memeorandum: Dem Attorney General On Gay Marriage Decision: ‘I Wanted To Be On The Right Side Of History’ (Chris Gentilviso/The Huffington Post)

5:10 PM ET, March 20, 2014

Top Items:

Fred Kaplan / Slate:

How to Stop Putin in His Tracks — He knows he's weak. The West must show we know it, too. — Is the crisis in Ukraine almost over or just beginning? The answer depends on what Vladimir Putin really wants and what the West does next. — Fred Kaplan — FRED KAPLAN

Discussion: War on the Rocks, The Monkey Cage, Taylor Marsh, Washington Monthly, CANNONFIRE, The Week, The Colorado Independent, CNN and Outside the Beltway

Miriam Elder / BuzzFeed:

The New U.S. Sanctions Against Russia Are For Real — You may not have heard of them — but the new targets are Putin's actual inner circle. — The head of state-run monopoly Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin addresses a Franco-Russian Economic Forum on Nov. 28, 2013. — ERIC PIERMONT/AFP / Getty Images

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Associated Press and AMERICAblog News

U.S. Department of the Treasury:

Resource Center — Home » Resource Center » Financial Sanctions » OFAC Recent Actions » Ukraine-related Designations — Ukraine-related Designations — OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL — Specially Designated Nationals List Update The following individuals have been added to OFAC's SDN List:

Discussion: CNN, Washington Post, Mashable, Bloomberg View, The Moderate Voice, State of the Union, The Daily Caller, Post Politics, Hot Air and New Atlanticist

Marco Rubio / Washington Post:

Making Putin pay — Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. — Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea is a direct challenge and long-term threat to the post-World War II international order …

Discussion: The Mahablog, National Review, Firedoglake, PostPartisan, Balloon Juice, New York Times, The Fact Checker and Borowitz Report, more at Mediagazer »

Alexey A. Navalny / New York Times:
How to Punish Putin — MOSCOW — AS I write this, I am under house arrest.

Discussion: Guardian, Business Insider and WorldViews

Mark Landler / New York Times:
U.S. and Russia Swap Sanctions Tit for Tat Over Crimean Crisis

Discussion: Fortune, Fox News and Daily Kos

Associated Press:
EU targets Putin's inner circle, scraps summit

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, RT and OnPolitics

Daniel Henninger / Wall Street Journal:
Henninger: American Fatigue Syndrome

Discussion: Fox News and Betsy's Page

Daniel Halper / Weekly Standard:

Reporter: WH Press Secretary Gets Questions from Reporters Before Press Briefing — A CBS reporter from Arizona reveals that President Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney, receives questions from the press in advance of his daily press briefing. In fact, she says, the reporters often receive …

Discussion: KPHO-TV, Talking Points Memo, Fox News, The Daily Caller, Hot Air, NewsBusters, Twitchy, Post Politics and The Gateway Pundit

Tom Kludt / Talking Points Memo:
News Anchor Retracts Claim That Jay Carney Gets Questions In Advance

Discussion: Daily Mail and The Week

Evan McMorris-Santoro / BuzzFeed:
Local Reporter: Story That Carney Gets Questions In Advance Was “My Mistake”

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Weekly Standard and The Fix

Sam Stein / The Huffington Post:

Scott Brown Awkwardly Finds Out That Obamacare Is Also Helping Republicans — Obamacare Saves Money Scott Brown Obamacare Obamacare New Hampshire Scott Brown Herb Richardson Chris Brown Obamacare Savings Fergus Cullen Affordable Care Act Barack Obama Scott Brown Obamacare Scott Brown Republicans …

Discussion: ABC News and Daily Kos

Dylan Scott / Talking Points Memo:

Scott Brown Confounded By Republican Who Benefitted From Obamacare — It seems Scott Brown, the once (and future?) U.S. senator, didn't have an answer when confronted with one of his fellow Republicans who has benefitted from Obamacare. — The Huffington Post flagged the Wednesday story from the Coos County Democrat.

Discussion: PoliticusUSA

Catherine Thompson / Talking Points Memo:

Children Confirm Fred Phelps Dead At 84 — Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps died before midnight Wednesday at age 84, his children Tim Phelps and Shirley Phelps-Roper confirmed to Kansas news outlets. — Phelps's estranged son Nate had announced last weekend that the church founder …

Discussion: Kansas First News, KSHB-TV and No More Mister Nice Blog

David G. Savage / Los Angeles Times:

Supreme Court faces wave of free-speech cases from conservatives — Once embraced by liberals, 1st Amendment arguments are now being applied to contest campaign contribution limits, union dues and no-protest zones at abortion clinics. — Antiabortion demonstrators protest in Washington.

Discussion: Hit & Run

Sahil Kapur / Talking Points Memo:
Everything You Need To Know About The Supreme Court Taking On Birth Control

Discussion: NBC News, The Plum Line and Liberaland

New York Post:

Teen sneaks past guard to reach WTC spire — A New Jersey teen captivated by 1 World Trade Center sneaked out of his home in the dead of night, got past the wall of security — and a sleeping guard — making it all the way up to the spire, The Post has learned.

Discussion: Joe. My. God., Mashable, Politicker, ABC News, Talking Points Memo, Mediaite, Gawker, The Week, The Raw Story and Fox News Insider

Josh Feldman / Mediaite:

CNN's Don Lemon: ‘Is It Preposterous’ to Think a Black Hole Caused Flight 370 to Go Missing? — CNN's Don Lemon has been entertaining all sorts of theories about the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, including the chance something “supernatural” happened, but on Wednesday night …

Discussion: Watts Up With That?, Ed Driscoll, BuzzFeed, Moonbattery, Talking Points Memo, National Review, Red Alert Politics, Shakesville, The Raw Story, Business Insider and AMERICAN DIGEST, more at Mediagazer »

Nick R. Martin / Talking Points Memo:
WTF CNN, Part II

Discussion: Washington Monthly, The Verge and The Huffington Post

Andrew Kaczynski / BuzzFeed:

This Video Of Rep. John Lewis Dancing To “Happy” Is The Best Thing You Will See Today — A video uploaded late Wednesday night shows Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights icon, dancing to Pharrell's “Happy.” A spokesman for the congressman didn't immediately return a request …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Politico, Creative Loafing Atlanta and Mediaite

BBC:

Australia plane searchers investigate debris — Amsa's John Young said the objects spotted were a “reasonable size” — Australia is investigating two objects seen on satellite images that could potentially be linked to the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, officials say.

Discussion: ABC News, KING-TV, Taylor Marsh and Hinterland Gazette

Washington Post:
Malaysia Airlines didn't buy computer upgrade that could have given data on missing flight

Discussion: The Daily Caller, HBR.org, Telegraph, Mashable, CBS DC and The Gateway Pundit

Jonathan Oosting / MLive.com:

Right to Life: Gary Peters ‘wants to make sure abortion is accessible and cheap for his daughters’ — Students from Michigan State University and Lansing Community College protest the state's new abortion insurance law outside of the state Capitol on Tuesday, March 18.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Daily Kos

ThinkProgress:
Lawmaker Accused Of Opposing Michigan's Rape Insurance Law To Keep Abortion ‘Cheap For His Daughters’

Discussion: MLive.com

Brookings Institute:

Are the Long-Term Unemployed on the Margins of the Labor Market? — ABSTRACT — The short-term unemployment rate is a much stronger predictor of inflation and real wage growth than the overall unemployment rate in the U.S. Even in good times, the long-term unemployed are on the margins …

Discussion: New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Wonkblog

Leslie Patton / Bloomberg:

Starbucks to Bring Alcohol Sales to Thousands of Stores — Starbucks Corp. (SBUX) is going big on booze. — Starbucks will expand its evening alcohol and light bites menu, which includes bacon-wrapped dates and Malbec wine, to thousands of stores, Chief Operating Officer Troy Alstead said in a phone interview.

Discussion: Outside the Beltway, The Daily Caller, The Verge and Washington Post

Politico:

Kos Folds Up the Big Tent — If Markos Moulitsas had his way there'd be no Affordable Care Act, no Dodd-Frank, no economic stimulus package. That's the price when purity tests are applied to Democrats. — In a remarkable post yesterday, Moulitsas, founder and publisher …

Discussion: Daily Kos, Hullabaloo and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Tal Kopan / Politico:

Cory Booker: My dinner with Ted Cruz — Sen. Cory Booker said Thursday that when he met last week with Republican firebrand Sen. Ted Cruz for dinner, they had a “great intellectual discussion” and “no filibusters.” — The New Jersey Democrat said he's trying to work with Republicans …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, No More Mister Nice Blog and Booman Tribune

Michael S. Teitelbaum / The Atlantic Online:

The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage — Everyone knows that the United States has long suffered from widespread shortages in its science and engineering workforce, and that if continued these shortages will cause it to fall behind its major economic competitors.

Discussion: Daily Kos and The Glittering Eye

Pew Research Center for the People and the Press:

ACA at Age 4: More Disapproval than Approval — But Most Opponents Want Politicians to Make Law Work — As the four-year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act approaches, the law remains unpopular with the public. Currently, 53% disapprove of the 2010 health care law while 41% approve of the law.

Discussion: CNN, Politico, Real Clear Politics and Post Politics