Top Items:
Vince Coglianese / The Daily Caller:
IRS's Shulman had more public White House visits than any cabinet member — Publicly released records show that embattled former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman visited the White House at least 157 times during the Obama administration, more recorded visits than even the most trusted members of the president's Cabinet.
RELATED:
Carol Cratty / CNN:
Holder runs into roadblocks on off-the-record meetings on leaks — Washington (CNN) - Attorney General Eric Holder's plans to sit down with media representatives to discuss guidelines for handling investigations into leaks to the news media have run into trouble.
USA Today:
War on leaks threatens your right to know: Our view … Intimidation tactic serves to hide all manner of government secrets. — When President Obama talked about reporters and reporting last week, he struck a conciliatory chord. Obama said he was troubled “that leak investigations may chill …
Discussion:
Guardian and PoliticusUSA
Michael S. Schmidt / New York Times:
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 …
Discussion:
JustOneMinute, The Moderate Voice, Yahoo! News, The Maddow Blog, Washingtonian, Politico, Shakesville, Washington Post, Guardian, No More Mister Nice Blog, driftglass, Booman Tribune, The Hill, Crime and Consequences Blog, The Week, emptywheel, msnbc.com, Prairie Weather, The Caucus, Taylor Marsh, WJLA-TV, Mother Jones, The Reaction and American Spectator
Fox News:
Holder runs into roadblocks on off-the-record meetings with news organizations — Attorney General Eric Holder is running into early resistance from news organizations as he tries to hold meetings with their Washington bureau chiefs over his department's surveillance of reporters …
Discussion:
The Hill, Michelle Malkin and Twitchy
New York Times:
Holder Faces New Round of Criticism After Leak Inquiries — WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., a lightning rod of Republican attacks during President Obama's first term, is now contending with a new round of criticism over the Justice Department's campaign against leaks to the news media.
Discussion:
Washington Post, The Fix, National Review, The Huffington Post, Open Channel and Firedoglake
Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:
Eric Holder To Meet With Washington Bureau Chiefs Amid Leak Investigation Criticism (UPDATE)
Eric Holder To Meet With Washington Bureau Chiefs Amid Leak Investigation Criticism (UPDATE)
Chris Geidner / BuzzFeed:
ACLU Defends News Organizations For Rejecting Off-The-Record Meeting With Attorney General
ACLU Defends News Organizations For Rejecting Off-The-Record Meeting With Attorney General
Discussion:
Yahoo! News, Right Turn and Politico
Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:
NYT Will Not Attend Holder Meeting With Media
NYT Will Not Attend Holder Meeting With Media
Discussion:
Firedoglake, Poynter, Mediaite, Washington Wire and Politico, more at Mediagazer »
Dylan Byers / Politico:
N.Y. Times will not attend DOJ session, citing opposition to off-the-record provision
N.Y. Times will not attend DOJ session, citing opposition to off-the-record provision
Discussion:
Restoring Liberty, Weasel Zippers and Hot Air
Quinnipiac News + Events:
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 …
RELATED:
Jonathan Easley / The Hill:
Obama's poll numbers hold up despite the storm of scandal — Obama's 7 percentage-point positive margin in Gallup is better than where he stood before the IRS scandal broke. — President Obama's approval ratings have increased since a trio of controversies involving his administration began dominating the news cycle.
Discussion:
Prairie Weather
Kevin Cirilli / Politico:
Poll: President Obama job approval rating down
Poll: President Obama job approval rating down
Discussion:
americanthinker.com and The Gateway Pundit
Lynn Sweet / Chicago Sun Times:
Bobby Rush rips Mark Kirk's mass gang arrests proposal as ‘elitist white boy solution’ — Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) is highly critical of a proposal by Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) for mass arrests of 18,000 Gangster Disciples, telling the Sun-Times on Wednesday that Kirk's approach is …
Discussion:
Politico, Talking Points Memo, The Hill, Weasel Zippers, Post Politics, The Raw Story and The Hinterland Gazette
Barbara Surk / bigstory.ap.org:
SYRIAN OPPOSITION WON'T PARTICIPATE IN PEACE TALKS — You are here — Home » Bashar Assad » Syrian opposition won't participate in peace talks — BEIRUTCopyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Discussion:
ThinkProgress, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Wall Street Journal, The Back Channel and Hot Air
RELATED:
Anne Barnard / New York Times:
Assad Says Syria Has Received Advanced Missiles From Russia
Assad Says Syria Has Received Advanced Missiles From Russia
Discussion:
Guardian, The Week, Washington Post and Outside the Beltway
CBO's Publications:
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.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Yahoo! News and Los Angeles Times
RELATED:
Lisa Mascaro / Los Angeles Times:
Tax breaks benefit rich households the most, report says
Tax breaks benefit rich households the most, report says
Discussion:
Patterico's Pontifications and The PJ Tatler
New York Times:
Salvadoran Court Denies Abortion to Ailing Woman — MEXICO CITY — El Salvador's highest court on Wednesday denied an appeal from a woman with a high-risk pregnancy to be allowed to undergo an abortion, upholding the country's strict law banning abortion under any circumstances.
Discussion:
ThinkProgress, Althouse, RH Reality Check and ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES
RELATED:
Katie McDonough / Salon:
El Salvador Supreme Court denies critically ill woman lifesaving abortion
El Salvador Supreme Court denies critically ill woman lifesaving abortion
Discussion:
Hullabaloo and susiemadrak.com
Rich Lowry / Politico:
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.
Discussion:
Pirate's Cove
James Fallows / The Atlantic Online:
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.
Alexander Burns / Politico:
Lincoln Chafee switches affiliation to Democrat — Obama has returned the favor: he declined to endorse a Democrat for governor in 2010, when Chafee was running as an independent in a three-way race. And when Chafee ran TV ads featuring archival footage of the president praising him, Obama and his aides did not object.
Discussion:
Hullabaloo
Michael O'Connell / Hollywood Reporter:
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 …
Rosie Gray / BuzzFeed:
McCain Wasn't Posing With Rebel Kidnapper, Spokesman Says — “Regrettable” if true, McCain spokesman says. — Via: Handout/Reuter / Reuters — WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain's office is pushing back against reports that while visiting Syria this week he posed in a photo with rebels who kidnapped 11 Lebanese Shi'ite pilgrims.
Discussion:
Washington Times, The Maddow Blog, TheBlaze.com, Weasel Zippers and The Gateway Pundit
Washington Post:
Officials: Man who knew Boston bombing suspect was unarmed when shot — A Chechen man who was fatally shot by an FBI agent last week during an interview about one of the Boston bombing suspects was unarmed, law enforcement officials said Wednesday. — An air of mystery has surrounded …
Discussion:
Sky Dancing, LewRockwell.com Blog and emptywheel
Jason Lange / Reuters:
First quarter GDP revised slightly lower; austerity bites — (Reuters) - A drop in government spending dragged more on the U.S. economy than initially thought in the first three months of the year, a sign of increasing pain from Washington's austerity drive.
Discussion:
ThinkProgress and AEIdeas
Catherine Thompson / Talking Points Memo:
Conservative Icon Calls GOP's Need To Court Hispanics A ‘Great Myth’ — Phyllis Schlafly of the pro-family group Eagle Forum called the GOP's need to reach out to Hispanic voters a “great myth” during a conservative radio program Wednesday. — “The Hispanics who have come …
Discussion:
Right Wing Watch and Balloon Juice
Spencer Kornhaber / The Atlantic Online:
Arrested Development's Crazy, Existential Message: We're All In This Together — Netflix's absurd fourth season of the show has a surprising lot to say about the real world. — This is the first (not-spoilery!) post in a series from Atlantic writers on Arrested Development's fourth season.
Discussion:
ThinkProgress