memeorandum: The Fall Of Mic Was A Warning (Maxwell Strachan/HuffPost)

2:55 PM ET, July 23, 2019

Top Items:

Nicholas Fandos / New York Times:

Key Aide Will Appear Alongside Mueller During Hearings — WASHINGTON — Robert S. Mueller III's longtime right-hand aide will appear beside him at the witness table during Wednesday's hearing with the House Judiciary Committee to assist as needed as the former special counsel answers questions …

Discussion: CNN, The National Interest and The Daily Caller

Josh Campbell / CNN:

Robert Mueller will frustrate the hell out of Congress — Josh Campbell is a CNN analyst covering national security issues. He previously served as a Supervisory Special Agent with the FBI, special assistant to the bureau's director and is the author of a forthcoming book on the origins of the FBI's Russia investigation.

Discussion: National Review

Eric Felten / RealClearInvestigations:

The Shaky Standing of Mueller's Footnotes — Jule 23, 2019 — The Mueller report. Top photo: Its author, left, with his successor as FBI boss, James Comey, who looms large not just in height but in the report's footnotes. — Who knew that the humble footnote would loom so large …

Discussion: The Hill, Power Line, Real Clear Politics, TheBlaze, PJ Media Home, CNN, The Gateway Pundit and The New Neo

Morgan Phillips / Mediaite:
MSNBC Guests Keep Repeating False Claim That Fox News Isn't Covering the Mueller Hearings

Discussion: Washington Free Beacon, NB Blog and Deadline

Neal K. Katyal / New York Times:
With Three Simple Answers, Mueller Can Speak Volumes

Discussion: Washington Post and Law & Crime

The Daily Beast:
Can Mueller Cut Through Barr's ‘Fog of Propaganda’?

Discussion: Washington Post

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

Fox News helped radicalize domestic terrorist Cesar Sayoc, say his lawyers — Cesar Sayoc pleaded guilty in March to mailing improvised explosive devices to 13 people, including many prominent Democratic figures, among them former president Barack Obama, former vice president Joe Biden …

Discussion: The Week and Mediaite

Kelly Weill / The Daily Beast:

MAGA Bomber's Lawyers Blame Trump, Sean Hannity for His Radicalization — “In this darkness, Mr. Sayoc found light in Donald J. Trump,” his legal team wrote in a new filing. — The “MAGA Bomber” who mailed explosives to President Donald Trump's critics turned violent on a steady diet of Fox News …

Ryan J. Reilly / HuffPost:

Lawyers For Trump ‘Super Fan’ Cesar Sayoc Say Trump's Rhetoric Inspired Terrorist Plot On Democrats — “A rational observer may have brushed off Trump's tweets as hyperbole, but Mr. Sayoc took them to heart,” his attorneys wrote. — Cesar Sayoc, the fanatical Donald Trump fan …

Discussion: ThinkProgress and UPI

Josh Kovensky / Talking Points Memo: Mail Bomber's Trump Obsession Contributed To Radicalization, Lawyers Say

Obed Manuel / Dallas Morning News:

A Dallas-born citizen picked up by the Border Patrol has been detained for three weeks — An 18-year-old Dallas-born U.S. citizen has been in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement for more than three weeks, his attorney says.

Discussion: CBS News, Heavy.com, The Daily Beast, The Independent, Daily Kos, The Week, Daily Wire, TheBlaze and Splinter

Meagan Flynn / Washington Post:
A U.S. citizen has been in immigration custody for nearly a month due to a paperwork snafu, attorney says

Discussion: Washington Monthly, ThinkProgress, The Texas Tribune, Slate, VICE and twitchy.com

Philip Klein / Washington Examiner:

With budget deal, Trump drains the swamp — of the Tea Party — President Trump once vowed to drain the swamp, but by joining with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the latest budget deal, he has merely drained it of the Tea Party. — There are many ways in which the Trump presidency has been disruptive to the status quo.

Discussion: ImmigrationReform.com, CNN, The Week, The Resurgent and Mediaite

James Hohmann / Washington Post:
The Daily 202: The budget deal shows how unserious the GOP is about deficits in the Trump era

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Politico and IJR

Issues & Insights:
A Budget Disaster of Epic Proportions

Discussion: Instapundit

Burgess Everett / Politico:
Deficit Don? Red ink gushes in Trump era

Discussion: New York Times, One America News Network, Breitbart and Denver Post

Maxwell Strachan / HuffPost:

The Fall Of Mic Was A Warning — “I don't need a pair of Nikes. I need a 401(k)” — and other lessons from the death of a venture-backed, Facebook-dependent, millennial-focused news site. — Esther Bergdahl felt invigorated. How could she not? It was 2014, and she had just joined …

Discussion: Splinter, more at Mediagazer »

New York Times:

Trump Relies on Populist Language, but He Mostly Sides With Corporate Interests — WASHINGTON — History will record last week as a moment when President Trump turned to raw racial appeals to attack a group of nonwhite lawmakers, but his attacks also underscored a remarkable fact of his first term …

Discussion: Politico

Kera Bolonik / The Cut:

The Most Gullible Man in Cambridge A Harvard Law professor who teaches a class on judgment wouldn't seem like an obvious mark, would he? — It was just supposed to have been a quick Saturday-morning errand to buy picture hooks. On March 7, 2015, Harvard Law professor Bruce Hay, then 52 …

Tom Polansek / Reuters:

Trump administration pursues rule that would remove 3.1 million people from food stamps — CHICAGO (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Tuesday will propose a rule to tighten food stamp restrictions that would cut about 3.1 million people from the program, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials said.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Washington Post, Fox News, Axios and Progress Pond

Mike Dorning / Bloomberg:
Trump Administration Moves to End Food Stamps for 3 Million People

Discussion: Reuters, POLITICUSUSA, Fortune, Eduwonk, Law & Crime and The Root

CNN:

Warplanes from four countries face off in Asian confrontation — Seoul (CNN)Warplanes from four countries faced off Tuesday in a chaotic and unprecedented confrontation above a small, disputed island off the coast of South Korea and Japan. — South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff issued …

Discussion: Associated Press, The Daily Caller and The Week

Jeffrey Cimmino / Washington Free Beacon:

Gabbard: ‘Kamala Harris is Not Qualified to Serve as Commander in Chief’ — 'She's got no background or experience in foreign policy' — Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D., Hawaii) argued Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) is not qualified to serve as commander in chief during an appearance on Outkick the Coverage with Clay Travis on Tuesday.

Ben Terris / Washington Post: Who is Kamala Harris, really? Ask her sister Maya.

Elaina Plott / The Atlantic:

Bill Barr Already Won — Back in May, Representative Justin Amash of Michigan held a town hall to defend his position as the lone Republican calling for impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. Amash explained to voters that he'd arrived at this position …

Discussion: Axios and Daily Kos

Carol E. Lee / NBC News: Among the questions for Mueller: Why wasn't Donald Trump Jr. interviewed?

Elie Honig / CNN:
Mueller, drop the Yoda act

Discussion: KTLA and The Week

Trip Gabriel / New York Times:

Sherrod Brown Is the Only Democrat in America Not Running for President — EL PASO, Tex. — As 20 Democrats debated on national television, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and his wife, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz, texted each other a running critique of the candidates.

BBC:

Boris Johnson wins race to be Tory leader and PM — Boris Johnson has been elected new Conservative leader in a ballot of party members and will become the next UK prime minister. — He beat Jeremy Hunt comfortably, winning 92,153 votes to his rival's 46,656.

Discussion: Reason and PJ Media Home

Nancy A. Youssef / Wall Street Journal:

Senate Votes to Confirm Mark Esper as Defense Secretary — Confirmation ends longest period in Pentagon history without a congressionally approved leader — The Senate voted to confirm former Raytheon Co. executive Mark Esper as U.S. defense secretary, ending the longest period …

Rashaan Ayesh / Axios:
Senate confirms Mark Esper as new defense secretary

Discussion: Politico

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:

US attorney general William Barr says Americans should accept security risks of encryption backdoors — U.S. attorney general William Barr has said consumers should accept the risks that encryption backdoors pose to their personal cybersecurity to ensure law enforcement can access encrypted communications.

Jim Treacher / PJ Media Home:

IMPORTANT CORRECTION: AOC Was Weeping Over an Empty Road, Not an Empty Parking Lot — We've all seen the harrowing, heartbreaking pictures: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez standing next to a chain-link fence, weeping in anguish over what she saw on the other side.

Discussion: twitchy.com, Louder With Crowder, RedState and @politifact

Walter Shapiro / Roll Call:

Moderation in the Trump era? Democrats, it's futile — OPINION — The tone of the letter from the Columnists' Guild I'm expecting any minute now will be as stiff as the old-fashioned stationery it's printed on. It will note that I am “derelict in your duties” and “an embarrassment …

Sean Sullivan / Washington Post:

Biden announces criminal justice policy sharply at odds with his '94 crime law — Former vice president Joe Biden, who has faced criticism from liberals for spearheading a 1994 law when he was a senator that cracked down on criminals, announced a proposal Tuesday that would eliminate …

Discussion: Joe Biden for President, New York Times, CBS Philly, Reason, The Daily Caller, Axios and The Crime Report

Miriam Jordan / New York Times:

More Than 2,000 Migrants Were Targeted in Raids. 35 Were Arrested. — More than 2,000 migrants who were in the United States illegally were targeted in widely publicized raids that unfolded across the country last week. But figures the government provided to The New York Times on Monday show …

Discussion: Fox News, National Review, Outside the Beltway, Daily Wire, CNN and The Crime Report

NBC News:

Human rights groups lead chorus of alarm over new Trump administration commission — A trio of letters sent Tuesday voice concern over the administration's new “Commission on Unalienable Rights.” — WASHINGTON — Hundreds of prominent human rights organizations, presidential candidates …

Discussion: Politico

Lachlan Markay / The Daily Beast:

Heritage Blasts ‘Vengeful’ Conservative Critics—Including Its Former President — In a lengthy internal memo, Kay Coles James hammered reporting in the new book “American Carnage” and accused her predecessor of leaking unflattering details about the think tank.

CNN:

ICE officers came for a Tennessee man. His neighbors stepped in to stop them — (CNN)When US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers tried to take a Tennessee man into custody early Monday morning, the man's neighbors stepped up to stop them, CNN affiliates WTVF and WZTV reported.

Discussion: Washington Post, Common Dreams and Daily Kos

Maggie Severns / Politico:

Top Democratic super PAC launches online barrage against Trump on economy — Priorities USA plans to spend at least $250,000 per week through the end of the Democratic primaries. — A Democratic super PAC is starting to spend at least $1 million a month online attacking President Donald Trump's record …

Discussion: Political Wire