Top Items:
Alex Leary / Wall Street Journal:
Donald Trump Tops Ron DeSantis in Test of GOP Presidential Field, WSJ Poll Finds — No candidate beyond the two leaders draws substantial support in the still-developing primary race — WASHINGTON—Donald Trump has gained command of the GOP presidential-nomination race over Ron DeSantis …
RELATED:
Washington Post:
Trump touts authoritarian vision for second term: ‘I am your justice’ — The former president is proposing deploying the military domestically, purging the federal workforce and building futuristic cities from scratch — Mandatory stop-and-frisk. Deploying the military to fight street crime, break up gangs and deport immigrants.
Discussion:
Raw Story, Associated Press and The Guardian
Politico:
Playbook: How to lose friends and alienate people, by Ron DeSantis — Presented by The U.S. Chamber of Commerce — With help from Eli Okun and Garrett Ross — DRIVING THE DAY — NEW 2024 POLLS — “Donald Trump Tops Ron DeSantis in Test of GOP Presidential Field, WSJ Poll Finds,” …
Discussion:
VICE, National Review, New York Times, Semafor, RedState, Fox News, Mock Paper Scissors, The Daily Caller and Balloon Juice
Politico:
Trump killed the ‘values voter’ wing of the GOP. It isn't coming back in 2024. — On the eve of a Christian cattle call in Iowa, the two 2024 contenders who talk the most about their faith aren't gaining traction. — Mike Pence has spent nearly a half dozen of his Sundays in recent months speaking …
Discussion:
Raw Story, Washington Times and Just The News
Eric Cortellessa / TIME:
Top DeSantis Donor Says He's Ready to Put His Fortune Behind 2024 Bid — It's been a rough two weeks for Ron DeSantis. Members of Congress from his own state have been endorsing Donald Trump in droves. A crippling gas shortage in South Florida coincided with the governor's travel …
Dan Ladden-Hall / The Daily Beast:
Former Colleagues Rip Ron DeSantis' Rude Behavior
Former Colleagues Rip Ron DeSantis' Rude Behavior
Discussion:
Politico, The Daily Beast, Talking Points Memo, Raw Story and New York Times
David M. Drucker / The Dispatch:
Poll: DeSantis Outperforming Trump in Michigan
Poll: DeSantis Outperforming Trump in Michigan
Discussion:
National Review, Bloomberg, Florida Politics, Breitbart, HotAir and Washington Post
Zachary Cohen / CNN:
Exclusive: Text messages reveal Trump operatives considered using breached voting data to decertify Georgia's Senate runoff in 2021 — In mid-January 2021, two men hired by former President Donald Trump's legal team discussed over text message what to do with data obtained from a breached voting machine …
Discussion:
Raw Story, PoliticusUSA and Joe.My.God.
Michael D. Shear / New York Times:
Any Questions? Biden Holds Fewest News Conferences Since Reagan — As President Biden prepares to announce his bid for a second term as soon as Tuesday, his decision to keep the news media at arm's length is part of a deliberate strategy. — WASHINGTON — In the 100 years since Calvin Coolidge …
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Marshall Cohen / CNN:
Smartmatic wants more than Dominion's $787 million payout, plus a retraction from Fox for its 2020 election lies, lawyer says — A top lawyer for Smartmatic, the voting technology company whose defamation lawsuit against Fox News is still pending, said Thursday that he won't accept …
Discussion:
Mediaite, New York Times, CNBC, HuffPost, Heartland Signal, The Western Journal, ABC News and The Nation
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Susan B. Glasser / New Yorker:
Fox News Doesn't Do Apologies — Rupert Murdoch may have to pay for Donald Trump's 2020 election lies, but who's going to reimburse American democracy? — Throughout the Trump era in American politics—which began in 2015 with that escalator ride and, 2020 election results notwithstanding …
Todd Spangler / Variety:
BuzzFeed News Is Shutting Down, Company Laying Off 180 Staffers — BuzzFeed is shutting down BuzzFeed News because it is not able to turn a profit, according to a memo CEO Jonah Peretti sent to company staff Thursday. The digital publisher is laying off 15% of its employees, or about 180 people …
Discussion:
The Atlantic, NBC News, The Post Millennial, CNN, The Guardian, Axios, Forbes, Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, acecomments.mu.nu, Chicago Sun Times, CNBC, The Daily Caller, NPR, The Verge, The Hollywood Reporter, Joe.My.God., New York Post, The Wrap, CBS News, Politico, Washington Free Beacon, The Hill, NBC 6 South Florida, NewsNation, Guido Fawkes and New York Times, more at Mediagazer »
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Ben Smith / Semafor:
The end of the BuzzFeed era in news
The end of the BuzzFeed era in news
Discussion:
Reason, Financial Times, The Wrap, Vox, Accuracy in Media, Twitchy, Daily Kos, Associated Press, Bloomberg, National Review, MyNorthwest.com, The Triad, HotAir and Just The News, more at Mediagazer »
Katherine Faulders / ABC News:
Top Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn to be questioned for 2nd day by special counsel: Sources — Epshteyn met with prosecutors for multiple hours on Thursday, sources say. — After meeting with — special counsel Jack Smith's — office for multiple hours Thursday, top Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn …
Discussion:
PoliticusUSA, Political Wire and Just The News
Ben Makuch / VICE:
Rightwing Edgelords Are the Real Threat to National Security — “The amount of Three Percenters and Boogaloo guys I work with is untenable,” said one Department of Defense worker. — Ben Makuch — Since the beginning of the Biden Administration, the GOP has painstakingly attacked the Pentagon as a …
Discussion:
Raw Story
Associated Press:
Once-a-week nightmare: US mass killings on a record pace — The U.S. is setting a record pace for mass killings in 2023, replaying the horror on a loop roughly once a week so far this year. The carnage has taken 88 lives in 17 mass killings over 111 days. Each time, the killers wielded firearms.
Discussion:
Vox
Richard North Patterson / Wall Street Journal:
Why My New Novel About Racial Conflict Ran Into Trouble — Today's identity politics has led many in the publishing industry to insist that writers can only tell stories about people like themselves. That's bad for fiction and for our democracy. Last January, my agents began submitting …
Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:
Is DeSantis Just Not Dumb Enough for Republicans? … A little over four years ago, Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign appeared to be, if not inevitable, then at least like the most strongly positioned candidacy to win her party's nomination. The former Harvard professor had won …
Madison Alder / Bloomberg Law:
Justice Thomas Is ‘Man of Integrity’ Says Ex-Colleague Breyer — Retired Justice Stephen Breyer said Clarence Thomas is a “man of integrity,” as his former US Supreme Court colleague faces ethics questions over ties to a Republican donor. “As far as I'm concerned, I sat next to him on the bench for 28 years.
Discussion:
The Daily Caller
Washington Post:
Abortion ban states see steep drop in OB/GYN residency applicants — States that have enacted abortion bans saw a 10.5 percent drop in applicants for obstetrics and gynecology residencies in 2023 from the previous year, according to new data from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Discussion:
CNN
Politico:
The Threat of Civil Breakdown Is Real — The Manhattan district attorney's indictment of former President Donald Trump for 34 felonies so far has not resulted in the “death and destruction” that the former president warned of and may have desired. The protests near the courthouse …
Discussion:
Raw Story
New York Times:
The Obscure GOP Bookkeeper at the Center of the George Santos Mess — Nancy Marks, Mr. Santos's former campaign treasurer, has her own history of questionable dealings that have aroused interest from federal investigators. — When George Santos was a political neophyte struggling to launch …
Discussion:
Raw Story
Washington Post:
Kremlin tries to build antiwar coalition in Germany, documents show — Marrying Germany's far right and far left is a Kremlin goal, according to a trove of Russian documents reviewed by The Washington Post — BERLIN — When 13,000 demonstrators gathered at the Brandenburg Gate on Feb. 25 …
Discussion:
emptywheel and TASS
Brian Lopez / The Texas Tribune:
Public schools would have to display Ten Commandments under bill passed by Texas Senate — The Senate also passed a bill that would set prayer and Bible reading times during the school day. — Public schools in Texas would have to prominently display the Ten Commandments …
Discussion:
Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Alternet.org, Althouse, New Republic, Talking Points Memo and Joe.My.God.
Steven Monacelli / The Texas Observer:
Abbott Aims to Pardon Racist Murderer Who Sent Explicit Texts to Apparent Minor — After an Austin jury unanimously convicted Sergeant Daniel Perry of murder, it took Governor Greg Abbott less than one full day to call for his pardon. — Legal experts and lawmakers have described …
Washington Post:
Enraged by GOP debt limit extortion? Blame MAGA's moderate enablers. — When it comes to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's use of the debt limit as a weapon of extortion, the media relentlessly focuses on his dealings with extreme conservatives. They're the ones, we're told …
Discussion:
Washington Times
Erin Doherty / Axios:
Poll: GOP voters say fighting “woke” ideology more important than stopping Social Security cuts — Most Republican primary voters say fighting “woke” ideology in schools and businesses is more important to them than protecting Medicare and Social Security from cuts, a new Wall Street Journal poll out today showed.
Discussion:
National Review and Bulwark+
Zack Beauchamp / Vox:
Why so many top Republicans want to go to war in Mexico — An astonishingly bad idea that's gotten popular very quickly. — One of the hottest new ideas in Republican politics is, apparently, launching a war in Mexico. — Three recent articles — in Rolling Stone, Politico, and Semafor …
Miranda Devine / New York Post:
Ex-CIA chief spills on how he got spies to write false Hunter Biden laptop letter to ‘help Biden’ — Joe Biden's presidential campaign prompted former acting CIA director Mike Morell to “help Biden” by organizing 50 colleagues to sign a letter in October 2020 falsely claiming that damning emails …
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, House Committee …, Fox News, PJ Media, Alpha News, The Post Millennial, RADAR, Washington Free Beacon, Power Line, Twitchy, Just The News, Big League Politics, RedState, Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, HotAir, National Review, The Daily Caller, The Western Journal, The Federalist, Breitbart, Frontpage Mag, Washington Times, CBS News and acecomments.mu.nu
Danielle Paquette / Washington Post:
The Florida sheriff vs. the neo-Nazi ‘scumbags’ — DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Did Sheriff Michael J. Chitwood know how easy it was to make a laser weapon? Did he know that a laser weapon could be remote-controlled, shoot invisible beams and blind him in 1/15th of a second?
Daniel Lippman / Politico:
CIA in Congress' crosshairs over alleged mishandling of sex assault cases — The bipartisan leaders of the House Intelligence Committee have asked CIA Director Bill Burns for his cooperation with a congressional inquiry. — The House intelligence committee is investigating whether …
Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
Republicans follow their new leader, Marjorie Taylor Greene — This is the price America pays for Kevin McCarthy's ambition. — To understand the consequences of the many concessions the House speaker made to get his job, look at what has happened to the House Committee on Homeland Security.
National Review:
How to Make the Housing Market Worse — The federal government props up the housing market in too many ways to count. The U.S. is unique among rich countries in having the national government insure mortgages, guarantee mortgage securities, and finance mortgages with government-sponsored enterprises.
Discussion:
RedState, Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, The Gateway Pundit, Breitbart, BizPac Review and WFLA-TV
Chuck Ross / Washington Free Beacon:
Hunter Biden Lawyer Calls IRS Whistleblower a Criminal — A lawyer for Hunter Biden says an IRS agent broke the law by telling Congress about problems with the agency's investigation of the troubled first son, a claim the agent's lawyer called an “unfortunate” attack on his client.
Discussion:
NBC News, HotAir, New York Post, The Daily Caller, The Post Millennial, Fox News and RedState
Alexandra Petri / Washington Post:
We will hold the country hostage until our demands are met — once we know them — It's a stickup! Don't move! We are serious! There is a reason we are holding up this bank, and it's because — well, the point is, we can agree, things are out of control with the money!
Samuel Petrequin / Associated Press:
Calling beer Champagne leaves French producers frothing — The guardians of Champagne will let no one take the name of the bubbly beverage in vain, not even a U.S. beer behemoth. For years, Miller High Life has used the “Champagne of Beers” slogan. This week, that appropriation became impossible to swallow.
Discussion:
Insider
CNN:
Louisville shooter left notes revealing part of his goal was to show how easily a mentally ill person can buy a gun in the US, sources say — The shooter who killed five co-workers at a Louisville, Kentucky, bank this month left two very extensive notes - one in his home and one found …
Discussion:
HotAir, RedState, Twitchy, The Post Millennial, Just The News and Daily Mail