memeorandum: Obama's recess appointments are unconstitutional (Washington Post)

4:10 PM ET, January 6, 2012

Top Items:

South Carolina Primary: Romney 27%, Santorum 24%, Gingrich 18% — What a difference a caucus makes. Rick Santorum who two months ago had one percent (1%) support among likely South Carolina Republican Primary voters now is running a close second there with 24% of the vote.

Discussion: Hot Air, American Prospect, American Research Group, LifeNews.com, Guardian, Big Government, CatholicVote.org, Right Wing News, Outside the Beltway, The Hill, Campaign 2012, The Moderate Voice, GOP 12, FiveThirtyEight, Ballot Box, ABCNEWS, Wake up America and The PJ Tatler

Adam Sorensen / Swampland:

TIME/CNN/ORC Poll: Romney Storms Ahead in South Carolina — In another sign of the front-runner's growing strength. Mitt Romney has taken the lead in South Carolina, according to a TIME/CNN/ORC poll released Friday. — The poll, which surveyed likely primary voters on Wednesday and Thursday …

Discussion: Guardian, Hot Air, Washington Post, The Politico, Talking Points Memo and Outside the Beltway

KCCI-TV:

Could Typo Rewrite Caucus History? — Caucus Vote Counter Says Romney Mistakenly Given 20 Votes — DES MOINES, Iowa — Caucus night was chaotic in many places, with hundreds of voters, candidates showing up and the throngs of media who followed. The world's eyes were on Iowa.

Daniel Strauss / The Hill:

Gingrich: Romney should drop out if he doesn't win New Hampshire primary — Newt Gingrich said if Mitt Romney doesn't win the New Hampshire primary, he should drop out of the race. — “Look, this is one of his best states other than Utah and Massachusetts.

Discussion: Ballot Box, CNN, The Politico and The Caucus

Gschwarzcnn / CNN:

CNN/Time Poll: Romney and Santorum soar in South Carolina — (CNN) - Mitt Romney's numbers in South Carolina are surging, and he now has a solid lead over his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, according to a new survey of likely GOP primary voters in the Palmetto state.

Discussion: The Caucus and Business Insider

Shushannah Walshe / ABCNEWS:

Pro-Santorum SuperPAC Buys Ad Time in South Carolina — ABC News has learned that a SuperPAC which supports Rick Santorum, the Red, White and Blue Fund, is going up with TV ads in South Carolina. This will be the first time the SuperPAC is on the air in the “First-in-the-South” state.

Discussion: GOP 12 and The Page

Rasmussen Reports:
New Hampshire: Romney 42%, Paul 18%, Santorum 13%, Huntsman 12%

Discussion: Opinion L.A., CBS Boston, Eunomia, Big Government, Campaign 2012, Hot Air and GOP 12

Wall Street Journal:
Romney Wins but Takes a Beating

Discussion: Eunomia and GOP 12

ABCNEWS: Gingrich on Romney Debating the President: ‘Obama is Going to Laugh at Him’

Mj Lee / The Politico:
Newt: Obama will ‘laugh’ at Mitt

Discussion: CNN

Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
A worthy challenger — After every other conservative alternative …

Discussion: The New Republic, GOP 12, The Other McCain, The Atlantic Wire, New York Magazine, Associated Press and THEROOT.COM

Brad Cooper / Kansas City Star:

Legislator apologizes for ‘YoMama’ email about first lady — Kansas legislator acknowledges forwarding email note mocking first lady's name, hair style. — Kansas House Speaker Mike O'Neal on Thursday apologized for an email that made fun of first lady Michelle Obama's hair style and mockingly called her “Mrs. YoMama.”

Discussion: Little Green Footballs, Washington Post and The Hinterland Gazette

Scott Rothschild / The Lawrence Journal-World:
Speaker O'Neal apologizes for forwarding email that calls Michelle Obama “Mrs. YoMama”

Discussion: Wonkette, The Raw Story, The Huffington Post and ThinkProgress

Mackenzie Weinger / The Politico:
Mike O'Neal sorry for Michelle ‘YoMama’ email

Discussion: Indecision Forever

Shaila Dewan / New York Times:

U.S. Adds 200,000 Jobs; Unemployment Rate at 8.5% — The United States added a robust 200,000 new jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday, in a sign that the long-awaited economic recovery has finally built up a head of steam. — The nation's unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent in December …

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Calculated Risk, Hot Air, The Hill, White House.gov Blog, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Economix, Felix Salmon, Brookings Institute, Taylor Marsh, Campaign 2012, News Desk and Gothamist

Ezra Klein / Washington Post:
A good jobs report — and a good year

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, American Prospect, New York Times and Washington Monthly

Jeff Cox / CNBC:
Unemployment Falls to 8.5%; 200,000 New Jobs Created

Discussion: Real Time Economics, Calculated Risk, Outside the Beltway, Washington Post, The Gateway Pundit, Daily Kos, Firedoglake and The Political Carnival

Shushannah Walshe / ABCNEWS:

Santorum Booed After Gay Marriage Exchange — Rick Santorum was booed after a lengthy back-and-forth with several students in Concord, N.H., on the issue of same-sex marriage, which is legal in New Hampshire. — As Santorum addressed a group of college students, one asked …

Discussion: 2012 Decoded, The Caucus, American Power, Catholic Bandita, Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog, The Right Scoop and Patterico's Pontifications

Igor Volsky / ThinkProgress:
Santorum Booed Again For Saying Gays Aren't Entitled To Marriage Or Military Service

Discussion: The Reaction and Towleroad News #gay

Michael D. Shear / The Caucus:
Santorum Has Testy Exchange on Same-Sex Marriage

Discussion: FiveThirtyEight, Daily Kos, New York Times, American Power, M.JOSEPH SHEPPARD'S … and Althouse

Julia Preston / New York Times:

Path to Green Card for Illegal Immigrant Family Members of Americans — Obama administration officials announced on Friday that they will propose a fix to a notorious snag in immigration law that will spare hundreds of thousands of American citizens from prolonged separations from immigrant spouses and children.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Time, Los Angeles Times, 24Ahead, The Politico, Law Blog, Daily Kos, Weasel Zippers, Colorlines, Hullabaloo and Feministing

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
Obama to make major green-card reform

Discussion: The Political Carnival, Wonkette and Jammie Wearing Fools

David Frum / FrumForum:

All Good Things... FrumForum launched itself almost exactly three years ago, on Inauguration Day 2009. Over the subsequent interval, our hundreds of contributors have reached more than 5 million individual readers. I like to think that together we have helped to move the national debate.

Discussion: driftglass

David Brooks / New York Times:

A New Social Agenda — I'm to Rick Santorum's left on most social issues, like same-sex marriage and abortion. I'm also put off by his Manichaean political rhetoric. He seems to imagine America's problems can best be described as the result of a culture war between the God-fearing conservatives and the narcissistic liberals.

Discussion: Washington Post, Crooks and Liars, ABCNEWS, The New Republic, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Daily Dish, The Atlantic Online, The Mahablog, The Hill, Connecting.the.Dots and driftglass

Alex Seitz-Wald / ThinkProgress:

House Democrats Rush Floor Demanding Republicans Come Back To Work, GOP Cuts Off C-SPAN — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and a group of Democratic lawmakers took to an empty House floor today to demonstrate that they were willing to work while Republicans lawmakers are at home.

Discussion: The Raw Story

ABCNEWS: House Democrats Demand GOP ‘Come Back From Vacation’

Carol Felsenthal / Chicago magazine:

Jodi Kantor Goes Inside the Obamas' Marriage in New Book — INSIDE THE EAST WING: A new book pulls back the curtains on the First Couple — This month, Jodi Kantor, 36, a Washington correspondent for The New York Times, delves into the lives of the president and First Lady with The Obamas (Little, Brown and Company, $29.99).

Ed O'Keefe / Washington Post:
White House proposes 0.5 percent pay increase for federal workers

Discussion: The Politico, Hot Air, Cato @ Liberty and The Caucus

Cindy Adams / New York Post:

Short NBC gig for Chelsea? — Chelsea Clinton's much-trumpeted deal with NBC seems to be nearly done. Her contract is for only 90 days, and while she'll provide the network with two more stories, sources say it is not certain she'll immediately sign again.

Discussion: Jammie Wearing Fools, Business Insider and Althouse

Reuters:

Special report: Romney's steel skeleton in the Bain closet — (Reuters) - It was funny at first. — The young men in business suits, gingerly picking their way among the millwrights, machinists and pipefitters at Kansas City's Worldwide Grinding Systems steel mill.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, rubber hose, ThinkProgress and Ricochet Conversations Feed

Amie Parnes / The Hill:

Obama takes victory lap — Two days after defying Republicans and appointing Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, President Obama took a little time to gloat. — Making a victory lap of sorts at the independent agency, Obama cracked a joke …

Discussion: The Politico and Weasel Zippers

Jason Mattera / Human Events:

Rubio in letter to Obama: You are turning America into a ‘deadbeat nation’ — In a scathing letter sent to Barack Obama this morning, Senator Marco Rubio said that under the President's first term in office, “more and more people have come to believe that America is becoming a deadbeat nation.”

Discussion: The Radio Patriot and Campaign 2012

Lee Drutman / Sunlight Foundation:

As senator, Santorum was obsessed with abortion — The United States Senate deals with a wide range of issues, both foreign and domestic, but the ones that preoccupied Rick Santorum the most during his tenure appear to have been gynecological. An examination of the surging GOP presidential …

Discussion: ThinkProgress