memeorandum: NFL proposal would improve draft picks for minority hires (Jeremy Fowler/ESPN)

9:50 AM ET, May 16, 2020

Top Items:

Trump ousts State Department watchdog — President Donald Trump has removed State Department Inspector General Steve Linick and replaced him with an ally of Vice President Mike Pence — the latest in a series of moves against independent government watchdogs in recent months.

Discussion: The Hill, NBC News, IJR, Raw Story, The Guardian, Breitbart, Axios and Mediaite

CNN:

State Department inspector general becomes the latest watchdog fired by Trump — (CNN)President Donald Trump on Friday fired State Department Inspector General Steve Linick, the latest in a series of dismissals of independent government watchdogs that have come in the wake of the President's acquittal …

Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money

House Foreign Affairs Committee:

Engel Statement on the Firing of Inspector General Linick — Washington—Representative Eliot L. Engel, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, this evening made the following statement on the President's removal of State Department Inspector General Steve Linick:

Discussion: Letters from an American and Balloon Juice

Michele Kelemen / NPR:

Trump Removes State Department Inspector General Steve Linick — President Trump is ousting State Department Inspector General, Steve Linick, extending a string of administration firings of government watchdogs. — The president sent notice of Linick's removal, effective in 30 days, to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday.

Discussion: New York Times, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Raw Story

Conor Finnegan / ABC News: Trump fires IG said to be investigating Pompeo, involved in impeachment probe

Matthew Lee / Associated Press:
Pompeo fires State Dept. watchdog critical of Trump moves

Discussion: Raw Story

Hannah Knowles / Washington Post:
State Department inspector general fired; Democrats decry ‘dangerous pattern of retaliation’

Discussion: Politico

Natasha Korecki / Politico:

‘Manipulative, deceitful, user’: Tara Reade left a trail of aggrieved acquaintances — Harriet Wrye did a double take the first time she saw Tara Reade on television lodging sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden. — “Jim, that's Tara,” the 79-year-old author and psychologist called …

Discussion: Law & Crime, NB Blog and Spectator USA

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:

New Reporting Increases Doubts on Tara Reade's Allegation Against Joe Biden — When Tara Reade first made her assault allegation against Joe Biden, I thought the charge was more likely to be true than false. To be clear, I had no intention of changing my vote.

Discussion: The Atlantic, Mediaite, Washington Times, The Daily Caller, Twitchy, Law & Crime, Washington Monthly and PBS NewsHour

Katie Glueck / New York Times: How the Biden Campaign Aims to Win Battleground States

New York Times:

A Sitting President, Riling the Nation During a Crisis — By smearing his opponents, championing conspiracy theories and pursuing vendettas, President Trump has reverted to his darkest political tactics in spite of a pandemic hurting millions of Americans.

Discussion: Raw Story

Washington Post:

Trump sets goal of hundreds of millions of coronavirus vaccine doses by January, but scientists doubt it — Some warn it's dangerous to set a timetable, given the scientific unknowns and the danger of rushing testing. — President Trump formally unveiled an initiative Friday afternoon aimed …

CNBC:
Trump downplays the need for coronavirus vaccine: 'It'll go away at some point'

Discussion: NaturalNews.com

Associated Press:
NIH director: Large-scale vaccine testing expected by July

Discussion: New York Times

Washington Post:

Drug promoted by Trump as coronavirus ‘game changer’ increasingly linked to deaths — For two months, President Trump repeatedly pitched hydroxychloroquine as a safe and effective treatment for coronavirus, asking would-be patients “What the hell do you have to lose?”

Discussion: Houston Chronicle

Carrie Campbell Severino / National Review:

The Woke Left's Assault on the Rule of Law — Ever since Donald Trump's election, liberal judges have aligned themselves with the political “resistance,” holding this administration to a different standard from its predecessors. As I have written before, we have seen this trend …

CNN: Behind the Justice Department's split over the Flynn dismissal

Manu Raju / CNN:

GOP congressman on why he's not wearing a mask: 'There's just no need' — Washington (CNN)Republican Rep. Ted Yoho of Florida was spotted Friday walking around the Capitol and on the House floor without wearing a mask. — Asked why not, he told CNN: “There's just no need.”

Discussion: The Hill and Talking Points Memo

CNN: House approves $3 trillion Covid aid bill and historic rules change to allow remote voting

Mike DeBonis / Washington Post:
House changes its rules during pandemic, allowing remote voting for the first time in its 231-year history

Discussion: Politico, Roll Call, The Hill and New York Times

CNN:

‘He lied on national television’: Trump says truckers protesting industry problems are actually honking to support him — This is what brings out Trump's inner child — Washington (CNN)When blaring truck horns intruded on President Donald Trump's Friday speech in the White House Rose Garden …

Discussion: IJR

Koh Gui Qing / Reuters:

Exclusive: U.S. Justice Dept. subpoenas Wall Street banks for small business loans info - sources — Koh Gui Qing, Pete Schroeder — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department has sent grand jury subpoenas to big banks seeking records as part of a broader investigation …

Discussion: The Hill

Wall Street Journal:
Justice Department, State Attorneys General Likely to Bring Antitrust Lawsuits Against Google

Discussion: archive.is, New York Times, Politico, Breitbart, The Wrap, The Verge and Raw Story, more at Techmeme »

Stephanie M. Lee / BuzzFeed News:

JetBlue's Founder Helped Fund A Stanford Study That Said The Coronavirus Wasn't That Deadly — A highly influential coronavirus antibody study was funded in part by David Neeleman, the JetBlue Airways founder and a vocal proponent of the idea that the pandemic isn't deadly enough to justify continued lockdowns.

Annie Palmer / CNBC:

Amazon declines to commit to Jeff Bezos testimony in Congress — Amazon said it would “make the appropriate executive available” in response to requests from the House Judiciary Committee for its CEO Jeff Bezos to testify. — Earlier this month, top Democrats on the committee demanded …

Politico:
Amazon offers testimony to Congress, but doesn't promise Jeff Bezos

Discussion: One America News Network and Bloomberg

Corinne Gretler / Bloomberg:

Tobacco-Based Coronavirus Vaccine Poised for Human Tests — First phase of clinical trials could begin as early as June — Tobacco-made vaccine would contrast with other health effects — An experimental Covid-19 vaccine developed by cigarette maker British American Tobacco Plc is poised to begin testing in humans.

New York Times:

Intelligence Chief Reduces Size of Counterterrorism Office — The cuts to the National Counterterrorism Center were smaller than some former officials feared. The changes will allow intelligence agencies to shift personnel to other threats. — WASHINGTON — The acting intelligence chief announced …

Discussion: ODNI Newsroom and Axios

Victoria F. Piccoli / ODNI Newsroom:
Director of National Intelligence Announces Changes to Election Security Briefings

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit

Jeremy Fowler / ESPN:

NFL proposal would improve draft picks for minority hires — The NFL is considering improving draft picks for teams that hire minority candidates as head coaches or general managers, sources confirmed to ESPN. — Under the proposal, aimed at fixing diversity problems leaguewide …

Discussion: NFL.com, Breitbart and The Daily Caller

Deb Riechmann / Associated Press:

Trump's emergency powers worry some senators, legal experts — FILE - In this March 12, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. On March 12, during the meeting …

Barbara Sprunt / NPR:

Trump, Unveiling Space Force Flag, Touts What He Calls New ‘Super-Duper Missile’ — President Trump held an Oval Office ceremony Friday to sign the 2020 Armed Forces Day Proclamation and unveil the official flag of the Space Force, the newest military branch.

Discussion: Gizmodo, POLITICUSUSA and Highly Transmissible

Fox News:
Space Force flag unveiled in Oval Office, presented to Trump

Discussion: Associated Press, Deadline, ABC News and The Hill

Josh Feldman / Mediaite:

Dan Abrams: Based on All We Know Right Now, ‘This Obamagate Theory Is 100 Percent Bullsh*t’ — Mediaite founder and ABC News chief legal analyst Dan Abrams went on a tear during his SiriusXM show Friday calling the idea of the “Obamagate' scandal “100 percent bullshit.

Discussion: Daily Kos

New York Times:

Now More Than Ever, Facebook Is a ‘Mark Zuckerberg Production’ — For years, he was an obsessive C.E.O. in some ways, distant in others. Then Facebook's problems became too acute to leave to anyone else. — SAN FRANCISCO — On Jan. 27, at a regularly scheduled Monday morning meeting …

Brian Schwartz / CNBC:

Mike Bloomberg plots spending blitz to support Joe Biden's run for president — Billionaire and former presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg is plotting a massive spending blitz to back Joe Biden's quest for the White House. — The former New York mayor and his advisors are discussing whether …

ProPublica:

Two Coasts. One Virus. How New York Suffered Nearly 10 Times the Number of Deaths as California. — California's governor and San Francisco's mayor worked together to act early in confronting the COVID threat. For Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio, it was a different story, and 27,000 New Yorkers have died so far.

Peter Nicholas / The Atlantic:

Trump's Cordon Un-sanitaire — The president has faced greater exposure to the coronavirus than he might let on. — No White House reporter I've ever known was looking to harm anyone, much less the president of the United States, but the federal government never took chances.