memeorandum: Ghoulish Wall Street Speculators Pour Money Into Gun Companies (Alan Pyke/ThinkProgress)

6:00 PM ET, January 5, 2016

Top Items:

CNN:

Emotional Obama calls for ‘sense of urgency’ to fight gun violence — Watch “Guns in America,” CNN's townhall meeting with President Obama on Thursday at 8 p.m. ET — (CNN)President Barack Obama grew emotional Tuesday as he made a passionate call for a national “sense of urgency” to limit gun violence.

Discussion: Politico, TheBlaze.com, Washington Post, CNNMoney, The Hill, addictinginfo.org, Occupy Democrats, Vox, Right Wing Watch, KFOR-TV, Arkansas Blog, Arkansas Times and Bearing Arms

Nick Gass / Politico:

Obama wipes away tears as he calls for new gun measures — President Barack Obama wept openly Tuesday as he delivered a forceful defense of new executive actions on gun violence, a set of modest proposals to tighten loopholes that likely face quick legal challenges and could be vulnerable to reversal by a Republican White House.

Discussion: The Hill, Bloomberg Business, Hot Air and Mother Jones

Alan Pyke / ThinkProgress:

Ghoulish Wall Street Speculators Pour Money Into Gun Companies — Even before President Obama began explaining a slate of executive actions to tighten background checks for gun buyers on Tuesday morning, Wall Street speculators delivered a late Christmas present to gun manufacturers.

Discussion: New York Times, Reuters and Washington Post

Ali Weinberg / ABC News:
Tearful Obama on Gun Control: Excuses ‘No Longer Suffice’

Discussion: Speaker.gov, National Review and abc13.com

Jeb Bush / The Gazette:
Barack Obama's executive orders trample on the Second Amendment

Discussion: Business Insider, Bloomberg.com news and Florida Politics

The White House:
FACT SHEET: New Executive Actions to Reduce Gun Violence and Make Our Communities

Reuters:
Obama, wiping tears, makes new push to tighten gun rules

Discussion: The Free Thought Project, American Spectator and Washington Free Beacon

Jordan Fabian / The Hill:
Obama, Dems all in on gun control in 2016

Discussion: Politico and The Daily Signal

Marina Koren / The Atlantic:
Obama's Emotional Speech on Gun Control

Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money

Guardian:

Authorities plan to cut off power to militia at occupied Oregon refuge — Armed militants will begin their third day at the wildlife refuge and have vowed to remain for months in protest at over the treatment of two local cattle ranchers — Federal authorities are planning to cut off …

Discussion: Mediaite, addictinginfo.org, Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, alan.com, Occupy Democrats, Shakesville, The Mahablog, Balloon Juice, AlterNet and Los Angeles Times

Lydia O'Connor / The Huffington Post:
Oregon Militants Say They're Getting Worse Treatment Than Black Lives Matter Movement

Discussion: Mediaite, Talking Points Memo, Hullabaloo, Salon, ThinkProgress, Lawyers, Guns & Money, CNN, New York Times, Oregonian, JustOneMinute, Breitbart, Esquire, Daily Kos, Business Insider, Washington Post and Hot Air

Jamelle Bouie / Slate:
Is the Oregon Standoff Evidence of a Racial Double Standard?

Discussion: Vox, The Daily Signal, Oregonian, Guardian, No More Mister Nice Blog, Power Line, Freedom Outpost, AOL and Fox News Insider

BBC:

Germany shocked by Cologne New Year gang assaults on women — The mayor of Cologne has summoned police for crisis talks after about 80 women reported sexual assaults and muggings by men on New Year's Eve. — The scale of the attacks on women at the city's central railway station has shocked Germany.

Discussion: Slate, Spiegel Online, New York Times, Slantpoint, Patterico's Pontifications, ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES, Mediaite, Washington Free Beacon, Hot Air, American Spectator, The Local, Oath Keepers and The Daily Caller

Melissa Eddy / New York Times:

Reports of Attacks on Women in Germany Heighten Tension Over Migrants — BERLIN — The tensions simmering beneath Germany's willingness to take in one million migrants blew into the open on Tuesday after reports that scores of young women in Cologne had been groped and robbed on New Year's Eve …

Discussion: Power Line, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, National Review and Althouse

The Local:
Cover-up claim over NYE mass sexual assaults

Discussion: Telegraph, New York Times, The Daily Caller, Pamela Geller and RT

Alex Isenstadt / Politico:

Trump and Cruz send shivers down GOP spines — With only weeks before GOP primary voters first cast their ballots, the level of alarm among establishment Republicans about the enduring dominance of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz is reaching new heights. — In private conversations with several former aides …

Discussion: Washington Monthly and Shakesville

Andrew Kaczynski / BuzzFeed:

Ted Cruz: Trump Will Let Deported Immigrants Back In, I Won't — “He's advocated allowing folks to come back in and become citizens. I oppose that.” — youtube.com — Ted Cruz said during an appearance in Iowa on Monday that there's a difference between him and Donald Trump on immigration.

Discussion: Sacramento Bee, ThinkProgress, Bloomberg Business, Hot Air, Vox, Washington Post, NBC News and Daily Kos

Caitlin Cruz / Talking Points Memo: Bankers Flood Across The Rio Grande In Bizarre New Ted Cruz Ad (VIDEO)

Chris Cillizza / Washington Post:

This crowd shot from Donald Trump's Massachusetts rally is absolutely mind-boggling — Donald Trump went to Lowell, Mass. — a town about five miles south of the New Hampshire border — for one of his now trademark big-arena rallies on Monday night. This is what the crowd looked like per WaPo's Jenna Johnson.

Discussion: BostonGlobe.com, Mashable, Rush Limbaugh, Boing Boing, AMERICAN DIGEST and The Daily Caller

Jon Palmer / CBS Boston:
Donald Trump-Tom Brady T-Shirt: Trump Approves

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, BizPac Review and The Daily Caller

Kurt Wagner / Re/code:

Twitter Considering 10,000-Character Limit for Tweets — Longer tweets are coming soon to Twitter. — Twitter is building a new feature that will allow users to tweet things longer than the traditional 140-character limit, and the company is targeting a launch date toward the end of Q1 …

Discussion: Business Insider, New York Times, Guardian, Gizmodo, USA Today, WATE-TV, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, all, Mashable, The Verge, SlashGear, Engadget, VentureBeat and Scripting News, more at Mediagazer »

Ben Quinn / Guardian:

MPs to debate banning Donald Trump from UK — Parliamentary hearing triggered by 560,000-signature petition after Republican presidential candidate called for US to bar Muslims — MPs are to debate calls for the US presidential candidate Donald Trump to be banned from the UK following …

Discussion: Vox, BuzzFeed, Business Insider, Mediaite, Political Wire and Mashable

David Granger / Esquire:
A Few Words About Esquire's February Cover Star, Donald Trump

Discussion: Daily Mail, Politico, Washington Post, FishbowlNY and New York Times

Federal Trade Commission:

Lumosity to Pay $2 Million to Settle FTC Deceptive Advertising Charges for Its “Brain Training” Program — Company Claimed Program Would Sharpen Performance in Everyday Life and Protect Against Cognitive Decline — The creators and marketers of the Lumosity “brain training” …

Discussion: New York Magazine, Washington Post, Mashable, The Verge, Gizmodo, STAT and CBS Boston

Mark Chesnut / FIRST FREEDOM:

From The Editor | Ban Antics In New York — What's an anti-gun state legislator to do when the state in which he or she lives already has some of the most restrictive gun-control laws in the nation? Realistically, short of banning all guns and ammunition magazines, what's left to do in the state of New York?

Discussion: Raw Story, Talking Points Memo, addictinginfo.org, New York Daily News and CBS New York

NBC News:

Trump Has Highest Support Among White Evangelicals: Poll — With the presidential primaries in full swing, Donald Trump maintains his sizable lead over the rest of the Republican field. Among Republican or Republican-leaning registered voters, Trump has 35% support compared to 18% for Ted Cruz …

Discussion: NBC News, Washington Post, Politico, MSNBC, The Last Refuge, Vox, Towleroad, Daily Mail, Shakesville and Booman Tribune

Ben Gittleson / ABC News:

Ben Carson Confronted at Town Hall: ‘Do You Think I Chose to Be Gay?’

Discussion: The Daily Caller, addictinginfo.org, Washington Post, Raw Story, Washington Blade and Towleroad

Andrew Kaczynski / BuzzFeed:

Trump: It Would Be Interesting To Ask Bill Clinton The Difference Between Him And Cosby — Trump added that he respects women and that he would protect them. — Hello, it's me. — David Duprey / ASSOCIATED PRESS — w.soundcloud.com — Donald Trump says it would be “very interesting” …

Discussion: Politico

David M. Schwartz / Newsday:

Steve Israel says he won't seek re-election to Congress … Filler: Steve Israel skewers LI, D.C. (and gets it right) — Janison: LI pol packs a punchline — More national politics … Politics — Rep. Steve Israel … TV — Rep. Israel's book may become TV series

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Daily Kos

Sarah Ferris / The Hill:

Bill gutting ObamaCare would save half-trillion over a decade, CBO finds — A GOP-led effort to repeal the biggest parts of ObamaCare would cost about $42 billion less than previously expected, saving more than a half-trillion dollars over a decade, the congressional budget scorekeeper said Monday.

Discussion: The Fiscal Times, Washington Post and Hot Air

Enoch Power / THE NEW REFORM CLUB:

An Open Letter to Mark Steyn, Simon Heffer, Milo Yiannopoulos, Breitbart (London), and His Grace, Archbishop Cranmer — We are rapidly approaching the 50th anniversary of Enoch Powell's Birmingham speech on immigration, more popularly known as the Rivers of Blood speech (April 20, 1968).