memeorandum: Bloomberg Politics Focus Groups: What's Powering the Ben Carson Boom (Kendall Breitman/Bloomberg Business)

10:45 AM ET, October 8, 2015

Top Items:

Gabriel Debenedetti / Politico:

Inside Bernie Sanders' unorthodox debate prep … Hillary Clinton has had aides lined up to run her debate prep for months. A Washington super lawyer is mimicking Sanders and her top policy staffer is acting as Martin O'Malley. — Bernie Sanders started studying for next Tuesday's event not even a full week ago.

Graydon Carter / Vanity Fair:

Why Donald Trump Will Always Be a “Short-Fingered Vulgarian” — In his November editor's letter, Graydon Carter reveals the presidential candidate's thin-skinned response to a favorite 25-year-old epithet. — The myriad vulgarities of Donald Trump—examples of which are retailed daily …

Discussion: Business Insider and The Week

PBS NewsHour:
Hillary Clinton says she does not support Trans-Pacific Partnership

George Zornick / The Nation:
Hillary Clinton Just Made Passage of the TPP Much More Difficult

Discussion: Hullabaloo, The Atlantic, BillMoyers.com and New York Times

John Dickerson / Slate:
Joe Biden's Big Question

Discussion: Althouse, Talking Points Memo, NPR and Mediaite

Jennifer Epstein / Bloomberg Business:
Hillary Clinton Comes Out Against TPP

Discussion: Politico, Hot Air, Los Angeles Times, Liberal Values and The Week

Pete Souza / New York Magazine:

Did Barack Obama do enough for his own community? — There is a photo by Pete Souza, the White House's canny and peripatetic photographer, that surfaces from time to time online. The setting is Marine One, and it features a modest cast of five. Valerie Jarrett, dressed in a suit of blazing pink, is staring at her cell phone.

Discussion: ABC News, Liberty Unyielding, Washington Post, Guardian, Daily Mail, No More Mister Nice Blog, addictinginfo.org and Mediaite

Mark Hensch / The Hill:

Carson: I faced a gunman — GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson, under fire for advice about what to do when facing a gunman, late Wednesday recounted the time when a gun was pointed at him. — “I have had a gun held on me when I was in a Popeye's,” Carson told host Karen Hunter on Sirius XM Radio …

Discussion: Raw Story

Elliot Smilowitz / The Hill:

Rupert Murdoch: Carson could be ‘a real black president’ — Media mogul Rupert Murdoch on Wednesday said Republican Ben Carson would be “a real black president,” implying doubts about President Obama's connection to minorities. — The chairman and CEO of News Corporation tweeted Wednesday night: “Ben and Candy Carson terrific.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos, Mashable and NBC News

Washington Post:
Republican candidates' dangerous incoherence on guns

Discussion: CBS News, ABC News, NPR and Patterico's Pontifications

Nick Gass / Politico:

Ben Carson stumbles on debt limit question — Ben Carson appeared to have some difficulty in explaining exactly whether he would support raising the debt limit in a recent interview. — “Let me put it this way: if I were the president, I would not sign an increased budget. Absolutely would not do it.

Peter Schroeder / The Hill:

GOP faces debt-limit divide — With less than a month to go until the Nov. 5 deadline, congressional Republicans are divided on what strategy to adopt in the fight over the debt ceiling. — Conservatives see the looming debt hike as leverage that could be used to extract concessions from the Obama administration.

Discussion: Washington Post

Sarah Ferris / The Hill:
House creates panel to investigate Planned Parenthood

Discussion: Daily Kos

Karen Deyoung / Washington Post:

Russia's Syria intervention may force choice on Obama: Act or yield — Russia's military moves in Syria are fundamentally changing the face of the country's civil war, putting President Bashar al-Assad back on his feet, and may complicate the Obama administration's plans to expand its air operations against the Islamic State.

Discussion: USA Today, New York Times, Hot Air, Just Security, Reuters, Pirate's Cove and Press Association

Ivan Krastev / New York Times:

Is Vladimir Putin Trying to Teach the West a Lesson in Syria? — SOFIA, Bulgaria — Last week, after Russian planes bombed antigovernment forces near the Syrian town of Homs, a senior American official complained to me: “What Russia is doing in Syria is not an effort to fight the Islamic State; it is not old-fashioned realpolitik.

Discussion: Radio Free Europe/Radio …

Reuters:
Exclusive: Congress probing U.S. spy agencies' possible lapses on Russia

Discussion: Belmont Club, New York Times, Fox News and Foreign Policy

The Hill:

Right flexes muscle ahead of Speaker vote — The conservative House Freedom Caucus on Wednesday endorsed little-known Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.) for Speaker — a bold move that raises serious doubts about whether Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy can cobble together the 218 votes on the House floor he needs to be promoted.

Discussion: John Hawkins' Right Wing News and The Daily Signal

Mike DeBonis / Washington Post:
House conservatives spurn McCarthy, flex muscle ahead of speaker vote

Discussion: Orlando Sentinel, msnbc.com, BizPac Review, Reuters, Political Wire, Talking Points Memo, Associated Press and Independent Journal

www.wftv.com:

Video shows judge berating, sentencing domestic violence victim to jail — SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. — Channel 9 has obtained video from a Seminole County courtroom where an emotional domestic violence victim was sentenced to three days in jail for failing to show up for her abuser's trial.

Discussion: Scared Monkeys, Fox News Insider and Mediaite

Arturo Garcia / Raw Story:
Florida judge harasses domestic violence victim before jailing her: 'You haven't even seen anxiety'

Discussion: www.wftv.com, Balloon Juice and addictinginfo.org

George F. Will / Washington Post:

Impeach the IRS director — “Look,” wrote Lois Lerner, echoing Horace Greeley, “my view is that Lincoln was our worst president not our best. He should [have] let the [S]outh go. We really do seem to have 2 totally different mindsets.” Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune …

Kendall Breitman / Bloomberg Business:

Bloomberg Politics Focus Groups: What's Powering the Ben Carson Boom — Despite never holding elected office, or perhaps because of that fact, the retired neurosurgeon has managed to impress many Republican voters. — What explains the appeal Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Business Insider and Starpulse

Manny Fernandez / New York Times:

States Scramble for Drugs Used in Executions, Causing Delays — Despite a Supreme Court ruling allowing a controversial drug to be used for lethal injections in Oklahoma, death-penalty states are finding it harder to carry out executions as they struggle to obtain and properly use limited supplies …

Discussion: Arkansas Blog, Arkansas Times

Wall Street Journal:

Accused Oregon Shooter Discharged From Army After Suicide Attempt — Christopher Harper-Mercer left basic training after just one month in 2008 — The gunman who allegedly killed nine people and wounded nine others at a rural community college in Oregon last Thursday had been discharged …

Discussion: The PJ Tatler, Daily Mail, Telegraph and The Daily Signal

New York Daily News:

Koch brothers eyeing Marco Rubio for nearly $1B campaign contribution — The big money is on Marco Rubio. — Slowly but surely, the GOP is narrowing down its list of presidential candidates. The big prize — aside from the presidency itself — is still the nearly $1 billion contribution …

Discussion: SaintPetersBlog and New York Times

Ian Mohr / New York Post:

Matt Barnes drove 95 miles to ‘beat the s-t’ out of Derek Fisher — Matt Barnes with then-wife Gloria Govan, and Knicks coach Derek Fisher. — Knicks coach Derek Fisher is involved in a romantic relationship with the estranged wife of his former teammate Matt Barnes …

Discussion: Hollywood Life, Fusion, SBNation.com, NESN.com, UPROXX and Daily Mail

Mira Kamdar / New York Times:

America's Gun Madness, as Seen From Europe — PANTIN, France — My mother lives near Roseburg, Ore. Her part of the world isn't often in the news in France. But when I woke up last Friday morning, the mass shooting on the Umpqua Community College campus in Roseburg had made the French morning television news.

Discussion: Pirate's Cove

Cass R. Sunstein / Bloomberg View:

How the Gun Lobby Rewrote the Second Amendment — After yet another gun-related tragedy, the U.S. is in the midst of a flurry of new efforts to control people's access to firearms. As before, those efforts are running into serious trouble. The major problem is simple …

Discussion: Althouse and Instapundit

Jacob Gershman / Wall Street Journal:

Clinton ‘SNL’ Cameo Could Entitle Challengers to Free Air Time — Hillary Clinton's appearance on “Saturday Night Live” last weekend could trigger the so-called equal-time rule, the federal law that allows qualified opposing candidates to demand comparable air time.

Discussion: Outside the Beltway

Alexandra Alter / New York Times:

Svetlana Alexievich Wins Nobel Prize in Literature — Svetlana Alexievich, a Belarussian journalist and prose writer, won the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time,” the Swedish Academy announced.

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