memeorandum: Giuliani evidence should be reviewed by an outside lawyer, Justice Dept. says (Devlin Barrett/Washington Post)

4:10 PM ET, May 5, 2021

Top Items:

Oversight Board upholds former President Trump's suspension, finds Facebook failed to impose proper penalty — The Board has upheld Facebook's decision on January 7, 2021, to restrict then-President Donald Trump's access to posting content on his Facebook page and Instagram account.

Charlie Warzel / Galaxy Brain:

Trump's New Blog Is a Trap — The only way to win is not to play … A Quick Thought on Facebook's Oversight Board Decision — This morning the Board delivered its long-awaited decision with this slippery, misleading headline: Oversight Board upholds former President Trump's suspension …

Discussion: CNBC, New York Times, Mediaite, POLITICUSUSA and HotAir

Mike Isaac / New York Times:

Facebook Oversight Board Upholds Social Network's Ban of Trump — A company-appointed panel ruled that the ban was justified at the time but added that the company should reassess its action and make a final decision in six months. — SAN FRANCISCO — A Facebook-appointed panel of journalists …

Discussion: LGBTQ Nation, Insider, CBS News, Breaking News USA, IJR, Progressive Eruptions, Florida Politics, Raw Story, Occupy Democrats, Fox 8 Cleveland WJW, Bloomberg, Breitbart, Talking Points Memo, Althouse, ABC7 and The Daily Beast

Michael Kruse / Politico:

The Facebook Ban Hurt Trump in Surprising Ways — STRONGSVILLE, Ohio— Joe Poldruhi wasn't sure what to believe about his local congressional race. He hadn't heard it straight from Donald Trump. — I had come to Ohio's 16th District to report on Trump's vengeance-fueled decision …

Discussion: Washington Examiner, Pew Research Center, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, LifeZette and Washington Post, more at Mediagazer »

Henry Farrell / Washington Post:
Facebook's Oversight Board upheld the ban on Trump, but it didn't like how Facebook banned him

Discussion: Fox News, Politico, The Verge, CBS News, Atlantic Council, NPR, IJR, New Republic, Associated Press, Vox and Louder With Crowder

Washington Post:
Facebook's Oversight Board upheld the social network's decision to ban Trump

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, NewsOne, The Week, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, East Bay Times, The Root, The American Independent, USA Today, Snopes.com, KNWA FOX24, ABC7, WGN-TV, Variety and Jezebel

The Guardian:
Trump criticizes Facebook ruling and says social media companies ‘must pay a political price’ - live

Discussion: Axios, Zandar Versus The Stupid, POLITICUSUSA, Washington Times and Althouse

Politico:

Cheney isn't fighting McCarthy push to replace her in leadership — Liz Cheney is not fighting to hold onto her job as House GOP conference chair, even as top Republican leaders openly campaign to replace her in the No. 3 spot. — To the frustration of many fellow Republicans …

Discussion: Bloomberg, The Hill, Insider, Washington Examiner, CBS News, CNN, Tangle, Roll Call, The 19th, Truth and Consequences, Breitbart, Associated Press, Talking Points Memo, New Republic, Mediaite, Reuters and Salon

Dan Balz / Washington Post:

The effort to dump Liz Cheney is the consequence of a party that lost its way — The growing effort to remove Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from the third-ranking Republican leadership position in the House further accelerates her party's full capitulation to Donald Trump's big lie about the 2020 election.

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
How GOP rage at Liz Cheney makes a future stolen election more likely

Discussion: VICE, CNN, New York Times, Politico, Raw Story, The American Conservative, Forbes, IJR, Bloomberg, Mediaite, National Review and Michael-In-Norfolk

Burgess Everett / Politico:
Ernst defends fellow Republican leader Cheney — but calls for intra-GOP peace

Discussion: The Hill, Washington Examiner, National Review and Associated Press

Allahpundit / HotAir:
Report: Trump, McCarthy, Scalise all back Elise Stefanik to replace Cheney in caucus leadership

Discussion: HuffPost, Washington Post, Fox News, The Gateway Pundit, Wall Street Journal and The National Interest

Steve Hayes / The Dispatch:
Kevin McCarthy's GOP is Tired of Hearing the Truth

Discussion: The Western Journal, Axios, National Review and Patterico's Pontifications

Jacqueline Alemany / Washington Post:
Power Up: Marjorie Taylor Greene might have helped Liz Cheney survive this long

Discussion: Politico, Erick Erickson's Confessions …, Insider, CNN, The Colorado Sun and National Review

Brian Schwartz / CNBC:
Liz Cheney's top donors stand with her despite Republicans' push to oust her from House leadership

Discussion: Fox News, The American Independent, Bloomberg, The Hill, NPR, POLITICUSUSA, New York Times, NBC News, Politico and Washington Times

Brad Stone / Bloomberg:

The Untold Story of How Jeff Bezos Beat the Tabloids — When a gossip rag went after the CEO, he retaliated with the brutal, brilliant efficiency he used to build his business empire. In an exclusive excerpt from the new book Amazon Unbound comes an unrivaled tale of money, sex, and power.

more at Mediagazer »

Annie Nova / CNBC:

Federal judge overturns national eviction ban — A federal judge struck down on Wednesday the national eviction moratorium, potentially leaving millions of Americans at risk of losing their homes. — Housing advocates have said that the national ban is necessary to stave off …

Discussion: HotAir, New York Post and Raw Story

Cassidy Morrison / Washington Examiner:
Judge overturns federal pandemic eviction moratorium

Discussion: National Review and The Federalist

Wall Street Journal:

Peloton Recalls All Treadmills as CEO Apologizes — Home-fitness company now offering customers refunds, halts sales of Tread+ machine — Peloton Interactive Inc. has agreed to recall its treadmills, and its chief executive apologized for the company's initial refusal to comply …

Discussion: TMZ.com and New York Post

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission:
CPSC and Peloton Announce: Recall of Tread+ Treadmills After One Child Death and 70 Incidents; Recall of Tread Treadmills Due to Risk of Injury

Discussion: CBS News, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Chicago Sun-Times, New York Times, ABC News, KTVX-TV, CBS Pittsburgh, CBS Philly, Forbes, Jezebel, USA Today, The Verge, Fox 8 Cleveland WJW, WOWK-TV and UPI, more at Techmeme »

Lauren Thomas / CNBC:
Peloton recalling all treadmills after reports of injuries, one death

Discussion: Gizmodo, CBS Chicago, AppleInsider and CBS San Francisco

Jessica M. Goldstein / Washingtonian:

The Awkward Feeling of Rooting for the White House Press Secretary — Half of America is smitten with Jen Psaki, while a swath of the White House press corps sounds quite taken with how polite she is. — In her first three months on the job, White House press secretary Jen Psaki has yet …

Discussion: Mediaite

Neal Rothschild / Axios:

Trump's spell over the media broke once he lost his megaphones — Social media interactions about former President Trump have fallen 91% since January, according to exclusive data from NewsWhip. — Why it matters: When Trump lost his social media accounts, he lost his once-immense power …

Discussion: Mock Paper Scissors, more at Techmeme »

Michael S. Schmidt / New York Times:

Judge Says Barr Misled on How His Justice Dept. Viewed Trump's Actions — Judge Amy Berman Jackson said in a ruling that the misleading statements were similar to others that William P. Barr, the former attorney general, had made about the Mueller investigation.

Discussion: CNN, The Guardian, The Intellectualist, The Hill, Daily Kos, Raw Story, Crooks and Liars, HotAir, Progressive Eruptions, Washington Examiner, The Week and The Daily Caller

Devlin Barrett / Washington Post:
Giuliani evidence should be reviewed by an outside lawyer, Justice Dept. says

Discussion: Joe.My.God., Reuters, Talking Points Memo and CNN

Seth Borenstein / Associated Press:

Nature at its craziest: Trillions of cicadas about to emerge — COLUMBIA, Md. (AP) — Sifting through a shovel load of dirt in a suburban backyard, Michael Raupp and Paula Shrewsbury find their quarry: a cicada nymph. — And then another. And another. And four more.

Discussion: Al Jazeera, The Daily Caller and Fox 8 Cleveland WJW

Claire Williams / Morning Consult:

Biden's $1.8 Trillion American Families Plan Is Supported by Nearly 60% of Voters — While just 1 in 4 Republicans back the package, they expressed more support for the proposal's individual provisions — 86% of Democrats support Biden's plan, compared with 54% of independents and 25% of Republicans.

Discussion: Insider, The Hill, Daily Kos and Forbes

Mariko Paulson / Issues:
President Biden's American Families Plan: Budgetary and Macroeconomic effects

Discussion: Washington Examiner, The Boston Globe, The Western Journal, CBS News, Insider, The Daily Caller, Washington Times, Daily Kos, CBS Dallas / Fort Worth and CBS Philly

Martin Crutsinger / Associated Press:

Treasury warns of need to deal with national debt limit — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Treasury Department says it will employ measures to avoid an unprecedented default on the national debt this summer, but officials say those measures could be exhausted “much more quickly” …

Kate Davidson / Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Treasury Evaluating Various Scenarios for Debt Limit Reinstatement

Discussion: Bloomberg

Jonathan Blitzer / New Yorker:

A Mother, Separated from Her Children at the Border, Comes Home — The Biden Administration has begun a massive effort to reunite more than a thousand families torn apart by Trump. — For the past two years, Keldy Mabel Gonzáles Brebe de Zúniga kept a daily ritual.

Sabrina Tavernise / New York Times:

The U.S. Birthrate Has Dropped Again. The Pandemic May Be Accelerating the Decline. — Over all, the birthrate declined by 4 percent in 2020. Births were down most sharply in December, when babies conceived at the start of the health crisis would have been born.

Discussion: Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Reuters, NPR, Human Events, The Daily Caller, National Review and The Hill

Signal Blog:

The Instagram ads Facebook won't show you — Companies like Facebook aren't building technology for you, they're building technology for your data. They collect everything they can from FB, Instagram, and WhatsApp in order to sell visibility into people and their lives.

Discussion: Gizmodo, Washington Post, MacRumors, The Indian Express and Forbes, more at Mediagazer »

Larry McShane / New York Daily News:

Please buy this newspaper: A Daily News reporter begs a local owner to rescue the tabloid from Alden Global Capital — Like any good tabloid headline, it's simple, snappy and succinct: DAILY NEWS NEEDS NEW OWNER. — And not just any owner: a New York owner, someone who knows the city …

Discussion: Mediaite, more at Mediagazer »

Anne Gearan / Washington Post:

Strongmen who got cozy with Trump get the cold shoulder from Biden — The Biden administration has zinged Russia and China over human rights and alleged thuggery against their neighbors, cut off some arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and stiff-armed Turkey's increasingly authoritarian leader.

Discussion: Washington Examiner and National Review

Ronald Radosh / New Republic:

Our Friend, the Trump Propagandist — According to our old friend David Horowitz—the radical leftist turned thoughtful conservative turned Trump propagandist whom we've been acquainted with, in his various political guises, for more than 60 years—America is on the brink of destruction …

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:

There's an Extremely Stupid Reason Congress Doesn't Want a Good IRS — Yesterday, Treasury secretary Janet Yellen noted that, in this decade, uncollected federal taxes will amount to roughly $7 trillion. Former IRS commissioners Fred Goldberg and Charles Rossotti have calculated that …

Glenn Kessler / Washington Post:

Kevin McCarthy says he rented a ‘room’ — in a 7,000-square-foot penthouse — “Frank [Luntz] has been a friend of mine for more than 30 years. ... I've rented a room from Frank for a couple of months, but don't worry, I'm back to — going back to where I normally am, on my couch in my office.

Discussion: Mock Paper Scissors, Breaking News USA, The Gateway Pundit and The Hill

Thomas Kaplan / New York Times:

The Biden administration says it will support lifting patent protections to help produce more vaccines globally. — The Biden administration on Wednesday came out in support of waiving intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines, a breakthrough for international efforts …

Discussion: Politico, Insider, CNN, Political Wire and ABC7

Albert Hunt / The Hill:

What's really going on down in Georgia — Share to Facebook Share to Twitter — Georgia's Republican state legislature — after an election fueled by a huge Black turnout that helped elect a Democratic president and two Democratic U.S. Senators for the first time in a quarter century …

Discussion: MinnPost and Digby's Hullabaloo

New York Times:

Why Democratic Departures From the House Have Republicans Salivating — A growing number of Democrats in battleground districts are retiring or leaving to seek higher office, imperiling the party's slim House majority and President Biden's expansive agenda.