memeorandum: Police say ‘autonomous zone’ blocked emergency response to brutal assault; citizens' group disagrees (Jay Kolls/KSTP-TV)

2:45 PM ET, September 18, 2020

Top Items:

U.S. Admits That Congressman Offered Pardon to Assange If He Covered Up Russia Links — Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher offered Assange the deal in 2017, a year after the emails that damaged Hillary Clinton had been published. — LONDON—Lawyers representing the United States …

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit and Raw Story

Andrew MacAskill / Reuters:

Trump offered to pardon Assange if he provided source for Democratic emails, lawyer says — LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump offered to pardon Julian Assange if the WikiLeaks founder provided the source for the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, The Guardian, Associated Press, Patterico's Pontifications and Bloomberg

New York Times:

Virus Pulls Down Trump, Poll Shows, and G.O.P. Senators Suffer With Him — A New York Times/Siena College survey showed Joe Biden leading President Trump by wide margins in Maine and Arizona, and effectively tied in North Carolina. Susan Collins trailed her Democratic rival in Maine's Senate race.

Discussion: Washington Post, Raw Story, The Daily Caller and No More Mister Nice Blog

NPR:

Poll: Biden Maintains Lead Over Trump With Likely Voters — Former Vice President Joe Biden continues to lead President Trump in the 2020 presidential election nationally by a substantial margin, according to the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll. — Biden leads Trump by 9 points, 52% to 43%, among likely voters, the survey finds.

Discussion: PBS NewsHour, Talking Points Memo, The American Independent and Washington Post

NBC News:
Biden's lead has been stable, but there's still lots of uncertainty about the vote

Discussion: The Hill, Bloomberg, Raw Story, Siena College Research …, Breitbart, Press Herald, Florida Politics and IJR

Kaleigh Rogers / FiveThirtyEight:
North Carolina Is Already Rejecting Black Voters' Mail-In Ballots More Often Than White Voters'

Discussion: Politico and Raw Story

Christopher Cadelago / Politico:

‘Talk about losers’: The top moments from CNN's kid-gloves town hall with Biden — On Tuesday, voters got in Trump's face for the first time. On Thursday, they practically gave Biden a hero's welcome in Scranton, Pa. — Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden speaks …

Discussion: Townhall, Redstate, Washington Post, CNN, ABC News, Quiz Category and Fox News

Mollie Hemingway / The Federalist:
Joe Biden Resurrects False College Claim That Helped Ruin His 1988 Presidential Run

Discussion: Townhall and Redstate

Jonathan Bernstein / Bloomberg:
Biden Aced the Town Hall. Why Didn't Trump?

Discussion: The American Independent, The Hill, Fox News, Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, The Guardian and Conservative Review

Stephen Collinson / CNN:
Biden shows the qualities Trump lacks at CNN town hall

Discussion: Washington Monthly, EW.com, Raw Story and IJR

Katie Shepherd / Washington Post:

An Idaho ‘no-masker’ pastor prayed against a mask mandate. He's now in intensive care for covid-19. — When coronavirus cases began increasing in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in late July, Pastor Paul Van Noy prayed with his congregation that the city council would not pass a mask mandate.

Discussion: Mediaite

CNN:

An Idaho pastor skeptical of masks lands in the ICU for Covid-19 — (CNN)A pastor in Idaho who called himself a “no-masker” during a service and repeatedly questioned the veracity of coronavirus case reporting is in the ICU after contracting Covid-19. — Paul Van Noy, senior pastor …

Discussion: NBC News, Lawyers, Guns & Money, New York Post and Raw Story

New York Times:

Covid-19 Live Updates: After Criticism, C.D.C. Reverses Guidelines About Testing People Who Were Exposed — Israel becomes one of the few countries to impose a second nationwide lockdown. In the U.S., Joe Biden tries to focus the campaign on President Trump's virus performance.

Discussion: ABC News, The Guardian, Talking Points Memo and Newsy

Wilbur Ross / U.S. Department of Commerce:

Commerce Department Prohibits WeChat and TikTok Transactions to Protect the National Security of the United States — In response to President Trump's Executive Orders signed August 6, 2020, the Department of Commerce (Commerce) today announced prohibitions on transactions relating to mobile applications …

David Shepardson / Reuters:
Exclusive: Trump to block U.S. downloads of TikTok, WeChat on Sunday - officials

Discussion: New York Post, Wired, Townhall, Breitbart, Raw Story, Washington Times, Bangor Daily News, WGN-TV, Just The News, Deadline, The Verge, National Review, The Week, The Root, Variety and Seeking Alpha

Abby Livingston / The Texas Tribune:

Republican U.S. House campaign arm cancels $2 million in Houston-area advertising — The region is home to multiple competitive races, including Congressional District 7 where Republicans are seeking to unseat U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher — WASHINGTON - The National Republican Congressional Committee …

Discussion: Political Wire

Washington Post:

The Falwells, the pool attendant and the double life that brought them all down — For 2½ years, Giancarlo Granda had been telling his family about the generosity of his business partners. The wealthy couple from out of town had taken him under their wing, he said …

Discussion: HuffPost

Andrew Sullivan / The Weekly Dish:

We Are All Algorithms Now — Is that what's really destroying the legitimacy of our democracy? — I've never felt this way about an election before. For my entire adult life, campaigns could be exhilarating, tedious, crowded with incident or laden with foreboding, but you always felt that …

Noah Weiland / New York Times:

Emails Detail Effort to Silence C.D.C. and Question Its Science — Emails from a former top Trump health official and his science adviser show how the two refused to accept Centers for Disease Control and Prevention science and sought to silence the agency.

David Wasserman / The Cook Political Report:

Rating Change: Republicans Sound Alarm, Riggleman's VA-05 Moves to Toss Up — Is it deja vu all over again? In 2008, Virginia's 5th District was the site of a gigantic upset when tireless 34-year-old Democrat Tom Perriello unseated GOP Rep. Virgil Goode by 727 votes.

Discussion: Blue Virginia

Devlin Barrett / Washington Post:

Book excerpt: An FBI sex crimes investigator helped trigger 2016's ‘October Surprise’ — This article is adapted from “October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election,” which will be published Sept. 22 by PublicAffairs. The book is a comprehensive …

Discussion: The Hill

Nomaan Merchant / Associated Press:

AP Exclusive: More migrant women say they didn't OK surgery — HOUSTON (AP) — Sitting across from her lawyer at an immigration detention center in rural Georgia, Mileidy Cardentey Fernandez unbuttoned her jail jumpsuit to show the scars on her abdomen. There were three small, circular marks.

Discussion: Forbes, Law & Crime and INDIVISIBLE VENTURA

Ian Millhiser / Vox:

Chief Justice Roberts's lifelong crusade against voting rights, explained — He has fought to undermine voting rights his entire career. — John Roberts was 26 years old, and he was outraged that he'd just been outmaneuvered by older and much more experienced political hands. — It was 1981.

Discussion: Raw Story

Igor Bobic / HuffPost: Alabama Senate Candidate Tommy Tuberville Struggles To Discuss Voting Rights Act

Joseph Simonson / Washington Examiner:

Senior Biden campaign cybersecurity expert participated in racist internet troll group — A senior cybersecurity adviser to Joe Biden's presidential campaign spent years affiliating with a hacking organization and boasted on a personal blog about breaking into her neighbor's computers.

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit and Twitchy

Susan B. Glasser / New Yorker:

“It Was All About the Election”: The Ex-White House Aide Olivia Troye on Trump's Narcissistic Mishandling of COVID-19 — The first staffer on the coronavirus task force to go public tells The New Yorker that America's pandemic response was “derailed by the person at the very top.”

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, The Guardian, GovExec.com, Washington Times, Bulwark+, Mediaite, Daily Kos, ABC News, The Week, One America News Network, ABC7, Raw Story, Fox News, Bloomberg, The Daily Caller, Washington Post and Reuters

Colby Itkowitz / Washington Post:

Trump campaign manager didn't vote for his boss in 2016 — or at all — President Trump's campaign manager didn't vote for his boss in the last presidential election. He didn't vote at all. — The last time Bill Stepien voted, according to public records, was in 2015, when he lived in New Jersey and was registered there.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and The Hill

Christopher Ingraham / Washington Post:

The United States is backsliding into autocracy under Trump, scholars warn — The weakening of democratic values — a path that's difficult to reverse — has accelerated, according to hundreds of indicators assessed each year — Three years into the Trump administration …

Politico:

Biden's weakness with Black and Latino men creates an opening for Trump — It was a huddle to marshal the faithful, featuring dozens of Black luminaries, from hip hop mogul Jay-Z to radio personality Charlamagne tha God to civil rights attorney Ben Crump. Vice presidential candidate Kamala …

Discussion: The Atlantic and Florida Politics

New York Times:
This Is How Biden Should Approach the Latino Vote

Discussion: Power Line

Megan Henney / Fox News:

Pelosi snaps at reporter who asks about smaller coronavirus relief bill: ‘Just go read my statement’ — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday reiterated her hard-line demand for a $2.2T coronavirus relief package — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday reiterated her hard-line demand …

Discussion: Reuters, Washington Post, Bloomberg, KCLO-TV and One America News Network

David Segal / New York Times:

Housekeepers Face a Disaster Generations in the Making — Ghosted by their employers, members of the profession are facing “a full-blown humanitarian crisis — a Depression-level situation.” — The scariest day of Maria Del Carmen's life started with a phone call that initially cheered her up.

Jay Kolls / KSTP-TV:

Police say ‘autonomous zone’ blocked emergency response to brutal assault; citizens' group disagrees — 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS obtained surveillance video that captures the owner of a small business on Chicago Avenue being assaulted in the heart of a four-block area often referred to as an “autonomous zone” near George Floyd Square.

Discussion: Power Line and Breitbart

The Daily Beast:

How the Trump Campaign Lit a Billion Dollars on Fire — In this ep. of The New Abnormal, Rick breaks down how Team Trump has burned a billion and a former Obama national security aide has bad news about how other countries view America. — The Trump campaign raised more cash …

Discussion: Raw Story

Stephen Battaglio / Los Angeles Times:

‘Meet the Press’ host Chuck Todd is first in viewers — and Twitter critics. Here's why — When “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd hears that his name is trending on Twitter, he knows it probably isn't good. — Social media is a harsh real-time critic, even for the NBC Sunday public affairs program …

ProPublica:

Poorly Protected Postal Workers Are Catching COVID-19 by the Thousands. It's One More Threat to Voting by Mail. — More than 50,000 workers have taken time off for virus-related reasons, slowing mail delivery. The Postal Service doesn't test employees or check their temperatures, and its contact tracing is erratic.

Discussion: Washington Post

Des Moines Register:

What do Iowans think about the U.S. Senate, presidential races? A new Iowa Poll will offer answers — Starting Saturday night at DesMoinesRegister.com and in the Des Moines Sunday Register, a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll will check the pulse of Iowans on the upcoming election and other issues.

Washington Post:

Under a lawless Trump, our system of checks and balances is being destroyed — President Trump promised in 2016 that he would protect the Constitution's “Article I, Article II, Article XII.” (There is no Article XII.) Instead, he has shown how fragile the constitutional order …

Matthias Gafni / San Francisco Chronicle:

Exclusive: Capt. Brett Crozier explains why he sent email warning of Roosevelt coronavirus outbreak — FILE — A photo provided by the U.S. Navy shows Capt. Brett Crozier, then commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, addressing his crew during the aircraft carrier's operations in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, Nov. 15, 2019.