memeorandum: U.S. officials lean toward ‘those in the cockpit’ behind missing flight (CNN)

11:55 AM ET, March 16, 2014

Top Items:

Doomed airliner pilot was political fanatic: Hours before taking control of flight MH370 he attended trial of jailed opposition leader as FBI reveal passengers could be at a secret location — Police are investigating the possibility that the pilot of missing Flight MH370 hijacked his own aircraft in a bizarre political protest.

Discussion: Guardian, The PJ Tatler, Liberaland, Althouse, Telegraph, Reuters, The Gateway Pundit and Corrente

New York Times:

Pilot Spoke to Air Controllers After Shutoff of Data System — SEPANG, Malaysia — A signaling system was disabled on the missing Malaysia Airlines jet before a pilot spoke to Malaysian air traffic control without hinting at any trouble, a senior Malaysian official said Sunday …

Discussion: JustOneMinute, Hinterland Gazette, Towleroad News #gay, Blogcritics, Scared Monkeys and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Robert Mendick / Telegraph:

Malaysia Airline MH370: 9/11-style terror allegations resurface in case of lost plane — Possible plot investigated after Al-Qaeda supergrass told court that four or five Malaysian men planned a passenger airliner hijack — By Robert Mendick, Robert Verkaik in London, Dean Nelson in Kuala Lumpur and Malcolm Moore in Beijing

Discussion: Jihad Watch

CNN:
U.S. officials lean toward ‘those in the cockpit’ behind missing flight

Discussion: Liberaland, The Gateway Pundit, Telegraph, Israel Matzav, Boston Globe, Daily Mail, CBS DC, Mediaite, AMERICAblog News, The Verge, Guardian, Gawker and New York Times

Maureen Dowd / New York Times:

Dems in Distress — WASHINGTON — Scott Brown, the Republican who admitted he wore pink leather shorts on his first date with his wife-to-be, is back. — And Democrats are scared to death. — It's not that Democrats are particularly scared that the 54-year-old former Massachusetts senator …

Discussion: Power Line, No More Mister Nice Blog and PoliticusUSA

New York Times:

Obama Factor Adds to Fears of Democrats — WASHINGTON — Democrats are becoming increasingly alarmed about their midterm election fortunes amid President Obama's sinking approval ratings, a loss in a special House election in Florida last week, and millions of dollars spent by Republican-aligned groups attacking the new health law.

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, Power Line, Right Wing News and Bloomberg

Scott Johnson / Power Line:
Maureen Dowd finds the lightning bug

Discussion: Althouse

Alexandra Jaffe / The Hill: Scott Brown fires up Senate fight

Yahoo! News:

Crimea holds referendum to split from Ukraine — Simferopol (Ukraine) (AFP) - Crimeans took to the polls on Sunday for a referendum on breaking away from Ukraine to join Russia that has precipitated a Cold War-style security crisis on Europe's eastern frontier.

Discussion: The Week, Liberaland and Hinterland Gazette

Washington Post:
Crimeans begin voting on Russia referendum

Discussion: The New Republic and Washington Monthly

Washington Post:
Tensions mount as Crimea prepares for referendum

Discussion: The Week and Washington Monthly

Associated Press:

Karzai says Afghanistan doesn't need U.S. troops to stay past end of year — KABUL — In his final address to Afghanistan's parliament Saturday, President Hamid Karzai said U.S. soldiers can leave at the end of the year because his military already protects 93 percent of the country and was ready to take over entirely.

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Andrew Cuomo / CNN:

CNN Poll: Rand Paul goes where his father never went — Washington (CNN) - Rand Paul has done something his father never did - top the list of potential Republican presidential candidates in a national poll. — According to a new CNN/ORC International survey, 16% of Republicans and independents …

Discussion: Liberaland and OnPolitics

Tyler Cowen / Associated Press:

Crimea Through a Game-Theory Lens — A Russian occupation of Crimea raises the specter of the Cold War, in which the nuclear stalemate between the United States and the Soviet Union devolved into regional disputes around the world. — While military and political frictions made the biggest headlines …

Christopher Clark / Spiegel Online:

What History Teaches Us About the Ukraine Crisis — On the 100th anniversary of World War I, it is tempting to compare events in Ukraine to 1914. But the current crisis bears little resemblance to the geopolitical situation of the time. The answers history provides are anything but singular and absolute.

Discussion: Outside the Beltway

American Prospect:

Piketty's Triumph — Three expert takes on Capital in the Twenty-First Century, French economist Thomas Piketty's data-driven magnum opus on inequality. — Jacob Hacker, Paul Pierson, Heather Boushey, Branko Milanovic — In the 1990s, two young French economists then affiliated …

Andrew Lynch / fox4kc.com:

California gun store owner refuses to give ATF his customer list — OCEANSIDE, Calif. (KSWB) — The owner of an Oceanside store that sells various gun parts to build a rifle from scratch refused to turn over his customer list when he was raided by federal agents Wednesday.

Discussion: BizPac Review, Right Wing News, The Gateway Pundit, protein wisdom and The Daily Caller

CNN:

Inside Politics: The Political Forecast: More Democrats to retire this week — CNN's John King and other top political reporters empty out their notebooks each Sunday on “Inside Politics” to reveal five things that will be in the headlines in the days, weeks and months ahead.

Discussion: RedState