memeorandum: Obama: Newtown Shooter Gunned Down 20 Children With ‘Fully Automatic Weapon’ (Daniel Halper/Weekly Standard)

5:50 PM ET, April 4, 2013

Top Items:

Roger Ebert dies at 70 after battle with cancer — Except for those he hated. — For a film with a daring director, a talented cast, a captivating plot or, ideally, all three, there could be no better advocate than Roger Ebert, who passionately celebrated and promoted excellence in film …

Discussion: The Raw Story, Hit & Run, Joe. My. God., Kotaku, Macleans.ca, Ed Driscoll, Stinque, Outside the Beltway, Taylor Marsh, Mediaite, Eater National and Roger Ebert's Journal, more at Mediagazer »

Douglas Martin / New York Times:
Roger Ebert, Popular Film Critic, Dies at 70

Discussion: Booman Tribune and The Mahablog, more at Mediagazer »

Matt Higgins / CBS DC:

Obama: ‘I Am Constrained By A System That Our Founders Put In Place’ — DENVER (CBSDC/AP) — Ratcheting up pressure for Congress to limit access to guns, President Barack Obama said Wednesday that recent steps by Colorado to tighten its gun laws show “there doesn't have to be a conflict” …

Discussion: Little Green Footballs, protein wisdom, Weasel Zippers, The Gateway Pundit and The PJ Tatler

Ann Althouse / Althouse:

Obama: “I am constrained... by a system that our Founders put in place.” — Context: … As a lawprof, I read that to mean that he is not constrained. He's juggling a few ideas, but what he's getting at is: The Founders put into place a system that would be populated by elected officials …

Daniel Halper / Weekly Standard:

Obama: Newtown Shooter Gunned Down 20 Children With ‘Fully Automatic Weapon’ — At a fundraiser last night in San Francisco, President Barack Obama said that the Newtown killer gunned down 20 children using a “fully automatic weapon.” From the official transcript, provided by the White House:

Discussion: Power Line, The Gateway Pundit, Weasel Zippers and The Daily Caller

Numbers / Pew Research Center for the People …:

Majority Now Supports Legalizing Marijuana — OVERVIEW — For the first time in more than four decades of polling on the issue, a majority of Americans favor legalizing the use of marijuana. A national survey finds that 52% say that the use of marijuana should be made legal while 45% say it should not.

Discussion: Firedoglake, Yahoo! News, Washington Times, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Hot Air, The National Memo, The Fix, The Dish, Washington Wire and Hit & Run

Kevin Robillard / Politico:
Pew poll first: Most say legalize marijuana

Discussion: Firedoglake and Outside the Beltway

Ta-Nehisi Coates / New York Times:

He Wears the Mask — The present darling of the right wing, Dr. Benjamin Carson, is a distinguished neurosurgeon who went from the depths of Detroit poverty to the heights of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. But his current status among conservatives isn't so much rooted …

Discussion: A plain blog about politics, No More Mister Nice Blog and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

The Atlantic Online:

The Conservative Black Hope — For kids like me who came up in Baltimore during the '80s and '90s, Dr. Benjamin Carson has special importance. — My Times column today looks at the phenomenon that is Dr. Benjamin Carson. For kids like me who came up in Baltimore during the '80s and '90s, Carson has special importance.

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Sheryl Gay Stolberg / New York Times:

Reagan Daughter Says He'd Have Backed Gay Marriage — WASHINGTON — As Republican politicians wrestle with same-sex marriage, the daughter of a party icon — former President Ronald Reagan — said in an interview this week that she believes her father would have “been puzzled” …

Discussion: BuzzFeed, Post Politics, CNN, Advocate, msnbc.com, NewsBusters blogs, Towleroad News #gay, Piers Morgan and Taegan Goddard's …

Kevin Robillard / Politico:
Would Reagan back gay marriage?

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland and msnbc.com

Choe Sang-Hun / New York Times:

North Korean Missile Moved to Coast, but Limited Threat Seen — SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea's defense chief said on Thursday that North Korea has moved to its east coast a missile with a “considerable” range, but that it was not capable of reaching the United States.

Discussion: The Hill, WorldViews, The Reaction, The Agonist, The Hugh Hewitt Show and msnbc.com

Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Dials Back on Korean Show of Force

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Washington Free Beacon, 38 North, FP Passport, CNN, Foreign Policy, Wired, Gawker, USA Today, Washington Wire, Hot Air, americanthinker.com and Patterico's Pontifications, more at Mediagazer »

John Wright / Dallas Voice:

BREAKING: Texas A&M Student Senate passes anti-gay bill in 35-28 vote — After three hours of emotional debate, the Texas A&M Student Senate voted 35-28 Wednesday night to approve an anti-gay measure that would allow students to opt out of funding the campus GLBT Resource Center if they have religious objections.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, ThinkProgress, Towleroad News #gay and Joe. My. God.

Daniel Halper / Weekly Standard:

$423,500 Stimulus Program on ‘Correct Condom Use’ Yields Zero Jobs — The details of a stimulus grant awarded to Indiana University to study condom use have now been released on a government website. The study, titled “Barriers to Correct Condom Use,” is now completed, according to the website …

Discussion: TheBlaze.com, The Jawa Report, The Gateway Pundit and LifeNews.com

Aaron Blake / Post Politics:

James Carville supporting pro-Hillary super PAC — Democratic strategist James Carville, a longtime confidant of the Clinton family, is supporting the super PAC devoted to luring Hillary Clinton into the 2016 presidential race. — A person familiar with Ready for Hillary PAC's outreach …

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Firedoglake, The PJ Tatler, Politico, Roll Call, The National Memo, The Moderate Voice, CNN and Salon

Maggie Haberman / Politico:
A viewer's guide to Clinton Fever

Discussion: CNN, The Daily Beast, Taylor Marsh, Shakesville, TheBlaze.com, The Reaction and msnbc.com

Danny Shea / The Huffington Post:

Jeremy Irons On Gay Marriage: ‘Could A Father Not Marry His Son?’ (VIDEO) — Academy Award winning actor Jeremy Irons said Wednesday that while he doesn't have much of a strong opinion either way on same-sex marriage, he believes it poses interesting questions, including whether allowing same-sex marriage …

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Telegraph, AMERICAblog, BuzzFeed, National Review and Towleroad News #gay

Declan McCullagh / CNET:

Apple's iMessage encryption trips up feds' surveillance — Internal document from the Drug Enforcement Administration complains that messages sent with Apple's encrypted chat service are “impossible to intercept,” even with a warrant. — Encryption used in Apple's iMessage chat service …

Discussion: The Verge and TechCrunch

Campbell Brown / Wall Street Journal:

The President Gives Hollywood a Pass on Violence — Movies and videogames aren't high among White House concerns. — There was something missing from President Obama's Wednesday speech in Denver about gun violence. He focused almost exclusively on passing gun-control laws …

Discussion: The Raw Story, NewsBusters blogs, The PJ Tatler, The Daily Caller, Washington Free Beacon, Mediaite and msnbc.com

Jonathan Easley / The Hill:

PAC launches to support bearded political candidates — A Political Action Committee (PAC) launched this week to support bearded candidates, according to paperwork filed Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). — The Bearded Entrepreneurs for the Advancement of a Responsible Democracy …

Discussion: Joe. My. God.

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:

Siren: Eric Cantor Will Consider Higher Taxes — I don't even know what I'm saying! — Republicans have insisted so often and so convincingly that they absolutely will not agree to higher taxes that all of us have assumed that a deal on the budget can't happen, that sequestration is simply the new normal.

Discussion: New York Times, Campaign for America's Future and The Plum Line

Brian Fung / NationalJournal.com:

The New House Republican Web Strategy: Just Add BuzzFeed — What do cat pictures and GIFs have to do with Republican politics? Not a whole lot, at least right now. But beginning next week, that'll change. — Staffers at the National Republican Congressional Committee are finishing …

Discussion: American Prospect, Riehl World News, The Impolitic and Betsy's Page

Reuters:

BOJ to pump $1.4 trillion into economy in unprecedented stimulus — (Reuters) - The Bank of Japan unleashed the world's most intense burst of monetary stimulus on Thursday, promising to inject about $1.4 trillion into the economy in less than two years, a radical gamble that sent the yen reeling and bond yields to record lows.

Discussion: Vodkapundit, Via Meadia, The Gateway Pundit and I Hate the Media

Sarah Kliff / Wonkblog:

Cancer clinics are turning away thousands of Medicare patients. Blame the sequester. — Ralph V. Boccia of the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders runs a cancer clinic that is in danger of losing funding due to the sequester cuts. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

Discussion: The Hill, The Heritage Foundation, Rush Limbaugh, msnbc.com, Daily Kos, ThinkProgress, Juanita Jean's and AMERICAblog

Facebook Newsroom:

Introducing Home — Today we're introducing Home - a new way to turn your Android phone into a great, living, social phone. — We all want to share and connect. That's how we discover new information and build meaningful relationships. But today, phones are built around tasks and apps.

Discussion: Guardian, Forbes, TechCrunch, The Huffington Post and PopWatch

Josh Eidelson / Salon:

Fast food workers plan surprise strike — Breaking: Workers in some 50 restaurants expected to walk off job, potentially shutting down several eateries today — A protester holds up a sign at a demonstration outside McDonald's in Times Square in support of employees on strike …

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, The Week, New York Times, msnbc.com, BuzzFeed, The Raw Story and Daily Kos

Josh Voorhees / Slate:

Did the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas Just Scare a U.S. Attorney Into Quitting a Major Case? — The U.S. Attorney's Office says that it will press on with its case against the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. — The Dallas Morning News reports that a federal prosecutor who had been handling …

Discussion: Gawker and The Raw Story

George F. Will / Washington Post:

Schools push a curriculum of propaganda — The real vocation of some people entrusted with delivering primary and secondary education is to validate this proposition: The three R's — formerly reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic — now are racism, reproduction and recycling. Especially racism.

Discussion: PostPartisan, Prairie Weather, American Power, UrbanGrounds and The Jawa Report

Justin Sink / The Hill:

Holder takes $10,750 sequester pay cut in gesture to Justice Department workers — Attorney General Eric Holder is joining other top Obama administration officials in voluntarily taking a pay cut to show solidarity with federal workers affected by sequestration.

Discussion: Politico, TIME, Federal Eye and Weasel Zippers

Colin Campbell / Politicker:

Assemblyman Eric Stevenson Arrested for Alleged Corruption — Moments ago, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's office announced yet another New York State elected official, Bronx Assemblyman Eric Stevenson, has been arrested and accused of taking bribes. Earlier this week, New York's political world …

Discussion: Joe. My. God.

The White House:

Remarks by the President at a DCCC Event — San Francisco, CA — THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Well, first of all, I want to thank Tom and Kat for opening up this spectacular home. They were bragging about the view — (laughter) …

Discussion: Hot Air, Weekly Standard, Post Politics, The PJ Tatler, protein wisdom, Washington Examiner, ThinkProgress and The Truth About Guns

Brian Bennett / Los Angeles Times:

Radar shows U.S. border security gaps — Vader, a system originally used to track the Taliban, finds that more immigrants elude capture at the U.S.-Mexico border than previously estimated. — U.S. Customs and Border Protection flies unmanned drones with the Vader radar system over southern Arizona …

Discussion: Hot Air, TheBlaze.com and Washington Free Beacon