Check out Mini-memeorandum for simple mobiles or memeorandum Mobile for modern smartphones.
3:15 PM ET, March 29, 2021

memeorandum

 Top Items: 
Jane Mayer / New Yorker:
Inside the Koch-Backed Effort to Block the Largest Election-Reform Bill in Half a Century  —  On a leaked conference call, leaders of dark-money groups and an aide to Mitch McConnell expressed frustration with the popularity of the legislation—even among Republican voters.
Discussion: Raw Story and Politico
RELATED:
Jason Easley / POLITICUSUSA:
A Leaked Call Catches Mitch McConnell And The Kochs Freaking Out Over Election Reform  —  A leaked phone call featuring Mitch McConnell's policy adviser and the Kochs revealed that they are freaking out over the popularity of election reform.  —  Jane Mayer reported in The New Yorker:
Vianney Gomez / Pew Research Center:
A partisan chasm in views of Trump's legacy  —  Two months after President Donald Trump left office, 38% of Americans say he made progress toward solving major problems facing the country during his administration - while a nearly identical share (37%) say he made these problems worse.
Discussion: Washington Post and Fox News
RELATED:
Philip Bump / Washington Post:
Trump is losing the war over his legacy  —  On Sunday evening, CNN aired a special featuring interviews with the senior officials involved in the early coronavirus pandemic response under President Donald Trump.  No longer operating under the Trump political umbrella, they offered assessments …
RELATED:
Lena H. Sun / Washington Post:
Pfizer, Moderna vaccines are 90% effective after two doses in study of real-life conditions, CDC confirms  —  Report on essential workers is one of the first to estimate protection against any infection, regardless of symptoms  —  The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines being deployed …
Discussion: UPI and HotAir
Derek Thompson / The Atlantic:
How mRNA Technology Could Change the World
Discussion: STAT
RELATED:
David J. Lynch / Washington Post:
How Larry Summers went from Obama's top economic adviser to one of Biden's loudest critics
Discussion: Political Wire
Politico:   Pete Buttigieg has a bridge to sell you
Dan Diamond / Washington Post:
Feuds, fibs and finger-pointing: Trump officials say coronavirus response was worse than known  —  'That's what bothers me every day': Birx and others admit failures that hampered the White House response  —  Several top doctors in the Trump administration offered their most pointed …
Discussion: Mother Jones
RELATED:
Jonathan V. Last / The Triad:
Shame on Deborah Birx  —  She wasn't doing her best in a bad situation.  She was aiding and abetting the federal government's COVID disaster.  —  1. Culpability  —  Doctor Deborah Birx is out trying to rehabilitate herself.  Most recently she sat down with CNN for an interview.
Discussion: CNN, The Daily Caller and KRDO
Jeffrey M. Jones / Gallup:
U.S. Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Time  —  WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans' membership in houses of worship continued to decline last year, dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup's eight-decade trend.  In 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church …
Matthew Haag / New York Times:
Remote Work Is Here to Stay.  Manhattan May Never Be the Same.  —  New York City, long buoyed by the flow of commuters into its towering office buildings, faces a cataclysmic challenge, even when the pandemic ends.  —  Spotify's headquarters in the United States fills 16 floors of 4 World Trade Center …
Discussion: Balloon Juice
James David Dickson / Detroit News:
Judge tosses terrorism threat charge against 3 accused in alleged Whitmer plot  —  Three men accused in an alleged plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will not face false report or threat of terrorism charges, a Jackson County judge ruled Monday.  —  Judge Michael Klaeren of 12th District Court …
Discussion: The Last Refuge
Politico:
POLITICO Playbook: Chuck Schumer's 51-vote gambit  —  DRIVING THE DAY  —  BREAKING OVERNIGHT — EVER GONE? ...  “Aided by Moon and Tide, Giant Ship Is Partially Refloated,” NYT  —  SPOTTED: MIKE and KAREN PENCE car shopping at Ourisman Honda in Tysons Corner.
The Bulwark:
The State Assault on Voting Rights Hurts All of Us  —  Republicans are cynically supporting anti-voting measures that will ultimately hurt both parties—and our country.  —  When John F. Kennedy squared off against Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election, 64 percent …
RELATED:
USA Today:
We need a voting rights champion like Vanita Gupta at Justice, and fast: GOP ex-officials
Jacob Knutson / Axios:
Massive container ship freed from Suez Canal  —  Rescuers fully dislodged the “Ever Given” from the banks of the Suez Canal on Monday, sending the skyscraper-sized container ship on its way after six days of drama that paralyzed the vital shipping route, according to canal authorities.
The White House:
FACT SHEET: President Biden Announces 90% of the Adult U.S. Population will be Eligible for Vaccination and 90% will have a Vaccination Site Within 5 Miles of Home by April 19 … The President to Outline New Actions to Accomplish Goal: Expanding Pharmacy Program and Launching a New Program …
RELATED:
Erin Banco / Politico:
Biden admin remakes vaccine strategy after mass vaccination sites fizzle
Discussion: The Capitolist
Washington Post:
Biden administration launches major push to expand offshore wind power  —  Initiative by Commerce, Energy, Interior and Transportation departments aims to tackle climate change while boosting union jobs  —  The White House announced on Monday an ambitious plan to expand wind farms along …
RELATED:
New York Times:   The Biden administration makes a swath of ocean between New York and New Jersey an offshore wind zone.
Caitlin Dickerson / The Atlantic:
America's Immigration Amnesia  —  In the early 2000s, Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas were accustomed to encountering a few hundred children attempting to cross the American border alone each month.  Some hoped to sneak into the country unnoticed …
Discussion: Common Dreams and Washington Post
RELATED:
John Ganz / Unpopular Front:
The Dumbest Tweet I Have Ever Seen  —  Not Really, but C'mon  —  I usually defend a high degree of license verging on irresponsibility when it comes to Tweets—I think its fine for them to be half-baked, ironical, whimsical, the first drafts of ideas, or one's most cranky and maybe not most-well-informed opinions.
The Frontier:
In pro-Trump Oklahoma, a challenge to an incumbent senator taps into election anger  —  The 2022 Senate race is shaping up as a test of fidelity to the former president and highlights shifts in the Republican party.  —  Reading Time Posted In  —  By most accounts, Sen. James Lankford …
Glenn Greenwald:
Journalists Attack the Powerless, Then Self-Victimize to Bar Criticisms of Themselves  —  Powerful media figures now invoke sexist and racist tropes to cast themselves as so fragile and marginalized that critiques of their work constitute bullying and assault.
Discussion: Right Wing Watch, USA Today and Twitchy
Alan Suderman / Associated Press:
AP sources: SolarWinds hack got emails of top DHS officials  —  Suspected Russian hackers gained access to email accounts belonging to the Trump administration's head of the Department of Homeland Security and members of the department's cybersecurity staff whose jobs included hunting threats …
Bloomberg:
CDC Chief Warns of ‘Impending Doom’ as Covid Cases, Deaths Rise  — Walensky says she's scared by uptick that hints at fourth wave  — U.S. doesn't have ‘luxury of inaction’ amid spike, she says  —  The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pleaded with Americans …
Kristin Tate / The Hill:
Democrats are seeking to turn the nation into one massive blue state  —  Liberal control over Congress has already resulted in a number of measures that shift state and local autonomy to bureaucrats in Washington.  The original framework and function of the Constitution is slipping away …
Alex Seitz-Wald / NBC News:
Millennials, forged by recession and ridicule, are ascendant in Washington  —  WASHINGTON — When the Senate's first millennial, Jon Ossoff, heads to a vote, he skips the golden, senators-only elevator and takes the back stairs, two at a time — maybe because he's a young man in a hurry or maybe because he needs the steps.
Axios:
Scoop: Moderate Democrats buck Biden tax hikes  —  President Biden's plan to pay for his coming infrastructure package with big tax hikes already is meeting some resistance from moderate Democrats, a stumbling block for his progressive ambitions.  —  Why it matters: If this discomfort turns …
 
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of memeorandum at 3:15 PM ET, March 29, 2021.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 See Also: 
memeorandum: site main
memeorandum River: reverse chronological memeorandum
memeorandum Mobile: for phones
memeorandum Leaderboard: memeorandum's top sources
 
 Subscribe: 
memeorandum RSS feed
memeorandum on Mastodon
 
 
 More Items: 
Newt Gingrich / Fox News:
Pelosi's Iowa power grab - here's why House speaker is trying to steal this seat
Discussion: IJR
Nahal Toosi / Politico:
U.S. tries to break Iran nuclear deadlock with a new proposal for Tehran
Discussion: Jacobin
Bernie Becker / Politico:
Get ready for the rollout  —  Editor's Note: Weekly Tax is a weekly version …
Discussion: POLITICUSUSA
Jonathan Easley / The Hill:
Trump pollster: Greitens leads big in Missouri GOP Senate primary
Alice Miranda Ollstein / Politico:
Supreme Court agrees to hear first abortion case with 6-3 conservative majority
Discussion: Vox and Political Wire
Kurt Schlichter / Townhall:
Did Something Happen In Boulder?
 Earlier Items: 
Associated Press:
The Latest: Johnson & Johnson to give Africa 400M vaccines
Discussion: The Daily Caller
Mark Judge / The Stream:
Defending ‘Risky Business’ From Feminist Revisionists
David Dayen / American Prospect:
The Education Department's Slow-Walk on Student Debt
Sarah K. Burris / Raw Story:
Former CDC director says Sec. Alex Azar pressured them to falsify COVID-19 data doctors needed
John Woodrow Cox / Washington Post:
He said he was going to watch cartoons. Instead, he opened his dad's gun safe.
Ben Smith / New York Times:
Inside America's Most Interesting Magazine, and Media's Oddest Workplace
 

 
From Techmeme:

Alex Heath / The Verge:
Meta details Llama 3: 8B- and 70B-parameter models, a focus on reducing false refusals, and an upcoming model trained on 15T+ tokens that has 400B+ parameters

Raffaele Huang / Wall Street Journal:
Apple removes WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China, saying it was ordered to do so by China's cyberspace officials citing national security concerns

Ryan Morrison / Tom's Guide:
Microsoft researchers introduce VASA-1, an AI model that creates a realistic talking face video from a portrait photo and an audio file, in research preview

 
Sister Sites:

Techmeme
 Top news and commentary for technology's leaders, from all around the web
Mediagazer
 Top news and commentary for media professionals from all around the web
WeSmirch
 The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page