memeorandum: Trump Wants Troops in Afghanistan Home by Election Day. The Pentagon Is Drawing Up Plans. (New York Times)

6:35 PM ET, May 26, 2020

Top Items:

Kara Swisher / New York Times:

Twitter Must Cleanse the Trump Stain — The president is spreading a vile conspiracy theory on the platform. Maybe Twitter should finally hold him to its rules. — Ms. Swisher covers technology and is a contributing opinion writer. — “Please delete those tweets,” …

Peter Wehner / The Atlantic:

The Malignant Cruelty of Donald Trump — “I'm asking you to intervene in this instance because the President of the United States has taken something that does not belong to him—the memory of my dead wife—and perverted it for perceived political gain.” — There may be a more damning thing that's …

Discussion: Raw Story

National Review: Trump's Grotesque Tweets

Jacob Knutson / Axios:
Husband of deceased Scarborough staffer asks Twitter to delete baseless Trump claims

Discussion: Associated Press, The Hill, The Wrap, Washington Post, New York Times, Raw Story, Breitbart, POLITICUSUSA, Deadline, The Daily Caller and The Daily Beast, more at Mediagazer »

Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:
Twitter labels Trump's tweets with a fact-check for the first time

Discussion: Bloomberg, Axios and Mediaite, more at Mediagazer »

Karen Tumulty / Washington Post:
Trump has no decency. It's time for Twitter to show some.

Discussion: Jezebel, Daily Kos, Raw Story and The Daily Caller

Dylan Stableford / Yahoo News:
Twitter ‘deeply sorry’ about Trump tweets on death of Scarborough intern, but won't remove them

Discussion: National Review, Washington Post and Mediaite

Aruna Viswanatha / Wall Street Journal:

Justice Department Closing Insider-Trading Investigations Into Three U.S. Senators — Probe into trading earlier this year by Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina continues — The Justice Department is closing investigations into three U.S. senators for stocks trades made shortly …

Discussion: Politico, Talking Points Memo, Townhall, Roll Call, New York Post, CNBC, The Daily Caller, Law & Crime, IJR and Raw Story

Ursula Perano / Axios:
DOJ closes insider trading probes of 3 senators, but not Richard Burr

Discussion: The Hill

Lachlan Markay / The Daily Beast:
DOJ Drops Insider Trading Investigation Into Kelly Loeffler: Report

Discussion: Raw Story

Timothy Bella / Washington Post:

‘I cannot breathe!’: FBI investigates death of a black man in Minneapolis after video shows police officer kneeling on his neck — In a video shared on social media early Tuesday, a Minneapolis police officer pins his knee against the neck of a black man who appears to be struggling to breathe on the ground.

Discussion: HuffPost, Minneapolis Police, CBS News, NPR, The Guardian, The Hill, VICE, Common Dreams, Law & Crime, The Daily Beast, Talking Points Memo, Reason, The Root and New York Post

Christine Hauser / New York Times:

4 Minneapolis Officers Fired After Black Man Dies in Custody — A bystander's video in Minneapolis shows a police officer with his knee on a man's neck during an arrest. The man died a “short time” later, the police said. — Arrested man: [moaning] “What you trying to say?” Police officer: “Relax.”

Discussion: NBC News and Twitchy

Libor Jany / Star Tribune:
FBI, BCA investigating in-custody death of man in south Minneapolis

Discussion: KARE-TV, Associated Press, KSTP-TV, Law & Crime and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Sarah Maslin Nir / New York Times:

White Woman Is Fired After Calling Police on Black Man in Central Park — Video of the incident touched off intense discussions about the history of black people being falsely reported to the police. — The encounter appears to have begun as one of those banal and brusque dust-ups between two New Yorkers.

Discussion: NBC New York, Wealth Management, Raw Story, Daily Kos, The Guardian and Jezebel

CNN:

A white woman has apologized after calling police on a black man and saying 'there's an African American man threatening my life' — (CNN)A white woman has apologized for calling police on a black man in Central Park on Monday, after the two argued about her unleashed dog.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Washington Post, New York Post, Los Angeles Times, VICE, KDFX-TV, Raw Story, New York Times, The Daily Beast, CBS New York, Conservative News Today, Twitchy, Law & Crime, The Daily Caller and Quiz Category

New York Times:

After Crowding at Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri Officials Urge Quarantine — “It's irresponsible and dangerous to engage in such high risk behavior just to have some fun over the extended holiday weekend,” said the mayor of St. Louis. — After large crowds gathered at the Lake of the Ozarks …

Discussion: NBC News, Conservative News Today, Talking Points Memo, Jezebel, Mediaite and The Gateway Pundit

Gabriel Sherman / Vanity Fair:

“This Is So Unfair to Me”: Trump Whines About His COVID-19 Victimhood as Campaign Flails — Raging at campaign manager Brad Parscale and Joe Scarborough, Trump attempts a campaign reset. But “Trump can't pivot to a different strategy,” says an adviser. Because he's the problem.

Discussion: New York Times, Raw Story and The Daily Caller

CNN:

Pentagon deputy inspector general resigns, becomes latest watchdog to exit administration — Washington (CNN)Defense Department Principal Deputy Inspector General, Glenn Fine, submitted his resignation Tuesday, more than a month after President Donald Trump effectively removed him as chairman …

Discussion: Raw Story, Talking Points Memo and UPI

Connor O'Brien / Politico:
Pentagon watchdog resigns after being sidelined by Trump

Discussion: Axios and Associated Press

CNN:

Trump's threat to pull GOP convention came as surprise to Republicans working on event — (CNN)Top Republicans had been working closely with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and other state Democratic officials as recently as Friday to plan the upcoming GOP national convention amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Discussion: ABC News, Talking Points Memo, TheBlaze, WSOC-TV and The Week

Dareh Gregorian / NBC News:
States are trying to lure the Republican National Convention away from North Carolina

Discussion: Bloomberg, The Hill and Talking Points Memo

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
Trump's war on reality just got a lot more dangerous

Discussion: Daily Kos, Florida Politics, Vox and Raw Story

Politico:

The general election scenario that Democrats are dreading — In early April, Jason Furman, a top economist in the Obama administration and now a professor at Harvard, was speaking via Zoom to a large bipartisan group of top officials from both parties. The economy had just been shut down …

Discussion: Power Line, New York Post, Townhall, Redstate, National Review, Fox News, The Daily Caller, Raw Story, TheBlaze, Breitbart, Twitchy, The Week and Eschaton

Wall Street Journal:

Facebook Knows It Encourages Division. Top Executives Nixed Solutions. — The social-media giant internally studied how it polarizes users, then largely shelved the research — A Facebook Inc. FB 0.15% team had a blunt message for senior executives. The company's algorithms weren't bringing people together.

Discussion: Common Dreams, more at Techmeme »

Bryan Schott / utahpolicy.com:

Poll: Donald Trump leads Biden by just 3 points in Utah — The last time Utah voted for a Democrat for president was Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964. The Beehive State's 56-year streak of voting for Republicans for president may be in real danger according to a new poll.

Discussion: The Hill, POLITICUSUSA, Mediaite and Patterico's Pontifications

James Vincent / The Verge:

YouTube is deleting comments with two phrases that insult China's Communist Party — These Chinese language phrases are removed within seconds — YouTube is automatically deleting comments that contain certain Chinese-language phrases related to criticism of the country's ruling Communist Party (CCP).

Discussion: National Review, Louder With Crowder, Mediaite, Breitbart, Fox News, Bloomberg, The Daily Caller, Twitchy, WND, NB Blog and TheBlaze, more at Mediagazer »

Axios:

House Republicans to sue Nancy Pelosi in effort to block proxy voting — House Republicans plan to file a lawsuit Tuesday against Speaker Nancy Pelosi in an effort to block the chamber's new proxy voting system amid the coronavirus pandemic, three congressional sources tell Axios.

Discussion: The Hill and One America News Network

Wall Street Journal:
House Republicans Move to Block Proxy Voting

Discussion: The Hill

Brian Mann / NPR:

Trump Team Killed Rule Designed To Protect Health Workers From Pandemic Like COVID-19 — When President Trump took office in 2017, his team stopped work on new federal regulations that would have forced the healthcare industry to prepare for an airborne infectious disease pandemic like COVID-19.

detroitnews:

Purported Northern Michigan boat launch request fuels controversy for Whitmer — The owner of a Northern Michigan dock company says Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's husband wanted his boat placed in the water before the Memorial Day weekend as Whitmer urged residents not to rush to the region.

Discussion: Redstate, Tom Barrett, Fox News, Politico, IJR, TheBlaze, The Daily Caller, The Daily Beast, Breitbart, The Daily Wire, New York Post, Twitchy, The Hill, The Federalist, WND, Disrn and Townhall

Joe Heim / Washington Post:

America's response to coronavirus pandemic is ‘incomprehensibly incoherent,’ says historian who studied the 1918 flu — John M. Barry, 74, is a historian and author of several books, including “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History,” about the 1918 flu pandemic.

Discussion: Raw Story

Morgan Phillips / Fox News:

Pence press secretary Katie Miller, who had coronavirus, says she's back at work after 3 negative tests — Katie Miller, Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary, announced Tuesday that she is back at work after three negative coronavirus tests since she contracted the disease several weeks ago.

Discussion: Breitbart

David Crow / Financial Times: Merck chief casts doubt on coronavirus vaccine timeframe

Kat Stafford / Associated Press:

Biden campaign names national voter protection director — DETROIT (AP) — Joe Biden has hired a national director for voter protection, a role his campaign says will focus broadly on voter rights, including the disenfranchisement of people of color amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Discussion: The Hill

Jonah Goldberg / Los Angeles Times:

Column: Why Bernie Sanders is dead wrong about what Joe Biden should look for in a running mate — The first thing to remember about vice presidential picks is that they are marketing decisions. That is, once a candidate has been deemed qualified to be president, the only thing that matters …

Discussion: Mother Jones

Andrea González-Ramírez / GEN: How 3 Vehement Bernie Backers Made Their Peace With Biden

USA Today:

Joe Biden questions my blackness one moment, defends racist 1994 crime bill the next — Much attention has been rightfully devoted to bigoted comments former Vice President Joe Biden made during his Friday interview with “The Breakfast Club” when he had the audacity to say “Well I tell you what …

Sean Sullivan / Washington Post:
Joe Biden wins AFL-CIO endorsement

Discussion: Fox News and Axios

Stuart Rothenberg / Roll Call:

Memorial Day 2020: Presidential race still leaning Biden — ANALYSIS — More than two months ago, even before COVID-19 became all-consuming in our lives, I wrote a column arguing that the presidential race had changed from a toss-up/tilting Democratic to leaning Democratic.