memeorandum: Marco Rubio Is a Polished Performer, but He's Out of Position (Nate Cohn/New York Times)

11:15 PM ET, April 13, 2015

Top Items:

Marco Rubio Is a Polished Performer, but He's Out of Position — Marco Rubio, who announced his bid for the presidency on Monday in a call to donors, has been called the “best communicator” in the Republican Party. Over and over and over again. — But he has little to show for it.

Discussion: The Daily Beast, Progress Pond, The Reaction, Advocate and Hot Air

Brian Beutler / The New Republic:

Marco Rubio Is the Most Disingenuous Republican Running for President — He's not a reformer. He's a fraud. — Most of the Republican Party's primary candidates have internalized something that was blindingly obvious to everyone who watched the 2012 elections unfold.

Discussion: New York Magazine, Washington Post, National Review, Jay Bookman, Taylor Marsh, Washington Monthly, The National Memo, Bloomberg View, Booman Tribune and Hot Air

Arlette Saenz / ABC News:

Marco Rubio Running For President in 2016: ‘I Can Lead This Country’ (EXCLUSIVE) … Republican Sen. Marco Rubio is running for president in 2016, the Florida senator told ABC News' Chief Anchor and “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive interview in West Miami on Monday.

Discussion: BuzzFeed, Fox News, Bloomberg Business, Hot Air, No More Mister Nice Blog, CNN, Weekly Standard, PoliticusUSA, The Atlantic Online, New York Times and Shakesville

Harry Enten / FiveThirtyEight:
The Official 2016 GOP Field Gets Its First Real Contender: Marco Rubio

Discussion: Liberaland, The Atlantic Online, The Daily Beast, The Hill, National Journal, Business Insider, SaintPetersBlog, NBC News, New York Magazine and Phantom Public

Chris Good / ABC News:
Marco Rubio Would Reopen Gitmo, Reverse Obama Foreign Policy

Discussion: Bloomberg Business, mrctv.org/videos, Associated Press and BuzzFeed

Bloomberg Business:
Will the GOP Get Behind Marco Rubio's Immigration Evolution?

Discussion: ABC News and ThinkProgress

New York Times:
Marco Rubio Announces 2016 Presidential Bid

Discussion: Washington Post, Politico, CNN, Advocate, Hot Air, NPR, Outside the Beltway, Rhode Island Public Radio and Denny Burk

Associated Press:
RUBIO TELLS DONORS HE IS RUNNING FOR WHITE HOUSE

Discussion: Associated Press, Post On Politics, CBS DC, Mediaite, Daily Kos, Washington Post, The Week, The Daily Caller and Chicago

Benjamin Siegel / ABC News:
Marco Rubio: Hillary Clinton's Ideas ‘Will Not Help Everyday Americans’

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, Raw Story, Washington Monthly and Politico

Hillary Clinton / Salon:

Dangers of a Hillary Clinton campaign: The disastrous centrism she desperately needs to avoid — With the Big Announcement yesterday, Hillary Clinton officially entered the race that everyone assumes she's already won. Can you feel the excitement? No? Well, this shouldn't come as a shock …

Discussion: Campaign for America's Future

BuzzFeed:
This Kid Is Devastated Hillary Clinton Is Running For President Because He Wanted To

Discussion: Mediaite and New York Magazine

Peter Beinart / The Atlantic Online:
An Unabashedly Liberal Hillary Clinton

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Liberal Values, Washington Post, New York Times and Reuters

Caitlin MacNeal / Talking Points Memo: GOP Strategist: I Don't Need Hillary ‘To Drown Me In Estrogen’ (VIDEO)

Jordan Fabian / The Hill:
Obama won't automatically endorse Hillary

Discussion: Politico

Chris Johnson / Washington Blade:
Meet the gay couple in Clinton campaign video

Discussion: Politico, ABC News, Raw Story, Out Magazine, Business Insider, Towleroad News #gay, LGBTQ Nation, New York Times, Advocate and The Huffington Post

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Nate Silver to Vox: Stop stealing our charts! … FiveThirtyEight founder and statistics guru Nate Silver has accused Ezra Klein's Vox.com of stealing other people's charts without attribution. — “Yo, @voxdotcom: Y'all should probably stop stealing people's charts without proper attribution,” he tweeted Monday.

Discussion: Poynter and FishbowlNY, more at Mediagazer »

Ezra Klein / Vox:

How Vox aggregates — I started as a blogger in the pre-social web, when the only way to build an audience was to have other sites quote or link to your work. Those links didn't drive a ton of traffic back to the original site, but they drove some, and sometimes you would get a new regular reader out of the deal.

Discussion: CNNMoney, Mediaite and Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality, more at Mediagazer »

Matthew Yglesias / Vox:
Unlike Hillary Clinton, the entire GOP field is either obscure or unpopular

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Hit & Run and Caffeinated Thoughts

Maggie Haberman / New York Times:

On the Road, Hillary Clinton Stops for Lunch at Chipotle and Goes Unrecognized — Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign is all about “everyday Americans,” she made clear in announcing it on Sunday. — On Monday, she showed how unassuming she herself could be.

Discussion: The Democratic Daily, Hot Air, CBS DC, Twitchy and Business Insider

ABC News:

Hillary Clinton Makes Surprise Pit Stop at Chipotle in Ohio During Presidential Roadtrip … Hillary Clinton, who has embarked on a roughly 1,000 mile road trip after formally announcing her presidential bid on Sunday, was spotted at a Chipotle in Maumee, Ohio this afternoon.

Discussion: Guardian, Washington Post, CNN, OnPolitics, New York Post, New York Magazine, Yahoo Politics, Mashable, WISH-TV, New York Times and The Daily Caller

Michael Quander / WREG-TV:

Brutal attack at Memphis gas station caught on camera — MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Surveillance video showed a mob of rowdy high school students beating a man at a Crosstown gas station. — Police said a large group of Northwest Prep Academy students swarmed a BP gas station on Poplar and Cleveland.

Discussion: KFOR-TV

Alaska Airlines Blog:

Statement on Alaska Airlines flight 448 — Flight 448, bound for Los Angeles, returned to Seattle shortly after departure today after it was discovered that a ramp agent was still in the cargo hold. The aircraft was in the air for 9 minutes. — After landing, the agent …

Discussion: Mediaite, KFOR-TV, KTLA, FOX2now.com and NPR

Sam Stein / The Huffington Post:

Mark Kirk Says People Drive Faster Through Black Neighborhoods — WASHINGTON — In a little-noticed interview last week, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) described African-American neighborhoods as areas that people in his state try to avoid. — The comment, with its racial undertones …

Discussion: Daily Kos and Chicago

Jon Swaine / Guardian:

Walter Scott shooting: officer describes adrenaline rush in recording — Michael Slager appears to laugh nervously in audio recording as he discusses what will happen next with a senior officer — The police officer who killed Walter Scott in South Carolina said afterwards that he was experiencing …

Discussion: Mashable, The Last Refuge, New York Times, Raw Story, Mediaite, Addicting Info, The Free Thought Project and New York Magazine

Sundance / The Last Refuge:
Update* Game Changer OR Paradigm Shift ? …

Discussion: The Jawa Report, The Gateway Pundit, No More Mister Nice Blog, John Hawkins' Right Wing News and New York Times

Ashley Edwards / New York's PIX11:

EXCLUSIVE: Woman says Harlem tattoo parlor behind ‘Black Ink’ left her disfigured — HARLEM (PIX11) — Asabi Barner was a confident woman in her 30s. Her body was never something she felt a need to cover up, until now. — A tattoo coverup changed her life last year.

Discussion: fox8.com

Catherine Thompson / Talking Points Memo:

Everything We Know About The Oklahoma Law Enforcement Killing Of Eric Harris — A white reserve sheriff's deputy in Tulsa County, Oklahoma shot and killed a black man who was on the ground being arrested on April 2. Law enforcement initially said the reserve deputy had mistaken his own handgun …

Discussion: Tulsa World, Washington Post, New York Times and Balloon Juice

Caitlin MacNeal / Talking Points Memo:

CNN Host Asks Rand To Reconcile Libertarianism, View On Gay Marriage — CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday pushed presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on his views on same-sex marriage, asking him why, as a libertarian, he doesn't believe gay people should have the freedom to marry.

Discussion: Daily Kos

Detroit News:

Ben Carson to launch bid for presidency from Detroit — Detroit native Dr. Ben Carson will officially launch his presidential campaign in Detroit on May 4, officials said Monday. — The event at the Detroit Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts will be ticketed, though a time hasn't been set …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Washington Post

Washington Post:

Four Blackwater guards sentenced in Iraq shootings of 31 unarmed civilians — A federal judge in Washington handed down prison terms of 30 years to life behind bars to four Blackwater Worldwide guards convicted in a deadly 2007 shooting that killed 14 unarmed Iraqis and injured others in a Baghdad traffic circle.

Discussion: New York Times, FOX News Radio and The Week

Jenna Levy / Gallup:

In U.S., Uninsured Rate Dips to 11.9% in First Quarter — Story Highlights — WASHINGTON, D.C. — The uninsured rate among U.S. adults declined to 11.9% for the first quarter of 2015 — down one percentage point from the previous quarter and 5.2 points since the end of 2013, just before the Affordable Care Act went into effect.

Discussion: Vox, Outside the Beltway, CBS DC, PoliticusUSA, Washington Post, New York Magazine, Daily Kos, ThinkProgress, Washington Monthly, The Huffington Post and Balloon Juice

Alejandro Alba / NY Daily News:

Revenge porn is now a specific crime in the UK — The UK has passed new legislation that punishes revenge porn with prison. — As of Monday, UK's Criminal Justice and Court Act considers revenge porn as a specific crime. If someone publicly posts racy images of their ex without consent …

Discussion: FOX News Radio, The Verge and Engadget

Martin Matishak / The Hill:

King: Iran bill must be handled ‘responsibly’ — Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) says he still supports legislation that would let Congress weigh in on a final nuclear deal with Iran but only if his colleagues treat the measure “responsibly.” — King, one of the bill's original co-sponsors …

Discussion: Daily Kos