: We need a grassroots stimulus package — Trump proposes payroll tax cut amid coronavirus outbreak — Elizabeth Warren is a US senator from Massachusetts and a former Democratic candidate for president in 2020. The opinions expressed in this commentary are her own; view more opinion at CNN.

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

SoftBank Owned Patent Troll, Using Monkey Selfie Law Firm, Sues To Block Covid-19 Testing, Using Theranos Patents — from the and-that's-not-even-all-the-insane- parts dept — Honestly, I wasn't sure how to begin this story or how to fit all the insanity into the title.

Will Sommer / The Daily Beast:

Twitter Deleted Sheriff Clarke's Wildly Reckless Coronavirus Tweets, So He Says He's Quitting — After being punished for promoting coronavirus disinformation on Twitter, the former Milwaukee sheriff claims he'll move over to a social-media app popular with conservatives.

Discussion: Right Wing Watch, The Verge and The Independent