memeorandum: A Remarkable Man Has Stepped Into the Clearing; Captain Carroll LeFon USN (Ret.) 1960-2012 (UltimaRatioReg/USNI Blog)

7:40 PM ET, March 7, 2012

Top Items:

Joel B. Pollak / BREITBART.COM:

THE VETTING: BEN SMITH RELEASES SELECTIVELY EDITED OBAMA RACE VIDEO — Earlier today, Buzzfeed's Ben Smith announced on Twitter that video researcher Andrew Kaczynski had released “the mysterious Harvard/Obama/race video that the Breitbart folks have been talking about.”

Andrew Kaczynski / BuzzFeed:

At Harvard, Obama Dived Into Diversity Fight — In this video, not previously available online but licensed by BuzzFeed from a Boston television station, the future president speaks at a 1991 campus protest organized to demand tenure for minority and female law professors. — Source: youtube.com

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Little Green Footballs, The BRAD BLOG, The PJ Tatler, Talking Points Memo, Mediaite, The Right Scoop, Wonkette, Washington Post, New York Times, Hullabaloo and National Review

Amy Bingham / ABCNEWS:

Rush Limbaugh: Over 40 Advertisers Flee, Host Says 'Everything's Cool' — Talk show host Rush Limbaugh sought to reassure listeners Wednesday after the tally of local and national companies that have pulled their advertisements from his time slot topped 40, insisting that the show …

Discussion: Addicting Info, Tucson Citizen, Mediaite and Colorlines

Rush Limbaugh:

Clearing Up Misinformation on Our Sponsors — RUSH: I want to ask if you will indulge me for just a brief few minutes for some inside baseball stuff before we move on to our review of the issues of the day, politics and so forth, Super Tuesday, the results, and where we are.

Discussion: The Hill, The Last Tradition, Don Surber, msnbc.com, Hot Air and Campaign 2012

Judd Legum / ThinkProgress:

Bill Maher Defends Rush Limbaugh — Last night on Twitter, Bill Maher defended Rush Limbaugh and attacked liberals for not accepting Limbaugh's apology after he spent three days relentlessly attacking law student Sandra Fluke. — Notably, Limbaugh only apologized for “two words,” after attacking Fluke dozens of times.

Discussion: The Daily Dish, The Daily Caller, Politico, Indecision Forever, Hot Air, Firedoglake and Examiner

Michael Kinsley / Bloomberg:

The insincere push to crush Rush — The people who want to drive Rush Limbaugh off the air aren't assuaged or persuaded by his apology over the weekend. They say he wasn't sincere: He only apologized for calling a Georgetown University law student a “slut” and a “prostitute” because of pressure from advertisers.

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog, The Moderate Voice and Balloon Juice

Dan Riehl / BREITBART.COM:
EXCLUSIVE: DEMS INCITE DEATH THREATS AGAINST LIMBAUGH

Discussion: Instapundit, The Hill, The Spectacle Blog, Nice Deb, NewsBusters.org, Rumproast, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Campaign 2012, INSTAPUTZ, Jammie Wearing Fools, The PJ Tatler and Weekly Standard

Adam Clark Estes / The Atlantic Wire:
Rush Limbaugh's Latest Verbal Victim Feels Derided, Dismissed

Discussion: US Politics, Mixed Media, ThinkProgress, TIME Ideas, The Maddow Blog, Rush Limbaugh, Balloon Juice, Rod Dreher and Mother Jones

David Corn / MoJo Articles:

Mitt Romney's Zombie Problem — The GOP front-runner's grabbing more of the delegates—but he's being pursued by living-dead competitors he can't vanquish. — Mitt Romney faces the fundamental problem confronted by all zombie hunters: How do you kill that which is dead already?

Discussion: BuzzFeed

Wall Street Journal:
Republican Split Decision

Discussion: National Review, RedState, New York Post, Townhall.com, Reuters, Politico, GOP 12 and Campaign 2012

msnbc.com:
Romney campaign says losing nomination would take ‘act of God’

Discussion: Washington Monthly and Daily Kos

Reid J. Epstein / Reuters:
Mitt Romney fights back with math

Discussion: Politico, CNN, Washington Times, The Jane Dough, Wonkette and ABCNEWS

Alicia M. Cohn / The Hill:
Obama campaign says long GOP primary hurts president's fundraising

Discussion: Politico

Alexander Burns / Politico:
Newt aide: No, Mitt should drop out

Discussion: Ballot Box and CNN

Justin Sink / The Hill:
Gingrich spokesman: Alabama and Mississippi are must-wins

Discussion: Politico, The Hill and CNN

Ed Kilgore / Washington Monthly:
Mitt's Glass Half Empty

Discussion: FiveThirtyEight, The Enterprise Blog, Reuters and TalkLeft

David Weigel / Slate:
Romney and Galactus: Five Lessons from Super Tuesday

Discussion: Mother Jones

Jeff Zeleny / New York Times:
News Analysis: No Super Tuesday Knockout Punch

Ross Douthat / Campaign Stops:
The Future of the Santorum Coalition

Discussion: TheBlaze.com and Cato @ Liberty

Tom Jensen / Public Policy Polling:

Maine Miscellany —It looks like Maine voters will reverse their 2009 decision and legalize gay marriage in the state this fall. 54% think that gay marriage should be legal to only 41% who think it should be illegal. And when we asked about the issue using the exact language voters …

Discussion: Truth Wins Out

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
Liberal darling Chellie Pingree won't run for Snowe's seat

Discussion: Hotline On Call

Amanda Terkel / The Huffington Post:
Chellie Pingree Announces She Will Not Run For Retiring Senator Olympia Snowe's Seat

Discussion: The Maddow Blog

Digby / Hullabaloo:
Centrist Prom King: Angus is no Bernie

Discussion: Firedoglake and Washington Post

TSA Out of Our Pants!:

$1B of TSA Nude Body Scanners Made Worthless By Blog — How Anyone Can Get Anything Past The Scanners — This video is here to demonstrate that the TSA's insistence that the nude body scanner program is effective and necessary is nothing but a fraud, just like their claims that the program is safe …

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, Brilliant at Breakfast, US Politics, Addicting Info, Mashable, Moonbattery and The Daily Caller

Alex Isenstadt / Reuters:

‘Joe the Plumber’ wins Ohio Republican congressional primary bid — Yes, Marcy Kaptur blew out Dennis Kucinich, and Jean Schmidt unexpectedly lost her House seat to a challenger. — But one of the biggest — and most overlooked — surprises of Tuesday night was in a northeast Ohio Republican congressional primary.

Discussion: CNN, The PJ Tatler, Outside the Beltway, The Week, Politico, The Other McCain and Washington Wire

Paul Kane / Washington Post:
Rep. Dennis Kucinich suffers primary defeat in Ohio

Discussion: The American Conservative, Slate, Don Surber, Ballot Box, Weasel Zippers, American Prospect, Questions and Observations, UrbanGrounds, Metro, Business Insider, Scared Monkeys, The Lonely Conservative, The Mahablog and Daily Kos

Brian Mylar / KSAT-TV:

Racial incident mars high school game — School district, students apologize — SAN ANTONIO - — A local school district is apologizing after an apparent incident of racism at a boys high school basketball game this past weekend. — When the final whistle blew Saturday …

Discussion: Weasel Zippers, The Jawa Report, americanthinker.com, Moonbattery, The Gateway Pundit, Fire Andrea Mitchell! and Questions and Observations

Associated Press:

Obama loses Dem primary in 15 Oklahoma counties — OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — President Barack Obama collected the most votes in the Oklahoma Democratic primary, but lost in 15 counties. — With 98 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday, Obama won 57 percent of the vote.

Discussion: Indecision Forever, ABCNEWS, Zandar Versus The Stupid, Scared Monkeys, Wonkette, Wizbang, Weasel Zippers, Campaign 2012 and Clayton Cramer's Blog

Justin Sink / The Hill:

Bachmann warns healthcare reform law could be used to limit family birth rates — Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) suggested Tuesday that President Obama's health care reform law could give the government a dangerous amount of power in individual's health care decisions, going as far as to say …

Discussion: Politico

Scott Baker / TheBlaze.com:
BACHMANN WARNS: FEDS COULD USE BUDGET TO LIMIT NUMBER OF BABIES BORN PER FAMILY

Discussion: Mediaite and ThinkProgress

New York Post:

Channel 4 booting anchorwoman Sue Simmons after 32 years — After more than three decades, WNBC/Channel 4 is tossing anchorwoman Sue Simmons overboard. — Last week, the station gave her the bad news that her contract would not be renewed — and come June, she's history.

Discussion: Gothamist, New York Times, Colorlines and Gawker, more at Mediagazer »

Adam Kealoha Causey / Florida Times Union:

Clay clerk accuses U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns of trying to buy him out of race — GREEN COVE SPRINGS — Clay Clerk of Courts James Jett told a group of Republicans today the FBI is looking into Rep. Cliff Stearns for what Jett said is a plot to buy him out of this fall's congressional primary.

Discussion: Politico, ThinkProgress, ABCNEWS, The Hill and Hotline On Call

Sahil Kapur / tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com:

TPMDC — Senate Republicans Backing Off Contraception Wars — From one top GOP senator openly lamenting the fallout of the ongoing fight over contraception, to the author of the controversial legislation at the heart of that fight effectively conceding defeat in the upper chamber …

Discussion: Firedoglake, Ezra Klein, pandagon.net, The Loyal Opposition, The Maddow Blog and The News Tribune

Reuters:
House slowing down on contraception legislation

Discussion: Daily Kos

UltimaRatioReg / USNI Blog:

A Remarkable Man Has Stepped Into the Clearing; Captain Carroll LeFon USN (Ret.) 1960-2012 — As the sun's rays broke over the top of the eastern hills this morning, the military blogging community was coming to grips with the loss of a truly remarkable man.

Discussion: The PJ Tatler, Outside the Beltway, Questions and Observations and RedState

William Kristol / Weekly Standard:

It Ain't Over — Out here, in the dark quiet of the winter suburban night, it's startling to hear the harsh sounds piercing through the cold air from the direction of Washington, D.C. It takes a while to recognize the sound as the gnashing of thousands of D.C. GOP power brokers' teeth.

Tim Stevens / Engadget:

Apple next-generation iPad liveblog! — March 7, 2012. Hard to say if it's a day that'll live long in terms of historical significance, but you can bet it'll be an important milestone in the history of Apple's iPad family. The next iPad (iPad 3? iPad HD? iPad 2S?) is due to be unveiled …

Discussion: TPM Idea Lab and Vodkapundit

CNN:

First on CNN: Levin says Limbaugh should be dropped from Armed Forces Network — (CNN) - Sen. Carl Levin, the powerful chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Wednesday he would like the Armed Forces Network to drop the controversial Rush Limbaugh program from its service that provides radio …

Discussion: The Raw Story