memeorandum: NASA gets two military spy telescopes for astronomy (Joel Achenbach/Washington Post)

9:55 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: WTAQ News Talk 97.5FM …, Taegan Goddard's …, americanthinker.com and Riehl World View

Washington Examiner:

Wisconsin labor fight started ugly, ended ugly — Protesters chant ‘shame’ in protest after the House voted to pass the state's controversial budget bill in the Wisconsin assembly chamber on March 10, 2011 in Madison, Wisconsin. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Discussion: Hot Air

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, Sister Toldjah, GayPatriot, The Daily Caller, Georgia Tipsheet, Guardian, The Gateway Pundit, About.com Conservative …, NoisyRoom.net, Hot Air and Business Insider

Robin Bravender / Politico:
Wisconsin Dems sidestep labor debate in recall

Discussion: Taylor Marsh, Pirate's Cove, National Review, weaskamerica.com and New York Times

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: msnbc.com, Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog and The Caucus

Justin Sink / The Hill:
Gov. Walker knocks Obama for shying away from Wisconsin recall

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

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

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

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, American Power, CNN and The Daily Caller

Josh Eidelson / Salon:
Wisconsin's resentment factor

Discussion: Washington Monthly and Lawyers, Guns & Money

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

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, Pirate's Cove and The Daily Caller

Chad Stone / cbpp.org:
Misguided “Fiscal Cliff” Fears Pose Challenges to Productive Budget Negotiations

Discussion: The Huffington Post

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

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

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

Las Vegas Sun Blogs:

Clark County GOP erects billboard touting Ron Paul, deriding Mitt Romney — It sits at Decatur and Russell in Las Vegas, a stark reminder of the Ron Paul takeover of the Republican Party in the state's largest county. — The message is unmistakable: Ron Paul is like Ronald Reagan and Mitt Romney is like George W. Bush.

Discussion: Ballot Box and Washington Post

Stephen C. Webster / The Raw Story:
Louisiana GOP spirals into chaos as Ron Paul delegates injured, arrested

Discussion: americanthinker.com, Hit & Run, Wonkette, Ron Paul 2012 Presidential … and LewRockwell.com Blog

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

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: The New Civil Rights Movement, CBS Boston, Prairie Weather, Connecting.the.Dots, The Caucus, Washington Post, 2012 Decoded, CNN, Politico and The Moderate Voice

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

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: Boing Boing, Eschaton, JONATHAN TURLEY and US Politics

New York Post:

Boastful babbling a gift to our foes — Last week's media bombshell that we'd infiltrated the Iranian nuclear program with a super-secret computer virus made it undeniable: There's been way too much aired about sensitive US operations over the last year or so. — Someone ought to tell Team Obama.

Discussion: Questions and Observations

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

Zack Ford / ThinkProgress:

Therapy Survivor Calls Out Ex-Gay Advocate's Bullying On Dr. Drew — Last night on his HLN show, Dr. Drew interviewed Janet Boynes, friend of Marcus and Michele Bachmann, about her ex-gay identity and advocacy. She unsurprisingly reiterated her belief that “change is possible through …

Discussion: Good As You

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.

Reuters:

Fear factors: What worries Romney backers — Mitt Romney has done the unthinkable: silenced the legions of conservatives who saw him as too starched, too ideologically wobbly and too Richie Rich to win a few months ago. — Now comes the hard part: getting those same conservatives …

Discussion: Politico

Justin Sink / The Hill:

Crossroads GPS knocks Obama on debt, economy in new $7 million buy — A new $7 million ad buy from a prominent conservative group accuses President Barack Obama of “reckless spending” and will air across key swing states in the November election. — The commercial, funded …

Discussion: CNN and GOP 12