memeorandum: Obama: I'll veto bill that will provide water to California's Central Valley (Ed Morrissey/Hot Air)

11:10 PM ET, February 29, 2012

Top Items:

Rick Santorum / CNN:

Santorum camp: Michigan's a tie — (CNN) - Armed with a new delegate count, a Rick Santorum adviser on Wednesday painted Tuesday's contests as a “disaster” for Mitt Romney. — John Brabender said the campaign's count proves Santorum and Romney are tied in delegates won …

Discussion: Politico, The Other McCain, msnbc.com, The Caucus, 2012 Decoded, Liberal Values, Big Government, Mediaite, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, American Spectator, Donklephant, BuzzFeed, Riehl World View and Connecting.the.Dots

Ashley Perks / Ballot Box:
Ohio is next battlefield for the GOP

Discussion: CNN

Sean Trende / Real Clear Politics:
Odds of a Brokered Convention Are Increasing

Discussion: Hot Air, Washington Post, American Prospect, Salon, Firedoglake, Daily Kos, Wake up America, Outside the Beltway, Ballot Box, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, Dean's World, Indecision Forever and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Tom Cohen / CNN:
Romney, Santorum tie for Michigan delegates

Discussion: The Reaction, Washington Post, New York Times, Gawker, Don Surber, American Power, The Heritage Foundation and FiveThirtyEight

New York Post:
Mitt wins the base

Discussion: Washington Post and Hot Air

Ed Kilgore / Washington Monthly:
Santorum Loses Catholic Vote—But Did He Ever Have It?

Discussion: NY Daily News, hanoverhenry's Diary, The Caucus, Outside the Beltway, The Agonist, The New Republic, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Washington Post

Matt Vasilogambros / NationalJournal.com:
Gingrich Super PAC Rep: Santorum Could Win ‘If He Could Speak English’

Discussion: The Hill and Washington Post

Ross Douthat / Campaign Stops:
What Mitt Lost While He Won

Discussion: p m carpenter's commentary, The Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times and Prairie Weather

Maureen Dowd / New York Times:
G.O.P. Greek Tragedy

Discussion: Daily Kos, The Hinterland Gazette, The PJ Tatler and The Caucus

Michael Barone / Campaign 2012: Romney appeal in affluent suburbs could change map

Alex Seitz-Wald / ThinkProgress:

Limbaugh Calls Student Denied Spot At Contraception Hearing A ‘Slut’ — Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown student whom House Republicans wouldn't let testify at a contraception hearing last week, a “slut” and a “prostitute” today, because …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The Moderate Voice, The Political Carnival, The Maddow Blog, Hullabaloo, The Gateway Pundit, Little Green Footballs, Balloon Juice and CNSNews

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:

Romney comes out against ‘Blunt-Rubio’ — Jim Heath, a reporter for ONN-TV in Ohio, just Tweeted a remarkable piece of news: Mitt Romney told him he does not support the Blunt amendment, which would empower employers and insurers to deny health coverage they find morally objectionable.

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Mother Jones, Metro, The PJ Tatler, LifeNews.com, Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo and American Spectator

Daniel Strauss / The Hill:

Sen. Manchin will vote for Blunt amendment on contraceptive care — Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) will vote for Sen. Roy Blunt's (R-Mo.) amendment on the Obama administration's contraception mandate. — “While I would have preferred that both sides would have come together around a solution …

Discussion: Power Line, CNN, The Hill and Sky Dancing

Sahil Kapur / 2012.talkingpointsmemo.com:
TPM2012 — Romney Comes Out In Support Of Controversial Birth Control Bill

Discussion: Little Green Footballs and Plutocrap

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
GOP divided on birth control?

Discussion: Firedoglake, New York Times, American Prospect, Daily Kos and ThinkProgress

Max Abelson / Bloomberg:

Wall Street Bonus Drop Means Trading Aspen for Discount Cereal — Andrew Schiff was sitting in a traffic jam in California this month after giving a speech at an investment conference about gold. He turned off the satellite radio, got out of the car and screamed a profanity.

Discussion: Jay Bookman, Shakesville, TBogg, Gawker, US Politics, Gothamist, Mock, Paper, Scissors, Boing Boing, Sky Dancing, RADAMISTO and Eschaton, more at Mediagazer »

Megan McArdle / The Atlantic Online:

Are the Rich Completely Undeserving of Sympathy? — I saw a fair amount of chortling this morning about this Bloomberg piece on wealthy financial-industry types who are having to cut back because of plummeting bonuses. And to be sure, some of the cuts are in the “Call me a Waaaah-mbulance” category: can't go to Aspen any more?

Discussion: Washington Monthly, No More Mister Nice Blog, Lawyers, Guns & Money and Balloon Juice

Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:

Obama's Most Dangerous GOP Opponent: Netanyahu — This is disturbing news: … What it amounts to is a formal declaration that, if the US attempts at any point to differ seriously with Israel's far right, the alliance is over. That's after the most serious sanctions ever imposed on Iran …

Discussion: Israel Matzav and Balloon Juice

Jerusalem Post:
‘19% of Israelis support non-US-backed Iran strike’

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Israel Matzav

Barak Ravid / Haaretz:
Netanyahu will ask Obama to threaten Iran strike

Discussion: The Daily Dish, ABCNEWS, LewRockwell.com Blog, ABCNEWS, Mother Jones and Politico

Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movies and TV:

One Million Homophobic Moms Target Archie Comics And Toys R Us (UPDATED) — UPDATE: John Goldwater, c0-CEO of Archie Comics has responded to the story below. He writes; … Despite a few Fox News commentators, the introduction of gay characters and gay marriage into Archie Comics had gone down rather smoothly.

Discussion: Mediaite, The Daily What, Towleroad News #gay, Dependable Renegade and rightwingwatch.org

Erick Erickson / Erick's blog:

Three Percent — When you have a candidate few people really like, whose support is a mile wide and an inch deep, whose raison d'etre (a 4am fancy word) is fixing an economy that is fixing itself without him, and who only wins his actual, factual home state by three percentage points …

Discussion: Booman Tribune, Jay Bookman, A Certain Enthusiasm, Balloon Juice and Washington Post

Jim O'Sullivan / Hotline On Call:

Poll Shows Brown Leading Warren by 10 — Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., leads Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren by 10 points in a private Massachusetts Senate race poll. — The poll, conducted by Opinion Dynamics for Boston-based consulting firm Mass Insight Global Partnerships …

Discussion: Library Grape

John S. Adams / Great Falls Tribune:

Chief U.S. District Judge sends racially charged email about president — HELENA — Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull on Wednesday admitted to sending a racially charged email about President Barack Obama from his courthouse chambers. — Cebull, of Billings, was nominated …

Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money

Peter Schroeder / The Hill:

Bernanke warns lawmakers nation headed for ‘massive fiscal cliff’ — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned Congress Wednesday it risked taking the nation over a “massive fiscal cliff” at the end of the year. — The central bank's boss warned expiring tax cuts and spending cuts set …

Discussion: Politico

Bloomberg:
U.S. Business Activity Improves in Sign Demand to Sustain Growth: Economy

Discussion: Daily Kos and US Politics

Adam Mann / Wired:

1 in 8 Chance of Catastrophic Solar Megastorm by 2020 — The Earth has a roughly 12 percent chance of experiencing an enormous megaflare erupting from the sun in the next decade. This event could potentially cause trillions of dollars' worth of damage and take up to a decade to recover from.

Discussion: Gawker

ABCNEWS:

Romney Says He Owns Guns - But Does He? — COLUMBUS, Ohio - At a town hall here, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said, in response to a question about gun control, “I have guns myself.” — “I believe in the second amendment, I'll protect the second amendment, I have guns myself,” …

Discussion: The Hill

Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:

Obama: I'll veto bill that will provide water to California's Central Valley — I've called the judicially-imposed drought in California's Central Valley “the Dust Bowl Congress created” through its creation of the Endangered Species Act, invoked in this case by the Delta smelt, a fish that's not suitable for eating.

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, Hit & Run and Ed Driscoll

Christian Hartsock / Big Journalism:

EXCLUSIVE: O'Keefe Files Suit Against Al Gore's Current TV, Keith Olbermann, David Shuster — Conservative filmmaker James O'Keefe filed suit for defamation this morning against Al Gore's CurrentTV, as well as “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann and guest host David Shuster …

Discussion: Mediaite, Patterico's Pontifications and National Review

Stephen Adams / Telegraph:

Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say — Parents should be allowed to have their newborn babies killed because they are “morally irrelevant” and ending their lives is no different to abortion, a group of medical ethicists linked to Oxford University has argued.

Discussion: National Review, Grim's Hall and Power Line

Stephen Galloway / Hollywood Reporter:

Whatever Happened to Ted Turner? — The “Mouth of the South” is no longer as he devotes his time (and $1 billion) to the U.N., jets between 28 homes and four girlfriends, misses Jane Fonda and opens up to THR about Rupert, Jerry and his abuse as a child. Says a friend: “He's definitely changed.”

Discussion: The Impolitic, The Daily Caller, Weasel Zippers, Michelle Malkin and The PJ Tatler, more at Mediagazer »

Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs:

Muslim Fascists' Virulent Jew-Hatred At The University of California-Davis Last Night — University of California-Davis has a disruptive group of Muslim brownshirts who take every chance they can to act in a disgusting manner to enforce the blasphemy laws under the sharia (restriction of free speech).

Discussion: Jihad Watch

Michael Levenson / The Boston Globe:

Mormons baptized slain reporter Daniel Pearl — Members of the Mormon Church last year posthumously baptized Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was captured and killed by terrorists in Pakistan shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to records uncovered by a researcher in Utah.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Crooks and Liars, TBogg, Firedoglake and US Politics

TMZ.com:

Davy Jones Dead — Monkees Singer Dies at 66 From Heart Attack — From Heart Attack — Davy Jones — lead singer of The Monkees — died after suffering a heart attack this morning ... TMZ has learned. — An official from the medical examiner's office for Martin County …

Discussion: USA Today, msnbc.com, Little Green Footballs and Scared Monkeys