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.

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.

Study: House Republican Budget Would Raise Taxes On The Middle Class, Cut Them For Millionaires  —  House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI)  —  According to a study prepared by the congressional Joint Economic Committee and verified by independent experts, the House Republican budget authored …

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

U.S., Israel developed Flame computer virus to slow Iranian nuclear efforts, officials say  —  The United States and Israel jointly developed a sophisticated computer virus nicknamed Flame that collected critical intelligence in preparation for cyber-sabotage attacks aimed at slowing Iran's ability …

Mitt Romney Is Terrible For Traffic  —  We admit it, and so do other bloggers and editors: Nobody seems to want to read stories about Mitt Romney.  For the candidate, a blessing or a curse?  —  In the war of partisan trash talk that frequently consumes online political media …

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 …

Obama warns Romney on foreign policy  —  LOS CABOS, Mexico - President Barack Obama says Mitt Romney's campaign advisers should quit criticizing him on foreign policy — especially since they don't know what they're talking about.  —  During a brief news conference held Tuesday night to wrap …

EXCLUSIVE: DOJ Immigration Board Decisions Suggest Plans For a Post-DOMA America  —  Recent decisions from the Obama administration suggest that the government is taking tentative first steps to gear up for the day when an American with a same-sex spouse who wants to immigrate to the U.S …

Grover Norquist's pledge to increase spending, deficits  —  Over in Bloomberg View, Ramesh Ponnuru passes the mic to Grover Norquist: … You hear this often from Republicans: The reason you can't make a deal that balances both spending cuts and tax increases is that the tax increases happen and the spending cuts don't.

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.

Romney needs big share of white working class vote … What's up with the white working class vote?  For years the horny-handed blue collar worker was the star of the New Deal Democratic coalition.  It was for him, and his wife and family, that Democrats taxed the rich, invented Social Security and supported militant labor unions.

Food Stamp Fiasco  —  The Senate refuses to cut $20 billion out of $770 billion.  —  The next time someone moans about Washington “austerity,” tell them about the Senate's food stamp votes on Tuesday.  Democrats and a few Republicans united to block even modest reform in a welfare program …

As Issue Divides School, Congressman Takes a Side  —  Political opportunism, at its most benign, gives us bemusement and exasperation; at the more extreme end of things it inspires a wish for high-grade exfoliants to scrub away all the contact grease and grime.