memeorandum: Kuwaiti gets 10 years for Twitter blasphemy (Sylvia Westall/Reuters)

9:00 AM ET, June 5, 2012

Top Items:

Robin Bravender / Politico:

Wisconsin recall: Democrats prepare for recall recount — Brace yourself: Wisconsin Democrats say they are preparing for the event that the hotly contested recall race could drag on for weeks, or even longer. — Floating the prospect of a recount is, of course, a message that bolsters …

Discussion: Washington Examiner, WTAQ News Talk 97.5FM … and Hot Air

Robin Bravender / Politico:

Wisconsin Dems sidestep labor debate in recall — MILWAUKEE — The bitter battle over union rights in Wisconsin sent masses of angry protesters flooding into the streets, placed the state at the center of a national debate over Big Labor's power and sparked the historic recall to topple GOP Gov. Scott Walker.

Discussion: Right Wing News, National Review and The Daily Caller

Justin Sink / The Hill:

Gov. Walker knocks Obama for shying away from Wisconsin recall — GOP Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said Monday that President Barack Obama's decision to shy away from campaigning on behalf of Democratic challenger Tom Barrett before Tuesday's election shows “there is a real concern” …

Discussion: Politico, CNN, Pirate's Cove, Washington Post and Guardian

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:

Late Polls Find Walker Is Still Favored — Two polls released over the weekend suggest that Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican, remains the clear favorite to win Tuesday's recall election. — Although the contest is fairly close, polls of gubernatorial races are ordinarily quite reliable in the late stages of a race.

Discussion: American Prospect, The Daily Caller, Taegan Goddard's …, Georgia Tipsheet, Hot Air, Guardian, About.com Conservative …, The Gateway Pundit, NoisyRoom.net and Business Insider

Walter Russell Mead / Via Meadia:
Intrade Has Walker's Chances over 90%; NY Times in Panic Mode

Discussion: Campaign 2012, The New Republic, his vorpal sword, The Daily Beast, New York Times, NewsBusters.org, The Daily Dish and The Gateway Pundit

Mickey Kaus / The Daily Caller:
Notes on Wisconsin — Notes on Wisconsin: 1) Tomorrow's recall …

Discussion: Bloomberg, The Huffington Post, Althouse and msnbc.com

Monica Davey / New York Times:
Wisconsin Governor Recall Election Is Today

Discussion: The Caucus and Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog

Josh Eidelson / Salon:
Wisconsin's resentment factor

Discussion: Washington Monthly and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Will Oremus / Slate:
What the Wisconsin Recall Tells Us About November: Nothing

Discussion: Hot Air, NewsBusters.org, New York Times, The Daily Beast, The New Republic, The Caucus, CNN and American Power

Scott Bauer / Associated Press:
What to know about the Wisconsin recall vote

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Los Angeles Times, Right Wing News and The Huffington Post

weaskamerica.com:
Who Survives? — Our final poll in the Wisconsin gubernatorial …

Discussion: New York Post, Taylor Marsh, Business Insider, Angus Reid Public Opinion, Hot Air, ThinkProgress, National Review, Washington Free Beacon, Weekly Standard and New York Times

Ezra Klein:

The Keynesian case for Romney — Even if you disagree with every one of Mitt Romney's policies, there's a chance he's still the best candidate to lift the economy in 2013. — That's not because he has business experience. For all his bluster about the lessons taught by the private sector …

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog, Washington Post, Business Insider, Slate, Hot Air and Conservatives4Palin

Bernie Becker / The Hill:
Obama joins Dem blitz before Senate vote on equal pay measure

Discussion: Politico

Alex Isenstadt / Politico:

Giffords's potential successor runs from Obama — When it comes to President Barack Obama and the special House election to succeed Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, there's the personal and then there's the political. — The personal: Days after bullets pierced his thigh and cheek in the shooting rampage …

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit and Ballot Box

Emily Goodin / Ballot Box:
OVERNIGHT CAMPAIGN: Proxy battles and recall matches

Discussion: CNN, Towleroad News #gay, Guardian and The Hill

BuzzFeed:

Bill Clinton: Romney Presidency Would Be Calamitous For The World — Last week he complimented Romney, today he doesn't pull any punches. — (AP / Ronald Zak) — Former President Bill Clinton warned of global danger in the event Mitt Romney wins in the fall — a shift in tone …

Discussion: Taylor Marsh

Bill Clinton / CNN:
Clinton and Obama hit up the Big Apple

Discussion: Politico and Weekly Standard

New York Post:

Team O turns tone-deaf — Remember how all the buzz about the 2008 campaign was how young and fresh and new and exciting and YouTube-y and Internet-y and Will.I.AM-y the Obama campaign was? Well, the Obama 2012 campaign is turning into . . . a raffle. Or a school auction. Or something.

Discussion: Pundit & Pundette and Betsy's Page

ABCNEWS:
RNC Web Video Lampoons Obama's Anna Wintour Fundraising Effort

Discussion: The Daily Dish, The Daily Caller, Washington Post, Power Line, Weasel Zippers, No More Mister Nice Blog, Mediaite and Political Economy

Joel B. Pollak / BREITBART.COM:

EXCLUSIVE - THE VETTING - SENATOR BARACK OBAMA ATTENDED BILL AYERS BARBECUE, JULY 4, 2005 — As a presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama disavowed any connection with former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, the Weather Underground radical who was one of Obama's early backers and his colleague …

Discussion: Outside the Beltway, Balloon Juice, Weasel Zippers, Nice Deb, Little Green Footballs, Israel Matzav, The Lonely Conservative and iOwnTheWorld.com

Pew Research Center for the People and the Press:

Partisan Polarization Surges in Bush, Obama Years — Trends in American Values: 1987-2012 — OVERVIEW — As Americans head to the polls this November, their values and basic beliefs are more polarized along partisan lines than at any point in the past 25 years.

Discussion: Prairie Weather, Connecting.the.Dots, The Caucus, Washington Post, 2012 Decoded, CNN, Politico and The Moderate Voice

Jake Tapper / ABCNEWS:

Have We Reached an Economic Tipping Point for the President? - Today's Q's for O's WH - 6/4/2012 — TAPPER: Who specifically is “rooting for failure”? — CARNEY: I think that when you have a situation where action is not being taken on Capitol Hill where it is obvious …

Discussion: Taylor Marsh

Ace / Ace of Spades HQ:

National Day of Blogger Silence — This Friday — I'm writing a post about what's happened to Ali Akbar. It's taking some time. — Warning: DO NOT CLICK ON ANY SITE YOU DON'T TRUST ABOUT THIS STORY. I think there is reasonable grounds for suspicion that your IP will be captured …

Discussion: Capital Hill, Datechguy's Blog, Twitchy, The Other McCain, Patterico's Pontifications, Michelle Malkin, TBogg and American Power

Shiv Malik / Guardian:

Unemployed bussed in to steward river pageant — Coachloads of jobless people brought in to work unpaid on river pageant as part of Work Programme — Call for inquiry into use of unpaid jobseekers as jubilee stewards — A group of long-term unemployed jobseekers were bussed into London …

Discussion: JONATHAN TURLEY, US Politics and Eschaton

Joel Achenbach / Washington Post:

NASA gets two military spy telescopes for astronomy — The secretive government agency that flies spy satellites has made a stunning gift to NASA: two exquisite telescopes as big and powerful as the Hubble Space Telescope. They've never left the ground and are in storage in Rochester, N.Y.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Balloon Juice, TPM IdeaLab, New York Times and Outside the Beltway

Jeremy Herb / The Hill:

US: Israel ‘supportive’ of new Iranian sanctions if nuclear talks fail — An Obama administration official says that Israel is “supportive” of future U.S. sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program if negotiations between Tehran and six world powers fail.

Susanne Craig / DealBook:

Goldman Sachs Cuts a Little Deeper — It isn't getting better out there. — Wall Street, which has been paring its ranks over the last year as it struggles with lackluster markets and new regulations, is cutting deeper as it heads into what is expected to be a rough summer.

Discussion: New York Magazine and Felix Salmon

Paul Mirengoff / Power Line:

A speech I'd like to hear Obama deliver — Later this month, the Supreme Court will deliver its ruling in the Obamacare case. Suppose the government loses. What will Obama say? Perhaps his speech will go something like this: — “My fellow citizens. I'm not going to mince words.

Jim Geraghty / National Review:

Messina: We're Doing Great! Oh, and We May Lose Wisconsin. — The Obama campaign releases a video with campaign manager Jim Messina, discussing the state of the race. — “We're actually ahead of where we were at this point last time around. Remember summer of 2008?

Discussion: RedState, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, Hot Air, Mediaite and Power Line

Billy House / NationalJournal.com:

Erupting Urinal Soaks House Press Gallery — A big splash occurred on Monday morning at the House Press Gallery in the U.S. Capitol. — No, this wasn't one of those unexpected guest appearances for celebrities to talk to reporters about some favorite cause. — This splash came from an exploding urinal.

Discussion: Wonkette, Indecision Forever and New York Magazine

Igor Volsky / ThinkProgress:

North Carolina GOP Platform Says Government Should Be Able To Discriminate Against Gays — Emboldened by a recently enacted constitutional amendment prohibiting civil unions and same-sex marriage, North Carolina's Republican party adopted a platform yesterday that condones discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation.”

Discussion: The Raw Story