memeorandum: Spending Big to Fight Big Donors (Nicholas Confessore/New York Times)

10:40 PM ET, July 28, 2014

Top Items:

Erick Erickson / RedState:

Maliciousness. Not Incompetence. — For the longest time I have chosen to chalk our President's stumbles, bumbles, and disasters up to incompetence. He is in over his head. He is inexperienced. He is out of his league. It is hard to accept otherwise. — But it is clearer and clearer that is not true.

Discussion: protein wisdom and Washington Post

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:

Dangerous Game — US officials are “fuming” in the AP's words at the barrage of Israeli criticism of Secretary of States John Kerry. But as Chemi Shalev notes in Haaretz, there's a deeper backstory. Nothing gets the Obama administration's ire up like the perception (very often grounded in reality) …

Discussion: The Moderate Voice and Associated Press

Reuters:
Gaza fighting abates as diplomatic tension flares

Discussion: Washington Post, Hot Air, National Review and Jerusalem Post

New York Times:
Israeli Leader Sees No Quick End to Gaza War

Discussion: Pressing Issues, Gawker, Haaretz and Little Green Footballs

Eliana Johnson / National Review:

Michelle Nunn's Campaign Plan — Michelle Nunn can come across as a “lightweight,” “too liberal,” not a “real Georgian.” While she served as CEO for the Points of Light Foundation, the organization gave service awards to “inmates” and “terrorists.” And her Senate campaign must feature images …

Discussion: Politico, The Daily Caller, Instapundit, NewsBusters, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Patterico's Pontifications, Washington Post, Washington Free Beacon, Hot Air and Political Insider blog

Eliana Johnson / National Review:

Michelle Nunn's Campaign Plan — Democrats intensely recruited Nunn, and the seat, which is being vacated by Republican senator Saxby Chambliss, is widely considered their best pickup opportunity in the Senate of this election cycle. Though Nunn announced her candidacy last July …

Discussion: Power Line, RedState, Political Insider blog, Hinterland Gazette, Ajc Blogs, Washington Post, OnPolitics, Talking Points Memo and American Spectator

Chris Geidner / BuzzFeed:

Federal Appeals Court Strikes Down Virginia Same-Sex Marriage Ban — “[I]nertia and apprehension are not legitimate bases for denying same-sex couples due process and equal protection of the laws.” [ Update: Fallout already seen in North Carolina as state's attorney announces state will no longer defend its marriage ban. ]

Discussion: Gawker, Washington Post, Daily Kos and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Sahil Kapur / Talking Points Memo:
North Carolina AG: It's Time To Stop Fighting Gay Marriage In Court

Discussion: Arkansas Blog, Arkansas Times

Robert Barnes / Washington Post:
Appeals court upholds decision overturning Virginia's same-sex marriage ban

Discussion: SCOTUSblog, Outside the Beltway and The Raw Story

Toby Harnden / Real Clear Politics:

Laura Ingraham, Tea Party Giant Killer, Eyes Her Next Scalp — SHE has adopted a daughter from Guatemala and was a speechwriter under President Reagan, who introduced an “amnesty” for three million illegal immigrants in the 1980s. — With her striking good looks and her status …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Politico and Mediaite

Ben Jacobs / The Daily Beast:

Exclusive: GOP Senate Candidate Caught Saying States Can Nullify Laws — Joni Ernst, the Republican nominee in Iowa, doesn't want “federal legislators” to pass laws that “states are considering nullifying,” like Obamacare. — Joni Ernst, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Iowa …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and NewsBusters

Nate Cohn / New York Times:

New Generic Ballot Surveys Don't Show Signs of Republican Wave — One of the big questions of this election cycle is whether it will turn out to be a “wave” election, like the one in 2010, when an upswell of anti-Democratic sentiment carried Democrats out of the House.

Discussion: Liberal Values and Booman Tribune

Catherine Thompson / Talking Points Memo:

WATCH: Topless Texans Spar With Open Carry Activists: ‘Boobs For Peace!’ — Two topless women verbally sparred with an open-carry advocacy group over gun rights Saturday in downtown Austin. — Come and Take It Texas, the open carry group, posted two videos of the tense exchange on its Facebook page …

Discussion: The Raw Story, Gawker and BuzzPo

Pierre Omidyar / First Look Media:

Nine Months in, First Look is Still Very Much a Startup — It's been some time since I've shared what we're working on at First Look Media and I wanted to provide an update. Many of you may have seen the video we produced earlier this year in which I described the broad goals of our organization.

Discussion: PandoDaily, Pressthink, Little Green Footballs and Capital New York, more at Mediagazer »

Jeffrey Goldberg / The Atlantic Online:

Why Is Israel Losing a War It's Winning? — Six reasons why Israel is on the back foot even as it wins the battle against rockets and tunnels — Things change, of course—the only constant in the Middle East is sudden and dramatic change—but as I write it seems as if Israel is losing the war in Gaza …

Discussion: Politico, The Dish, Power Line, Grim's Hall, National Review, Mondoweiss and The Times of Israel

Meredith Shiner / Yahoo! News:

No Labels? No results? No problem. Yahoo News 1 hr ago — In 2010, a group of political veterans who said they were tired of the extreme partisanship paralyzing Washington created an organization to advance their new cause. The founding mission of “No Labels” was …

Discussion: CNN and Balloon Juice

Josh Gerstein / Politico:

D.C. seeks stay of gun ruling — A federal judge's ruling barring enforcement of a key District of Columbia gun law seems likely to be put on hold, after lawyers for the district asked that the decision be delayed and the plaintiffs in the case signaled they're amenable to a 90-day delay.

Discussion: Josh Blackman's Blog

Washington Post:
D.C. police won't enforce handgun ban; stay of ruling overturning law will be sought

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Reality-Based Litigation, Josh Blackman's Blog, Outside the Beltway, Hot Air, Guardian and SCOTUSblog

Nicholas Confessore / New York Times:

Spending Big to Fight Big Donors — An unlikely alliance of liberal intellectuals, big donors and Republican strategists has hit on a solution to the influence of big money in politics: even more money. — Starting Monday, the recently formed Mayday “super PAC” began a $12 million advertising campaign …

David Weigel / Slate:

Poll: Hillary Clinton Does Better With White Voters Than Any Democrat Since 1976 — Long ago, before the God of Narratives decided that Hillary Clinton was an out-of-touch elitist, she was seen as a fearsome 2016 contender. As the theory went, she could outpoll Barack Obama with white voters while winning nonwhite voters.

Discussion: Washington Post, Hot Air, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Yahoo! News and Fox News Insider

Josh Kraushaar / NationalJournal.com:

Republicans Looking for a New Way to Win Over Hispanics — GOP officials are hoping that the party's renewed focus on economic mobility will resonate with immigrant communities. — If Sen. Marco Rubio's economic message resonates with Hispanics, it could change the GOP's long-term fortunes.

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Joan Lowy / Associated Press:

FAA Proposes to Fine Southwest Airlines $12M — The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday it is proposing a $12 million civil fine against Southwest Airlines for failing to comply with safety regulations related to repairs on Boeing 737 jetliners. — It is the second-largest fine the agency has proposed against an airline.

Discussion: The Verge

Michelle Goldberg / New Yorker:

The dispute between radical feminism and transgenderism. — On May 24th, a few dozen people gathered in a conference room at the Central Library, a century-old Georgian Revival building in downtown Portland, Oregon, for an event called Radfems Respond. The conference had been convened …

Christian Rudder / OkTrends:

We Experiment On Human Beings! — I'm the first to admit it: we might be popular, we might create a lot of great relationships, we might blah blah blah. But OkCupid doesn't really know what it's doing. Neither does any other website. It's not like people have been building these things for very long …

Discussion: New York Times, Mashable, PandoDaily, The Hill, The Verge, Mediaite and Gawker

Reuters:

Huge blaze out of control in Tripoli battle as Libya slides into chaos — (Reuters) - A huge fuel depot in Libya's capital burned out of control on Monday, set ablaze in fighting between rival militias that has driven the country to chaos three years after the NATO-backed revolt that toppled Muammar Gaddafi.

Discussion: Belmont Club and Gawker

Philip Bump / Washington Post:

Coming soon: A campaign run entirely by super PACs — Three-quarters of the money spent on behalf of Chris McDaniel's failed bid for the Republican nomination for Senate in Mississippi came from outside political action committees (PACs). That money, from groups like the Club for Growth and FreedomWorks …

Discussion: Politico