Obama to Pick Former Bush Official to Lead F.B.I.  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to nominate James B. Comey, a former hedge fund executive and a former senior Justice Department official under President George W. Bush, to replace Robert S. Mueller III as the director of the Federal Bureau …

Threatening letters to Bloomberg test positive for ricin  —  (CNN) — Preliminary tests indicate ricin was found in letters sent this past weekend to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York deputy police commissioner Paul Browne said Wednesday.  —  Browne said the letters to Bloomberg contained …

TV Ratings: MSNBC Falls Below HLN in May, Rachel Maddow Hits Lows  —  Fox News Channel maintains a handsome lead in primetime and total day, while primetime runner-up CNN continues a healthy climb from the lows of 2012.  —  “The Rachel Maddow Show”  —  HLN's wall-to-wall coverage …

Release Detail  —  May 30, 2013 - American Voters 4-1 Want Special Prosecutor For IRS, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; But Fixing Economy Is More Important, Voters Say 3-1  —  American voters say 76 - 17 percent, including 63 - 30 percent among Democrats, that a special prosecutor …

The Lois Lerner state  —  It is appropriate that the worst scandal of the Obama administration— the IRS targeting of conservatives — is a scandal of administrators and bureaucrats, of otherwise faceless people endowed with immense power over their fellow citizens and running free of serious oversight from elected officials.

I was a liberal mole at Fox News: From Bill O'Reilly to Roger Ailes, here's all the inside dope  —  Inside the beast: O'Reilly hates Hannity.  Producers know what's acceptable.  Everyone fears a call from Roger Ailes  —  Excerpted from “An Atheist in the FOXhole: A Liberal's Eight-Year Odyssey Inside …

Annals of the Security State: ‘Is Puerto Rico in America?’  —  Here are two more, from people willing to go on the record under their real names.  Previous entries here, here, here. … Now, from David Rivera, who runs a small business in San Diego: … No more “analysis” at the moment.

Adam Levine caught on hot mic: ‘I hate this country’; Responds to backlash with douche-tweets … Yes, yes he did.  On “The Voice” Tuesday night, a hot mic picked up coach Adam Levine saying, “I hate this country,” as one member of Team Adam advanced and two others were voted off the show.

Former Microsoft manager has big ideas about marketing retail pot  —  Former Microsoft manager Jamen Shively wants to create the first national brand of retail marijuana — and to open pot trade with Mexico.  He plans to announce that and more Thursday.  —  Former Microsoft manager Jamen Shively wants …

The Distribution of Major Tax Expenditures in the Individual Income Tax System  —  A number of exclusions, deductions, preferential rates, and credits in the federal tax system cause revenues to be much lower than they would be otherwise for any given structure of tax rates.

LePage renews claims of State House censorship  —  ‘The minute we start stifling our speech, we might as well go home, roll up our sleeves and get our guns out,’ the governor says.  —  AUGUSTA - Gov. Paul LePage is still upset about being silenced during a recent meeting …

Helping Syrian rebels a dangerous risk  —  Editor's note: Rand Paul, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Kentucky.  —  (CNN) — The United States has a history of often picking sides in Middle East conflicts to its own detriment.  —  In the 1980s, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met …

Schlafly Encourages GOP to Ignore Latinos, Focus on White Turnout  —  Eagle Forum's Phyllis Schlafly is riled up about comprehensive immigration reform, and she has hardly been hiding the reason why.  Last month, Schlafly predicted that comprehensive reform would be “suicide for the Republican Party” …

Michelle Obama's new ‘baller’ motto  —  First lady Michelle Obama debuted a new motto as she hit DNC fundraisers in New York on Wednesday.  —  “We need you to keep on writing those checks, and if you haven't maxed out, you know, what's my motto?  Max out,” she told attendees at the DNC's LGBT Gala on Manhattan's Upper East Side.