memeorandum: Occupy the Russell Building! (David Weigel/Slate)

5:40 PM ET, November 18, 2011

Top Items:

How Congress Occupied Wall Street — Politicians who arrive in Washington as men and women of modest means leave as millionaires. Why? — Mark Twain famously wrote, “There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” Peter Schweizer's new book, “Throw Them All Out …

Discussion: GOP 12, UrbanGrounds, Donklephant, Taylor Marsh, Reuters, ThinkProgress, Don Surber, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Politico, Shakesville, The Crawdad Hole, Connecting.the.Dots, Daily Kos, The Lonely Conservative, Maggie's Farm, Clayton Cramer's Blog and Washington Post, more at Mediagazer »

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:

Next up: ‘Occupy Congress’ — One of the enduring questions about Occupy Wall Street has been this: Can the energy unleashed by the movement be leveraged behind a concrete political agenda and push for change that will constitute a meaningful challenge to the inequality and excessive Wall Street influence highlighted by the protests?

Discussion: Weasel Zippers and Daily Kos

J J Anisiobi / Daily Mail:

Surely she's in the one per cent? Million dollar babe Anne Hathaway joins Occupy Wall Street protest — She is one of Hollywood's highest paid actresses and lives a very privileged lifestyle that 99 per cent of people can only dream of. — Still, Anne Hathaway acted as an average Joe …

Discussion: Weasel Zippers and The Gateway Pundit

Reuters:
Insight: The Wall Street disconnect

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Hullabaloo, Booman Tribune and Reclusive Leftist

Xeni Jardin / Boing Boing:
Interview with creator of Occupy Wall Street “bat-signal” projections during Brooklyn Bridge #N17 march

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, Gothamist, City Room, Gawker, New York Magazine, Wonkette, The Impolitic, Newshoggers.com, The PJ Tatler, Jammie Wearing Fools, Telegraph and CBS New York, more at Mediagazer »

Shawn Millerick / New Hampshire Journal:

Poll: Romney, Gingrich in statistical dead heat in N.H. — Two things are true about New Hampshire Republican primary voters. They vote for people they know. And they love an underdog with a comeback story. — Four years ago it was the weathered but feisty veteran John McCain who revived …

Discussion: Washington Wire, Business Insider, The Daily Caller, Outside the Beltway, The Caucus, The Moderate Voice, Hot Air, GOP 12, Ricochet Conversations Feed and National Review

Eric Ostermeier / Smart Politics:

Untouchable: Is the GOP Field Afraid to Criticize Newt Gingrich in Debates? — The former House Speaker is the only candidate yet to be attacked at the seven debates conducted since Rick Perry joined the GOP field — With increased media scrutiny on new GOP presidential co-frontrunner …

Discussion: Hot Air, Outside the Beltway, msnbc.com, National Review and A plain blog about politics

Dan Eggen / Washington Post:
Gingrich think tank collected millions from health-care industry

Discussion: The Hill, Wall Street Journal, Firedoglake, Little Green Footballs, Outside the Beltway, The Right Scoop, The New Republic, Betsy's Page, Daily Kos, The Politico, ABCNEWS, Rick Perry 2012 Campaign …, Business Insider, National Review, New York Times, The Page, CNN and Washington Examiner

Paul Krugman / New York Times:

Failure Is Good — It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a complete turkey! It's the supercommittee! — By next Wednesday, the so-called supercommittee, a bipartisan group of legislators, is supposed to reach an agreement on how to reduce future deficits.

Discussion: Washington Post, The Hill, The New Republic, Daily Kos, Firedoglake, Northern Reflections, Prairie Weather and Washington Monthly

Marist Poll:

11/18: Voters Pessimistic About Super Committee Deal — With the deadline nearing for Congressional Republicans and Democrats on the Super Committee to reach an agreement on how to reduce the federal budget deficit, most voters nationally are not confident that a deal will be reached.

Discussion: The Hill and ThinkProgress

Journalistdee / CNN:
Super Committee headed for failure?

Discussion: The Hill, The Hill and Off the Charts Blog

Roz Plater / myfoxdc WTTG FOX 5:

VIDEO: Alleged White House Shooter Oscar Ortega-Hernandez — WASHINGTON - New video has surfaced that sheds some light into the mind of the suspected White House shooter. — Two months ago Oscar Ortega-Hernandez asked an Idaho University student to videotape a segment pitch to Oprah Winfrey.

Discussion: Washington Post, The Daily Caller and The Politico

CBS News:
Accused White House shooter says he's Jesus

Discussion: Mediaite, ThinkProgress, Runnin' Scared, Washington Post, Gawker, Indecision Forever, The Maddow Blog, Towleroad News #gay and Crooks and Liars

Mj Lee / The Politico:
Alleged W.H. shooter: I am modern-day Jesus

Discussion: The PJ Tatler, Washington Post, Alan Colmes' Liberaland and Runnin' Scared

Associated Press:

Occupy Memphis, tea party members meet — MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Occupy Memphis member Mallory Pope had just finished telling a group of about 75 tea party followers Thursday night that politicians should not allow themselves to be influenced by lobbyists and unions when she received an unexpected invitation.

Discussion: US Politics, Alan Colmes' Liberaland and The Other McCain

David Weigel / Slate:
Occupy the Russell Building!

Discussion: American Spectator

Michelle Malkin:
Who's afraid of a Tea Party panel?, Part II: What the Fishwrap of Record didn't tell you

Discussion: The Politico, The Caucus, RedState, NewsBusters.org and Hot Air

Seung Min Kim / The Politico:

House of Representatives rejects balanced budget amendment — The House voted 261-165 on Friday to reject a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution - falling short of the two-thirds majority needed. — The balanced budget amendment that failed to pass the House Friday was similar …

Discussion: Michelle Malkin, Taegan Goddard's … and National Review

Pete Kasperowicz / The Hill:
Rules Chairman David Dreier to vote against balanced-budget amendment

Discussion: Washington Post, Washington Monthly, CNN, Daily Kos and ThinkProgress

Melinda Henneberger / Washington Post:

‘Princess Nancy’ Pelosi calls Cain ‘clueless’; vows to do more for child care — GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain drew applause and guffaws by referring to Nancy Pelosi as “Princess Nancy” during a debate last week. Her reaction? “Really, it's another one of those clueless statements …

Discussion: Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, Weasel Zippers, The PJ Tatler, americanthinker.com, Balloon Juice, NewsBusters.org and Business Insider

Joel Gehrke / Campaign 2012:

Obama USDA delays shale drilling, up to 200k jobs — President Obama's United States Department of Agriculture has delayed shale gas drilling in Ohio for up to six months by cancelling a mineral lease auction for Wayne National Forest (WNF), in deference to environmentalist fears, to study the effects of hydraulic fracturing.

Discussion: The Enterprise Blog, The Columbus Dispatch, The Heritage Foundation, The PJ Tatler, The Gateway Pundit and The Lonely Conservative

oSAMa Husseini / Sam Husseini:

Journalist Questions Legitimacy of Saudi Regime, Is Suspended from National Press Club — On Monday I went to a news conference at the National Press Club, where I am a member, titled “His Royal Highness Prince Turki al-Faisal al-Sa'ud of Saudi Arabia.” I asked a tough question …

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Ben Smith's Blog, Hit & Run and Wonkette

New York Post:

Runaway mom dreadlocked up — Here's your mom, kids. Proud? — The hippie Florida mother of four who ditched her children and banker husband to sleep in Zuccotti Park's squalor hit rock bottom yesterday when she was hauled off in handcuffs, her dreadlocks flying wildly in every direction …

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, The Crawdad Hole, Gawker and Jammie Wearing Fools, more at Mediagazer »

Joe Weisenthal / Business Insider:

Deutsche Bank: If Merkel Doesn't Budge, ‘Our Investment Advice Is To Dig A Hole In The Ground And Hide’ — Line of the day from Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid on Angela Merkel, and German refusal to back ECB bond buying... The problem for the market is whether to take these comments at face value …

Discussion: ThinkProgress

Matthew Yglesias / ThinkProgress:

School Lunch And The Trouble With America — I was being a bit contrarian about an aspect of this on Twitter the other day, but obviously it's insane to declare that your average slice of public school pizza meets healthy eating standards for high nutrition. Everyone understands that.

Discussion: Grist and Eschaton

Wbastone / The Smoking Gun:

“Occupy” Protester Busted For Stealing Neighbor's Furniture For Florida Encampment — Buster — Meet Jeffrey Scott. — The 32-year-old “Occupy Pensacola” protester was arrested yesterday on felony burglary and larceny charges for allegedly robbing a neighbor's home of furniture …

Discussion: The Lonely Conservative, The PJ Tatler and The Jawa Report

Telegraph:

EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration — Brussels bureaucrats were ridiculed yesterday after banning drink manufacturers from claiming that water can prevent dehydration. — EU officials concluded that, following a three-year investigation, there was no evidence to prove the previously undisputed fact.

Discussion: Don Surber, The PJ Tatler and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Christian Heinze / GOP 12:

Bachmann: “I haven't had a gaffe” — Michele Bachmann, making the case on Fox News that she's the safest candidate in a rather jaw-dropping statement. … Besides small gaffes like confusing one John Wayne for another, mixing up the date of Elvis' birth with the date of his death …

Discussion: Indecision Forever

David Brooks / New York Times:

The Technocratic Nightmare — During the first half of the 1990s, I lived in Brussels and wrote about the European Union, among other subjects, for The Wall Street Journal. This was the heyday of European integration. Helmut Kohl, François Mitterrand and Jacques Delors were in power …

Discussion: driftglass, Daniel W. Drezner and No More Mister Nice Blog

George Zornick / thenation.com/blogs/163255:

Austerity Alternatives — Yesterday we posted a MoveOn.org-produced video of former Labor Secretary Robert Reich explaining how the supercommittee might reduce the deficit without imposing crushing austerity measures, nor damaging the social safety net relied upon by millions of Americans.

Discussion: Hullabaloo

Adam Sharp / SharpElbows.Net:

Breaking - Sexual Assault at #OccupyStLouis - Cop Says It Could Have Been Prevented. — On Nov. 8, 2011 St Louis Police arrested Brian E. King (38) for sexual assault at the Occupy St Louis camp. — Police say King entered one of the illegally constructed tents and sexually assaulted a 20 year old woman.

Discussion: The Jawa Report, The Gateway Pundit and Verum Serum

Ed O'Keefe / Washington Post:

Cain receives Secret Service protection — Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain began receiving protection from the U.S. Secret Service Thursday, his campaign said, making the Georgia businessman the first GOP presidential contender to received stepped-up security on the campaign trail.

Discussion: msnbc.com, Don Surber, Daily Kos, Little Green Footballs and The Gateway Pundit