memeorandum: Vitter Super PAC raises $1.5 million (Michelle Millhollon/Baton Rouge news …)

6:55 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, NorthJersey.com, NBCNews, American Spectator, The Democratic Daily, Gothamist, Business Insider, The Daily Caller, Spectator, The Dish, The Week, Outside the Beltway, Lawyers, Guns & Money and The Reality-Based Community

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

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

Linh Tat / NorthJersey.com:

GWB lane closures delayed EMS response to 4 calls 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 …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, CBS New York, Hot Air, Business Insider and Riehl World News

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, The Star-Ledger Editorial Page and Ed Driscoll

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: Weasel Zippers and Balloon Juice

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

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

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

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, CNN, The Raw Story, Power Line, Mediaite, Hit & Run, Riehl World News, Daily Kos and Liberaland

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: Ricochet Conversations Feed, AEIdeas, 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 …

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

Discussion: Weasel Zippers

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

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

Ron Fournier / NationalJournal.com:

In Defense of Obama on the Gates Memoir — The president questioned the generals? Good. That's his job. — Robert Gates (left) and President Barack Obama cover their hearts during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner during Gates' Armed Forces Farewell Tribute on the River Parade Field …

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Talking Points Memo, NBCNews, Walter Russell Mead, The Fix, PostPartisan 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

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, National Review and SCOTUSblog

Politico:

Carolyn McCarthy, Mike McIntyre to retire — North Carolina Rep. Mike McIntyre and New York Rep. Carolyn McCarthy will not seek reelection this year, according to multiple Democratic sources familiar with their plans - marking a blow to Democratic efforts to win control of the House.

Discussion: CNN, Business Insider and Daily Kos

Emily Cahn / Roll Call:
Longtime Dems McIntyre, McCarthy to Retire (Updated) (Video)

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

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 …

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: CNN and The Hill

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

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

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

Gabrielle Giffords / New York Times:

The Lessons of Physical Therapy — TODAY, the anniversary of the shooting in Tucson that put a bullet through my head and killed six of my constituents, is when I make my annual resolutions. — Many may look at me and see mostly what I have lost. I struggle to speak, my eyesight's not great …

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Los Angeles Times, Today, Political Capital, Daily Kos, CNN, Politico, Business Insider and Talking Points Memo

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, Mirror of Justice, ProfessorBainbridge.com and National Review

Michelle Millhollon / Baton Rouge news …:

Vitter Super PAC raises $1.5 million — A third party Super PAC supporting U.S. Sen. David Vitter raised $1.5 million last year, lawyer and fundraiser Charlie Spies said Wednesday. — The dollars raised by The Fund for Louisiana's Future could help fuel a re-election bid or a run for governor …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Post Politics

Jenn Taylor / Twitchy:

‘Oh COME ON’: The Guardian's description of pro-abort Wendy Davis is beyond absurd; Update: Guardian issues correction — Here's how the sane see abortion booster Wendy Davis: … And here's The Guardian's description of the Texas Dem, courtesy of National Review fellow Betsy Woodruff:

Discussion: TheBlaze.com, The Daily Caller and Weasel Zippers

Steven Hayward / Power Line:

Climateers Caught in the Vortex — Coming on the heels of the Ship of Fools stunt in Antarctica last week, these are the worst of times for the climate campaign. And just where is Al Gore these past 10 days? As is well known, wherever Gore goes, a cold snap seems to follow; there's even a Wikipedia entry for the “Gore Effect.”

Discussion: Politico, Liberal Values, Ed Driscoll, Weasel Zippers, Motherboard and Slate

Paul Krugman:

On Fighting the Last War (On Poverty) — Sorry about radio silence — I've been on the road, and busy. And I still am. — I wanted, however, to say something about the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. — By 1980 or so, as the linked CBPP piece says, there was widespread consensus that the WoP had failed.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, cbpp.org, Hullabaloo, Daily Kos and Taylor Marsh