memeorandum: My answer to the Conservative Political Action Conference (Chris Hayes/msnbc.com)

6:55 AM ET, February 24, 2013

Top Items:

Woodward Misses The Mark — For the past 18 hours Republicans have been giddily waving around a new article by Bob Woodward as a smoking gun that proves sequestration should be replaced with spending cuts and spending cuts only — and that President Obama once conceded the point.

Discussion: The Impolitic, No More Mister Nice Blog, Business Insider, Gretawire and Pew Research Center …

Bob Woodward / Washington Post:

Obama's sequester deal-changer — Bob Woodward (woodwardb@washpost.com) is an associate editor of The Post. His latest book is “The Price of Politics.” Evelyn M. Duffy contributed to this column. — Misunderstanding, misstatements and all the classic contortions of partisan message management surround …

Ian Millhiser / ThinkProgress:

13 GOP Pennsylvania Senators Introduce New Plan To Rig The Electoral College For Republicans … Earlier this year, Republican National Committee Chair urged Republican lawmakers in states “that have been consistently blue that are fully controlled red” — i.e. blue states with Republican legislatures …

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Neil King Jr / Washington Wire:

Gov. Rick Perry: Texas Will Never Go Blue — For many, it's the country's ultimate over-the-horizon electoral question: Could Texas become a blue state? — To which Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry emits a hearty guffaw. Texas going blue, he says, “is the biggest pipedream I have ever heard.”

Associated Press:

Court Finds No Right to Conceal a Firearm — DENVER (AP) — A federal appeals court has ruled that permits allowing people to carry concealed weapons are not protected by the Second Amendment. — The ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit was issued Friday …

Madeleine Morgenstern / TheBlaze.com:

TED CRUZ RESPONDS TO ‘NEW MCCARTHY’ NEW YORKER ARTICLE: ‘CURIOUS’ THEY WOULD ‘DREDGE UP A 3-YEAR-OLD SPEECH & CALL IT NEWS’ … Sen. Ted Cruz's office told TheBlaze it was “curious” that the New Yorker would dig up a years-old speech for the purpose of dubbing him “our new McCarthy.”

Discussion: News Desk, The Hill, Weasel Zippers, PoliticusUSA, Addicting Info, Crooks and Liars and Mediaite

Zack Beauchamp / ThinkProgress:
Ted Cruz Claims He Has A List Of Communists Who Have Infiltrated Harvard Law

Discussion: News Desk, alan.com and Weasel Zippers

Little Green Footballs:

Dumbest Man on Internet's New Paranoid Fantasy: VA Prohibits Veterans From Owning Guns! — Yes, another stupid lie from Jim Hoft — Charles Johnson — Insane paranoid fantasies gush out of the right wing like water from a firehose, and today Jim Hoft, the legendary dumbest man on the Internet …

Discussion: Hullabaloo, Whiskey Fire and The Gateway Pundit

Ed O'Keefe / Washington Post:

Senators near a deal on background checks for most private gun sales — A bipartisan group of senators is on the verge of a deal that would expand background checks to all private firearms sales with limited exemptions, but significant disagreements remain on the issue of keeping records …

Discussion: Doug Ross and Weasel Zippers

Chris Hayes / msnbc.com:

My answer to the Conservative Political Action Conference — So last week, I was surprised and oddly delighted by something that my friend Rachel Maddow also picked up on: … Yes, the legendary Conservative Political Action Conference had invited yours truly to participate at its 40th annual conference this March.

Discussion: Addicting Info, Red Alert Politics, BuzzFeed, The Daily Caller, Washington Examiner and Twitchy

Aviva Shen / ThinkProgress:

House Republicans Strip Protections From LGBT Victims In New Violence Against Women Act — The Violence Against Women Act expired at the end of 2012 after House Republicans refused to accept the Senate bill's protections for LGBT, Native American, and undocumented victims.

Discussion: The Raw Story, Addicting Info, msnbc.com, The Other McCain, The Democratic Daily, Talking Points Memo and The Maddow Blog

Jennifer Bendery / The Huffington Post:
VAWA 2013: House GOP Unveils Bill With No LGBT Protections, Modified Tribal Provision

Discussion: msnbc.com, Back2Stonewall, ThinkProgress, Taylor Marsh and Daily Kos

Ian Millhiser / ThinkProgress:

Montana Bill Would Give Corporations The Right To Vote … A bill introduced by Montana state Rep. Steve Lavin would give corporations the right to vote in municipal elections: … The idea that “corporations are people, my friend” as Mitt Romney put it, is sadly common among conservative lawmakers.

Discussion: The Raw Story, Flathead Memo and Prairie Weather

Sean Wilentz / New York Review of Books:

Cherry-Picking Our History — The Untold History of the United States — a book and television series by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick — Gallery Books, 750 pp., $30.00; Showtime, ten episodes — President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace during …

Discussion: Power Line

Kurt Badenhausen / Forbes:

Detroit Tops 2013 List Of America's Most Miserable Cities — Forbes put Detroit Mayor Dave Bing on its cover in 2011 for a story with the optimistic headline: “City of Hope.” The premise was that the city had hit rock bottom and was poised for a turnaround. — “Right now, it's all about survival,” Bing told Forbes.