memeorandum: Tesla paid no federal income taxes while paying executives $2.5 billion over five years (Sarah Fielding/Engadget)

4:25 PM ET, March 13, 2024

Top Items:

Judge overseeing Georgia election interference case dismisses some charges against Trump — ATLANTA (AP) — The judge overseeing the Georgia election interference case on Wednesday dismissed some of the charges against former President Donald Trump, but many other counts in the indictment remain.

Caroline Vakil / The Hill:

Cheney fuels speculation about her next move — Speculation is growing about the role former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) will play in the 2024 election as President Biden and former President Trump barrel toward a rematch. — Cheney has vowed that she'll do whatever it takes to keep Trump from returning to the White House.

Discussion: RedState, WFLA-TV, KOIN.com, BizPac Review, Washington Examiner and Wall Street Journal

Allison Quinn / The Daily Beast:

Putin Recalls Trump Acting Like Jealous GF in Private — According to him, Trump made no attempt to hide his own insecurities about Joe Biden. — Russia's Vladimir Putin has revealed an apparently previously unreported conversation with Donald Trump in which he claims the then-American president …

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Raw Story, ABC News, Reuters and Washington Examiner

Max Burns / The Hill:

Trump's GOP is already dying — For Donald Trump, last week must have seemed like a final, crowning victory over his lingering Republican critics. On Friday the Republican National Committee made official what Trump had already decreed weeks ago, electing Trump's daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as party co-chair.

Discussion: Mediaite, CLAYTOONZ, Raw Story, The Daily Beast, The Dispatch, New York Magazine, DNyuz, Democrats, LGBTQ Nation and Forbes

Lee Moran / HuffPost:

Donald Trump Flips Out At Democrats' Mocking Montages With Massive Self-Own … Video

Discussion: Salon, Mediaite, New Republic, Crooks and Liars and IJR

Dan Ladden-Hall / The Daily Beast:

Haley Shaved 77K Votes Off Trump's Georgia Win Despite Dropping Out — The haul is substantially more than the number of votes by which Trump lost the state in 2020. — Donald Trump's overwhelming victory in the Georgia Republican primary Tuesday locked up the 2024 GOP nomination for him …

Discussion: MeidasTouch, Semafor, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Newsweek, The American Conservative, Fox News, The Hill, Georgia Recorder, The Gateway Pundit, The Guardian, RedState and Political Wire

Michael Scherer / Washington Post:

No Labels to appoint a panel Thursday to pick presidential candidate — The group is considering a conservative or Republican to lead the ticket, with the option of ending the effort if a candidate fails to gain traction after a few months — No Labels, the centrist group planning …

Discussion: Fox News and Political Wire

Philip Bump / Washington Post:
Trump demonstrates why ‘Artificial Intelligence’ will be so useful to him

Discussion: Raw Story

David Kurtz / Talking Points Memo: Don't Be Lulled Into Thinking Trump II Will Just Be A Repeat Of Trump I

ABC News:
Criminal referrals emerge as possible ‘exit strategy’ of struggling Biden impeachment inquiry, sources say

Discussion: New Republic, Raw Story, Fox News, The Maine Wire, Punchbowl News and Washington Examiner

Reid J. Epstein / New York Times:
Trailing Trump in Polls, Biden Can Be More Bullish in One Battleground

Discussion: ABC News, BizPac Review, WTOL-TV and Journal Sentinel

NBC News:
Judge in Georgia election interference case dismisses three counts against Trump

Discussion: Fox News, RedState, ABC News, Breitbart, CNN, Associated Press, UPI, Washington Times, Deadline, Forbes, PoliticusUSA, Blaze Media, CNBC and IJR

USA Today:
Trump shows slight lead over Biden in new exclusive poll even as views of economy brighten

Discussion: The Guardian, New York Daily News, Reason, The Bulwark, The Hill, Fox News, New York Post and HotAir

David A. Graham / The Atlantic:
Trump Repeats Obama's Mistake

Discussion: Axios, Associated Press, Digby's Hullabaloo, Washington Examiner, The Hill, Daily Kos, Fox News, Washington Post, The Wrap, HuffPost, DNyuz, Bloomberg and Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Washington Post:
Biden and Trump secure their parties' presidential nominations

Roger Sollenberger / The Daily Beast:

‘Make the RNC White Again’: GOP Ends Minority Outreach Program — With Trump allies taking over the RNC and cleaning house, one of the casualties was a minority outreach program that seemed to be working for Republicans. … After years of accusations of financial mismanagement …

Discussion: MeidasTouch and Washington Examiner

Russell Contreras / Axios:
Racial reset shakes American politics

Discussion: Breitbart, Outside the Beltway, BizPac Review and Washington Free Beacon

Matthew Chapman / Raw Story: RNC slashes budget for minority outreach after MAGA takeover

Mariana Alfaro / Washington Post:

Hunter Biden declines House committee invitation to testify publicly — Hunter Biden has declined an invitation to testify next week in a public hearing before the House Oversight Committee, according to a letter from Hunter Biden's attorney, Abbe Lowell, sent to Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the panel's chairman.

Farnoush Amiri / Associated Press:
Hunter Biden rebuffs Republicans' invitation to appear for a public hearing

Rebecca Beitsch / The Hill:
Hunter Biden declines request to appear at public hearing

Discussion: CNBC, UPI, Mediaite, Breitbart and Washington Times

Sarah Fielding / Engadget:

Tesla paid no federal income taxes while paying executives $2.5 billion over five years — Spoiler: The company actually received $1 million in refunds. — In case you need another reason to shout “tax the rich” from the rooftops, it's here, and it's going to make you angry.

Discussion: The Guardian and Institute for Policy Studies

Averyr / Institute for Policy Studies:
More for Them, Less for Us — Corporations That Pay Their Executives More Than Uncle Sam

Discussion: The Hill, HuffPost, Raw Story, DNyuz and Washington Times

Lauren Sforza / The Hill:

Man pleads guilty to scheme to create giant sheep hybrids for captive hunting — A Montana man pleaded guilty Tuesday to two felony charges connected to an effort to create a giant sheep hybrids for captive hunting, the Justice Department announced. — Arthur “Jack” Schubarth, 80 …

Discussion: US Department of Justice, CBS News, The Daily Beast, The Daily Caller, Interesting Engineering and Gizmodo

Nathaniel Meyersohn / CNN:

Family Dollar and Dollar Tree will close 1,000 stores — New York CNN — Family Dollar, the struggling discount chain that caters to low-income customers predominantly in cities, said Wednesday it will close nearly 1,000 stores. — Years of mismanagement and poor conditions in stores have hurt Family Dollar's brand.

Judd Legum / Popular Information:

Say gay, Florida — This week, the State of Florida agreed to settle a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Parental Rights in Education Act, better known as the “Don't Say Gay” law. The bill's text prohibited “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties …

Discussion: PinkNews, WFLA-TV, Twitchy and Advocate

Melissa Gira Grant / New Republic:
Ron DeSantis's Anti-LGBTQ Regime Is Crumbling

Discussion: Miami Herald, Reuters, Sun-Sentinel, RedState, LGBTQ Nation, Advocate, ABC News, Florida Phoenix, Blaze Media and New York Daily News

Brandy Zadrozny / NBC News:

A small city in Oklahoma elected a white nationalist. Will it be able to vote him out? — Judd Blevins, a city commissioner in Enid, Oklahoma, marched in the 2017 white nationalist Unite the Right rally. Now he faces a recall vote. — ENID, Okla. — The photo of Judd Blevins was unmistakable.

Discussion: Raw Story

Christopher Mathias / HuffPost: He Didn't Deny Being A White Supremacist. Then He Was Elected To City Council.

Dan Mangan / CNBC:

Chubb CEO defends backing Trump appeal bond in E. Jean Carroll case — The CEO of the Chubb insurance company defended a subsidiary providing former President Donald Trump with a $91.6 million appeals bond in the case where he was found liable for defaming E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of rape.

Discussion: The Hill, ABC News, NBC News and The Moderate Voice

Washington Post:

On popular online platforms, predatory groups coerce children into self-harm — Vulnerable teens are blackmailed into degrading and violent acts by abusers who then boast about it — Editor's note: This story describes extremely disturbing events that may be upsetting for some people.

Discussion: Wired, more at Techmeme »

Jeffrey M. Jones / Gallup:

LGBTQ+ Identification in U.S. Now at 7.6% — More than one in five Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ+ — WASHINGTON, D.C. — LGBTQ+ identification in the U.S. continues to grow, with 7.6% of U.S. adults now identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or some other sexual orientation besides heterosexual.

Discussion: RedState, NPR, LGBTQ Nation, UPI, The Hill, New York Daily News, PinkNews, Daily Caller News Foundation, New York Post, Advocate, NBC News and Axios

Shannon Vavra / The Daily Beast:

Russians Warned to Flee Border Cities While They Still Can — Anti-Putin militants urged citizens to evacuate on Wednesday after launching a military offensive aimed at ending the war in Ukraine. — Anti-Kremlin Russian fighters have begun urging their fellow citizens to abandon their homes …

Discussion: The Moscow Times

Filip Timotija / The Hill:

Democrats plead with Johnson to put Ukraine bill on floor: ‘Lead, follow or get out of the way’ — A bicameral group of Democrats pleaded to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to put the Senate's foreign aid bill, which includes Ukraine aid, to a floor vote, emphasizing that the war-torn …

Discussion: Raw Story, The Guardian, Democrats, MeidasTouch, Axios, New York Post, Fox News, Talking Points Memo, Washington Examiner, Business Insider and Washington Times

Bloomberg:

TikTok Will Use Every Legal Tool to Fight a Forced Sale … A sale of the viral video app is considered to be the last resort for ByteDance, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private matters. A divestiture would also require approval by the Chinese government …