memeorandum: Fed study: Tax hikes, not spending cuts, are slowing the recovery (Washington Examiner)

12:15 PM ET, June 9, 2013

Top Items:

Boundless Informant: the NSA's secret tool to track global surveillance data — Revealed: The NSA's powerful tool for cataloguing global surveillance data - including figures on US collection — • Boundless Informant: mission outlined in four slides — • Read the NSA's frequently asked questions document

Discussion: Activist Post, Business Insider, Liberal Values, Pirate's Cove, Engadget, Mashable, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, ViralRead, TechCrunch, The Verge, The Raw Story, American Spectator and Electronic Frontier Foundation

Bob Cesca / The Daily Banter:

NSA Bombshell Story Falling Apart Under Scrutiny; Key Facts Turning Out to Be Inaccurate — It turns out, the NSA PRISM story isn't quite the bombshell that everyone said it was. Yes, there continues to be a serious cause for concern when it comes to government spying and overreach with its counter-terrorism efforts.

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, ZDNet, Mashable, Outside the Beltway, emptywheel, Little Green Footballs, Balloon Juice and College Republican …, more at Mediagazer »

Maureen Dowd / New York Times:

Peeping Barry — WASHINGTON — THE acid that corroded George W. Bush's presidency was fear — spreading it and succumbing to it. — You could see the fear in his eyes, the fear that froze him in place, after Andy Card whispered to W. in that Florida classroom that a second plane had crashed into the twin towers.

Discussion: Guardian

ODNI Newsroom Feed:
DNI Statement on the Collection of Intelligence Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

Discussion: The Verge, The Moderate Voice, The Hinterland Gazette, Business Insider, Engadget, Guardian, Mediaite, Mashable, The Hill, The Next Web and Hot Air

Igor Volsky / ThinkProgress:

IRS Staff Undermine GOP Claims That White House Directed Targeting Of Conservative Groups, Top Democrat Says — Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) — the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee — pledged to release transcripts of interviews with Internal Revenue Service (IRS) …

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland

Daniel Strauss / The Hill:

Cummings vows to release full IRS transcripts by week's end — The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) on Sunday threatened to release full transcripts of testimony from Internal Revenue Service employees related to the agency's targeting scandal by week's end if Chairman Darrell Issa does not.

Discussion: CNN

Meghashyam Mali / The Hill:

Paul weighs Supreme Court challenge to NSA surveillance programs — Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Sunday said he would examine ways to block the National Security Agency's surveillance programs before the Supreme Court. — “I'm going to be seeing if I can challenge this at the Supreme Court level,” vowed Paul on “Fox News Sunday.”

Discussion: CNN, Politico and The PJ Tatler

Kelly Ayotte:

Op-ed: Why I'm backing legislation to fix our broken immigration system — Everybody agrees that America's immigration system is broken, threatening our security and holding back our economy. The combination of porous borders and lax enforcement has made us a magnet for illegal immigration.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, First Read and Outside the Beltway

Washington Examiner:

Fed study: Tax hikes, not spending cuts, are slowing the recovery … Why is the Obama recovery the weakest recovery since the Great Depression? According to a new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, it is not because the federal government failed to borrow and spend …

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit and americanthinker.com

Daniel Strauss / The Hill:

Dem senator skeptical call tracking needed to thwart terror threats — Democratic Sen. Mark Udall (Colo.) on Sunday expressed skepticism that the National Security Agency's massive phone tracking program was really necessary to help the government thwart possible terrorist attacks.

Discussion: CNN and Politico

Jennifer Steinhauer / New York Times:

On the Sunday Morning Talk Shows, a Rather Familiar Cast of Characters — WASHINGTON — In mid-February, Senator John McCain went on the NBC program “Meet the Press” to explain his unhappiness with President Obama's nominee for defense secretary. A week later, he took to “State of the Union” …

Discussion: Outside the Beltway and Politico

Alan M. Dershowitz / Jerusalem Post:

Analysis: Syria crisis shows why Israel must remain strong — Whether Syrian death toll is 80,000 or 100,000, this figure is more than all people killed in nearly a century of conflict between Israel and its enemies, including several wars and thousands of acts of terrorism.

Discussion: Israel Matzav

The Sunday Times:

Top Tory in new Lobbygate row — MP coached client before committee grilling — Insight — Tim Yeo is chairman of the parliamentary energy and climate change committee — THE Tory MP in charge of scrutinising new energy laws has been caught boasting about how he can use his leadership …

Discussion: Guardian, BBC and Spectator

Justin Stanfield Thomas / The Huffington Post:

Justin Stanfield Thomas Shot, Killed Accidentally By 4-Year-Old Son In Arizona — PRESCOTT VALLEY, Ariz. — Authorities in northern Arizona say a 4-year-old boy has accidentally shot and killed his father at a Prescott Valley home. — Prescott Valley police say the shooting occurred just after noon Friday.

Discussion: Mediaite