memeorandum: ‘Weakest speaker in history’? (Kevin Robillard/Politico)

2:25 PM ET, May 14, 2013

Top Items:

IRS officials in Washington were involved in targeting of conservative groups — Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved with investigating conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear that the effort reached well beyond …

James Taranto / Wall Street Journal:

Nobody's Laughing Now — How pervasive is the Obama IRS scandal? — David Plouffe had an intriguing comment yesterday on the scandal involving selective tax-law enforcement against Tea Party groups. The manager of the 2008 Obama campaign who served as a top White House aide until this January …

Discussion: National Review

Nicholas Confessore / New York Times:

Uneven I.R.S. Scrutiny Seen in Political Spending by Big Tax-Exempt Groups — Over the last two years, government watchdog groups filed more than a dozen complaints with the Internal Revenue Service seeking inquiries into whether large nonprofit organizations like those founded …

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Politico, Wonkblog, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Washington Monthly, The Week, No More Mister Nice Blog, ABCNEWS, Jared Bernstein, Law Blog and msnbc.com

Jeffrey Toobin / News Desk:

The Real I.R.S. Scandal — Washington's scandal machinery, rusty from recent disuse, is cranking back up to speed due to the alleged targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said …

Discussion: The Week and Outside the Beltway

Lauren French / Politico:
IRS head Steven Miller: ‘Mistakes were made’

Discussion: Reuters

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

Discussion: Taylor Marsh, The Hill and Democracy in America

Garance Franke-Ruta / The Atlantic Online:
Congress Put Pressure on the IRS to Investigate Conservative Tax-Exempt Groups

Discussion: Washington Examiner, The Raw Story and Yourish.com

New York Times:
The I.R.S. Audits Are Condemned

Discussion: FiveThirtyEight, The Huffington Post, Hot Air, The Public Editor's Journal, Prairie Weather, NewsBusters and DealBook

Daily Mail:
Revealed: The 55 questions the IRS asked one tea party group after more than two years of waiting …

Discussion: The Hugh Hewitt Show, Red Alert Politics and Rule of Law

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.

Discussion: The Hill, Hit & Run, Gothamist, ThinkProgress, Wonkblog, msnbc.com, Guardian, Telegraph, Bangor Daily News, Mediaite, CNN, KDVR.com, Taylor Marsh, CBS DC, Yahoo! News, Daily Mail, News Desk, canada.com, Wizbang, Forbes, Shakesville, Althouse and Feministing

Katie Pavlich / Townhall.com:

BREAKING: Eric Holder Recuses Himself From Leak Investigation — Attorney General Eric Holder has recused himself from the Associated Press leak investigation. He will officially announce his recusal at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. Fox News is reporting his recusal comes partially …

Discussion: Ballot Box, Michelle Malkin, The Moderate Voice, Hot Air, The Hinterland Gazette and BuzzFeed

Justin Sink / The Hill:
Carl Bernstein: AP phone subpoena ‘outrageous, totally inexcusable’

Discussion: Politico, CNN, Reuters and JustOneMinute

Associated Press:
Dems vow: ‘Hell to pay’ if IRS allegations ring true

Discussion: Jammie Wearing Fools

Ben Smith / BuzzFeed:
The Panopticon President

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Associated Press, Capital New York, The Volokh Conspiracy and Instapundit

TIME:
The New GOP Case Against Obama: He's Cheney!

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Mediaite, Washington Post, News Desk, The Week, The Plum Line and TheBlaze.com

Mark Sherman / bigstory.ap.org:
GOVT OBTAINS WIDE AP PHONE RECORDS IN PROBE

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:
A Conflict of Interest? — TPM Reader SS thinks there's …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, ThinkProgress and Weasel Zippers

New York Times:
Phone Records of Journalists Seized by U.S.

Discussion: Associated Press, PostPartisan, Washington Post, Capital New York, The Maddow Blog, Daily Kos, Booman Tribune, Daniel W. Drezner, msnbc.com and The Caucus

Jake Tapper / The Lead with Jake Tapper:

CNN exclusive: White House email contradicts Benghazi leaks — 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, Libya, that apparently differs …

Discussion: Yahoo! News, protein wisdom, ThinkProgress, Little Green Footballs, PoliticusUSA and Daily Kos

CNN:
CNN exclusive: White House email contradicts Benghazi leaks

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland and Atlas Shrugs

Politico:
Scandal politics sweep Capitol Hill

Discussion: CNN, Yahoo! News, The Fix, BuzzFeed, msnbc.com, FishbowlDC, Mediaite and VodkaPundit

Reid J. Epstein / Politico:
White House stuck on IRS scandal response

Discussion: CNN, Guardian and The Hill

Joe Battenfeld / Boston Herald:
Obama knee-deep in Nixon-esque scandal

Discussion: Weasel Zippers

FLNation / The Florida Nation:

RNC FL Hispanic Director is Now a Democrat — I've known Pablo Pantoja for years. We were both in the same graduate program at Florida State University. We bonded because we were both also state employees at the time. However, Pantoja had another, another job.

Discussion: The Plum Line, Post Politics, Naked Politics, msnbc.com, Hullabaloo, Taegan Goddard's …, Daily Kos, The Maddow Blog, Booman Tribune, First Read and Yahoo! News

Adam Peck / ThinkProgress:
RNC Director Of Hispanic Outreach Quits Party And Registers As A Democrat

Discussion: Crooks and Liars

Chris Gentilviso / The Huffington Post:
Pablo Pantoja Turns Democrat: RNC Florida Hispanic Director Cites GOP ‘Intolerance’ In Making Party Switch

Discussion: Rumproast

Adam C. Smith / Tampa Bay Times:
Fed up, RNC's Fla Hispanic outreach director becomes Democrat

Discussion: Politico

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.

Discussion: McClatchy Washington Bureau, Hullabaloo, Scared Monkeys, Wonkette, Weasel Zippers, Hot Air, Power Line, Althouse, Patterico's Pontifications, The Dish, Conservatives4Palin, The PJ Tatler and This ain't Hell …

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: Weasel Zippers, Weekly Standard, The Raw Story and Shakesville

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: Gothamist

RT:

CIA agent trying to recruit Russian intelligence officer detained in Moscow - FSB — Russia's counterintelligence agency has detained a CIA agent in Moscow trying to recruit an officer of the Russian secret service, the Federal Security Service (FSB) announced. The agent was operating under guise of career diplomat.

Discussion: WorldViews, CBS News, bigstory.ap.org, ABCNEWS, Guardian, Wired, BBC, New York Times, Wonkette, BuzzFeed, The Week, Taylor Marsh and Scared Monkeys

Dave Itzkoff / New York Times:

Bill Hader to Leave ‘Saturday Night Live’ — With just one departure, “Saturday Night Live” is losing its excitable “Weekend Update” city correspondent, Stefon; its frenetic incarnations of James Carville, Al Pacino, Vincent Price and Julian Assange; and any number of unctuous, self-satisfied game-show hosts.

Discussion: The Week

Kevin Robillard / Politico:

‘Weakest speaker in history’? — Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says her GOP successor would be considered the “weakest speaker in history” if he were a woman. — “I will say this about John Boehner, and I have a good relationship with him,” Pelosi, now the House minority leader …

Discussion: The Hill and Daily Kos

Tom Kludt / Talking Points Memo:
Pelosi: If Boehner Were A Woman, They'd Call Him ‘Weakest Speaker In History’ (VIDEO)

Discussion: The Moderate Voice and Balloon Juice

Pew Global Attitudes Project:

The New Sick Man of Europe: the European Union — Overview — The European Union is the new sick man of Europe. The effort over the past half century to create a more united Europe is now the principal casualty of the euro crisis. The European project now stands in disrepute across much of Europe.

Discussion: National Review, The Dish, Forbes, Marginal Revolution, The Monkey Cage, Eurointelligence, Via Meadia, Pew Research Center, Guardian and New York Times

Hayes Brown / ThinkProgress:

Dick Cheney: Benghazi ‘One Of The Worst Incidences I Can Recall In My Career’ — Former Vice President Dick Cheney weighed in on Benghazi last night, saying the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya was “one of the worst incidences” he could recall.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, The Hinterland Gazette and AMERICAblog

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. -

Discussion: Mediaite, Yahoo! News, The Hinterland Gazette, Taegan Goddard's …, Naked Politics and Juanita Jean's