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4:25 PM ET, July 31, 2025

memeorandum

 Top Items: 
The White House:
The White House Announces White House Ballroom Construction to Begin  —  Washington, D.C. — For 150 years, Presidents, Administrations, and White House Staff have longed for a large event space on the White House complex that can hold substantially more guests than currently allowed.
RELATED:
Jake Traylor / Politico:
Trump plans massive renovation of White House … The East Wing will also undergo a “modernization” that requires the offices it holds - including the first lady's office - be relocated during construction, Leavitt said.  —  This is the latest, and most expensive, construction in a line of recent White House renovations under Trump.
Sarah Fitzpatrick / The Atlantic:
Virginia Giuffre's Family Was Shocked That Trump Described Her as ‘Stolen’  —  The siblings of one of Jeffrey Epstein's most prominent accusers wonder what the president knows.  —  When Donald Trump told reporters yesterday that Jeffrey Epstein “stole” a young woman named Virginia Roberts Giuffre …
RELATED:
William Kristol / The Bulwark:
The Only MAGA That Counts Is Trump's
Rolling Stone:
Epstein Victim's Family Slams Trump for Saying She Was ‘Stolen’ From Mar-a-Lago
Matt Stieb / New York Magazine:
Alan Dershowitz Takes on His Greatest Challenge Yet: A Farmers' Market  —  It was an unusually warm day on Martha's Vineyard on Wednesday, and Alan Dershowitz just wanted to enjoy some hot dumplings.  —  As he tells it, Dershowitz, the 86-year-old attorney for some of America's …
Discussion: Newsweek
RELATED:
Jonathan Edwards / Washington Post:
Trump to bring back presidential physical fitness test canceled by Obama  —  Trump plans to sign an executive order resurrecting the test, which for decades pushed children across the country to do 40 push-ups, 10 pull-ups and a 6.5-minute mile.  —  Just now
Discussion: NBC News and Axios
RELATED:
Eli Okun / Politico:   Playbook PM: Trump's last-minute tariff hurdles
Reuters:
Trump's war on Big Law leads firms to retreat from ‘pro bono’ work for underdogs  —  Interviews with over 60 lawyers and 30 nonprofits show legal aid groups now have fewer resources to defend the vulnerable.  —  When the Texas Civil Rights Project needed lawyers to help dozens …
Discussion: New Republic and Above the Law
ProPublica:
“We'll Smash the Fucking Window Out and Drag Him Out”  —  This story contains videos and descriptions of violent arrests.  —  ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power.  Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they're published.
Discussion: Raw Story
Kevin Breuninger / CNBC:
Trump extends Mexico's 25% tariffs for 90 days as talks continue … President Donald Trump on Thursday said he would not raise U.S. tariffs on Mexican goods beyond their current levels for 90 days, in order to give the neighboring countries time to strike a trade deal.
RELATED:
Reuters:
Trump escalates trade war with Canada following Palestine stance  —  U.S. President Donald Trump intensified his trade war with Canada a day ahead of his August 1 deadline for a tariff agreement, saying it would be “very hard” to make a deal with Canada after it gave its support to Palestinian statehood.
Alan Feuer / New York Times:
Legal Watchdog Files Bar Complaints Against Justice Dept. Lawyers  —  The move represented a rare attempt to seek accountability for rank-and-file lawyers who have represented the Trump administration in court.  —  A legal watchdog group accused three career Justice Department lawyers …
RELATED:
Politico:
Trump's tariffs get frosty reception at federal appeals court … Judge Timothy Dyk, a Clinton appointee, said “it was hard for me to see” that Congress intended to give the president the authority to essentially rewrite the entire U.S. code when it passed the legislation.
Glenn Kessler / Washington Post:
The Fact Checker rose in an era of false claims.  Falsehoods are now winning.  —  Longtime Fact Checker Glenn Kessler takes stock as he departs The Washington Post.  —  Just now  —  When 400 fact-checkers from around the world gathered in Rio de Janeiro in June for an annual conference, the mood was tense.
Discussion: Raw Story and Newsbusters
Gregory Svirnovskiy / Politico:
Federal judges decry political attacks from the White House … Since returning to the Oval Office in January, President Donald Trump has trained his ire on judges seen as stymieing his political agenda. … Threats against federal judges skyrocketed in the weeks after Trump reentered office.
RELATED:
Ella Lee / The Hill:
Judges overseeing Trump cases speak out against threats
Discussion: CBS News and Above the Law
Chuck Grassley:
Newly Declassified Appendix To Durham Report Sheds Additional Light On Clinton Campaign Plan To Falsely Tie Trump To Russia And FBI's Failure To Investigate  —  WASHINGTON - Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) today is making public the formerly Classified Appendix …
RELATED:
Bolts:
A New Cycle of Texas Gerrymandering: Your Questions Answered  —  A redistricting expert answers questions from Bolts readers about the effort to redraw Texas' congressional map, and its effects on communities of color and political representation.  —  The Texas legislature began meeting …
The Economist:
Donald Trump's unprecedented attack on Brazil's judiciary  —  He has placed sanctions on the judge leading the prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro, his ideological ally  —  “Let this be a warning to those who would trample on the fundamental rights of their countrymen,” Marco Rubio …
Washington Post:
The federal government is paying more than 154,000 people not to work  —  Early resignation offers and other programs have reduced the workforce, but critics say the moves are also wasting money.  —  Just now  —  The government is paying more than 154,000 federal employees not to work …
Adam Wren / Politico:
The shockingly shrunken footprint of a former president … Now, he's on the other side of the mountain.  And his life has entered a new phase that is quieter and smaller.  —  He's staffed by only one or two aides and a small Secret Service detail.  He holes up for hours at a time in Delaware working …
Rolling Stone:
Senators Could Vote Imminently to Remove Their Homes, Travel Info From Internet  —  Watchdogs argue the legislation would block reporters from doing their jobs and limit efforts to hold lawmakers accountable  —  Senators could vote on a bill as soon as Thursday to allow members of Congress …
Politico:
Criminal defendant challenging Alina Habba's appointment takes a page from Aileen Cannon's playbook … “As Judge Cannon explained in Trump, when executive officials deliberately engineer an appointment in violation of statutory and constitutional mandates, the only effective remedy is dismissal or …
Discussion: Raw Story
Jennifer Bendery / HuffPost:
Republicans Put Conspiracy Theorist With Far-Right Ties In Top Counterterrorism Job  —  Joe Kent has pushed white nationalist views and fanned conspiracies about the 2020 election being “stolen” and the FBI planning the Jan. 6 insurrection.  —  WASHINGTON ― You can't make it up, folks.
Ross Andersen / The Atlantic:
How Scientific Empires End  —  And what it means for America  —  Roald sagdeev has already watched one scientific empire rot from the inside.  When Sagdeev began his career, in 1955, science in the Soviet Union was nearing its apex.  At the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow …
Discussion: E&E News
Adam Liptak / New York Times:
Kavanaugh Defends Supreme Court's Terse Emergency Orders  —  Speaking at a judicial conference, the justice said that saying too much risked premature judgments, adding that the court had been trying various approaches.  —  Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said on Thursday that the Supreme Court …
Discussion: NBC News, CBS News, Reason and SCOTUSblog
Paul Krugman:
The Media Can't Handle the Absence of Truth  —  And their diffidence empowers pathological liars  —  We have guests for the next couple of days, and it would be rude to spend the whole time chained to the computer.  So this post and maybe the next will be short and somewhat meta.
Washington Post:
‘Welcome to hell’: Inside the megaprison where the U.S. deported migrants  —  Interviews with 16 former detainees of El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center offer the most complete view yet of conditions at the notorious prison.  —  One detainee was beaten unconscious.
Devlin Barrett / New York Times:
Unnoticed Whistle-Blower Document Alarms Justice Department Veterans  —  A complaint concerning a top Justice Department official, Emil Bove III, went unnoticed for more than two months, raising worries that an internal watchdog has gone dormant.  —  The Justice Department's internal watchdog lost …
Discussion: CNN and The Contrarian
Klaudia Jaźwińska / Columbia Journalism Review:
Traffic Apocalypse  —  Google's AI Overviews are killing click-throughs to news sites.  —  Worldwide search traffic has fallen by 15 percent in the past year, estimates Similarweb, a digital intelligence platform.  The culprit: AI search.  Now that AI-generated summaries are being integrated …
more at Mediagazer »
Yasmin Rufo / BBC:
Jess Glynne calls White House deportation video with Jet2 song ‘sick’  — Jess Glynne criticises White House for using a meme featuring her song in a post about deportation  — Parodies of Jet2 adverts including Glynne's 2015 hit Hold My Hand have gone viral on TikTok
Jacob Bogage / Washington Post:
Trump's newborn savings accounts a ‘back door for privatizing Social Security,’ Bessent says  —  The “Trump accounts” were set up in the GOP's new tax and spending law, the One Big Beautiful Bill.  —  The newborn savings accounts created as part of President Donald Trump's massive new tax …
Kyle Cheney / Politico:
Trump regulatory czar Jeffrey Clark should be disbarred for role in 2020 election plot, disciplinary board rules … “The fight continues,” Clark said in a series of posts on X, shortly after the decision.  —  The D.C. Bar's Board of Professional Responsibility said its ruling was based …
Discussion: Election Law Blog
Matt Johnson / MSNBC:
The antiwoke academics supporting Trump's assaults on higher education  —  A right-wing thing tank called for presidential control of colleges — and received enthusiastic support from leaders and faculty at the University of Austin.  —  On July 15, the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute published a …
Hillel Italie / Associated Press:
Harris opens up about her historic presidential run after Biden's exit in new memoir, ‘107 Days’  —  Former Vice President Kamala Harris will have a memoir out in the fall on her historic presidential run.  The book is called “107 Days,” the length of her abbreviated campaign, and will be published by Simon & Schuster on Sept. 23.
 
 
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 More Items: 
Washington Post:
The Post exposed this farmer's struggle. Then the USDA called.
Discussion: Grist
Washington Post:
How the U.S. lost its lead in electric vehicles and other clean energy inventions
Colin Wright / Wall Street Journal:
Cornell University Discriminated Against Me
Discussion: Fox News
Alanna Vagianos / HuffPost:
What Happens To The Women ICE Detains?
Associated Press:
Poll shows decline in belief that Blacks and Asians face racial discrimination
Discussion: Al Jazeera
Alex Shephard / New Republic:
Everybody Hates Trump Now
Discussion: CNN
 Earlier Items: 
The Atlantic:
Why Trump Broke With Bibi Over the Gaza Famine
Discussion: New York Times and UPI
Calder McHugh / Politico:
The rise of ‘Zohran Derangement Syndrome’
Steve Vladeck / One First:
Bonus 170: Whose Judicial Overreach?
Discussion: New York Times
Emily Shapiro / ABC News:
Virginia councilman set on fire in personal attack at his office: Police
Leigh Kimmins / The Daily Beast:
Trump Explodes at Putin Ally Who Likened Him to ‘Sleepy Joe’
Jeffrey M. Jones / Gallup:
Democrats Regain Advantage in Party Affiliation
Discussion: Daily Kos, PoliticusUSA and Semafor
Politico:
Dems grapple with Trump resistance dilemma
Discussion: Raw Story and Washington Examiner
 

 
From Techmeme:

Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Sources: Meta is considering deep budget cuts to its metaverse efforts in 2026, potentially as high as 30% and most likely including layoffs as early as January

Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Apple says general counsel Kate Adams and policy chief Lisa Jackson will retire, and Jennifer Newstead, Meta's former chief legal officer, will replace Adams

Will Oremus / Washington Post:
Two studies suggest AI chatbots can shift political views more effectively than TV campaign ads, especially by presenting many claims, regardless of accuracy
 
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