memeorandum: Good election year for bad boys of Congress (Alex Isenstadt/Politico)

8:10 AM ET, September 16, 2014

Top Items:

Jeremy Rogalski / KHOU-TV:

New accusations: Peterson injured another son while disciplining 4-year-old — The four-year-old is by a different mother than the alleged victim in the Montgomery County case, in which Peterson is charged with felony injury to a child. — CONNECT — Photos and text messages obtained …

Discussion: CBS Houston, CBS New York, Deadspin, Hot Air, Mediaite, Raw Story, ProFootballTalk, abc13.com, ThinkProgress and BuzzFeed

Laura Bassett / The Huffington Post:

Kirsten Gillibrand: I Couldn't Tell My Harasser ‘To Go F*** Himself’ — Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said Monday that when a male labor leader harassed her about her weight several years ago after she'd had a baby, she had a few choice words she couldn't say at the time.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Truth Revolt

Lucy McCalmont / Politico:

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand drops f-bomb on video — Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is giving more details, and dropping f-bombs, about her experience with sexist comments she's received about her weight, saying she couldn't tell a male colleague “to go f— himself.” — “At that moment, if I could have just disappeared, I would have.

Discussion: RedState and Booman Tribune

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:

Senate Update: Democrats Draw Almost Even. Is It The Money? — When we officially launched our forecast model two weeks ago, it had Republicans with a 64 percent chance of taking over the Senate after this fall's elections. Now Republican chances are about 55 percent instead.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Guardian, CNN and Washington Post

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
Senate Update: Alaska, A Frontier For Bad Polling

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, The Immoral Minority and Amanda Coyne

Jonathan Martin / New York Times:
Democrats Put Cultural Issues in Their Quiver

Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money

David Clegg / dailyrecord:

Three party leader's promise to Scotland — The joint statement also rubbishes claims from the SNP that the Barnett Formula for calculating Scotland's budget could be changed to leave us less money for public services. — It pledges: “Because of the continuation of the Barnett allocation for resources …

Discussion: New York Times, Taegan Goddard's …, Guardian, dailyrecord, Press Association and Spectator

Niall Ferguson / New York Times:

Scots Must Vote Nae — GLASGOW — To most Americans, Scotland means golf, whisky and — if they go there — steady drizzle. Even to the millions of Americans whose surnames testify to their Scottish or Scotch-Irish ancestry, the idea that Scotland might be about to become an independent country is baffling.

Roger Simon / Politico:

Why Hillary hates Iowa — But then he spoke about Haiti and the economy and the state of the America and his only really memorable line was: “We are less racist, sexist and homophobic than we have ever been, but we don't want to spend time around anyone who doesn't agree with us.”

Discussion: Fox News, The New Republic and Washington Post

CBS DC:
Harkin: Hillary Clinton's ‘Fingerprints Are All Over’ Obamacare

Discussion: Telegraph

Elise Viebeck / The Hill:
Dem Sen. Harkin: Hillary Clinton's fingerprints ‘all over’ ObamaCare

Discussion: The Daily Banter and BuzzFeed

Dan Joseph / CNSNews:

Video: College Students Sign Petition in Support of ISIS — Despite one's feelings on how the U.S. government should deal with the growing threat that ISIS poses to the world, it's safe to assume that Americans across the political spectrum agree that the terror group is pretty odious.

Discussion: Liberty Unyielding and Washington Free Beacon

Alex Isenstadt / Politico:

Good election year for bad boys of Congress — For the bad boys of Congress, 2014 is shaping up to be an awfully good year. — As they endure humiliating headlines, damaging federal investigations and tough scrutiny of their personal lives, scandal-tarred lawmakers aren't just surviving this midterm year.

Allie Jones / Gawker:

Limbaugh on Sexual Assault: “No Means Yes If You Know How to Spot It” — The sweaty armpit of talk radio now fancies himself to be a “seduction” expert. On his show today, Rush Limbaugh decried Ohio State's new policy instructing students to get explicit, verbal consent before having sex …

Discussion: Washington Post, Mediaite, Raw Story and The Huffington Post

The New Republic:

Feminism Has Conquered the Culture. Now Comes the Hard Part — A debate on this unprecedented opportunity — Hi Judith, — I don't think that in my lifetime (I'm 39) I've ever seen public, popular feminist discourse more robust than it is now. When I was in high school, college …

Discussion: The Week

Roger Cohen / New York Times:

The Great Unraveling — It was the time of unraveling. Long afterward, in the ruins, people asked: How could it happen? — It was a time of beheadings. With a left-handed sawing motion, against a desert backdrop, in bright sunlight, a Muslim with a British accent cut off the heads …

Discussion: Ed Driscoll

The Huffington Post:

Lindsey Graham Worries Islamic State Will Destroy Americans, Wipe Out Mankind — WASHINGTON — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday slammed President Barack Obama's strategy for combating Islamic State militants and said the president needs to significantly step up military action …

Discussion: CANNONFIRE and Daily Kos

Jonathan Topaz / Politico:
Rand Paul: As world changes, ‘you change’

Discussion: Hot Air, Washington Post, Guardian, Yahoo! News, Hit & Run, Washington Monthly, Fox News Insider, Hullabaloo and The Daily Caller

Jason Stein / JSOnline:

Absentee ballot mailings halted in push to restart voter ID law — Election officials, Michelle Avila (right) and June Gray check a voters identification during the February 2012 primary, the last time a voter ID requirement was in place in Wisconsin. A federal court ruling restoring the law …

Discussion: Election Law Blog and New York Times

Michael Tomasky / The Daily Beast:

Please—Let's Not Destroy ISIS — Obama's mission is hard enough without him stating a clearly unachievable goal. Why do presidents feel they have to sound like John Wayne? — Americans should support this mission against ISIS. One may well choose to do so warily, because …

Discussion: Liberaland and Fox News

Tom Raum / Associated Press:

US Labor Board Orders CNN to Rehire Fired Workers — The National Labor Relations Board ruled against the CNN cable television network on Monday in an 11-year-old labor dispute, ordering the network to rehire or compensate about 300 former workers. — The NLRB agreed with a November 2008 ruling …

Discussion: Politico, more at Mediagazer »

Numbers / Pew Research Center for the People …:

Bipartisan Support for Obama's Military Campaign Against ISIS — Dems Concerned about ‘Going Too Far,’ Reps ‘Not Far Enough’ — President Obama's plan for a military campaign against Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria is drawing public support. And, in a rare display of bipartisanship …

Discussion: Washington Post and Wall Street Journal

The Hill:

Republicans to limit Obama's aid to moderate Syrian rebel forces — House Republicans expect to unveil legislation Monday evening that would give President Obama the authority to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels, but with some limits on that authority. — The House Armed Services Committee …

Discussion: The PJ Tatler and Hullabaloo

Sarfraz Manzoor / New York Times:

Multiculturalism and Rape in Rotherham — LONDON — A man recently came to visit the member of Parliament for Rotherham, Yorkshire, and he had a question. Now in his late 50s, he had arrived from Pakistan three decades earlier. After a lifetime of hard work, he could not understand …

Daily Mail:
Rotherham child-sex victim confronts her alleged abuser in the street... but SHE is arrested by a van load of police

Discussion: Twitchy and Vox Popoli

Associated Press:

ISIS Bans Teaching Evolution In Schools — BAGHDAD (AP) — The extremist-held Iraqi city of Mosul is set to usher in a new school year. But unlike years past, there will be no art or music. Classes about history, literature and Christianity have been “permanently annulled.”