memeorandum: LePage announces re-election campaign at private fundraiser (Scott Thistle/Sun Journal)

3:05 PM ET, July 3, 2013

Top Items:

John Gregory / KABC-TV:

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi under house arrest - Al Hayat TV — CAIRO (KABC) — Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is reportedly under house arrest after the military ultimatum expired Wednesday, reports Al Hayat TV. — Morsi's spokesman denied the report, according to ABC News …

Discussion: Hot Air, The Hinterland Gazette and Questions and Observations

New York Times:

Morsi and Egyptian Generals Edge Closer to Conflict — By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, BEN HUBBARD and ALAN COWELL — CAIRO — Egypt's top generals summoned civilian political leaders to an emergency meeting Wednesday just hours before the deadline they have set for President Mohamed Morsi to leave power.

Discussion: BBC, Outside the Beltway, NBC Politics, The Big Picture, ThinkProgress, Business Insider, The Hugh Hewitt Show, The Lede, Yahoo! News, Mediaite and Wall Street Journal

Reuters:

Mursi, Egypt army ready to die in ‘Final Hours’ showdown — (Reuters) - Egypt's army commander and Islamist President Mohamed Mursi each pledged to die for his cause as a deadline neared on Wednesday that will trigger a military takeover backed by protesters.

Discussion: The Jawa Report, Gawker, Firedoglake, Washington Monthly and National Review

World News:
Supporters of Egyptian president say military coup is underway

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland, The Gateway Pundit and FP Passport

New York Times:
Depth of Discontent Threatens Muslim Brotherhood and Its Leader

Discussion: Guardian, Booman Tribune and Balloon Juice

The Daily Beast:
Obama Offers a Revisionist History of His Administration's Approach To Egypt

Discussion: Bloomberg, Right Turn, The Investigative Project …, Power Line, National Review, Minneapolis Star Tribune, CNN and Foreign Policy

Ernesto Londoño / Washington Post:
Egypt's political turmoil puts Obama administration in precarious position

Discussion: New York Times and Power Line

Abigail Hauslohner / Washington Post:
Egypt's Morsi defiant under pressure as deadline looms

Discussion: Wonkblog, Hot Air, Scared Monkeys, Althouse, The Reaction and Lawfare

Hamdi Alkhshali / CNN:
Morsy out of ‘the decision-making circle’

Discussion: PolicyMic, Hit & Run and americanthinker.com

Guardian: Morsi defiant as army takes to streets of Cairo

Ezra Klein / Wonkblog:

Obamacare's employer mandate shouldn't be delayed. It should be repealed. — Delaying Obamacare's employer mandate is the right thing to do. Frankly, eliminating it — or at least utterly overhauling it — is probably the right thing to do. But the administration executing …

Yuval Levin / National Review:

Delaying Obamacare — Until yesterday, the administration had basically put on a brave face about the difficulties arising in its implementation of Obamacare. With a few minor exceptions (now especially notable among them the one-year delay of key requirements for the new small-business exchanges) …

Discussion: Power Line, Firedoglake, Daily Kos and Fox News

Josh Barro / Business Insider:
The Obama Administration's Excuse For Delaying The Obamacare Mandate Is Either Lame Or Fake

Discussion: Yahoo! News, U.S. Department …, Weekly Standard, Economix, Talking Points Memo, Politico, Via Meadia, The Huffington Post, The Heritage Foundation, Daily Mail, The Week, New Republic and msnbc.com

Valerie B. Jarrett / White House.gov Blog:
We're Listening to Businesses about the Health Care Law

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Politico, Yahoo! News, New York Times, Health Affairs Blog, theGrio, Bloomberg, Guardian, The Daily Caller, The Other McCain, The Hill, NPR, American Power and Detroit Free Press

Sarah Kliff / Wonkblog:
The politics of delaying Obamacare

Discussion: Goppers, American Prospect, Bloomberg, PoliticusUSA, The Plum Line, Politico, Weekly Standard, Right Wing Watch and ThinkProgress

Ron Nixon / New York Times:

U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement — WASHINGTON — Leslie James Pickering noticed something odd in his mail last September: A handwritten card, apparently delivered by mistake, with instructions for postal workers to pay special attention to the letters and packages sent to his home.

Discussion: The Verge, Hit & Run, Weasel Zippers, Consumerist, Blue Mass Group and Balloon Juice

Fred Barnes / Weekly Standard:

Rubio to Introduce Senate Bill to Ban Abortions After 20 Weeks — Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) today agreed to be the lead sponsor of a Senate bill to ban abortion after an unborn child is 20 weeks old. A similar measure passed the House last month and a state version is now being debated …

Discussion: Politico, Washington Monthly, CNN, The Plum Line, Hot Air, Mediaite, The Week, Riehl World News, Yahoo! News, The Hill, BobCesca.com, Booman Tribune, LifeNews.com, The Raw Story, ABC News and Business Insider

Annie-Rose Strasser / ThinkProgress:

Rubio Plans To Introduce Texas-Style Abortion Ban In The Senate — Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) is planning to introduce a bill in the Senate that would ban abortion after 20 weeks, the Weekly Standard reported on Wednesday. The bill is meant to mirror anti-abortion legislation passed last month by the House of Representatives.

Discussion: USA Today, Hullabaloo, The Raw Story, ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES, FiveThirtyEight and Mother Jones

Andrew Kaczynski / BuzzFeed:

White House Memo Shows Obama Administration's Painful Efforts To Defend Valerie Jarrett — “Valerie is someone here who other people inside the building know they can trust. (need examples.)” As reported in the forthcoming book This Town . — Via: PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP / Getty Images

Discussion: American Prospect, The Hill, The PJ Tatler and Washington Free Beacon

Cahnman / Cahnman's Musings:

Texas Capital Abortion Supporters chant “Hail Satan” — It's been a very interesting day at the Texas State Capitol. Cahnman's Musings hasn't been following the hearing. Instead, we've been participating in the surrounding events. LetTexasSpeak has been doing a live broadcast …

Discussion: protein wisdom, Fox News, The PJ Tatler, Twitchy, Patterico's Pontifications, LifeNews.com, Hot Air, The Lonely Conservative and Ed Driscoll

Justin Sink / The Hill:
Texas committee advances abortion bill, as poll shows opposition

Discussion: Associated Press, ThinkProgress, Politico and alicublog

Michal Conger / Washington Examiner:

State Department bureau spent $630,000 on Facebook ‘likes’ — State Department officials spent $630,000 to get more Facebook “likes,” prompting employees to complain to a government watchdog that the bureau was “buying fans” in social media, the agency's inspector general says.

Discussion: Mediaite, The Lonely Conservative, The Daily Caller and Patterico's Pontifications

John Hudson / Foreign Policy:
OMG! State Department Dropped $630,000 on Facebook “Likes”

Discussion: PolicyMic, National Review, International Liberty, Quartz, Gawker, Hit & Run, The Daily Caller and Yahoo! News, more at Mediagazer »

Dan Roberts / Guardian:

Bolivian president's jet rerouted amid suspicions Edward Snowden on board — France and Portugal accused of refusing entry to their airspace, while plane lands in Vienna with no sign of Snowden — • Read live updates on the diplomatic crisis — Bolivia reacted with fury …

Discussion: bigstory.ap.org, Taylor Marsh, LLC, Atlas Shrugs, The Verge, Mediaite, Informed Comment, RT, Alan Colmes' Liberaland and NPR

Angelika Gruber / Reuters:
Austrian plane search for leaker Snowden enrages Bolivia

Discussion: ViralRead and Riehl World News

New York Times:
Bolivian President's Plane Leaves Austria After Diplomatic Scramble

Discussion: New Republic, WorldViews, Lawfare and The Week

Theresa Clift / wisconsinrapidstribune.com:

Walker endorses path to citizenship — WAUSAU — Gov. Scott Walker distanced himself from House Republicans debating a new immigration bill Tuesday by endorsing a path to citizenship for immigrant workers. — In a meeting with the Daily Herald Media Editorial Board, Walker acknowledged …

Discussion: Politico, Washington Wire, The Hill and First Read

William Kristol / Weekly Standard:
The House GOP's July Agenda: Discredit and Delay Obamacare, Ignore Immigration

Discussion: Power Line, The Hill and Business Insider

Megan McCloskey / Stars & Stripes:

US Marines in Spain, Italy remain on heightened alert — WASHINGTON — About 500 crisis-response Marines who recently deployed to Italy and Spain are positioned to respond to the brewing chaos in Egypt. — Pentagon spokesman George Little wouldn't speak about Egypt or the U.S. Embassy …

Discussion: The Moderate Voice and Business Insider

Mark Binker / @NCCapitol:

Senate tacks sweeping abortion legislation onto Sharia law bill — RALEIGH, N.C. — Senators tacked a suite of new restrictions and regulations pertaining to abortion clinics onto a bill dealing with the application of foreign laws in North Carolina family courts Tuesday.

Hadas Gold / Politico:

Rush Limbaugh: Fox News wouldn't discuss state of GOP — Rush Limbaugh says Fox News did not want him to talk about the state of the Republican Party on the network and he called the move “quite telling.” — “They asked me, what do you want to talk about, I didn't want to talk about Egypt …

Salvador Rizzo / New Jersey Online:

N.J. Democrats press Republicans to ‘vote their conscience’ on gay marriage — Democratic senators Stephen Sweeney, Barbara Buono (right) and Nia Gill were in Westfield today calling on GOP lawmakers to get a same-sex marriage bill across the finish line. (Saed Hindash/The Star-Ledger)

Discussion: BuzzFeed, Joe. My. God. and Towleroad News #gay

Politico:

Lois Lerner's price for testimony: Immunity — Embattled IRS official Lois Lerner will not testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee unless she's given immunity from prosecution, her lawyer told POLITICO Tuesday. — “They can obtain her testimony tomorrow by doing …