Obama's Counsel Told of IRS Audit Findings Weeks Ago  —  The White House's chief lawyer learned weeks ago that an audit of the Internal Revenue Service likely would show that agency employees inappropriately targeted conservative groups, a senior White House official said Sunday.

A rare peek into a Justice Department leak probe  —  When the Justice Department began investigating possible leaks of classified information about North Korea in 2009, investigators did more than obtain telephone records of a working journalist suspected of receiving the secret material.

UPDATED: Virginia GOP Nominee For Attorney General Introduced Bill Forcing Women To Report Their Miscarriages To Police  —  If a woman in Virginia has a miscarriage without a doctor present, they must report it within 24 hours to the police or risk going to jail for a full year.

On Yahoo-Tumblr  —  It now looks pretty certain that Yahoo has pulled off a deal to buy Tumblr for 1.1B.  The relationship between WordPress and Tumblr has always been pretty friendly: Tumblr's own blog used to be on WP, WordPress.com supports Tumblr as a Publicize option alongside Twitter and Facebook …

How Obama Handles Crisis  —  The handwringers and bed wetters in the D.C. punditocracy should know that Barack Obama will never be on their timeline, says his longtime speechwriter Jon Favreau.  —  Honestly, they act like it's his first crisis.  —  Sometime after the infamous Denver debate last fall …

7 Juicy Claims From A Romney Campaign Insider's New Book  —  Former policy aide Gabriel Schoenfeld's new book, A Bad Day on the Romney Campaign: An Insider's Account , blames Romney's staff for his defeat.  Romney aides have dismissed the account , saying Schoenfeld was not as high …

Exclusive: Hillary's Benghazi ‘Scapegoat’ Speaks Out  —  Raymond Maxwell, the only official at the State Department's bureau of Near Eastern Affairs to lose his job after the attacks, tells Josh Rogin that he's been scapegoated by Hillary Clinton's team.  —  Following the attack in Benghazi …

Three Signs There's a Cover-Up  —  The late columnist William Safire once said that a good clue that someone in Washington was engaged in “an artful dodge,” i.e., a cover-up, was that they used the phrase “mistakes were made.”  Safire defined it as a “passive-evasive way of acknowledging error …

A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR … - ARCHIVE - PHOTO BOOTH - DAILY SHOUTS - PAGE-TURNER - DAILY COMMENT - ELEMENTS - AMY DAVIDSON - JOHN CASSIDY - BOROWITZ

How to Legalize Pot  —  THE first time I talked to Mark Kleiman, a drug policy expert at U.C.L.A., was in 2002, and he explained why legalization of marijuana was a bad idea.  Sure, he said, the government should remove penalties for possession, use and cultivation of small amounts.

Four key Hillary Clinton staffers from 2008 unlikely to sign on for 2016 bid  —  Howard Wolfson, the 2008 communications director for Hillary Rodham Clinton, has said he will not return for a 2016 presidential campaign.  Neither, for that matter, will Neera Tanden, the campaign's policy director.

BREAKING - REPORT: DOJ LEAKED DOCS TO SMEAR FAST & FURIOUS WHISTLEBLOWER, SAYS IG  —  The Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General published a new report Monday that confirms former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke leaked a document intended to smear Operation Fast and Furious scandal whistleblower John Dodson.