memeorandum: Republicans Move to Claim Poverty-Fighting Mantle (New York Times)

8:50 PM ET, January 8, 2014

Top Items:

Emails link top Christie aide to GWB lane-closing controversy — Private messages between Governor's Christie's deputy chief of staff and two of his top executives at the Port Authority reveal a vindictive effort to create “traffic problems in Fort Lee” by shutting lanes to the George Washington Bridge …

Kate Zernike / New York Times:

Top Christie Staff Sought to Disrupt Traffic as Revenge — Newly released emails and text messages show that Gov. Chris Christie's office was closely involved with lane closings on the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge in September, and that officials closed the lanes as retribution …

Discussion: The Daily Beast, The Daily Caller, NorthJersey.com, Business Insider, NBCNews, The Democratic Daily, Gothamist, Booman Tribune, American Spectator, The Week, Outside the Beltway, Lawyers, Guns & Money and The Reality-Based Community

Linh Tat / NorthJersey.com:

EMS responses delayed by GWB lane closures in Fort Lee — FORT LEE - Emergency responders were delayed in attending to four medical situations - including one in which a 91-year-old woman lay unconscious - due to traffic gridlock caused by unannounced closures of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge …

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Talking Points Memo, New Jersey Online, Los Angeles Times, CBS New York, Hot Air, Business Insider, CNN, ABC News and Riehl World News

Eric Lach / Talking Points Memo:

Christie: I Was ‘Misled By A Member Of My Staff’ — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has acknowledged that the New Jersey bridge closing scandal has reached his office. — In a statement issued Wednesday afternoon, Christie responded to the revelation that one of his close aides discussed plans …

Discussion: Little Green Footballs, Weasel Zippers and Balloon Juice

Ezra Klein / Wonkblog:

Chris Christie's problem is that he's really, truly a bully — The release of e-mails suggesting that Gov. Chris Christie's top aides choked off transportation to a small town as political retribution against the town's mayor are a huge deal. I wouldn't go so far as Jonathan Chait, who says …

Discussion: CNN, The Star-Ledger Editorial Page, Business Insider, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, Spectator, Talking Points Memo, Mediaite, The Raw Story and Guardian

Hunter Walker / Talking Points Memo:

N.J. Senate Majority Leader Says Criminal Charges May Come In Bridge Scandal — New Jersey State Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D) said Wednesday she thinks criminal charges may come in the growing scandal over last September's lane closures on the George Washington Bridge.

Discussion: National Review and Riehl World News

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:

Big Trouble — As I've written several times, this Christie Bridge Scandal is far more potentially damaging for Christie that it might seem on its face because its fits so perfectly with the negative view (as opposed to the positive view) of Chris Christie. That is, that he and his crew are thugs and bullies.

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog and The Impolitic

Rush Limbaugh:

Media Gloms On to Christie Traffic Story — RUSH: The left right now is very excited over what we just learned about Governor Christie, because what we've just learned about Governor Christie is helping to take the Gates thing off the front page. — What, you haven't heard about the Christie thing?

Discussion: CNN, Talking Points Memo, Politico and Ed Driscoll

Politico:
Chris Christie: ‘People will be held responsible’

Discussion: CNN, The Dish, Power Line, Talking Points Memo, Mediaite, Riehl World News, Daily Kos and Liberaland

Ginger Gibson / Politico:
Bill Pascrell on bridge flap: ‘Worst is yet to come’

Discussion: CNN and Riehl World News

Hunter Walker / Talking Points Memo:
Christie Aide: ‘Time For Some Traffic Problems In Fort Lee’

Discussion: The Fix, New Jersey Online, American Prospect, PoliticusUSA, Washington Monthly, AMERICAblog News, Liberal Values, Balloon Juice and National Review

Wall Street Journal:
CONNECT — A top aide to Gov. Chris Christie told an executive …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and CNN

Jeffrey M. Jones / Gallup:

Record-High 42% of Americans Identify as Independents — Republican identification lowest in at least 25 years — PRINCETON, NJ — Forty-two percent of Americans, on average, identified as political independents in 2013, the highest Gallup has measured since it began conducting interviews by telephone 25 years ago.

Byron York / Washington Examiner:
Why is the GOP launching a new anti-poverty campaign?

Discussion: AEIdeas, Ricochet Conversations Feed, Hot Air, Ross Douthat, The Plum Line, Washington Post and New York Times

McKay Coppins / BuzzFeed:

Heritage Scholar Slams Marco Rubio's Anti-Poverty Speech — Will Rubio's push into welfare reform make him a pariah on the right all over again? — Toby Melville / Reuters — WASHINGTON — A senior scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation was quick to criticize Sen. Marco Rubio's …

Discussion: National Review and Hot Air

New York Times:
Republicans Move to Claim Poverty-Fighting Mantle

Discussion: Slate, Washington Monthly, Washington Post, The Plum Line, Salon, Post Politics and The Mahablog

Dave Boyer / Washington Times:
That's rich: Poverty level under Obama breaks 50-year record

Discussion: Weasel Zippers

Philip Ewing / Politico:

The secret life of Robert Gates — Robert Gates's tenure running the Pentagon might go down as the greatest performance in acting history. — On the outside, he was an even-keeled, plain speaking former college president, one who declared to Congress he hadn't returned to Washington to be a “bump on a log.”

Discussion: Weasel Zippers

Ron Fournier / NationalJournal.com:
In Defense of Obama on the Gates Memoir

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, NBCNews, Post Politics, Walter Russell Mead, Washington Post, Talking Points Memo and Liberal Values

Jonathan Allen / Politico:
W.H. responds to Gates book

Discussion: NBCNews, White House Dossier, PoliticusUSA, Hot Air, Informed Comment and New York Times

Joshua Green / The Atlantic Online:

Strict Obstructionist — MITCH MCCONNELL IS A MASTER MANIPULATOR AND STRATEGIST—THE UNHERALDED ARCHITECT OF THE REPUBLICAN RESURGENCE. NOW THAT HIS RELENTLESS TACTICS HAVE MADE HIS PARTY VICTORIOUS, HE IS POISED TO TAKE DOWN THE PRESIDENT AND WIN THE SENATE MAJORITY HE COVETS …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and The Impolitic

New York Times:
Bridging the Compassion Gap

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Burgess Everett / Politico:

Dems downbeat on unemployment — There is waning appetite among Democrats to find a way to cover the cost of an emergency three-month extension of unemployment benefits, raising the prospects of an impasse in the Senate. — Senate Republicans have spent the last 24 hours floating a raft …

Discussion: The Hill and CNN

CNN:
Prospects worsen for Senate passage of unemployment benefits

Discussion: PoliticusUSA and Politico

Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
It's Obamacare all the time for Republicans

Discussion: VodkaPundit, Hullabaloo, The Plum Line, The Fix and Balloon Juice

Jonathan Easley / The Hill:

Issa threatens perjury probe of Sebelius — House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Wednesday accused Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of providing “false and misleading” testimony to Congress and threatened to open an investigation.

Discussion: Liberaland

Brett Norman / Politico: Darrell Issa accuses Sebelius of ‘false’ testimony

Noah Berlatsky / The Atlantic Online:

What It Means to Be a Public Intellectual — Last night my wife and I went out for dinner. Our server was French, a fact that allowed us to spend a few moments practicing the language. When the server left, my wife said, “It's everywhere.” Indeed. Some years ago I decided to learn French.

Discussion: Weasel Zippers and This Is Brad DeLong's …

Ian Millhiser / ThinkProgress:

BREAKING: Utah Governor Says State Will Not Recognize 1300+ Same-Sex Marriages — Utah's governor says the Constitution does not apply to these two men — Utah Gov. Gary Herbert's (R) office announced Wednesday that his state will not recognize the over 1,300 same sex marriages performed between …

Discussion: Utah Office …, Liberaland and Advocate

Derek B. Miller / Utah.gov:
Governor's Office gives direction to state agencies on same-sex marriages

Discussion: Politico, Washington Post, National Review and SCOTUSblog

Jamie Stiehm / US News:

The Catholic Supreme Court's War on Women — Et tu, Justice Sonia Sotomayor? Really, we can't trust you on women's health and human rights? The lady from the Bronx just dropped the ball on American women and girls as surely as she did the sparkling ball at midnight on New Year's Eve in Times Square.

Discussion: Hot Air, Weasel Zippers, Mirror of Justice, National Review and ProfessorBainbridge.com

Matt Ferner / The Huffington Post:

Colorado Recreational Marijuana Sales Exceed $5 Million In First Week — Colorado marijuana dispensaries made huge sales in the first week of legal recreational marijuana. — Owners of the 37 new dispensaries around the state reported first week retail sales to The Huffington Post that, when added together, were roughly $5 million.