memeorandum: Florida Rep. Allen West Jokes About Seniors, Pink Slips, And His Vote for the Let Women Die Act of 2011 (Jodi Jacobson/RH Reality Check)

9:20 AM ET, May 31, 2012

Top Items:

Michael M. Grynbaum / New York Times:

Bloomberg Plans a Ban on Large Sugared Drinks — New York City plans to enact a far-reaching ban on the sale of large sodas and other sugary drinks at restaurants, movie theaters and street carts, in the most ambitious effort yet by the Bloomberg administration to combat rising obesity.

Discussion: JustOneMinute, americanthinker.com, The Gateway Pundit, Questions and Observations, New York Magazine, Weekly Standard, Wizbang, Gothamist and Ricochet Conversations Feed

NY1.com:

Mayor Bloomberg Seeks Ban On Large Sugary Drinks In City Eateries — Mayor Michael Bloomberg is on the verge of taking serious aim at sugary drinks, as he wants to ban such beverages larger than 16 fluid ounces from nearly all dining establishments in the city.

Discussion: NY Daily News, Weasel Zippers, Joe. My. God. and Connecting.the.Dots

Mark Murray / msnbc.com:

NBC-Marist polls: Obama, Romney deadlocked in three key states — President Obama phones Mitt Romney to congratulate him for locking up the GOP nomination. NBC's Steve Handelsman reports. — President Barack Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney are deadlocked …

Discussion: Marist Poll, The Moderate Voice, Washington Post, 2012 Decoded, Taegan Goddard's …, National Review, PoliPundit.com and New York Times

Jim Vandeheiand Mike Allen / Politico:

To GOP, blatant bias in vetting — On the front page of its Sunday edition, the New York Times gave a big spread to Ann Romney spending lots of time and tons of money on an exotic genre of horse-riding. The clear implication: The Romneys are silly rich, move in rarefied and exotic circles, and are perhaps a tad shady.

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog, more at Mediagazer »

CNN:
Romney's Massachusetts record under scrutiny in Obama campaign video

Discussion: Politico, The Hill, ABCNEWS and Washington Wire

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
The Romney campaign's surreal arguments about the economy

Discussion: Eclectablog, The Huffington Post, The New Republic, Daily Kos and The Maddow Blog

Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:

Video: Fox's “Four years of hope and change”; Update: “Not authorized at the senior executive level of the network” — Considering the source. — I don't disagree with much, if anything, in this video presented earlier today on Fox & Friends. Neither, I suspect, will many of our readers.

Discussion: americanthinker.com, New York Magazine, The Daily Beast, Salon, American Power, ThinkProgress, TVNewser, TheBlaze.com, Politico, ABCNEWS, Yahoo! News, Guardian and The Daily Dish

David Zurawik / Baltimore Sun:
With Romney now official, Fox News gets shamelessly political

Discussion: NewsBusters.org, Media Decoder, The Huffington Post, Guardian, TVNewser, The Moderate Voice, Inside Cable News, Daily Kos, msnbc.com and The Raw Story, more at Mediagazer »

Oliver Willis / Media Matters for America:
Fox's Anti-Obama Attack Ad Is Nearly $100,000 In Free Advertising For GOP

Discussion: Balloon Juice, Gothamist and Nice Deb

Justin Berrier / Media Matters for America:
Fox & Friends Drops The Veil, Produces Four-Minute Anti-Obama Attack Ad

Discussion: Mediaite and No More Mister Nice Blog

Wall Street Journal:

Wisconsin Unions See Ranks Drop Ahead of Recall Vote — Public-employee unions in Wisconsin have experienced a dramatic drop in membership—by more than half for the second-biggest union—since a law championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker sharply curtailed their ability to bargain over wages and working conditions.

Discussion: Power Line, Firedoglake and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Charles Franklin / Marquette Law School Poll:
Marquette Law School Poll finds Walker leads Barrett in Wisconsin recall

Discussion: Taylor Marsh, Weekly Standard, Washington Post, Scared Monkeys, The PJ Tatler, Althouse, Politico and Campaign 2012

John McCormack / Weekly Standard:
Barrett Can't Name Any Schools Hurt by Walker's Collective Bargaining Reforms

Discussion: Hot Air, Washington Free Beacon, Campaign 2012 and Isthmus

Richard A. Oppel Jr / New York Times:

Republican Foreign Policy Establishment Slow to Embrace Romney — Henry A. Kissinger gave his endorsement to John McCain more than a year and a half before the last presidential election, explaining in April 2007 that Mr. McCain's “record, character, and belief that America's best days lie ahead” …

Discussion: The American Conservative, Outside the Beltway, Radio Free Europe/Radio …, The Caucus, CNN, A plain blog about politics, Towleroad News #gay, The Moderate Voice and The Page

John McCormick / Bloomberg:
Condoleezza Rice Endorses Romney Citing His Leadership

Discussion: ABCNEWS, Mediaite and The Hill

Dan Rather / Reuters:

Report: Chavez's cancer has ‘entered the end stage’ — A special report from Dan Rather, anchor and managing editor of HDNet's Dan Rather Report — This reporter has been told that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma, an aggressive cancer that has “entered the end stage”.

Discussion: Scared Monkeys, americanthinker.com and Weasel Zippers

William A. Jacobson / Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion:

Elizabeth Warren's biggest whopper of them all — There is something frighteningly Obama-like in Elizabeth Warren's self-descriptions. Warren paints a personal narrative of rising from poverty and being the descendant of the brutalized Cherokee tribe, when in reality neither was true …

Discussion: TBogg and BREITBART.COM

Chris Cassidy / Boston Herald:
Liz Warren just won't commit

Discussion: BREITBART.COM, Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, Cherokees Demand Truth …, Weekly Standard and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Elise Viebeck / The Hill:

Anti-abortion groups turn ‘war on women’ charge against Democrats — Groups opposed to abortion rights are turning charges of a GOP “war on women” against Democrats who are opposed to legislation meant to ban sex-selective abortions. — Democrats hoping to grow a gender gap among female …

Discussion: Pundit & Pundette and LifeNews.com

Shannon Bream / Fox News:
House debates bill to ban sex-selective abortions

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland and americanthinker.com

Alexander Burns / Politico:

Buddy Roemer quits 2012 race — Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer announced in a statement this morning that his quixotic independent campaign for president has come to an end. — After failing to get access to the GOP primary debates last year, Roemer had decided to run as an independent …

Discussion: Taegan Goddard's …

New York Times:

On Edwards Jury's Eighth Day, Alternates Are Sent Home — GREENSBORO, N.C. — After more than 45 hours of jury deliberations over eight days, there is still no verdict on whether former Senator John Edwards is guilty of violating federal campaign laws. — But some moments in the courtroom …

Discussion: The Page and WHNT-TV

Jay Cost / Weekly Standard:

Morning Jay: It Was Never Bill Clinton's Party — Yesterday, we got word that Artur Davis, the former Democratic representative from Alabama's majority-black Seventh Congressional District and failed 2010 gubernatorial candidate, jumped from the Democratic party to the Republican party.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, The Right Sphere and Betsy's Page

Steve Cooper / We Party Patriots:

WOW: In No State Is a 40-Hour, Minimum Wage Work Week Enough to Afford a Two-Bedroom Apartment — The above graphic exploded on Facebook this weekend. It shows how many minimum wage hours a worker needs to work in order to be able to afford a two-bedroom unit at “Fair Market Rent” in any given state.

Discussion: Taking Note and Crooks and Liars

Mark Mellman / The Hill:

Bain is fair game for Obama — The Obama campaign's attacks on Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain are not attacks on free enterprise, capitalism or even private equity. — Capitalism did not require Bain to issue debt that GS Steel could not afford to repay, mainly to put money in the pockets of Bain partners.

Chip Somodevilla / Rolling Stone:

SEC: Taking on Big Firms is ‘Tempting,’ But We Prefer Whaling on Little Guys — If you want to see a perfect example of how completely broken our regulatory system is, look no further than a speech that Daniel Gallagher, one of the S.E.C.'s commissioners, recently gave in Denver, Colorado.

Discussion: CANNONFIRE

Laurie Goodstein / New York Times:

In Milwaukee Post, Cardinal Authorized Paying Abusers — Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York authorized payments of as much as $20,000 to sexually abusive priests as an incentive for them to agree to dismissal from the priesthood when he was the archbishop of Milwaukee.

Discussion: New York Magazine and Joe. My. God.

Natasha Mozgovaya / Haaretz:

Obama awards rock icon Bob Dylan highest Presidential honor — Several members of Jewish community among those awarded the Medal of Freedom by U.S. President Barack Obama. — U.S. President Barack Obama presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to musician Bob Dylan during a ceremony on May 29, 2012 in White House in Washington.