memeorandum: U.S. Warns Israel on Strike (Wall Street Journal)

3:45 PM ET, January 14, 2012

Top Items:

Evangelicals Throw Support to Santorum — After a two day meeting at a ranch outside of Houston a group of 150 Christian leaders, business leaders and conservative activists have coalesced behind Rick Santorum. — Friday night surrogates from every GOP campaign (except that of Jon Huntsman) …

Discussion: Hot Air, Box Turtle Bulletin and The Hinterland Gazette

Thomas Beaumont / Associated Press:

Santorum: US wrong to condemn Iran scientist death — GREENVILLE, S.C.—Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said Saturday the U.S. was wrong to condemn the killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist this week. — The Obama administration's public posture on the death Wednesday …

Discussion: Weasel Zippers, nation.foxnews.com and Jihad Watch

Kim Geiger / Los Angeles Times:

Religious leaders rally behind Rick Santorum — In an effort to avoid a repeat of 2008, when social conservatives failed to rally behind a single Republican presidential candidate, a group of more than 100 religious leaders who gathered in Texas this week reached a consensus to support former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

Discussion: The New Civil Rights Movement and Applesauce

Felicia Sonmez / Washington Post:

Santorum wins support of evangelical leaders at Texas meeting — Former senator Rick Santorum has emerged as the choice of more than 150 evangelical leaders who huddled at a Texas ranch Friday night to debate their preferred candidate in the GOP presidential race. — Former senator Rick Santorum.

Bernie Becker / Ballot Box:
150 social conservatives, activists vote to back Rick Santorum

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, The Daily Dish, Liberal Values, The Other McCain, Rick Santorum for President, The Lonely Conservative and American Spectator

Josh Dorner / ThinkProgress: BREAKING: Social Conservatives Officially Unite on Rick Santorum As Romney Alternative

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:

Mitt Romney's new problem: A rising sun — Mitt Romney was on the campaign trail in South Carolina yesterday, and brought up the issue he expects to ride into the White House: the U.S. economy. Unfortunately for the former governor, the message isn't quite the same as it was a few months ago.

Discussion: msnbc.com and The Reality-Based Community

BBC:

Italy cruise ship Costa Concordia: Search for missing — The BBC's Alan Johnston says it “must have been an extraordinarily harrowing experience” — Emergency teams in Italy are racing to rescue those missing after a cruise ship ran aground off the country's west coast with about 4,000 people on board.

Discussion: The Hinterland Gazette, Scared Monkeys, Suburban Guerrilla and The Raw Story

Timothy B. Lee / Ars Technica:

Under voter pressure, members of Congress backpedal (hard) on SOPA — The public outcry over the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act seems to have gotten so loud that even members of Congress can hear it. On Thursday we covered the news that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) was expressing second thoughts about SOPA's DNS provisions.

Discussion: Balloon Juice, more at Techmeme »

Lamar Smith:
Smith to Remove DNS Blocking from SOPA

Discussion: Campaign 2012, Mashable!, VentureBeat, Threat Level and Clayton Cramer's Blog

Greg Sandoval / CNET:
DNS provision pulled from SOPA, victory for opponents

Discussion: The Raw Story, Engadget, Boing Boing, Electronic Frontier Foundation, PC Magazine, Wake up America, Techdirt and Firedoglake, more at Mediagazer »

Wall Street Journal:

U.S. Warns Israel on Strike — Officials Lobby Against Attack on Iran as Military Leaders Bolster Defenses — WASHINGTON—U.S. defense leaders are increasingly concerned that Israel is preparing to take military action against Iran, over U.S. objections, and have stepped up contingency planning …

Discussion: Tikun Olam, Informed Comment, Israel Matzav, Weasel Zippers, Sky Dancing, Taylor Marsh, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Daily Dish, emptywheel, Daniel W. Drezner and New York Times

Josh Lederman / Ballot Box:

What does Ron Paul want? — Ron Paul is on track to end the GOP presidential race in second place. But his refusal to directly take on the man who's ahed of him — Mitt Romney — has Republicans wondering: What does Ron Paul want? — Paul has already ruled out a return to the House …

Discussion: Hit & Run, Booman Tribune and Public Policy Polling

Paul Krugman:

Untruths, Wholly Untrue, And Nothing But Untruths — I was deeply radicalized by the 2000 election. At first I couldn't believe that then-candidate George W. Bush was saying so many clearly, provably false things; then I couldn't believe that nobody in the news media was willing to point out the lies.

Discussion: US Politics

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
Chronicling Mitt's mendacity

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Balloon Juice, cbpp.org and Political Mojo

Jared Bernstein / On the Economy:
Everyone's Got a Right to Their Own Opinions...

Discussion: Applesauce

James Fallows / The Atlantic Online:

Mandarin Smackdown! Stewart vs. Huntsman vs. Xiao Li — What do Messrs. Stewart and Huntsman have in common, apart from spelling their first name Jon? Apparently an interest in Asian language. Stewart puts the needle effectively in Huntsman for using Mandarin on the campaign trail, starting at time 5:00 of this clip.

Discussion: The Agonist

Jeff Poor / The Daily Caller:

Maher ‘not that upset’ if people urinate on Taliban fighters, ‘dead or alive’ — International outrage over a video of U.S. Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters consumed media coverage Friday. Some conservatives cheered the Marines for showing such profound disrespect to the dead insurgents …

Discussion: The Right Scoop and Big Journalism

Media Matters for America:
UPDATED: CNN Contributor On Marines Urinating On Dead Bodies: “Supposed To Be A Scandal”?

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Big Journalism and The Politico

Digby / Crooks and Liars:

Blue America Endorses Annie Kuster for Congress — On election night 2010, when progressives around the country were pummeled and defeated, one race kept us all up late, hoping against hope that we'd have a memorable victory among the defeats. As it turned out New Hampshire's 2nd congressional …

Discussion: DownWithTyranny!

Kim Severson / New York Times:

Town, Cast as Romney's Victim, Says, ‘Huh?’ — GAFFNEY, S.C. — This small Southern town that once boomed with peaches and cotton mills has found itself the unexpected star of the latest bruising fight in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.