memeorandum: This Is the Bleakest Moment for America in My Lifetime (Charles P. Pierce/Esquire)

10:45 AM ET, August 14, 2017

Top Items:

Matt Egan / CNNMoney:

Merck CEO quits Trump council over Charlottesville — Trump addresses Charlottesville clashes (full) — One of America's most prominent black CEOs quit President Trump's manufacturing council on Monday over Trump's failure to condemn white supremacists. — Kenneth Frazier of Merck …

Discussion: CNBC, Politicus USA, Washington Times, FOX6Now.com, East Bay Times, The Daily Caller, Raw Story, Daily Kos, Business Insider, The Week and Reuters

Katie Mettler / Washington Post:

GoDaddy bans neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer for disparaging woman killed at Charlottesville rally — After months of criticism that GoDaddy was providing a platform for hate speech, the Web hosting company announced late Sunday that it will no longer house the Daily Stormer …

Discussion: Arizona Republic, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, NPR, The Verge and Mashable

Wall Street Journal:

The Poison of Identity Politics — The return of white nationalism is part of a deeper ailment. — As ever in this age of Donald Trump, politicians and journalists are reducing the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday to a debate over Mr. Trump's words and intentions.

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog

John Harwood / CNBC:

GOP is more likely to vent ‘personal disgust’ for Trump after Charlottesville — Accusations that Trump is racist have never made Republican politicians abandon him in large numbers. — The killing of an anti-supremacist protester in Charlottesville, Virginia, has generated rage toward white nationalists.

Eileen Sullivan / New York Times:

Sessions Says ‘Evil Attack’ in Virginia Is Domestic Terrorism — WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Monday that the “evil attack” in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend meets the legal definition of an act of domestic terrorism, an early declaration in an investigation after a car plowed into a crowd of protesters.

Discussion: RedState and Talking Points Memo

Michael Edison Hayden / ABC News:

Sessions defends Trump's comments on Charlottesville, says car-ramming fits definition of domestic terror — Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the incident of a driver ramming a car into a crowd of demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, which killed a young woman and sent 19 …

Discussion: Politico and The Daily Caller

Rebecca Savransky / The Hill:
Merck CEO resigns from presidential council over Trump remarks

Discussion: Reuters, ABC News, Talking Points Memo, New York Times, Politico, STAT, ThinkProgress and Political Wire

Kristine Phillips / Washington Post:
‘Look at the campaign he ran’: Charlottesville mayor is becoming one of Trump's strongest critics

Discussion: CBS News, Bloomberg, The Gateway Pundit, Washington Times, Talking Points Memo and Media Matters for America

Amy B Wang / Washington Post:
One group loved Trump's remarks about Charlottesville: White supremacists

Discussion: HuffPost, Agence France-Presse, FiveThirtyEight, WAVY-TV, kylewingfield.blog.myajc.com, The Guardian, Taylor Marsh, Affinity Magazine, Vox, TheBlaze, Politicus USA, Weekly Standard, Daily Stormer, Balloon Juice, mccain.senate.gov, RedState and Gizmodo

Monique Garcia / Chicago Tribune:
Illinois Senate approves resolution asking police to recognize neo-Nazi groups as terrorist organizations

Discussion: The Hill and Talking Points Memo

Dan Merica / CNN:
Trump silent as aides look to explain his vague Charlottesville statement

Discussion: The Week and Washington Free Beacon

New York Times:
The Hate He Dares Not Speak Of

Discussion: New York Post, The Moderate Voice, The Week, Sputnik International, IJR, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, twitchy.com, Mediaite and ThinkProgress

New York Times:
Far-Right Groups Surge Into National View in Charlottesville

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, The Moderate Voice and Washington Post

Glenn Thrush / New York Times:
White House Acts to Stem Fallout From Trump's First Charlottesville Remarks

Discussion: The Atlantic, Washington Post, The Week, Political Insider blog, John Hawkins' Right Wing News, ThinkProgress, The Guardian, HuffPost, TheBlaze, The Daily Caller, Daily Kos, Politico, Business Insider, Washington Monthly, AOL, Media Matters for America, Affinity Magazine and Power Line

Katherine Faulders / ABC News:
White House says Trump ‘condemns’ white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi and all extremist groups

Discussion: Politico, Talking Points Memo, Power Line, TODAY.com, IJR, CBS Boston, TheBlaze, Telegraph, Associated Press, Conservative News Today, The Gateway Pundit, Daily Progress and The Guardian

Glenn Greenwald / The Intercept:
The Misguided Attacks on ACLU for Defending Neo-Nazis' Free Speech Rights in Charlottesville

Discussion: Hit & Run, Instapundit, Vox and Damian J. Penny

Blake Montgomery / BuzzFeed:

Here's What Really Happened In Charlottesville — Who came ready for violence? Was it on “many sides”? The answers are clearer on the ground. — Reporting From — Yes, you can blame the Nazis. — The race-fueled chaos that wracked Charlottesville, Virginia, finally came to rest on Sunday night.

Discussion: New York Times and The Week

ProPublica:
Police Stood By As Mayhem Mounted in Charlottesville

Discussion: Shakesville, Outside the Beltway, The Guardian, Business Insider, The Daily Caller and Washington Post

Sheryl Gay Stolberg / New York Times:
Hurt and Angry, Charlottesville Tries to Regroup From Violence

Discussion: Althouse and Business Insider

Rosie Gray / The Atlantic:
The Alt-Right's Rebranding Effort Has Failed

Discussion: Daily Kos

Alex Pfeiffer / The Daily Caller:

EXCLUSIVE: Former Trump Adviser Says He Will ‘Blow’ McMaster, Drudge ‘The F**k Out’ If Bannon Is Ousted — Sam Nunberg, a former political adviser to Donald Trump, warned Sunday of dire consequences for National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Matt Drudge if White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is pushed out of the West Wing.

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, Mediaite, israpundit.org, Power Line, Instapundit, RedState, AOL, Axios, Politico and Business Insider

Jonathan Swan / Axios:

Anti-McMaster campaign is about to get uglier — The bare-knuckle campaign to remove National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster from the White House is about to get much uglier. — Outside forces opposed to McMaster are going to allege he has a drinking problem, according to sources outside …

Discussion: Washington Post, The Week, The Daily Caller, Mediaite, RedState and ABC News

ABC News:
Analysis: Why won't Donald Trump condemn white nationalism?

Discussion: NBC News, Politico and The Week

CNN:
Trump advisers signal the knives are out for Bannon

Discussion: BillMoyers.com and Political Wire

Jerusalem Post:
Comment: US National Security Adviser McMaster is a friend to Israel

Discussion: Jewish Telegraphic Agency

New York Times:

North Korea's Missile Success Is Linked to Ukrainian Plant, Investigators Say — North Korea's success in testing an intercontinental ballistic missile that appears able to reach the United States was made possible by black-market purchases of powerful rocket engines probably from a Ukrainian factory …

Wall Street Journal:
We're Holding Pyongyang to Account

Discussion: ABC News, Politico and Axios

Gordon Lubold / Wall Street Journal: Top U.S. General Readies Military Plan for North Korea, but Pushes for Diplomacy

Charles P. Pierce / Esquire:

This Is the Bleakest Moment for America in My Lifetime — Back in February, before the prion disease that has afflicted conservative politics for four decades reached its current, virulent stage, and when people still thought that the president* had some sort of pivot left in him …

Discussion: Hullabaloo

Ali Watkins / Politico:

Obama team was warned in 2014 about Russian interference — WASHINGTON — The Obama administration received multiple warnings from national security officials between 2014 and 2016 that the Kremlin was ramping up its intelligence operations and building disinformation networks it could use …

Discussion: Raw Story, Scared Monkeys and The Week

Olivia Beavers / The Hill:

Reporter: Eric Bolling is trying to intimidate me … Huffington Post contributor Yashar Ali said Sunday that Fox News's Eric Bolling is attempting to intimidate him into silence by filing a $50 million dollar defamation lawsuit against his reporting. — “He is trying to intimidate me.

Discussion: RedState, IJR and Mediaite

Kurt Schlichter / Townhall.com:

Conservatives Must Regulate Google And All of Silicon Valley Into Submission — Google's fascist witch-burning of an honest engineer for refusing to bow down at the altar of politically correct lies was the final straw, an unequivocal warning to conservatives that there's a new set of rules, and that we need to play by them.

HuffPost:

Heather Heyer ‘Murdered While Protesting Against Hate’ In Charlottesville, Friends Say — “If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention,” read Heyer's last public post on Facebook. — RUCKERSVILLE, Va. The woman who was killed in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday when a car plowed …