memeorandum: House Plans Vote on Baby Formula Legislation Wednesday (Siobhan Hughes/Wall Street Journal)

11:35 PM ET, May 17, 2022

Top Items:

Reid J. Epstein / New York Times:

Doug Mastriano, a far-right 2020 election denier, is Pennsylvania Republicans' choice for governor. — Doug Mastriano, a central figure in former President Donald J. Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Pennsylvania, won the state's Republican primary for governor on Tuesday …

Discussion: NBC News, New York Magazine, NPR, Wall Street Journal, HuffPost, Mediaite, HotAir, Fox News, Associated Press, Washington Post, Mother Jones, NewsNation, Townhall, NBC10 Philadelphia, WITF and Insider

Jazmine Ulloa / New York Times:

Live Updates: Mastriano and Fetterman Win in Pennsylvania; Cawthorn Concedes in North Carolina — Doug Mastriano, a far-right state senator, won the Republican nomination for governor, and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman will be Democrats' candidate in one of the fall's most important Senate races.

Amanda Carpenter / The Bulwark:

Are Republicans Now Going to Endorse Doug Mastriano? — Doug Mastriano is an insurrectionist, period. — He bused supporters to the Capitol on January 6th, was photographed on the Capitol grounds, and ever since has sought to use his limited political powers as a Pennsylvania state senator to overturn the election.

Discussion: The Hill, The Philadelphia Inquirer, CNN, NBC News, Breitbart, PennLive, Forbes, New York Post, Talking Points Memo and Heartland Signal

Amanda Terkel / HuffPost:

Madison Cawthorn Loses Primary After Brutal Barrage Of GOP Attacks — The Republican congressman has been at odds with GOP officials in both North Carolina and in the U.S. House. — Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) has twice been stopped trying to bring a gun onto a plane.

Discussion: Mediaite, New York Times, Raleigh News & Observer, Bloomberg, Roll Call, New York Post, Associated Press, NPR, Breitbart, Talking Points Memo and The Daily Caller

Maggie Haberman / New York Times:
Pennsylvania U.S. Senate Primary Election Results

Discussion: POLITICUSUSA, Political Wire and PennLive

New York Times:

Justice Dept. Is Said to Request Transcripts From Jan. 6 Committee — The committee has interviewed more than 1,000 people so far, and the transcripts could be used as evidence in potential criminal cases or to pursue new leads. — WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has asked …

C. Ryan Barber / Insider:

Trump and his associates just had a very bad day thanks to a cascading series of Justice Department moves — Bad news for Trump and associates as a key Democrat confirms DOJ asked for January 6 transcripts. — A federal grand jury also returned more charges against the ex-chair of Trump's 2017 inaugural committee.

Discussion: The Hill and Raw Story

New York Times:

Elon Musk says Twitter deal ‘cannot move forward’ without more information. — Mr. Musk called on Twitter to provide more data about the number of spam and fake accounts on the social media site. — Elon Musk, chaos agent. — Mr. Musk, the world's richest man, continued creating confusion around …

Discussion: Axios, Associated Press, Washington Post, Bloomberg, RedState, New York Post, CBS News, al.com, Bangor Daily News, Breitbart, TESLARATI, The Daily Caller, Deseret News, WTOP News and NBC Los Angeles, more at Techmeme »

Matt Levine / Bloomberg:

Elon Musk Does Not Care About Spam Bots — Programming note: Money Stuff will be off tomorrow, back on Thursday. Unless. You know. — Oh Elon — Elon Musk is the richest person in the world, and an active Twitter user. When he tweets, he gets a lot of spammy replies, many of which seem to be written by automated bots.

Discussion: Reuters, HotAir, Reuters UK, CNN, Breitbart, The Moderate Voice, DW.COM, UPI, Raw Story, New York Post, TESLARATI, Gizmodo, Townhall and Variety, more at Techmeme »

Lee Brown / New York Post:
Twitter engineer recorded saying ‘Commie as f-k’ staff ‘censors the right’

Discussion: YouTube, One America News Network, americandigest.org, Newsbusters, RedState, Big League Politics, Washington Examiner, TheBlaze, HotAir, Breitbart and BizPac Review

Steve Peoples / Associated Press:

Republican Senate candidates promote ‘replacement’ theory — NEW YORK (AP) — A half-dozen mainstream Republican Senate candidates are drawing on the “great replacement” conspiracy theory once confined to the far-right fringes of U.S. politics to court voters this campaign season …

Discussion: Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, KTLA, Twitchy, Florida Politics, Iowa Starting Line, The Daily Caller, WITF and The Status Kuo

Politico:
'She's not racist': House Republicans dismiss furor over Stefanik immigration ad

Discussion: PolitiFact, ABC News and Raw Story

Brian Broome / Washington Post:
Opinion Black people want the hate to stop. But it is only getting worse.

Discussion: Twitchy, TheBlaze and Buffalo News

Christina Prignano / The Boston Globe:

Map: A county-by-county look at COVID-19 transmission in the United States — As the Northeast and other parts of the country grapple with a highly transmissible offshoot of the Omicron variant, community transmission levels are once again rising, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Shawn Hubler / New York Times:

With Plunging Enrollment, a ‘Seismic Hit’ to Public Schools — The pandemic has supercharged the decline in the nation's public school system in ways that experts say will not easily be reversed. — ORANGE COUNTY, Calif. — In New York City, the nation's largest school district has lost some 50,000 students over the past two years.

Discussion: COVID-19 Policy Update

Aaron Sibarium / Washington Free Beacon:

Double Jeopardy: Princeton Prepares To Axe Star Professor Who Raised Hell Over Woke Lunacy — Princeton University is planning to fire one of the most distinguished classics professors in the country, Joshua Katz, after his criticism of the school's racial politics made him the target …

Discussion: National Review

Andrew Desiderio / Politico:

Ukraine aid splinters the GOP — The Republican establishment is striking back against a right flank attempt to turn its opposition to Ukraine aid into an “America First” talking point. — Congress' nearly $40 billion package of help for the war-torn nation is taking heat from a growing number …

Discussion: HotAir, Wall Street Journal, Raw Story, Breitbart, The Dispatch, Defense One and New York Times

The White House:

Remarks by President Biden and First Lady Biden Honoring the Lives Lost in Buffalo, New York, and Calling on All Americans to Condemn White Supremacy — THE FIRST LADY: I just wanted to say thank you to the families for opening up your hearts to us and for letting us be with you today.

Discussion: RedState

Jill Lawrence / USA Today: Buffalo shooting spotlights America's tragic race and gun failures. But we can't give up.

John Nichols / The Nation:

The Supreme Court Just Streamlined the Process for Bribing Senators — Ted Cruz manufactured a case to upend anti-corruption provisions, and it worked. — Bribing members of Congress is generally thought of as a bad thing. That's why there was widespread support for the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act …

Discussion: New York Times, The Daily Wire, Talking Points Memo, Forbes, Occupy Democrats, Axios, Daily Kos, Popular Information and Wall Street Journal

Wall Street Journal:

China Eastern Black Box Points to Intentional Nosedive — Flight data suggests someone in cockpit pushed Boeing 737-800 into near-vertical descent, according to a preliminary U.S. assessment — Search-and-rescue workers in March sorted through aircraft debris at the China Eastern crash site in southern China.

Discussion: ABC News, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, The Western Journal, UPI, The Times of Israel, The Guardian, Reuters, The Daily Wire, HotAir, New York Post and The Hill

Bernadette Hogan / New York Post:

Bill de Blasio eyeing run at newly drawn NY seat Jerrold Nadler has left behind — Just when you thought he was out ... Ex-New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told a state lawmaker he plans to run for New York's newly drawn 10th Congressional district — the seat entrenched Rep. Jerrold Nadler …

Discussion: TheBlaze, All, Mediaite and The Daily Wire

Politico:

Dems question whether Maloney can run DCCC while battling freshman colleague — House Democrats could find themselves picking sides in a deeply uncomfortable primary this summer: their campaign chair versus a Black freshman. And a growing swath of the caucus is blaming its midterm chief …

Discussion: New York Times, Washington Times and The Daily Caller

Tom Dreisbach / NPR:

A pro-Trump film suggests its data are so accurate, it solved a murder. That's false — A conservative “election integrity” group called True The Vote has made multiple misleading or false claims about its work, NPR has found, including the suggestion that they helped solve the murder of an eight-year-old girl in Atlanta.

Discussion: Mediaite, The Bulwark and Crooks and Liars

Associated Press:

FBI investigating Dallas' Koreatown shooting as hate crime — DALLAS (AP) — Police have arrested a suspect in connection with a shooting that wounded three women in a hair salon in the city's Koreatown and federal officials have launched a hate crime investigation, authorities said Tuesday.

Discussion: Dallas Morning News, NBC News, USA Today, WFAA-TV, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, ABC News, The Daily Beast, New York Post, Associated Press, CBS News and Twitchy

Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

The Jolt: Where in the world is David Perdue? — We looked high and low for David Perdue near the end of his last campaign, when the then-senator loaded his schedule with a statewide bus tour and dozens of meet-and-greets, but he was almost impossible to access for most reporters.Now we're asking …

Discussion: HotAir and WTOC

Siobhan Hughes / Wall Street Journal:

House Plans Vote on Baby Formula Legislation Wednesday — Democrats have drawn criticism from GOP for not tackling shortage sooner — WASHINGTON—Democrats, responding to public anger over the baby-formula shortage, laid out plans for legislation and oversight hearings aimed at boosting supply …

Discussion: Associated Press, Washington Times, LifeNews.com and NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Washington Post:

U.S. sues to compel casino mogul Steve Wynn to register as agent of China — The former RNC finance chairman was repeatedly advised to register as an agent of a foreign government but declined to do so, according to prosecutors — The Justice Department on Tuesday sued Steve Wynn to compel …

Discussion: USA Today, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Politico, U.S. Department of Justice, Reuters, CNN, UPI, Sam's Newsletter, The Guardian, Lawyers, Guns & Money and Raw Story

Josh Barro / Very Serious:

Abortion-Rights Advocates Tell Democrats to Stop Saying ‘Choice,’ Because Reasons — Abortion can be a winning issue for Democrats but they have to make it one, instead of playing language games — Last Thursday, Politico congressional reporter Sarah Ferris reported on a memo circulated …

Nate Raymond / Reuters:

Jackson's first Supreme Court clerks include judiciary workplace reform advocate — (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court Justice-designate Ketanji Brown Jackson has selected a diverse set of lawyers to serve as her first four law clerks, including one who has advocated for the judiciary to do more to prevent sexual harassment.

Daniel Bergner / New York Times:

Doctors Gave Her Antipsychotics. She Decided to Live With Her Voices. — A new movement wants to shift mainstream thinking away from medication and toward greater acceptance. — Caroline Mazel-Carlton began hearing voices when she was in day care. Mornings, by the time she was in middle school …

Discussion: Power Line, Freddie deBoer and Althouse

Steve Neavling / News & Views, Detroit Metro Times:

White supremacists are convicted of training for a civil war in Michigan — The Base is a pro-Hitler movement that advocates a race war against non-white people — Three members of a militant white supremacist group were the first in Michigan to be convicted of conspiring to train …

Discussion: Detroit Metro Times

Axios:

America more interested in Depp-Heard trial than abortion — The defamation trial between actors and former spouses Johnny Depp and Amber Heard has quickly amassed more online attention than some of the country's biggest and most pressing news stories, including the leaked Supreme Court decision and Russia's war in Ukraine.

Discussion: Breitbart, Substack and The Daily Wire

Matthew C. Klein / The Overshoot:

Russia Is Losing Access to Imports — Comprehensive data from March show that the Russian economy is being denied access to critical manufactured goods. The initial numbers for April suggest it's only getting worse for the Putin regime. — The Putin regime will find it increasingly difficult …

Eugene Daniels / Politico:

Kamala Harris wants to get out of D.C. more. But she literally can't. — On Sunday afternoon, Vice President Kamala Harris led an American delegation to the United Arab Emirates to express condolences after the death of the federation's president. By Monday morning, she was on her way home.

Discussion: National Review, Wall Street Journal and IJR

Washington Post:

Opinion All eyes are on Ukraine, but another crisis is brewing in Iran — Carl Bildt, a Global Opinions contributing columnist, is a former prime minister of Sweden. Javier Solana, a former secretary general of NATO and E.U. high representative for foreign affairs and security policy …

Yael Halon / Fox News:

Virginia mom suing biracial son's school over CRT curriculum says it ‘totally changed his perspective’ on race — Lawyer said Henley Middle School appears to be standing by divisive curriculum amid lawsuit — Virginia mother suing son's school over CRT curriculum

Discussion: Daily Kos, TheBlaze, NewsOne, Raw Story, BizPac Review, The Daily Caller and The Daily Signal

Walter Shapiro / Roll Call:

Biden's ‘MAGA Republicans’ is a meh-ga slogan — Democrats are ensnared in the campaign consultant trap — It is a Washington ritual so old that it probably dates back to the era when senators lived in boarding houses and any stray citizen could wander into the White House.