‘Obama ... Stressed He Probably Knows About Judaism More than Any Other President’  —  President Obama met yesterday with “about 20 Conservative Jewish community leaders, thanking them for the work they do to improve communities around the country and discussed their shared commitment to rebuilding the U.S. economy,” Haaretz reports.

Video: Fox's “Four years of hope and change”; Update: “Not authorized at the senior executive level of the network”  —  Considering the source.  —  I don't disagree with much, if anything, in this video presented earlier today on Fox & Friends.  Neither, I suspect, will many of our readers.

Marquette Law School Poll finds Walker leads Barrett in Wisconsin recall  —  Milwaukee, Wis. - A new Marquette Law School poll finds Governor Scott Walker with 52 percent to Mayor Tom Barrett with 45 percent among 600 likely voters in next week's recall election.  That lead falls slightly short of statistical significance.

Bloomberg Plans a Ban on Large Sugared Drinks  —  New York City plans to enact a far-reaching ban on the sale of large sodas and other sugary drinks at restaurants, movie theaters and street carts, in the most ambitious effort yet by the Bloomberg administration to combat rising obesity.

WOW: In No State Is a 40-Hour, Minimum Wage Work Week Enough to Afford a Two-Bedroom Apartment  —  The above graphic exploded on Facebook this weekend.  It shows how many minimum wage hours a worker needs to work in order to be able to afford a two-bedroom unit at “Fair Market Rent” in any given state.

Romney Rebounds Among Women, While Obama's Favorability Slips  —  A sharp advance among women has boosted Mitt Romney to his highest favorability rating of the presidential campaign - albeit still an unusually weak one - while Barack Obama's personal popularity has slipped in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll.

Liz Warren just won't commit  —  She's promised to get tough with Wall Street, but Elizabeth Warren yesterday refused to commit to one-on-one debates with hard-charging opponent Marisa DeFranco — a dodge one leading Democratic analyst said could raise questions about whether the party elite's favorite has what it takes.

Obama's teenage pot use get the Taiwanese treatment as company creates cartoon of President getting high  —  Like Justin Beiber's recent tussle with the paparazzi and Lindsay Lohan's trips in and out of court, President Barack Obama's pot smoking days have been given the Taiwanese animation treatment.

AP wants to get prostitutes away from its DC bureau  —  The Associated Press is trying to get its Washington, DC bureau designated a “prostitution free zone.”  —  THE MEMO:  —  From: Tobias, Ed  —  Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 08:58 AM  —  To: !  All WDC Staff  —  Subject: Prostitutes on 13th Street

Report: Chavez's cancer has ‘entered the end stage’  —  A special report from Dan Rather, anchor and managing editor of HDNet's Dan Rather Report  —  This reporter has been told that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma, an aggressive cancer that has “entered the end stage”.

ARTUR DAVIS, FORMER BLACK CAUCUS MEMBER, SWITCHES TO GOP  —  Artur Davis was first elected to Congress from Alabama in 2002.  The Harvard Law School grad was quickly tapped as a rising star among Democrats.  He became a Senior Whip for the caucus, co-chair the New Democrat Coalition …

Schumer calls for federal review of grill brush safety, possible recall  —  Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has called on the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to review whether metal grill brushes are safe for consumer use …

Bain is fair game for Obama  —  The Obama campaign's attacks on Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain are not attacks on free enterprise, capitalism or even private equity.  —  Capitalism did not require Bain to issue debt that GS Steel could not afford to repay, mainly to put money in the pockets of Bain partners.

The Romney campaign's surreal arguments about the economy  —  You really couldn't make this one up if you tried.  —  The Romney campaign is out with a new press release blasting Obama for presiding over a “net” loss in jobs.  As I've been saying far too often, this metric is bogus …

Allen West challenges MSNBC's Hayes  —  Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) is offering up a punishment of sorts for MSNBC host Chris Hayes.  —  Hayes found himself in hot water this weekend when he said he felt “uncomfortable” calling fallen soldiers “heroes” - remarks for which he later apologized.

CBO: Obama stimulus may have cost as much as $4.1 million a job  —  The Congressional Budget Office in a new report: … OK, so without the stimulus, there would be anywhere from 200,000 to 1.5 million fewer people employed right now?  That means the current cost-per-job created is somewhere between $4.1 million and $540,000.

Happy Birthday to Me  —  I turn 66 years old today.  Here's a pic from a couple of days ago.  —  I've still got maybe 25 pounds to lose to reach my ultimate goal, but otherwise I feel pretty good.  I'm biking every day, lifting weights twice a week, doing a hundred gut-crunches every other day …

Economically, Obama Is No Jimmy Carter  —  President Obama faces re-election amid a mixed and mediocre set of economic indicators.  While there has been some improvement in the economy, most major indicators still show below-average growth.  —  The most instructive comparisons for Mr. Obama might …

Illinois State Rep. Goes Berserk in Epic Rant  —  CHICAGO - Lawmakers around the country have gone on some impressive rants in recent years - Rep. Anthony Weiner's outrage over the 9-11 first responders' bill and Rep. Patrick Kennedy's fury over the war in Afghanistan spring to mind …

Serpent-handling pastor profiled earlier in Washington Post dies from rattlesnake bite  —  Mack Wolford, a flamboyant Pentecostal pastor from West Virginia whose serpent-handling talents were profiled last November in The Washington Post Magazine , hoped the outdoor service he had planned …

Team Romney: Not gonna play repudiation game  —  Mitt Romney's refusal to repudiate Donald Trump sends a signal, both to Democrats and the voting public: With the nation's future at stake in this November's election, Romney will not accommodate calls that he disown supporters who make ill-considered …

Son Of Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs Awarded Full Scholarship To UCLA  —  WESTWOOD (CBS) — Controversy was raised among the UCLA community Tuesday after a football scholarship was granted to the son of music mogul Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs, who is reportedly worth half a billion dollars.

E.J. Dionne's self-refuting shot at Mitt Romney  —  In a previous post, I commented on a piece in which E.J. Dionne argues that contemporary conservatism has abandoned the most attractive features of the traditional conservative movement.  I tried to show that Dionne's thesis is based …