memeorandum: Religious leaders rally behind Rick Santorum (Kim Geiger/Los Angeles Times)

3:00 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 and Box Turtle Bulletin

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

Bernie Becker / Ballot Box:

150 social conservatives, activists vote to back Rick Santorum — A group of conservative activists decided Saturday to throw its support behind Rick Santorum in the battle for the Republican presidential nomination. — Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council and a spokesman …

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, The Daily Dish, Rick Santorum for President and The Lonely Conservative

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

Josh Dorner / ThinkProgress:

BREAKING: Social Conservatives Officially Unite on Rick Santorum As Romney Alternative — Moments ago, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins announced on a conference call that social conservatives had officially settled on Rick Santorum as their preferred candidate for the Republican nomination.

Discussion: The Hinterland Gazette

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, Techdirt, Wake up America and Firedoglake, more at Mediagazer »

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, Suburban Guerrilla and The Raw Story

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: Booman Tribune

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

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

Discussion: Applesauce

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
Chronicling Mitt's mendacity

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

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

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: Weasel Zippers, Sky Dancing, Taylor Marsh, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Daily Dish, emptywheel, Daniel W. Drezner and New York Times

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

Tanya Somanader / ThinkProgress:

GOP Rep. Berates Student Concerned About Pell Grant Cuts, Tells Her To Join The Military — To avoid a government shutdown at the end of 2011, Republicans succeeded in their campaign to cut the federal Pell Grant program by effectively kicking up to 100,000 low-income students off the rolls.

Discussion: Hullabaloo, Crooks and Liars and Campus Progress

ABCNEWS:

Super PACs Outspending Candidates Two-to-One In South Carolina — ABC News' Michael Falcone reports: — GREENVILLE, S.C. — Super PACs have emerged as the big-money behemoths of the 2012 campaign, and in the closing week before the South Carolina primary, new figures show that the groups …

Discussion: Presidential Power, Saint Petersblog, Booman Tribune and Swampland

ABCNEWS:
Coming Up on ‘This Week’: Gov. Rick Perry and Stephen Colbert

Discussion: The Politico and CNN

Zeke Miller / Politics:
Huntsman Exodus Begins

Discussion: Hot Air and Public Policy Polling

Henry / Crooked Timber:

The New Gmail Sucks — Doesn't it though? It looks horrible. The interface is badly designed. Keyboard short cuts do unexpected things like e.g. make your email disappear irrevocably. And while you can temporarily revert back to the old look, they make it clear that they are going to impose …