memeorandum: I endorse Bernie Sanders for President of the United States. (Robert Reich/Facebook)

9:30 AM ET, February 27, 2016

Top Items:

Lindsey Ellefson / Mediaite:

The ‘Stump for Trump’ Girls Just Said on CNN That Marco Rubio Had ‘A Gay Lifestyle’ — You know those “Stump for Trump Girls, Lynette “Diamond” Hardaway and Rochelle “Silk” Richardson? Well, in case you don't follow them on Twitter and didn't get the memo, they were on CNN this morning.

Discussion: New York Times, ABC News, The Gateway Pundit, addictinginfo.org, Marco Rubio, Guardian, CNN, Raw Story, Politico, Business Insider, WBUR, Fox News Insider, Vox, Telegraph and The Week

Sean Sullivan / Washington Post:

Rubio and Trump now at war for the GOP's future — Marco Rubio and Donald Trump emerged Friday as the principal antagonists in an all-out brawl for the future of the Republican Party, as establishment opposition to the front-runner's candidacy started to crumble with a high-profile endorsement by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Discussion: Politico, Los Angeles Times, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, ThinkProgressPage Array, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Balloon Juice and American Power

New York Times:

Donald Trump and Chris Christie Start a Bully Bromance — Those who have witnessed Gov. Chris Christie's performance both in New Jersey and in the national arena over the past couple of years almost could have seen Friday's sweaty embrace of Donald Trump coming. Almost.

Discussion: Politico and The Week

Maggie Haberman / New York Times:

Donald Trump Might Not Keep Paying for His Campaign Himself, Chris Christie Suggests — Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey told his finance team late Friday that he anticipates that Donald J. Trump, who often boasts that he is funding his own campaign, will begin to solicit campaign contributions …

Discussion: CNN

Maggie Haberman / New York Times:

Chris Christie Endorses Donald Trump and Calls Marco Rubio ‘Desperate’ — Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey endorsed Donald J. Trump on Friday, a major turn in a wild race and one that gives the New York businessman a significant boost as he heads into the pivotal “Super Tuesday” contests.

Sahil Kapur / Bloomberg Business:
Chris Christie Delivers Major Blow to Party Elites Resisting Trump

Discussion: WMTW-TV

Brian Beutler / New Republic: Marco Rubio's Trump Attacks Expose Uncomfortable Truths for the Right

Ben Kamisar / The Hill: Rubio jokes that Trump may have wet his pants during debate

Jonathan Bernstein / BloombergView.com:
Trump's Debate Was a Disaster. If Voters Notice.

Discussion: Bloomberg Business, Shadowproof, The Federalist, Diane Ravitch's blog, New York Magazine, Mashable and MarketWatch

Nick Gass / Politico:
Haley: I'll support Trump if it comes to that

Discussion: RedState, WYFF-TV and Mediaite

Nolan D. McCaskill / Politico:
8 times Chris Christie suggested Donald Trump shouldn't be president

Discussion: Salon, Washington Post, No More Mister Nice Blog, Mediaite, ABC News, Downtrend, Hit & Run, BuzzFeed, The Federalist, Jezebel, MichelleMalkin.com, TODAY.com, The Resurgent and The Week

Politifact.com Truth-O-Meter rulings from National:
Marco Rubio: Says Donald Trump hired illegal workers “from Poland and he had to pay a million dollars …

Discussion: TheStreet.com, CNN, Hot Topics, Jezebel, The Daily Caller, Naked Politics and ImmigrationProf Blog

John Koblin / New York Times:

Melissa Harris-Perry Walks Off Her MSNBC Show After Pre-emptions — In an unusually public flare-up, one of MSNBC's television personalities clashed with the network on Friday in a dispute about airtime and editorial freedom and said she was refusing to host the show that bears her name this weekend.

Discussion: BizPac Review, Mediaite, Hot Air, addictinginfo.org, Jezebel, Talking Points Memo, TVNewser, Outside the Beltway, The Last Tradition and theGrio, more at Mediagazer »

Jamil Smith:

Melissa Harris-Perry's Email to Her #nerdland Staff — On Friday afternoon, media reports emerged about my friend Melissa Harris-Perry's refusal to host her eponymous weekend program on MSNBC on Saturday. I was one of the original producers on the show when it launched in 2012, leaving for another job in 2015.

Discussion: Downtrend, Mashable, Daily Kos, Politicus USA, Mediaite, Business Insider and New York Magazine, more at Mediagazer »

Anne Gearan / Washington Post:

What happens when Hillary Clinton crashes a bachelor party? She's in the photos. — Candidates battle for young black votes — The campaign trail has taken Hillary Clinton through coffee shops and bakeries, diners and ice cream parlors, stands at state fairs where they fry things that shouldn't be fried.

Discussion: Taylor Marsh, Los Angeles Times, CBS News, BizPac Review, Politico, PAPERMAG and Tennessean.com

Anne Gearan / Washington Post:
In South Carolina, will Clinton's expected victory shift momentum?

Discussion: Politico, Political Wire and Common Dreams

Ian Tuttle / National Review:

Yes, Trump University Was a Massive Scam — Many people believe that higher education is a de facto scam. Trump University, Donald Trump's real-estate institution, was a de jure one. — First thing first, Trump University was never a university. When the “school” was established in 2005 …

Discussion: Raw Story, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Patterico's Pontifications, LawNewz, Yahoo Politics and RedState

Alexander Burns / New York Times:
Group to Air Ads Featuring Ex-Students Saying Trump University Deceived Them

Discussion: Newsmax, RedState, Hot Air and Instapundit

New York Times:

Inside the Republican Party's Desperate Mission to Stop Donald Trump — The scenario Karl Rove outlined was bleak. — Addressing a luncheon of Republican governors and donors in Washington on Feb. 19, he warned that Donald J. Trump's increasingly likely nomination would be catastrophic, dooming the party in November.

David Brooks / New York Times:

The Governing Cancer of Our Time — We live in a big, diverse society. There are essentially two ways to maintain order and get things done in such a society — politics or some form of dictatorship. Either through compromise or brute force. Our founding fathers chose politics.

Discussion: Salon, Outside the Beltway, Daily Kos and Slantpoint

Olaf Ekberg / The American Mirror:

VIDEO: Bill Clinton snaps at veteran during speech: ‘Shut up and listen to my answer’ — The long hours and grueling pace of the presidential campaign may be finally catching up with a rapidly aging Bill Clinton. — During an appearance in Bluffton, South Carolina on Friday …

Robert Reich / Facebook:

I endorse Bernie Sanders for President of the United States. He's leading a movement to reclaim America for the many, not the few. And such a political mobilization - a “political revolution,” as he puts it -\-\ is the only means by which we can get the nation back from the moneyed interests …

Discussion: Raw Story, Slantpoint and Vox Popoli

A Current Affair / 9news.com.au:

Queensland man has spent ‘$100,000’ contesting $250 speeding ticket — A Queensland man who has allegedly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars contesting a $250 speeding fine has vowed to become the first person to contest a speeding ticket in the High Court of Australia.

Discussion: Sputnik International and FOX31 Denver

Lachlan Markay / Washington Free Beacon:

Feds Flag Thousands of Illegal Bernie Sanders Contributions — Thousands of contributions to Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' campaign in January violated federal campaign finance laws, election regulators said on Thursday. — The Federal Election Commission sent a letter …

Discussion: Hot Air and National Review

Isabel Kershner / New York Times:

She Was Asked to Switch Seats. Now She's Charging El Al With Sexism. — JERUSALEM — Renee Rabinowitz is a sharp-witted retired lawyer with a Ph.D. in educational psychology, who escaped the Nazis in Europe as a child. Now she is about to become a test case in the battle over religion …

Discussion: The Times of Israel, Above the Law and Jezebel

Brady Dennis / Washington Post:

U.S. details 9 Zika pregnancies: 2 abortions, 2 miscarriages, 1 baby with ‘severe microcephaly’ — At least two pregnant women in the United States infected with the Zika virus have chosen to have abortions in recent months, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday, while two others have suffered miscarriages.

Richard Rubin / Wall Street Journal:

IRS Commissioner Says Donald Trump's Audit Scenario ‘Rare’ — It's “rare” for an individual taxpayer to be audited every year, as Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump says he has, said John Koskinen, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.

Discussion: Mediaite