Obama grants Holder request on ‘Furious’ documents as contempt vote looms  —  DEVELOPING ...  President Obama has granted an 11th-hour request by Attorney General Eric Holder to exert executive privilege over Fast and Furious documents, a last-minute maneuver that appears unlikely to head off …

Obama Leads In Poll As Voters View Romney As Out Of Touch  —  Barack Obama has opened a significant lead over Mitt Romney in a Bloomberg National Poll that reflects the presumed Republican nominee's weaknesses more than the president's strengths.  —  Obama leads Romney 53 percent …

Tim Pawlenty's stock soars in Romney-world  —  Tim Pawlenty has jumped to the top of the vice presidential shortlist of several Mitt Romney advisers after emerging as the most effective — and well-liked — surrogate for the GOP nominee-to-be, according to several Republicans familiar with campaign deliberations.

The 2012 campaign is the smallest ever  —  For years, operatives, reporters and potential nominees envisioned the 2012 presidential campaign as a titanic clash of media-swarmed combatants with big ideas about the future.  In the Republican primaries, this was almost a mantra: this is the most important campaign in a generation.

Soak The Middle Class  —  Senate Dems give The Washington Post the jump on a new analysis that puts one of the worst kept secrets in Washington into helpful numerical context: Republicans want the broad middle class to pay more taxes than they currently do, and the upper class to pay significantly less.

Elizabeth Warren loses it, lashes out at “right wing extremist” (me)  —  As you know, Elizabeth Warren has been caught in a series of at best misleading and at worst false responses since The Boston Herald first broke the story in late April that Harvard Law promoted her as Native American in the mid-to-late 1990s.

New NSA docs contradict 9/11 claims  —  “I don't think the Bush administration would want to see these released,” an expert tells Salon  —  Over 120 CIA documents concerning 9/11, Osama bin Laden and counterterrorism were published today for the first time, having been newly declassified and released to the National Security Archive.

The Declaration of Independence  —  The More or Less Unanimous Declaration of the Board of Visitors  —  When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for a Board to dissolve the administrative bands which have connected a President with a University, and to assume for themselves …

For immediate release  —  Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in April suggests that the economy has been expanding moderately this year.  However, growth in employment has slowed in recent months, and the unemployment rate remains elevated.  Business fixed investment has continued to advance.

Obama's grandfather tortured by the British?  A fantasy (like most of the President's own memoir)  —  A new biography of Barack Obama has established that his grandfather was not, as is related in the President's own memoir, detained by the British in Kenya and found that claims that he was tortured were a fabrication.

Fix health care after Supreme Court ruling, poll says  —  If the Supreme Court strikes down President Barack Obama's signature health care reform law, 77 percent of Americans want the president and Congress to work on new legislation overhauling the system, according to a new AP-GfK poll on Wednesday.

Change.org Drops Michelle Rhee Group Under Pressure From Progressives … REACT:  —  FOLLOW:  —  Michelle Rhee, éducation, Michelle Rhee, Video, Politics News, Change, Change.Org, Changeorg, Michelle Rhee Dc, Politics News  —  WASHINGTON — In a surprising reversal, Change.org …

National Review's New Contributor: White Nationalist David Yerushalmi  —  Back in April, National Review finally parted ways with longtime contributor John Derbyshire after Derbyshire penned an especially racist piece advising non-black American parents on how to talk to their kids about black people.

IA & MI  —  We kick off our “Big Ten” series with polls in Iowa and Michigan.  Both states were once viewed as likely to vote in favor of re-electing President Obama, but recent economic and political circumstances have tightened up things among the electorate.

Limited Bond Purchases Won't Stop Euro Crisis  —  It says something when even the European Commission announces the latest idea put forward to alleviate the euro-zone debt crisis—that European bailout funds buy bonds to push down borrowing costs—is just financial painkiller.

Inside gov's ‘cave’  —  Even Gov. Cuomo has a man cave.  —  The state's chief executive and girlfriend Sandra Lee have settled nicely into their Westchester dream mansion — which has all the trappings he needs to blow off steam and she needs to play the perfect hostess.

Rep. Mark Critz, other Dems, to skip convention in favor of campaigning in Pennsylvania  —  U.S. Rep. Mark Critz said on Tuesday he will skip the Democratic National Convention in favor of campaigning in Pennsylvania, much like top elected Democrats in neighboring West Virginia who are disgruntled with President Obama.