memeorandum: GOP senator breaks with McConnell strategy (Burgess Everett/Politico)

1:45 PM ET, September 17, 2015

Top Items:

Matt Bai / Yahoo:

Jeb leaves a vacuum. Who fills it? — If you were in Washington watching the Republican debate last night, you might have felt a small tilt in the floor, or heard the plates rattling gently in their cupboards. — That was the sound of the Republican establishment shifting …

Discussion: JustOneMinute

Sarah Kliff / Vox:

Carly Fiorina is wrong about the Planned Parenthood tapes. I know because I watched them. — Carly Fiorina gave a harrowing description of the Planned Parenthood sting videos at Wednesday's Republican debate. She challenged Barack Obama to watch “a fully formed fetus on the table …

Discussion: Slate, Washington Monthly, American Prospect, alicublog, Refinery29, Hullabaloo, The Federalist, Daily Kos, RH Reality Check, Washington Post, Business Insider and Mediaite

Ezra Klein / Vox:

Carly Fiorina won the GOP debate, but fact checkers will have a field day — At Wednesday's CNN debate, Carly Fiorina did what no other Republican has been able to do: she stopped Donald Trump cold. — CNN's Jake Tapper provided the opening. “In an interview last week in Rolling Stone magazine …

Discussion: JustOneMinute, Los Angeles Times, Salon, Slate, Hot Air, Daily Kos, Lawyers, Guns & Money and US News

Joe Klein / TIME:

How to Make Donald Trump Disappear — It's coming — We now know how to make Donald Trump disappear: talk policy. He simply has nothing useful to say. He'll deal with it when the time comes. He'll hash out Syria with Putin. He'll hire people. “Killers,” no doubt, as he likes to say.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Charles P. Pierce / Esquire:

No, Jeb Bush, Your Brother Did Not Keep Us Safe — Jeb looked delusional, but he wasn't alone. — GETTY JUSTIN SULLIVAN — “There's one thing I'll tell you about my brother,” said Jeb (!) Bush. “He kept us safe.” — And everybody cheered. — I ran out of patience long ago with The Great Mulligan.

Discussion: Business Insider and Eschaton

Michael Warren / Weekly Standard:

Carly's Night — From the beginning of her campaign for president, Carly Fiorina has had to deal with lowered expectations, encapsulated in a frequent question: Aren't you just running for vice president? “People ask that because I'm a woman and I'm not a politician,” she told me earlier this year.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, The Moderate Voice, Real Clear Politics, BostonGlobe.com, Washington Post, Horizons, Taylor Marsh, No More Mister Nice Blog and CNN

Katie Glueck / Politico:
GOP insiders: Carly crushed it

Discussion: msnbc.com, Washington Post and Mock Paper Scissors

Dan Balz / Washington Post:
The rest of the field figured out how to make Trump not quite as dominant

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, US News, Politico, BuzzFeed, ABC News, WIAT-TV, Guardian and Washington Post

msnbc.com:
Trump: I was on too much, treated fairly

Discussion: Daily Kos, Business Insider and OnPolitics

Ben Schreckinger / Politico:
Trumped: His 14 most memorable debate lines

Discussion: ABC News, The Hill, Weekly Standard, Scared Monkeys, Bloomberg.com news and Bloomberg Business

NBC News:
Jeb Bush Walks Back Pitch for Thatcher on $10 Bill

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Washington Post

Ed Kilgore / Washington Monthly:
Sound and Fury Signifying Little

Discussion: Booman Tribune and Talking Points Memo

Kyle Kondik / Politico:
‘Donald Trump Met His Match in Carly Fiorina’

Discussion: International Business Times

David A. Graham / The Atlantic:
Who Won the Second Republican Presidential Debate?

Discussion: Politico, CNN, Fox News Insider, New York Times, CBS New York and BillMoyers.com

Ben Schreckinger / Politico:
A Trump lie: He tried to expand casino gambling in Florida

Discussion: Bloomberg Business and JustOneMinute

New York Times:
Candidates Use Second G.O.P. Debate to Taunt Donald Trump

Discussion: Power Line, Vox, Fox News, Outside the Beltway, Politico, The Atlantic, Guardian, Political Insider blog and Hullabaloo

Eli Stokols / Politico:
Trump fails to stampede GOP herd

Discussion: Bloomberg Business, ABC News, Daily Kos and The Moderate Voice

Barbara Sprunt / NPR:
On The Clock: Who Spoke The Longest

Discussion: Trail Blazers Blog, JSOnline and Politico

James Nash / Bloomberg Business:
Long Shadow of Donald Trump Dominates Debate He Missed

Discussion: The Hill, Hot Air, Politico and Talking Points Memo

Jordain Carney / The Hill:

Dems block amendment linking Iran deal to Israel — Democrats on Thursday blocked a last-ditch effort from Republicans to stop the Iran nuclear deal by linking the agreement to Israel and American prisoners. — Senators voted 53-45 on an amendment from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell …

Discussion: Politico and Hot Air

Burgess Everett / Politico:

GOP senator breaks with McConnell strategy — <p>Mitch McConnell should have taken Harry Reid's deal on Iran, GOP Sen. Jeff Flake said in an interview Thursday.</p><p> The Arizonan said that it “does not make sense” to hold repeated procedural votes on Iran that are sure to fail …

Anna Palmer / Politico:

McCarthy, Ryan call for end to Boehner drama — <p>The only two viable potential replacements for John Boehner as speaker of the House say they back the Ohio Republican and will oppose any effort to remove him from power. But other high-ranking Republicans are testing the waters …

Discussion: Washington Post, NPR, Outside the Beltway and Bloomberg Business

Alan Fram / Associated Press:
GOP leaders hope Right to Life can help head off shutdown

Discussion: Erick on the Radio

Burgess Everett / Politico:
Fearsome fiscal cliff looms for Congress

Discussion: Daily Kos, Bloomberg Business, Hot Air and neo-neocon

Sarah Ferris / The Hill:
CBO: Defunding Planned Parenthood means ‘several thousand’ more births

Discussion: Politico and LifeNews.com

TIME:

Transcript: Read the Full Text of the Second Republican Debate — Eleven Republican presidential candidates met at the Reagan Library for a primetime debate on CNN. — At the debate were real estate mogul Donald Trump, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker …

Discussion: The Atlantic, New York Times, Right Wing Watch, NO QUARTER USA NET, National Review, Hit & Run, Informed Comment and Hot Air

Washington Post:
Wednesday's GOP debate transcript, annotated

Discussion: The Pulse 2016, Daily Kos, Common Dreams, Hit & Run, The Daily Caller, Shakesville and Mashable

Brent Budowsky / The Hill:

Biden-Warren in 2016? — Until now, my position regarding the 2016 campaign has been to support Hillary Clinton for president and to be extravagantly friendly toward Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and his supporters, who embody the heart, soul and idealism of the Democratic Party at its best.

Discussion: Politico

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
Hillary Clinton Is Stuck In A Poll-Deflating Feedback Loop

Discussion: Washington Monthly, NewsBusters, Bloomberg View and Instapundit

Russell Moore / New York Times:

Have Evangelicals Who Support Trump Lost Their Values? — IN 2006, the television comedy “The Office” aired an episode in which one of the characters, Dwight Schrute, nervously faces the prospect of delivering a speech after winning the title of top salesman of the year for his company, Dunder Mifflin.

Discussion: RedState and Eschaton

Wall Street Journal:

More Wisconsin Emails — How investigators targeted conservative Supreme Court justices — Our liberal friends in Wisconsin are unhappy. They think someone is leaking emails that make the state's partisan campaign regulators look bad. We'll plead guilty to having sources, but the emails are news and they sure are revealing.

Discussion: Instapundit

Brian Stelter / CNNMoney:

GOP debate ratings appear to set new CNN record — Wednesday's GOP debate appears to be the highest-rated event in CNN's history, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings. — The prime time debate averaged a 14.7 household rating, indicating that 1 in 7 American homes with TVs tuned in.

Discussion: Bloomberg Business, Talking Points Memo, Hit & Run, Mediaite, National Review and The Daily Caller