memeorandum: Al-Qaeda's online forums go dark for extended period (Washington Post)

3:30 PM ET, April 2, 2012

Top Items:

Steve Senne / ABCNEWS:

Ann Romney Says Campaign Will ‘Unzip’ the Real Mitt — GREEN BAY, Wis. - Ann Romney defended her husband's sense of humor today during a radio interview, explaining that if people think the candidate seems too stiff at times as the host suggested, she thinks “we better unzip him and let the real Mitt Romney out.”

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Ballot Box, Crooks and Liars, Guardian, Campaign 2012 and Wonkette

Jeffrey M. Jones / Gallup:

Obama 49%, Romney 45% Among Registered Voters Nationwide — Obama, Romney supporters equally enthusiastic about voting — PRINCETON, NJ — If asked to choose between them today, 49% of U.S. registered voters say they would vote for Barack Obama for president, while 45% would choose likely Republican opponent Mitt Romney.

Discussion: ABCNEWS, Race 4 2012, Outside the Beltway, Eclectablog, American Spectator, Mother Jones, nation.foxnews.com, The Maddow Blog and The PJ Tatler

Lois Romano / Politico:

Ann Romney is the Romney Democrats fear most — Ann Romney's unexpected rock star status has the political arena buzzing about how her husband's campaign will leverage her popularity in an election in which Michelle Obama — one of the most admired first ladies in history — will have an outsized and substantive portfolio.

Discussion: CNN, Mediaite and No More Mister Nice Blog

Tom Jensen / Public Policy Polling:
Romney headed for double win Tuesday

Discussion: Firedoglake, Los Angeles Times, Wake up America and The Week

Mj Lee / Politico:
Rick Santorum: I may ‘sneak’ Wisconsin win

Discussion: CNN, Daily Kos and JSOnline

Jamelle Bouie / American Prospect:
Women Flee the GOP

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, ABCNEWS and The Daily Dish

Christian Heinze / GOP 12:
Swing state poll makes key omissions

Discussion: Guardian, Salon, neo-neocon, Hot Air, Washington Monthly and msnbc.com

weaskamerica.com: Inching closer — We Ask America clearly has a soft spot …

Maggie Haberman / Politico:
Mitt: Must take message to women

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Daily Kos and The Raw Story

Adam Liptak / New York Times:

Justices Approve Strip-Searches for Any Offense — WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.

Discussion: Firedoglake, TalkLeft, CNN, Washington Post, Runnin' Scared, The New Republic, emptywheel, The Agitator, Outside the Beltway, Truthdig and LewRockwell.com Blog

Jeffrey Toobin / New Yorker:

HEAVY BURDEN — It's well known by now that Donald Verrilli, Jr., the Solicitor General, had an off day at the Supreme Court last Tuesday, when he was called on to defend the constitutionality of the individual mandate, the part of the Affordable Care Act which requires people to buy health insurance.

Discussion: Ezra Klein and News Desk

Jonathan Easley / The Hill:
Rep. Clyburn: Obama should campaign against Supreme Court if health law falls

Discussion: Politico, Weasel Zippers, Hot Air and National Review

Wall Street Journal:
Assailing the Supreme Court

Discussion: Althouse and BizzyBlog

Justin Sink / The Hill:

‘Mad Men’ character knocks Mitt Romney's father as ‘a clown’ — Sunday's episode of “Mad Men” — the popular drama about an ad agency in the 1960s — gave a nod to the current political scene, with one character taking a not-so-subtle jab at the father of 2012 Republican front-runner Mitt Romney.

Discussion: The Caucus, Indecision Forever, Hot Air, Connecting.the.Dots and CNN

Juli Weiner / Vanity Fair:
The Top Candidates in the Democratic Presidential Primary Mad Men's Henry Francis Calls George Romney a Clown!

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Mediaite, nation.foxnews.com and Campaign 2012

Amy Bingham / ABCNEWS:
‘Mad Men’ Blasts Romney, Calls Him a ‘Clown’

Discussion: The New Republic and ArtsBeat

Paul Krugman / New York Times:

Pink Slime Economics — The big bad event of last week was, of course, the Supreme Court hearing on health reform. In the course of that hearing it became clear that several of the justices, and possibly a majority, are political creatures pure and simple, willing to embrace any argument …

Discussion: The Hill, National Review, The Huffington Post, Daily Kos, Paul Krugman, aflcio.org, Suburban Guerrilla, Washington Wire and Prairie Weather

Jonathan Easley / The Hill:

Obama to address Ryan's budget Tuesday — President Obama will deliver an address on Tuesday emphasizing differences between his and Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) budget, senior administration officials told The Hill on Monday. — The president will make the remarks during an address …

Discussion: Politico and CNN

Ezra Klein:
The Ryan budget's priorities in two graphs

Discussion: American Prospect and Suburban Guerrilla

Ta-Nehisi Coates / The Atlantic Online:

Why Don't Black People Protest ‘Black-on-Black Violence’? — Juan Williams offers a meme that we are seeing repeated in response to the widespread protests around Trayvon Martin: … This is an interesting question. It's also one that Juan Williams, who's been writing about race for almost three decades, should be able to answer.

Discussion: American Prospect

E.J. Dionne Jr / Washington Post:

The right's stealthy coup — Right before our eyes, American conservatism is becoming something very different from what it once was. Yet this transformation is happening by stealth because moderates are too afraid to acknowledge what all their senses tell them.

Discussion: The Maddow Blog, The Mahablog, American Power, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Washington Examiner

Jake Tapper / ABCNEWS:

Former President Clinton on Mitt Romney: Etch-a-Sketch “Is What He's Got to Do” — Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, currently faces a dynamic similar to the one President Bill Clinton faced during his first presidential run 20 years ago: a long, bruising primary, driving up his unfavorable ratings.

Discussion: Yahoo! News and CNN

Mj Lee / Politico:
Bill Clinton: ‘Happy’ if Hillary Clinton runs in 2016

Discussion: ABCNEWS, New York Magazine and Swampland

Tom Maguire / JustOneMinute:

As The Trayvon Martin Walkbacks Threaten To Become A Stampede — The media walkbacks in the Trayvon Martin shooting case are piling up. — ABC News has pulled the plug on its breakthrough video showing an uninjured Zimmerman being taken to the police station.; their new, enhanced video “Shows Injury”.

Discussion: Guardian, Instapundit, TVNewser and The Week

Washington Examiner:

Shock Poll: Majority would recall Wis. Gov. Walker — A new Rasmussen poll finds that Republican Wisconsin Scott Walker is in trouble of being recalled June 5, with a majority, 52 percent, saying they will vote him out less than two years after he took office and immediately went to work to cut the power of public service unions.

Discussion: Washington Monthly and Taegan Goddard's …

Washington Post:

Al-Qaeda's online forums go dark for extended period — Al-Qaeda's main Web forums have been offline for the past 11 days in what experts say is the longest sustained outage of the sites since they began operating eight years ago. — No one has publicly claimed responsibility for disabling the sites …

Discussion: ThinkProgress, The New Republic and The Jawa Report

Politico:

Where is George W. Bush? — George W. Bush is everywhere and nowhere in the 2012 presidential race. — Reviled by Democrats and generally avoided as a campaign talking point by his fellow Republicans, the former president is in a self-imposed political exile — an absence that was underscored …

Discussion: American Prospect

Benny Evangelista / San Francisco Chronicle:

Occupy SF marchers take over vacant building — Occupy SF activists put the mostly moribund movement back in the spotlight Sunday, taking over an unoccupied building owned by the Archdiocese of San Francisco with plans to establish a “permanent occupation” that would serve as shelter and a center for services for homeless people.

Discussion: New York Magazine, RedState and The Raw Story

Ylan Q. Mui / Washington Post:

Senior citizens continue to bear burden of student loans — New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that Americans 60 and older still owe about $36 billion in student loans, providing a rare window into the dynamics of student debt. More than 10 percent of those loans are delinquent.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, US Politics, News Desk and Via Meadia