memeorandum: Donna Summer Dead: Queen Of Disco Dies At 63 (Kiki Von Glinow/The Huffington Post)

1:25 PM ET, May 17, 2012

Top Items:

G.O.P. ‘Super PAC’ Weighs Hard-Line Attack on Obama — WASHINGTON — A group of high-profile Republican strategists is working with a conservative billionaire on a proposal to mount one of the most provocative campaigns of the “super PAC” era and attack President Obama in ways that Republicans have so far shied away from.

Guy Benson / Townhall.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Romney ‘Repudiates’ Conservative Group's Planned Rev. Wright Attacks — In an exclusive interview with Townhall, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney rebuked a conservative group that is reportedly planning to assail President Obama over his 20-year relationship …

Discussion: msnbc.com, ABCNEWS, Hot Air, ThinkProgress, Washington Post, Daily Kos, The Daily Caller, Guardian, Mother Jones, The Page and Business Insider

New York Times:

‘Super PAC’ Plan to Link Obama to Rev. Wright — A group of high-profile Republican strategists has put forward a plan that calls for running commercials linking Mr. Obama to incendiary comments by his former spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose race-related sermons …

Discussion: Washington Post and The Stranger …

Politico:

Romney repudiates Jeremiah Wright plan — Mitt Romney's campaign says it wants no part of a plan by Republican strategists to attack President Obama by highlighting his ties to pastor Jeremiah Wright. — “It's clear President Obama's team is running a campaign of character assassination,” said Romney Campaign Manager Matt Rhoades.

Discussion: ABCNEWS, American Prospect, msnbc.com and The Raw Story

Jake Tapper / ABCNEWS:
McCain, Romney Camps Decry Super-PAC Proposal to Attack Obama on Rev. Wright

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Business Insider and Daily Kos

Jeremiah Wright / CNN:
Billionaire denounces potential Rev. Wright ad

Discussion: ABCNEWS, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, ThinkProgress and Business Insider

Michael D. Shear / The Caucus:
Romney Rejects Using the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Against Obama

Discussion: Business Insider

Maggie Haberman / Politico: Romney campaign manager: Our focus is the economy

ABCNEWS:

Senators to Unveil the ‘Ex-Patriot Act’ to Respond to Facebook's Saverin's Tax ‘Scheme’ — Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has a status update for Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin: Stop attempting to dodge your taxes by renouncing your U.S. citizenship or never come to back to the U.S. again.

Discussion: TechCrunch, PoliticsPA, The Daily Caller, Clayton Cramer's Blog, The Gateway Pundit and Campaign 2012

Quentin Hardy / New York Times:

A Facebook Co-Founder Reflects on the Path Forward — Eduardo Saverin can escape the United States, but he can't slip Facebook. — “Everything I do in my personal life, in my professional life, it's completely there,” said Mr. Saverin, a Facebook co-founder, in his first major interview.

Discussion: Politico, The Caucus, TechCrunch, DealBook, Mashable!, New York Magazine, Bark Bark Woof Woof, Talking Points Memo and Balloon Juice

Alicia M. Cohn / The Hill:
Dems take aim at Facebook founder for renouncing citizenship

Discussion: ABCNEWS, Bloomberg and New York Magazine

Sabrina Tavernise / New York Times:

WASHINGTON — After years of speculation, estimates and projections, the Census Bureau has made it official: White births are no longer a majority in the United States. — Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 49.6 percent of all births in the 12-month period that ended last July …

Discussion: Real Time Economics, The Daily Dish, Outside the Beltway, pandagon.net, Vox Popoli, Gawker, rightwingwatch.org, The Gateway Pundit and National Review

Washington Post:

Census: Minority babies are now majority in United States — For the first time in U.S. history, most of the nation's babies are members of minority groups, according to new census figures that signal the dawn of an era in which whites no longer will be in the majority.

Discussion: Feministe, Althouse and National Review

Hope Yen / Associated Press: Census: Minorities now surpass whites in US births

Kyle Clark / KUSA-TV:

Rep. Mike Coffman: Obama in his heart ‘not an American’ — “I don't know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don't know that,” Coffman said. “But I do know this, that in his heart, he's not an American. He's just not an American.”

Discussion: Washington Monthly, ThinkProgress, Addicting Info, Mediaite, Livewire, The Raw Story, New York Magazine and Alan Colmes' Liberaland

DealBook:

JPMorgan's Trading Loss Is Said to Rise at Least 50% — The trading losses suffered by JPMorgan Chase have surged in recent days, surpassing the bank's initial $2 billion estimate by at least $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the losses. — When Jamie Dimon …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, ThinkProgress, Bloomberg, The Baseline Scenario, Economix, BillMoyers.com, naked capitalism, New York Times, Business Insider, The Raw Story, New York Magazine, A Blog For All and ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*

David Dayen / Firedoglake:
Elizabeth Warren Expresses No Confidence in Current Bank Accountability Measures

Discussion: Livewire, The Boston Globe and Ballot Box

Michael D. Shear / The Caucus:

Romney Raises $40.1 Million in April, Nearly Matching Obama — Mitt Romney almost matched President Obama in fund-raising during April after securing his party's presidential nomination and joining forces with the Republican National Committee, the campaign will announce on Thursday.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, RedState, Media Decoder, Campaign 2012, ABCNEWS, Taylor Marsh, Hot Air, Connecting.the.Dots, americanthinker.com, White House Dossier, New York Times and Washington Post

Jon Ralston / Las Vegas Sun Blogs:
RNC, Romney campaign will erect new organization to bypass state GOP

Discussion: Washington Post, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Ballot Box, Politico and Hot Air

New York Post:

RFK Jr.'s wife hangs herself — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Mary arrive at Sen. Ted Kennedy's funeral in 2009. — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s estranged wife, Mary, who battled her husband's rumored philandering by turning to alcohol and prescription drugs, hanged herself in a barn …

Discussion: americanthinker.com, iOwnTheWorld.com, Althouse and Gothamist

Serge F. Kovaleski / New York Times:

Trayvon Martin Case Shadowed by Series of Police Missteps — SANFORD, Fla. — The killing of Trayvon Martin here two and a half months ago has been cast as the latest test of race relations and equal justice in America. But it was also a test of a small city police department that does …

Discussion: the daily howler, Prairie Weather, Business Insider, Taylor Marsh and Fox News

msnbc.com:
Trayvon Martin killed by single gunshot fired from ‘intermediate range,’ autopsy shows

Discussion: Little Green Footballs

Jim Tankersley / NationalJournal.com:

Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality — If you're plugged into the Internet, chances are you've seen a TED talk - the wonky, provocative web videos that have become a sort of nerd franchise. TED.com is where you go to find Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg explaining why the world has too few female leaders …

Discussion: Wonkette, Restoration Roundtable, The Raw Story, Mother Jones, The Stranger …, Balloon Juice, Business Insider and Guardian

Jim Tankersley / Restoration Roundtable:
The Inequality Speech That TED Won't Show You

Discussion: Ezra Klein and Business Insider

Kiki Von Glinow / The Huffington Post:

Donna Summer Dead: Queen Of Disco Dies At 63 … FOLLOW: — Video, Bad Girls, Celebrity Deaths, Donna Summer, Donna Summer 63, Donna Summer Cancer, Donna Summer Dead, Donna Summer Dies, Donna Summer Disco, Donna Summer Songs, Hot Stuff, Love To Love You Baby, Queen Of Disco, Slideexpand, Celebrity News

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, TMZ.com and Gawker

Reuters:

Plans to strike Iran “ready,” says U.S. Israel envoy — JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. plans for a possible military strike on Iran are ready and the option is “fully available”, the U.S. ambassador to Israel said, days before Tehran resumes talks with world powers which suspect it of seeking to develop nuclear arms.

Discussion: The Hill, National Review and emptywheel

Reid J. Epstein / Politico:

Mitt Romney's Bill Clinton strategy — Dee Dee Myers, a White House spokeswoman during Clinton's first term, said Romney will need to find a better messenger than himself to speak to Democrats disaffected by Obama. — “I don't think Democrats or even Democratic-leaning independents turn …

Discussion: American Prospect and Washington Post

David Dayen / Firedoglake:

A Pro-Austerity Chart, and Why the President Is Touting It — This chart, put together by Michael Linden at the Center for American Progress, shows the Obama Administration's performance on fiscal policy over his term in office. It shows that spending, taxes and the deficit are all lower …

Discussion: Hullabaloo, BBC and Bark Bark Woof Woof

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:

Democrats' Odds of Retaining Senate Improve — When we last took an overview of Senate races in December, Republicans appeared to be slight favorites to take control from Democrats, with a net gain of four to five seats representing the most likely outcome.

Discussion: American Prospect, Taegan Goddard's …, Washington Post and A plain blog about politics