memeorandum: Understanding the Politics of the IRS Scandal (Josh Marshall/Talking Points Memo)

9:20 PM ET, May 14, 2013

Top Items:

Jake Tapper / The Lead with Jake Tapper:

CNN exclusive: White House email contradicts Benghazi leaks — This story has been updated from its original version. — CNN has obtained an e-mail sent by a top aide to President Barack Obama about White House reaction to the deadly attack last September 11 on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi …

CNN:

CNN exclusive: White House email contradicts Benghazi leaks — CNN has obtained an email sent by a top aide to President Barack Obama, in which the aide discusses the Obama administration reaction to the attack on the U.S. posts in Benghazi, Libya. The actual email differs …

Discussion: The Plum Line, Atlas Shrugs, The Political Carnival, Gawker and Alan Colmes' Liberaland

Joan Walsh / Salon:

Who doctored a White House email? — CNN appears to have undermined a scoop that damaged the White House — Was ABC News used by someone with an ax to grind against the State Department? It looks possible. A key email in its “scoop” that the administration's “talking points” …

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Goppers and The Raw Story

Karoli / Crooks and Liars:

Did Someone Leak Doctored Benghazi Email? — In a bizarre twist in the non-scandal known as Benghazi, it appears that someone doctored an email from Ben Rhodes to make it appear that he was more interested in protecting the State Department than telling the truth of what happened during the Benghazi attacks.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice

Steve Benen / The Maddow Blog:
Story on Benghazi leaks starts to unravel

Discussion: Weekly Standard and The Week

Yahoo! News:
In scandal-plagued Washington, lawmaker struggles to keep track of issues

Discussion: The Daily Caller, The Week and ABCNEWS

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:

Understanding the Politics of the IRS Scandal — We're just at the front end of investigating the IRS scandal. And all the standard blah blah blah about how we don't know just what we'll find. But I think we do know pretty much exactly what the political implications will be. And they're significant.

Discussion: Hullabaloo, The Week and The Impolitic

Abby D. Phillip / ABCNEWS:

IRS Asks for Reading List, Tea Party Group Sends Constitution — (Image Credit: Visions of America/UIG via Getty Images) — When Marion Bower decided to start her tea party organization in 2010, she didn't know that it would take nearly two years for the Internal Revenue Service to approve her request for tax-exempt status.

Discussion: The Jawa Report, Weasel Zippers and The PJ Tatler

Wynton Hall / BREITBART.COM:
PROGRESSIVE GROUP: IRS GAVE US CONSERVATIVE GROUPS' CONFIDENTIAL DOCS

Discussion: The Daily Caller, The Week, The Hill, The Spectacle Blog, Washington Post, Outside the Beltway and Real Science

Noah Rothman / Mediaite:
NAACP Chair Emeritus: ‘Legitimate’ For IRS To Target ‘Admittedly Racist’ Tea Party: ‘Taliban Wing’ Of Politics

Discussion: The PJ Tatler and The Gateway Pundit

Sam Stein / The Huffington Post:
Inspector General: IRS' Ineffective Management Allowed Tea Party Targeting

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, Fox News, The PJ Tatler, Hot Air and The Daily Caller

CNN:
Report finds IRS targeted conservative groups, delayed applications

Discussion: Politico and Reuters

Steven T. Miller / USA Today:
IRS: ‘We should have done a better job’

Discussion: Washington Wire, Taylor Marsh, The Hill, BBC, National Review and Democracy in America

James Taranto / Wall Street Journal:
Nobody's Laughing Now — How pervasive is the Obama IRS scandal?

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, National Review and New York Times

Associated Press:

Justice Dept. Opens Criminal Inquiry Into I.R.S. Audits — WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday fielded questions about the seizure of telephone records from reporters and editors at The Associated Press, which apparently came in connection with an investigation of leaks inside the executive branch.

Discussion: CNN, Yahoo! News, Guardian, The Public Editor's Journal, Daily Kos, The Maddow Blog, New York Times, PostPartisan, The Political Carnival, The Lonely Conservative, The Huffington Post, Booman Tribune, Mother Jones and Real Science, more at Mediagazer »

Reuters:

Inside the AP: Fear, determination — Reporters across The Associated Press are outraged over the Justice Department's sweeping seizure of staff phone records and say they are fearful that such an intrusion could have a chilling effect on their relationships with confidential sources.

Discussion: Power Line, BREITBART.COM, CNN, The Hill, Politico, National Review, Informed Comment and Riehl World News

Ian Swanson / The Hill:
Holder recused himself from DOJ decision to seize AP records

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, The Impolitic, The Verge and Outside the Beltway, more at Mediagazer »

Katie Pavlich / Townhall.com:
BREAKING: Eric Holder Recuses Himself From Leak Investigation

Discussion: CNN, The Moderate Voice, ViralRead, Michelle Malkin, The Hinterland Gazette, Associated Press, Reuters and BuzzFeed

Washington Post:
IG report: ‘Inappropriate criteria’ stalled IRS approvals of conservative groups

Discussion: Wonkblog, The Fix, The Volokh Conspiracy and Chicago Boyz

Fox News:
Holder says AP probe handled by deputy after he recused himself

Discussion: Ballot Box, The Week, Hot Air, Weekly Standard and Conservatives4Palin

Justin Sink / The Hill:
Carney: Obama believes the press ‘needs to be unfettered’

Discussion: The Political Carnival

CBO's Publications:

Updated Budget Projections: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023 — If the current laws that govern federal taxes and spending do not change, the budget deficit will shrink this year to $642 billion, CBO estimates, the smallest shortfall since 2008. Relative to the size of the economy, the deficit this year …

Discussion: National Review, The Maddow Blog, The Heritage Foundation, AEIdeas, PERRspectives and Daily Kos

Matthew Yglesias / Slate:
The CBO's Projected Budget Deficits Just Shrank by Hundreds of Billions of Dollars

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Angelina Jolie / New York Times:

My Medical Choice — MY MOTHER fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56. She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was.

Dylan Byers / Politico:

KMOV anchor: The IRS is targeting me — Larry Connors, a veteran local news anchor at KMOV Channel 4 in St. Louis, says that the Internal Revenue Service has been targeting him since an April 2012 interview he conducted with President Obama — a fact that he dismissed as coincidence until …

Discussion: Washington Free Beacon, Rule of Law, BuzzFeed, ViralRead, The PJ Tatler, Jammie Wearing Fools, VodkaPundit and Hot Air

Facebook:
Larry Conners KMOV · 4,761 like this

Discussion: BuzzFeed

M.L. Johnson / greenbaypressgazette.com:

7-year-old boy gets handwritten letter from Biden — MILWAUKEE — A Wisconsin boy wrote Vice President Joe Biden with an unusual suggestion for making the nation safer: Create guns that shoot chocolate bullets. — On Monday, he got an unusual response: A handwritten note from Biden on vice presidential stationery.

Discussion: Balloon Juice, Yahoo! News, Mediaite, Weasel Zippers, Weekly Standard, The Raw Story, Wonkette, Shakesville and Jammie Wearing Fools

Tara Palmeri / New York Post:

Rich Manhattan moms hire handicapped tour guides so kids can cut lines at Disney World — They are 1 percenters who are 100 percent despicable. — Some wealthy Manhattan moms have figured out a way to cut the long lines at Disney World — by hiring disabled people to pose as family members …

Discussion: Addicting Info, Gothamist, Overlawyered, The Raw Story, Gawker and The Daily Caller

Glenn Kessler / Washington Post:

Obama's claim he called Benghazi an ‘act of terrorism’ — “The day after it happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism.” — Once again, it appears that we must parse a few presidential words. We went through this question at length during the 2012 election, but perhaps a refresher course is in order.

Andrew Sullivan / The Dish:

Race And IQ. Again. — I should know better than to bring this up again. But the effective firing of a researcher, Heritage's Jason Richwine, because of his Harvard dissertation should immediately send up red flags about intellectual freedom. I am not defending the Heritage report …

Discussion: Guardian, Brad DeLong, Dana Goldstein, Democracy in America, Daily Kos, Althouse and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:

Why Washington scandal-mania may save Medicare and Social Security — The Monica Lewinsky scandal may have helped save Social Security in the late 1990s. Now the scandal fever currently gripping Washington — IRS, Benghazi, Associated Press phone records — may save Social Security and Medicare two decades later.

Discussion: American Prospect and Hullabaloo

Molly K. Hooper / The Hill:

GOP defies Boehner on special Benghazi panel — House Republican members are defying Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and five committee chairmen by endorsing a measure that would set up a special panel to investigate the deadly attacks in Benghazi, Libya. — A growing number of members …

Discussion: The Impolitic, Washington Monthly, No More Mister Nice Blog and protein wisdom

John McCormack / Weekly Standard:

Reid on Gosnell: We Need ‘Clean and Sterile’ Late-Term Abortion Clinics — At a Tuesday afternoon press conference, Senate majority leader Harry Reid blamed laws restricting abortion and pro-lifers who picket abortion clinics for pushing women to the clinic of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted Monday for murdering three infants.

Discussion: LifeNews.com

Associated Press:
Convicted Pa. abortion doctor gets life in prison

Discussion: LifeNews.com, Hot Air and Conservatives4Palin

Reid J. Epstein / Politico:

Franklin Graham: IRS targeted us, too — The IRS came after Billy Graham, too, his son charged Tuesday in a letter to President Barack Obama. — Franklin Graham, the president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the family's international humanitarian organization Samaritan's Purse …

Discussion: Weasel Zippers, Sister Toldjah and The Gateway Pundit

Janine Stanwood / WPLG-TV:

North Miami mayoral candidate touts endorsement from Jesus Christ — Anna L. Pierre is one of seven candidates vying to replace Andre Pierre — Author: Steve Owen, Assistant News Director, sowen@local10.com — Benjamin Candea, Senior Web Producer, bcandea@local10.com … NORTH MIAMI, Fla. -