FYI -- “CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - SpaceX launches a rocket from NASA’s historic moonshot pad.”
Good Sunday morning. President Donald Trump is playing golf this morning, per pooler Peter Baker of the NYT. He’ll also interview national security adviser candidates at his resort in Palm Beach. VP MIKE PENCE has landed in Brussels, per pooler Ashley Parker of the Washington Post. They are hanging at the hotel until Pence has dinner with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel.
STAT OF THE DAY -- CBS News’s Mark Knoller (@markknoller) on Trump’s Saturday speech in Melbourne, Florida: “Who wrote the speech? @PressSec says Pres Trump did. Speech ran 45-mins, nearly 3 times the length of his 16-min Inaugural Address.”
-- AP: “A month of Trump, by the numbers”: “24: Executive orders and memoranda signed. That includes orders to withdraw the United States from Trans-Pacific trade deal, impose a federal hiring freeze and reduce regulations related to the health care law enacted under former President Barack Obama. ... 25.1 million. Twitter followers for @realDonaldTrump. … 4: Visits from foreign leaders. (Britain, Japan, Canada, Israel.) 1: Cancelled visit from foreign leader. (Mexico.) … 39: Percent of respondents who approve of Trump's job performance in Pew Research Center poll conducted Feb. 7-12.… 3: Weekend trips to Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.” http://apne.ws/2m0C4N7
HOT ONLINE -- “Swedes baffled by Trump’s ‘last night in Sweden’ comment,”by Louise Nordström in The Local, a Swedish English-language newspaper: “In a speech on Saturday, US President Donald Trump suggested that something had happened ‘last night in Sweden’ – prompting baffled Swedes to take to Twitter and other social media wondering what on earth the American leader might have been referring to. The Swedish twittersphere went nuts on Saturday, with #LastNightInSweden [and #SwedenIncident] quickly becoming one of the most popular hashtags after Trump appeared to justify the controversial U.S. travel ban targeting seven Muslim countries by claiming some sort of incident had happened in Sweden. ‘When you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden – Sweden! Who would believe this? Sweden!,’ the American leader told a Florida rally. Only nothing had happened in Sweden.” http://bit.ly/2lyB45G
--@ChelseaClinton: “What happened in Sweden Friday night? Did they catch the Bowling Green Massacre perpetrators?” … @carlbildt, former Swedish prime minister: “Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking? Questions abound.”
-- SOME CLARITY, from Business Insider’s Harrison Jacobs: “Fox News host Tucker Carlson ran an interview on Friday night’s broadcast of ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ with documentarian and media personality Ami Horowitz, who presented a clip from a new film documenting alleged violence committed by refugees in Sweden.The segment went on extensively about a supposed crime surge in Sweden and its links to immigrant populations.” http://read.bi/2lXxxyq
ABOUT YESTERDAY’S RALLY … -- Baker in the NYT: “This time … he came with an extra prop — Air Force One. The power and prestige of the presidency is unmatched, and when the blue-and-white plane rolled up next to the hangar to the theme song from the Harrison Ford movie ‘Air Force One,’ the crowd, estimated by the local police to have numbered about 9,000, exploded. The president and Melania Trump — who later introduced her husband with the Lord’s Prayer -- emerged from the plane to Lee Greenwood’s ‘God Bless the U.S.A.’” http://nyti.ms/2lXwcrc
-- Jenna Johnson and Jon Wagner in WaPo: “In an interview Saturday ... White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus disputed the notion that a reset was in the works. ‘I wouldn’t call it a reset because we’re quite proud of a lot of the achievements over the past four weeks,’ he said, citing efforts to cut regulations on businesses and three foreign-leader visits, among other developments. ‘I think we’ve accomplished a lot. I think the media has been fixated on a couple of issues that are totally bogus.’” http://wapo.st/2lXpp0D
-- Josh Dawsey: “On the short plane trip here from his weekend stay at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump said the speech would be about unifying the country. It was instead harsh and pitted the crowd, on his side, against a number of supposed foes -- judges, unknown gang members and drug cartels allegedly pouring in from other countries, terrorists, Democrats, and most often, reporters. ‘We are going to expose them for what they are,’ Trump said of the news media, which sat in a pen as his supporters heckled. At one moment, the president said the nation’s news media made up sources and stories and that his supporters should live ‘free’ without the media.” http://politi.co/2kMvVm1
PHILOSOPHER TRUMP -- Per LA Times’ Mike Memoli, aboard AF1: “Life is a campaign. Making our country great again is a campaign. For me it’s a campaign, to make America great again is absolutely a campaign.”
TRUMP’S FRONTS -- NYT: “For $200,000, A Chance To Whisper in Trump’s Ear: Membership at Mar-A-Lago Gives Titans Easier Access to Political Power” http://bit.ly/2lySjDT … WaPo: “Trump hits reset with friendlier audience” http://bit.ly/2m0nk0V … PALM BEACH POST: “Trump reprises campaign themes: President makes familiar vows at Melbourne rally, spotlights devoted follower from Boynton Beach” http://bit.ly/2lwjdMc
-- WHAT AMERICA IS SEEING: ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION: “In Trump Country, support still strong” http://bit.ly/2kBpSpa … ORLANDO SENTINEL: “Trump defends his actions as president: He stages early campaign rally in Melbourne” http://bit.ly/2ljAh5N … INDIANAPOLIS STAR: “Harvard Graduate ... Rhodes Scholar (Oxford University) ... Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve … Openly Gay … Youngest Mayor Ever of a City With More Than 100,000 Residents … Candidate for Head of the Democratic National Convention [sic] … Buzz grows around South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg” http://bit.ly/2kMMyOz
TODAY IN PALM BEACH -- “Trump to Interview 4 Candidates for National Security Adviser,” by NYT’s Peter Baker in Melbourne, Florida, and Maggie Haberman in New York: “A White House spokesman said on Saturday that Mr. Trump would speak with Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, a prominent military strategist; Lt. Gen. Robert L. Caslen Jr., the superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point; and Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general already serving as acting national security adviser. Mr. Trump, who is spending the weekend in Florida, will also interview John R. Bolton, who served as President George W. Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations and has previously been considered for deputy secretary of state.” http://nyti.ms/2lXuyWy
NEW POLICY -- WAPO, A1 -- “Memos signed by DHS secretary describe sweeping new guidelines for deporting illegal immigrants,” by David Nakamura: “Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly has signed sweeping new guidelines that empower federal authorities to more aggressively detain and deport illegal immigrants inside the United States and at the border. In a pair of memos, Kelly offered more detail on plans for the agency to hire thousands of additional enforcement agents, expand the pool of immigrants who are prioritized for removal, speed up deportation hearings and enlist local law enforcement to help make arrests.
“The new directives would supersede nearly all of those issued under previous administrations, Kelly said, including measures from President Barack Obama aimed at focusing deportations exclusively on hardened criminals and those with terrorist ties. ‘The surge of immigration at the southern border has overwhelmed federal agencies and resources and has created a significant national security vulnerability to the United States,’ Kelly stated in the guidelines. He cited a surge of 10,000 to 15,000 additional apprehensions per month at the southern U.S. border between 2015 and 2016. A White House official said the memos were drafts and that they are under review by the White House Counsel’s Office, which is seeking some changes. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the process is not complete, declined to offer specifics.” http://wapo.st/2l9vDJn
SUNDAY BEST -- SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-ARIZ.) to CHUCK TODD on NBC’S “MEET THE PRESS” -- TODD: “I’m curious of your reaction to a tweet that the president sent Friday night. ‘The fake news media, failing New York Times, NBC News, ABC, CBS, CNN is not my enemy. It is the enemy of the American people.’ You believe the press is the enemy? You believe any group of Americans are the enemy of another group of Americans?” MCCAIN: “I was talking about the period as, you know, of the new world order. A fundamental part of that new world order was a free press. I hate the press. I hate you especially. But the fact is we need you. We need a free press. We must have it. It’s vital. If you want to preserve – I’m very serious now – if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press. And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That’s how dictators get started.”
TODD: “That’s how dictators get started, with tweets like that?” MCCAIN: “No. They get started by suppressing free press. In other words, a consolidation of power when you look at history, the first thing that dictators do is shut down the press. And I’m not saying that President Trump is trying to be a dictator. I’m just saying we need to learn the lessons of history.”
-- SEN. LINDSAY GRAHAM (R-S.C.) to JOHN DICKERSON on CBS'S "FACE THE NATION": DICKERSON: "On the domestic policy front there's a lot of issues coming up, with replacement of Obamacare and also comprehensive tax reform. When you look at this White House a month in, what's your assessment of the operations, the way things are running at the White House, so far and based on what's ahead?" GRAHAM: "They've done some good things ... [L]et's just wait and see what this year holds. The Congress is stumbling. Republicans in the Congress -- we're all tied up in knots. The House is talking about a tax plan that won't get 10 votes in the Senate. So it's just not the administration that's got problems. Republicans in the House and the Senate have problems and hopefully we'll get our act together.
-- NOTE: Graham is dousing with frigid water the House's tax plan -- anchored by a border-adjustment tax.
DICKERSON: "Senator, what do you make of the President's comment that the press should be seen as the enemy of the American people?"
GRAHAM: "The backbone of democracy is a free press and independent judiciary and they're worth fighting and dying for. The bottom line here is America is not becoming a dictatorship. Senator McCain was right to say that we need as politicians to understand the role of the press and jealously guard it. I would say this to the American press corps: When it comes to Trump, you're over the top. You're acting more like an opposition party. Every president's had problems with the press. You need to do your job but from a Republican point of view, I think the coverage against President Trump has been almost to the point of being hysterical. And y'all need to do some self-evaluation in my view. But the enemies of the democracy at the end of the day are not the press. It's Russia. It's Iran and radical Islam. But I think our friends in the press back home need to up their game because it really is hard to watch from a Republican point of view."
-- @FoxNewsSunday: “.@Reince45 on the press: I think you should be concerned about main street news outlets acting like Washington daily gossip magazines. #FNS”
-- @BraddJaffy: “‘Thanks for coming behind enemy lines,’ @chucktodd deadpans at the end of his Reince Priebus interview @MeetThePress” … .@chucktodd asks if Priebus read the transcripts of the Flynn/Russian ambassador phone calls. Reince: ‘I can’t answer that question.’”
JONATHAN KARL’s closing essay at the end of this morning’s “This Week”: “We are not about to stop doing our jobs because yet another president is unhappy with what he reads or hears or sees on TV news. There’s a reason the founders put freedom of press in the very first amendment to the constitution. As long as American democracy remains healthy, there will be reporters willing to pursue the truth - even if that means incurring the wrath of the most powerful person in the world. A free press isn’t an enemy of America. It is a big part of what makes America great.” 3-min. video http://abcn.ws/2m0Pmt6
-- HOT VIDEO: McCain’s speech at the Munich Security Conference. Nine-minutes: http://wapo.st/2lyX2W5
INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE -- “White House dismisses NSC aide after harsh criticism of Trump,” by Eliana Johnson: “The White House abruptly dismissed a senior National Security Council aide on Friday after receiving reports that he had publicly laced into the president and his senior aides, including son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump at an event hosted by a Washington think tank. The aide, Craig Deare, was serving as the NSC’s senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs.
“Earlier in the week, at a private, off-the-record roundtable hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Center for a group of about two dozen scholars, Deare harshly criticized the president and his chief strategist Steve Bannon and railed against the dysfunction paralyzing the Trump White House, according to a source familiar with the situation. He complained in particular that senior national security aides do not have access to the president -- and gave a detailed and embarrassing readout of Trump’s call with Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto.” http://politi.co/2lXlwsC
-- NYT A1, “Trump, an Outsider Demanding Loyalty, Struggles to Fill Top Posts,” by NYT’s Peter Baker and Julie Hirschfeld Davis: “In some cases, the Trump administration is even going in reverse. A senior political appointee at the housing department, who had already started the job, was fired this past week and marched out of the building when someone discovered his previous statements critical of Mr. Trump.” http://nyti.ms/2kVYBd3
HOLD YOUR HORSES -- “Democrats seek to quell Trump impeachment talk,”by Gabe Debenedetti: “They call it the ‘I’ word. Just a month into Donald Trump’s presidency, Democratic Party leaders are trying to rein in the talk of impeachment that’s animating the grassroots, the product of a restive base demanding deeper and more aggressive investigations into Trump’s ties to Russia. Democratic officials in Republican-dominated Washington view the entire subject as a trap, a premature discussion that could backfire in spectacular fashion by making the party appear too overzealous in its opposition to Trump. Worse, they fear, it could harden Republican support for the president by handing his party significant fundraising and political ammunition when the chances of success for an early impeachment push are remote, at best.” http://politi.co/2mbKi4r
SUSAN GLASSER in the NYT, “Our Putin: Don’t worry too much about whether Trump and the Russian leader are working together. Worry about what they have in common”: “Both Mr. Trump’s rhetoric and actions as president bear more than a passing resemblance to those of Mr. Putin during his first years consolidating power. Having spent those years in Moscow as a foreign correspondent -- and the rest of my career as a journalist in Washington in four previous presidencies -- I can tell you the similarities are striking enough that they should not be easily dismissed. ...
“The media-bashing and outrageous statements. The attacks on rival power centers, whether stubborn federal judges or corporations refusing to get in line. The warnings, some of them downright panic-inducing, that the country is not safe — and we must go to war with Islamic extremists because they are threatening our way of life. These are the techniques that Mr. Putin used to great effect in his first years in power, and they are very much the same tactics and clash-of-civilizations ideology being deployed by Mr. Trump today.” http://nyti.ms/2mbOW2h
THE JUICE …
-- OUT AND ABOUT WITH HILLARY AND BILL -- From a Playbooker: “Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her husband President Bill Clinton were drawn to tears while dining [on Friday night] at Sea Fire Grill in New York City. After enjoying a dinner of salads, smoked salmon and branzino with a close friend, one of the wait staff dropped to his knees and said, ‘Sir, I want to thank you. If not for you, I wouldn’t be alive today.’ He told President Clinton he was an Albanian immigrant who at the age of 16 was living in Kosovo during the war and had to flee his home with his family along with thousands of others for their safety with nowhere to go. They spent nights sleeping outside in the hills.
“As he recounted his story of him and his father being held at gunpoint, robbed and subsequently tortured like so many of his friends and neighbors, President Clinton reached out, held his hand and wept. He then thanked the President again, as they and many thousands of others survived due to the help of military efforts President Clinton authorized to drive Yugoslavian occupying forces out of Kosovo to bring peace to their country. The former First Lady and President were told that the majority of staff are from Albania, and wanted to extend their gratitude as well, the President insisted on meeting everyone and shaking their hands.” The menu http://bit.ly/2m0Flfx
MIDDLE EAST INTRIGUE -- “Following Haaretz Exposé, Netanyahu Says He Initiated Secret Summit With Kerry, Sissi and King Abdullah,” by Barak Ravid in Haaretz: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed at Sunday’s Likud ministerial meeting the existence of a secret summit with former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and Jordan’s King Abdullah, as revealed by Haaretz. Netanyahu told the ministers that he was the one to initiate the summit, which took place a year ago in the Jordanian city of Aqaba.
“During the summit, Kerry presented a plan for a regional peace initiative including recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and a renewal of talks with the Palestinians with the support of the Arab countries. Netanyahu did not accept Kerry’s proposal and said he would have difficulty getting it approved by his governing coalition.” http://bit.ly/2kBfFJq
COMING ATTRACTIONS -- “AP source: Senators want materials saved for Russia probe,” by Deb Riechmann and Eileen Sullivan: “The Senate intelligence committee has sent formal requests to more than a dozen organizations, agencies and individuals, asking them to preserve all materials related to a probe the panel is conducting on Russian interference in the 2016 election and related issues, a congressional aide said Saturday. The committee chairman, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and its vice chairman, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., sent letters out on Friday -- the same day committee members received a classified briefing from FBI Director James Comey. Committee members declined to comment on what was discussed after the more than hourlong briefing.” http://apne.ws/2kWomtV
-- NOTE: We’ve said it before, but just a reminder: this is going to bog the Hill down for a long time.
-- WaPo: "Norma McCorvey, Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide, dies at 69" http://wapo.st/2ljQWGy
KEVIN MCCARTHY PROFILE -- “A Trump Ally in Congress Warns His State, California, to Make Nice,” by Adam Nagourney on A11 of the NYT: “One month into the Trump presidency, Mr. McCarthy is a man with a foot in two warring camps. He represents a 10,000-square-mile red rural stronghold in the farmland of central California, a state that Mr. Trump lost by four million votes. His seniority in the House leadership, and his ties to Mr. Trump, mean that he is indisputably the most powerful Californian in the nation’s capital.
“And in an interview here, Mr. McCarthy left no doubt that his loyalties in this fight were east of the Mississippi River. He assailed California’s Democratic leaders for provoking the president, and warned that it could prove damaging to the state, particularly as the Trump administration created an infrastructure program to pay for public works projects across the nation. ‘Look, I will represent my district, and I will represent my state,’ Mr. McCarthy said in his first-floor suite of offices, between votes. ‘But what they are doing, they are playing with fire. Donald Trump is not going out in any way or form to attack California. They are the ones who are attacking California right now. They are the ones who are putting Californians at risk in every shape and form. And they are doing it to make a political point, which is wrong.’” http://nyti.ms/2l9ffbC
FOR YOUR RADAR -- “Omar Abdel Rahman, imprisoned ‘blind sheikh’ linked to terrorist efforts, dies at 78,” by WaPo’s Matt Schudel: “Omar Abdel Rahman, the Egyptian-born ‘blind sheikh’ and spiritual leader who was convicted in 1995 of being a mastermind of terrorist plots against the United States, and who was called the ‘godfather’ of radical Islamist movements, died Feb. 18 at a federal prison in Butner, N.C., where he was serving a life sentence. He was 78. Kenneth McKoy, a Bureau of Prisons official, confirmed the death to the Associated Press. The cause was diabetes and heart disease.” http://wapo.st/2lXxToO
--"DeVos given U.S. Marshals Service protection," by CNN's Dan Merica: http://cnn.it/2mbIiJl
THE NEW WORLD ORDER -- “Milo Yiannopoulos Tapped as Keynote Speaker at Conservative Political Action Conference,” by The Hollywood Reporter’s Paul Bond: “This year’s speakers include Vice President Mike Pence, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former presidential candidate Carly Fiorina and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, as well as media personalities like Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Mark Levin and actor Robert Davi. None of the 60 or so confirmed speakers, though, will have more stage time than Yianoppoulos at this year’s event, which runs Feb. 22-25 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. ... Yiannopoulos told The Hollywood Reporter his CPAC presentation will focus on his ‘experiences in America battling feminists, Black Lives Matter, the media, professors and the entertainment industry.’” http://bit.ly/2mbsqGW
-- “Bannon, Priebus to appear together at CPAC,” by Rebecca Morin: “The event, announced Saturday and titled ‘A Conversation With Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus,’ will take place Feb. 23.” http://politi.co/2kW2U8g … http://cpac.conservative.org/
-- CPAC is also hosting a “Young Jewish Conservatives 6th Annual Shabbat Event” at National Harbor next Friday night. Some of the ticket levels for the dinner: “Donation of Your Choice ... Silver Sponsorship: $250 ... Gold Sponsorship: $500 ... Diamond Sponsorship: $1000 ... Emerald Sponsorship: $1,800 ... Platinum Sponsor: $2,500 ... Co-host!: $3,600”. Tickets http://bit.ly/2lXCVl1
OBAMA ALUMNI -- JON FINER, former chief of staff to Secretary of State John Kerry, in POLITICO Magazine: “Trump Has No Foreign Policy”: “[R]ight now not only is there no discernible doctrine guiding President Donald Trump’s foreign policy, the United States currently has no real foreign policy at all. By that I mean not that the policies are objectionable, or that the Trump team is struggling with the learning curve each new administration faces at the outset, as it reviews its predecessors’ approach and settles on its own. Rather, I mean that we are experiencing an unprecedented degree of policy incoherence on virtually every major issue the country faces.” http://politi.co/2lZ7UtJ
SPORTS BLINK -- WAPO’S TOM BOSWELL: “Bryce Harper likes the pressure of ‘what have you done for me lately?’ That’s good.” http://wapo.st/2mbNnBj
BONUS GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Daniel Lippman, filing from Vail, Colorado:
--“The Anarchists vs. the Islamic State,” by Seth Harp in Rolling Stone: “Foreigners interested in joining the YPG [the Kurdish militia] receive instructions by encrypted e-mail to fly to Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. Although volunteers are welcome, it’s not easy to reach the YPG. To the south is ISIS. To the west is the Free Syrian Army, a coalition of warlords and mercenaries dominated by Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front.” http://rol.st/2leUn16
--“Robert Caro, The Art of Biography No. 5,” by James Santel in The Paris Review: “If there is a question that annoys Caro more than ‘Do you like Lyndon Johnson?’ it is ‘When will the next book be published?’” http://bit.ly/2kRu3cy
--“Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, the ‘Killologist’ Training America’s Cops,” by Josh Eells in Men’s Journal: “‘Cops fight violence. What do they fight it with? Superior violence. Righteous violence.’” http://mjm.ag/2lrttp0
--“Metal guru,” by Simon Winchester in the New Statesman, reviewing “Man of Iron,” by Julian Glover: “In his 77 years [Thomas Telford] worked on 93 large bridges and aqueducts, 17 canals and 37 docks and harbours. He constructed 1,200 miles of road and 1,076 bridges to open up the Highlands of Scotland and worked on the best road built anywhere before the coming of the motor car. He was the architect of three churches in Shropshire and 32 in Scotland, as well as of houses, a prison and a courthouse.” http://bit.ly/2lrmmg8
--“Queens of the Stoned Age,” by Suketu Mehta in GQ: “There are a thousand ways to buy weed in New York City, but the Green Angels devised a novel strategy for standing out: They hired models to be their dealers. In the eight years since the group was founded—by a blonde, blue-eyed Mormon ex-model—they’ve never been busted, and the business has grown into a multimillion-dollar operation. Suketu Mehta spent months embedded with them at their headquarters and out on their delivery routes to see where this great experiment in American entrepreneurship might lead.” http://bit.ly/2l20SWH (h/t TheBrowser.com)
--“How an American Bureaucrat Became President of Somalia,” by Taylor Gee in POLITICO Magazine: Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed “was a refugee who embraced U.S.-style democracy. Now’s he’s trying to bring it home.” http://politi.co/2mbNAV7
--“Propaganda as Literature: A Distant Reading of the Korean Central News Agency’s Headlines,” by Xavier Marquez: http://bit.ly/2l1GQf6
--“Mars Madness,” by Alina Simone in California Sunday magazine: “The DIY explorers who dream of a 35-million-mile trek.” http://bit.ly/2leVVIG (h/t Longform.org)
--“The Age of Rudeness,” by Rachel Cusk in the N.Y. Times Magazine: “As the social contract frays, what does it mean to be polite?” http://nyti.ms/2lrB0Ek (h/t Longreads.com)
--“Duterte’s Last Hurrah: On the Road to Martial Law,” by James Fenton in the N.Y. Review of Books: “One of Duterte’s chief selling points as a leader is that he doesn’t give a s***. So, when he gets in front of any crowd, he will say whatever he thinks will make an impact at that very moment, and it is striking that most of the most shocking things we have learned about Duterte have come from his own mouth.”http://bit.ly/2lrntwB
--“House of Cards: The Politics of Calling Card Etiquette in Nineteenth-Century Washington,” by Merry Ellen Scofield in Common-Place: “In the early republic, social media had its own crucial importance, although what the media employed was not the tweet, but little bits of pasteboard.” http://bit.ly/2lVAvQA (h/t Longreads.com)
--“The Strange Case Of The Russian Diplomat Who Got His Head Smashed In On Election Day,” by BuzzFeed’s Ali Watkins: “How did Sergei Krivov die? And why did the NYPD close the case?” http://bzfd.it/2lVy8NR
--“A Racing Mind,” by Tommy Tomlinson in ESPN the Magazine: “Dale Earnhardt Jr. returns at Daytona after letting his brain heal from multiple concussions -- and after undergoing a different sort of rehabilitation for his psyche.” http://es.pn/2kxHd26
--“What It’s Like to Lose Your Short-Term Memory,” by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee in Longreads: “In the wake of my stroke, I remembered the names of people I’d known for years, even if I couldn’t remember the names of doctors I had just met. I recognized my best friend, and my husband, and my girlfriends, and greeted them. But when they’d leave the room and return, I would greet them again, as if they hadn’t been in that same room just fifteen minutes prior. I knew who they were, but I had lost track of time. My short-term memory was unable to move things into long-term storage.” http://bit.ly/2lVPo5l
--“Drowning statistics are a deadly reminder of our complex relationship with water,” by Fenella Souter in the Sydney Morning Herald: “We like to think of ourselves as a nation of champion swimmers and surfers, but this summer huge numbers of people have been dying in Australian waters.” http://bit.ly/2kRl0bG
--“The Gospel According to Chance the Rapper,” by Mark Anthony Green in GQ: “He’s more spirit-lifting than Jay Z, more congenial than Drake, and more ‘of the people’ than Kanye. And with no label backing him, he’s leading hip-hop to a new place, a new era, a whole new sound. But can Chance the Rapper become the very best we’ve got?” http://bit.ly/2lVJLEw ... Tim Miller in The Federalist on Chance http://bit.ly/2l2ijGu
SPOTTED: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) eating dinner last night with his wife at the North End Grill in Battery Park … IMF boss Christine Lagarde in DuPont Circle walking into Pizza Paradiso. A tipster said she was “hopeful for a resolution to the latest Greek debt impasse.”
POOL REPORT FROM ORLANDO -- The Progressive Policy Institute, run by Will Marshall and Lindsay Lewis, on Saturday hosted a group of lawmakers, policy and communications experts to discuss “the pragmatic, Democratic center” at a 36-hour retreat in Orlando. The group included Reps. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), John Delaney (D-Md.), Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), Darren Soto (D-Fla.), Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) Ron Kind (D-Wis.), Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, mayors from Tampa (Bob Buckhorn), Columbia, South Carolina (Steve Benjamin), Denver (Mike Hancock), Pittsburgh (Bill Peduto), former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear and Delaware Gov Jack Markell, and former Reps. Jim Davis and Gwen Graham. Helen Milby, JD Grom and Mark Henson also attended. They handed out “Radically Pragmatic” t-shirts thanks to fundraiser Sloane Hurst. Pic http://bit.ly/2l97Jh8
WEEKEND WEDDINGS – “Caitlin Sweany, Antonio Méndez” – N.Y. Times: “The bride, 34, works from Denver as a director of the Health Care Transformation Task Force, a coalition of health care companies based in Washington. She graduated from Haverford College and received a Master of Public Health degree from Columbia. ... The groom, 32, is deputy chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne of Colorado. He graduated from Colby College and received a law degree from the University of Denver. He was awarded a Fulbright scholarship in 2010 and served as a White House summer intern from May to August 2012.” With pic http://nyti.ms/2ljshC7
--“Arielle Reich, Michael Mandell”: “Ms. Reich, 33 ... is the chief of staff to the commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection in Middletown, Conn. She graduated from Yeshiva University and received a master’s in public health from Columbia. ... Mr. Mandell, 30, works in Hartford as the executive director of the Connecticut Democratic Party. He graduated from Tufts. ... The couple met in 2010 while working on the election campaign of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat. After Mr. Malloy was elected, they worked at the governor’s office — she as the director of intergovernmental affairs, and he as a policy adviser.” With pic http://nyti.ms/2m08tn3
BIRTHDAYS: Andrew Ross Sorkin, the pride of Scarsdale and co-creator and executive producer of Showtime’s “Billions,” celebrating by watching the first episode of the new season at 10 p.m. tonight -- (the trailer: http://bit.ly/2lyNLNE) ... Tamara Hinton, founder of Comunicado PR ... NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is 58 ... former Sony Corp. Chairman Howard Stringer is 75 ... Sean Conner, public affairs at Uber and alum of Tim Scott and Chris Christie … Gary Andres, recently named senior EVP of public affairs at BIO, a wonderful father and longtime Hill veteran … BuzzFeed senior national correspondent John Stanton (h/t Jackie Kucinich) ... Andy Abboud ... 0ptimus’ Chris Faulkner … CTA’s Rachel Horn (h/t Kurt Bardella) … Judy Kurtz Altscher of The Hill ... Politico’s Jen Plesniak, Sandeep Hulsandra and Lane Stickley ... Melody Miller, Kennedy alum (h/t Jon Haber) ... Katharine Zaleski, cofounder and president of PowerToFly and a HuffPost and WashPost alum ... National Review’s John J. Miller, director of the journalism program at Hillsdale College ... Peter Van Buren, who penned an NYT op-ed today, “When It’s Time to Blow the Whistle” (http://nyti.ms/2lwgTEX) ... State Dept’s Cat Blakely, one of the Pie Sisters (Georgetown Pie shop), is 33 ... Joshua Schank, the first-ever chief innovation officer for the LA County Metro ... Tucker Warren, partner at Hamilton Place Strategies … Kevin Bishop, comms director for Sen. Lindsey Graham, is 46 ... silver fox Jason Bertsch, SVP at AEI (h/t AEI comms) ...
... Kaitlyn Martin, director of writing at FP1 Strategies ... Rebecca Brown, daughter of Gay and Dale … Stewart McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association and the pride of Alabama (h/t Amy Weiss) ... Molly Weaver, MBA candidate at GW and alum of Watson Green LLC and HPS ... Jim Green, senior account executive at Quantcast ... Evan Feinman, executive director of Virginia’s Tobacco Commission ... Olga Ramirez Kornacki, director of the House-Radio TV Gallery ... John Gentzel, managing director at DCI Group and a Snowe alum (h/ts Ted Greener and Kurt Bardella) ... Chris Faulkner ... Ken Shepherd of the Washington Times ... Carrie Johnson O’Brion ... Daniel Blum ... USA Today commentary editor and columnist Jill Lawrence ... Sara Misselhorn ... Julie Terrell Radford ... William Thompson ... Fox News’ Louie Tartaglia ... Chris Faulkner ... Eric Sherred, alum of Ron Johnson campaign and the RNC ... Jonathan Pantano in Gov. Chris Christie’s attorney general’s office ... Samantha Zalaznick ... Birthright Israel CEO Gidi Mark (h/t Jewish Insider) … Alexis Covey-Brandt, chief of staff to House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer ... Jeff Daniels is 62 ... Britain’s Prince Andrew is 57 ... Seal is 54 ... Benicio Del Toro is 5-0 (h/ts AP)