memeorandum: Secondary Boycotts and the Breakdown of Civil Society (Jonathan H. Adler/The Volokh Conspiracy)

10:20 PM ET, May 3, 2012

Top Items:

Bachmann: 'He Can't Beat Obama ... Not Going to Happen' — Michele Bachmann has finally decided to endorse Mitt Romney - 119 days after she dropped out of the race. — The endorsement will come at a joint Romney-Bachmann appearance on Thursday. No doubt Bachmann will talk about the importance …

Discussion: Washington Wire, ThinkProgress, Washington Post, Daily Kos, Gallup, Deseret News, The Raw Story, Indecision Forever, Politico and Yahoo! News

Tim Mak / Politico: Gingrich: Romney said untrue things

Jonathan Easley / The Hill:
Perry: ‘God help us’ if Romney loses

Discussion: CNN

Stephen Dinan / Washington Times:
Romney blasts Obama for opposing D.C. voucher program

Discussion: ABCNEWS, EAGnews.org and The Heritage Foundation

Newt Gingrich / CNN:
Gingrich says he's already endorsed Romney, still critical

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Connecting.the.Dots, Ballot Box and Conservatives4Palin

BuzzFeed:

After A Twitter Win, Romney Meets The Online Right — A united front against Obama and the liberal media. But: Huffington Post broke news of the meeting. — At the Republican National Committee yesterday, conservative online writers and bloggers who arrived to meet with Romney were also shown …

Discussion: The Impolitic, The Other McCain, Mediaite, Wonkette, TVNewser, ThinkProgress, TBogg, Washington Monthly, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Lonely Conservative, GOP 12, Alan Colmes' Liberaland and The Huffington Post, more at Mediagazer »

Washington Examiner:

Klein: Obama is winning the general election — The general election unofficially began nearly a month ago, and so far President Obama is winning. — This has nothing to do with poll numbers. Sure, Obama enjoys a statistically insignificant 3.7 percent edge over presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney …

Discussion: Hot Air and The Jawa Report

David Harsanyi / Human Events:

Who the hell is “Julia” and why am I paying for her whole life? — In the new Barack Obama campaign piece The Life of Julia, voters can “Take a look at how President Obama's policies help one woman over her lifetime — and how Mitt Romney would change her story.”

Discussion: Twitchy, Guardian, Indecision Forever, National Review, The Lonely Conservative, Wake up America, Weasel Zippers, The Daily Caller, Politico, The PJ Tatler, Swampland, ABCNEWS and Viking Pundit

Kevin D. Williamson / National Review:

‘Julia’ — Alas, Team Obama has omitted a few milestones from the life of Julia: — 4 months: Julia's mother decides that giving birth will be hard on her figure. She kills Julia. Under Barack Obama, her right to do so is absolutely nonnegotiable. — 10 years: Trapped in a failing …

Discussion: Power Line

Joe Picard / The Hill:

Obama administration hits back on notion that it abandoned Chen in China — The Obama administration pushed back Thursday evening on the notion that U.S. diplomats abandoned Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng when they let him leave the Beijing embassy on Wednesday.

Discussion: Eschaton

Julian Pecquet / The Hill:
Republicans rip Obama's handling of Chinese activist Chen

Discussion: Politico, CBS News, CNN and p m carpenter's commentary

Walter Russell Mead / Via Meadia:
China Syndrome — No good deed goes unpunished; this must …

Discussion: The Daily Dish, Global Spin, The Daily Beast, Business Insider and Mother Jones

Justin Sink / The Hill:
In Virginia, Bachmann endorses Romney

Discussion: ABCNEWS and Politico

Combating Terrorism Center at West Point:

Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Ladin Sidelined? — Authors: Don Rassler, Gabriel Koehler-Derrick, Liam Collins, Muhammad al-Obaidi, Nelly Lahoud — This report is a study of 17 de-classified documents captured during the Abbottabad raid and released to the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC).

Discussion: msnbc.com, Hot Air, ABCNEWS, New York Magazine, democracyarsenal.org, Blogs of War, Voice of America, Campaign 2012, Business Insider, FT Alphaville and This Just In, more at Mediagazer »

Brett LoGiurato / Business Insider:
Al-Qaida Hated Fox News And Thought MSNBC Is Not Neutral Because They Fired Keith Olbermann

Discussion: msnbc.com, Mediaite, Poynter, ABCNEWS, New York Magazine, Guardian, Washington Free Beacon and Naked DC

BuzzFeed:

Conservative Activist: More Navy SEALs to Attack Obama — Joel Arends, the man behind the ad hammering the White House for “taking so much credit” on Bin Laden, believes more Special Forces operators will come out against Obama. Arends objects to the term “swift boat.”

Discussion: Hot Air, The Last Tradition, Weasel Zippers and Hullabaloo

Jim Hoft / The Gateway Pundit:

Horror!... Neo-Nazi #Occupy Phoenix Protester Goes On Shooting Rampage - 5 Dead — Back in October we reported that Neo-Nazi Jason Todd Ready was patrolling the #Occupy Phoenix camp with AR-15′s. — Neo-Nazi Jason Todd (J.T.) Ready pictured on left patrolling the Occupy Phoenix protest …

Discussion: Associated Press, The Huffington Post, Feathered Bastard, The Raw Story and Little Green Footballs

Jim Treacher / The Daily Caller: The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports: … Just because the Cleveland 5 …

Tim Stanley / blogs.telegraph.co.uk:

Why it matters that Obama dated a composite and ate a dog — There was a brief media firestorm yesterday when Vanity Fair broke the news that Obama's famous “New York girlfriend” was a fiction. She appears in his 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father, described in some detail by her appearance, voice and mannerisms.

Discussion: ABCNEWS, Outside the Beltway, Poynter, Ed Driscoll, GayPatriot, Michelle Obama's Mirror, Mediaite, The Atlantic Online, NewsBusters.org blogs, The Daily Banter and RedState, more at Mediagazer »

Ann Althouse / Althouse:
Who is this woman?

Discussion: Washington Post and RedState

Politico:
The dangerous new Obama book

Discussion: Taylor Marsh, National Review and Campaign 2012

Chris Ariens / TVNewser:

Another Misleading Edit Costs Another NBC News Employee Her Job — Lilia Luciano, a Miami-based NBC News correspondent, is no longer working for the network, TVNewser has learned. — Luciano last reported for NBC News March 31. Until that point, she had been reporting mainly on the Trayvon Martin story.

Discussion: Weasel Zippers, NewsBusters.org blogs, Mediaite and Clayton Cramer's Blog

NPR:

Do Liberals Live Under A ‘Tyranny Of Cliches’? … Conservative critic Jonah Goldberg says he's inspired to write when he gets annoyed. “Aggravation is a muse,” he says. And after speaking on a number of college campuses, he grew aggravated enough to write a book.

Discussion: Crooks and Liars and Los Angeles Times

Morgan Korn / Yahoo! Finance:

T. Boone Pickens: Biggest Deterrent To U.S. Energy Plan Is Koch Industries — Investor T. Boone Pickens has made a fortune over the years running an energy-oriented hedge fund, and in recent years he's been placing big bets on the natural gas and wind industries.

Discussion: ThinkProgress and Business Insider

Jonathan H. Adler / The Volokh Conspiracy:

Secondary Boycotts and the Breakdown of Civil Society — Activist groups of various political stripes are increasingly urging boycotts of companies not because of the companies' own behavior, but because of the behavior or speech of those the companies patronize or support.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Alex Seitz-Wald / ThinkProgress:

Mitt Romney Commissioned Pro-America Pins, Made Them In China — At a fundraiser in Virginia last night, Mitt Romney touted his experinece running the Salt Lake City Olympic Games in 2002 — a familiar refrain — but also introduced a new rhetorical line about something more specific: lapel pins.

Discussion: Lynn Sweet, The Political Carnival, Indecision Forever, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Washington Free Beacon and 2012.talkingpointsmemo.com

Washington Post:

Post Poll: Obama leads Romney as campaigns converge on Virginia — President Obama leads former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in Virginia but commonwealth voters are evenly divided on the White House's major policies, a new Washington Post poll shows. — Obama is ahead of Romney …

Discussion: The Caucus, Politico, CNN, Outside the Beltway, Ballot Box and Reuters

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

CNN Ratings Decline Stirs Worries — “Maybe CNN is just like an emergency room.” — That is what a longtime CNN employee theorized last year, during one of the channel's predictable defeats in the Nielsen ratings. — When elections and explosions happen, people tune in to CNN …

Discussion: Mediaite, Politico, BuzzFeed, Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, TVNewser and HotAirPundit, more at Mediagazer »

Karl Smith / Modeled Behavior:

Rajan on Lessons from Recession — Tyler Cowen can't heap enough praise on this paper from Raghuram Rajan. — I am loathe to use such language, but at this late date I think it helps to be direct. The paper reads to me like nonsense on stilts. Ostensibly its about the ineffectiveness …

Discussion: Paul Krugman, TheMoneyIllusion, Ezra Klein, Mother Jones and Marginal Revolution

Bloomberg:

Colin Powell Says Iraq ‘Blot’ Teaches Need for Skepticism — Colin Powell says his erroneous address to the United Nations about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction provides a lesson to business leaders on the importance of staying skeptical and following their intuition.

Fox News:

Issa sends out draft contempt order against Holder, says ‘Furious’ response ‘cannot stand’ — Republican Rep. Darrell Issa has circulated a lengthy pair of documents making the case for holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress over his “refusal” to cooperate in an investigation …

Discussion: The Hill, Hot Air, Nice Deb, Wake up America, Moe Lane, HotAirPundit and White House Dossier

Dave Boyer / Washington Times:

RNC campaign parodies Obama '08 sticker — The Republican National Committee is getting ahead of President Obama's official campaign kickoff in Ohio and Virginia on Saturday with a media blitz labeling his re-election drive the “Hype & Blame” tour. — The RNC will sell “Hype & Blame 2012” …

Discussion: CNN, nation.foxnews.com, Weasel Zippers and Associated Press