memeorandum: The Sequester, “Austerity,” and Obama's Attempt at a Comeback (John Hinderaker/Power Line)

10:55 PM ET, July 28, 2013

Top Items:

Greg B. Smith / NY Daily News:

Weiner campaign paid private eye $45,000 to investigate own 2011 Twitter ‘hacking’ lie, reports show — The ‘hacking’ never happened — Weiner later admitted to sending the racy pics himself — but his furious attempt at damage control included an expensive investigation by T&M Protection services.

Discussion: Daily Mail, The Other McCain, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Alan Colmes' Liberaland and Jammie Wearing Fools

Michael Barbaro / New York Times:

Weiner's Campaign Manager Quits After Latest Revelations — In a new sign of tumult within Anthony D. Weiner's embattled political operation, his campaign manager has quit, leaving his already skeletal team without a day-to-day leader. — According to two people told of the decision …

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, The Hinterland Gazette, The Week, Mediaite, Scared Monkeys, Capitol Report, Hot Air, Jezebel, Althouse, Conservatives4Palin, Politico, CNN, The Daily Caller, The Hill, americanthinker.com and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Bob Cusack / The Hill:

Marion Barry: Weiner a ‘good Democrat’ — Former Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry said Anthony Weiner is a “good Democrat” who should be talking more about his accomplishments in Congress. — In an interview Saturday night on Geraldo Rivera's show on Fox News, Barry said …

Discussion: Weasel Zippers and Jammie Wearing Fools

Jake Miller / CBS News:
Anthony Weiner's campaign manager calls it quits

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Mediaite, Politico and CNN

Melissa Klein / New York Post:

Iconic Ground Zero photo was nearly excluded from museum for being too ‘rah-rah’ American — This iconic picture of firefighters raising the stars and stripes in the rubble of Ground Zero was nearly excluded from the 9/11 Memorial Museum — because it was “rah-rah” American, a new book says.

Discussion: The PJ Tatler, The Jawa Report, Scared Monkeys, Weasel Zippers, Fox News Insider and protein wisdom

Kari Rea / ABC News:

Glenn Greenwald: Low-Level NSA Analysts Have ‘Powerful and Invasive’ Search Tool — Today on “This Week,” Glenn Greenwald - the reporter who broke the story about the National Security Agency's surveillance programs - claimed that those NSA programs allowed even low-level analysts to search …

Discussion: The PJ Tatler, The Raw Story and Little Green Footballs

Evan McMurry / Mediaite:

Greenwald Claims Private Contractors Can Spy On Calls, Emails: ‘I Defy NSA Officials To Deny’ These Capabilities — Following up on Edward Snowden's earlier claim that he could wiretap anybody as a low-level defense contractor—a claim denied by NSA officials and House Intelligence Committee …

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Hullabaloo and Alan Colmes' Liberaland

Meghashyam Mali / The Hill:
Greenwald: Low-level NSA analysts allowed to spy on phone calls

Discussion: Politico

Peter Schroeder / The Hill:

Obama, Hillary Clinton set for Monday lunch — President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are set to meet for lunch Monday. — The private lunch between the president and the woman many Democrats hope will succeed him in office was announced Sunday by the White House press office.

New York Times:

A New Defense of Voting Rights — On Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. took an important step toward repairing the damage from last month's Supreme Court ruling striking down a central element of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He is right to adopt an aggressive approach to defending …

Discussion: National Review

Nicole Flatow / ThinkProgress:
Governor Admits He ‘Does Not Know Enough’ About The Voter Suppression Bill He's About To Sign

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland and Associated Press

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Cumulus planning to drop Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity — In a major shakeup for the radio industry, Cumulus Media, the second-biggest broadcaster in the country, is planning to drop both Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity from its stations at the end of the year, an industry source told POLITICO on Sunday.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Little Green Footballs, Mediaite and Deadline.com, more at Mediagazer »

Hope Yen / Associated Press:

EXCLUSIVE: 4 IN 5 IN US FACE NEAR-POVERTY, NO WORK — You are here — Home » Barack Obama » Exclusive: 4 in 5 in US face near-poverty, no work — WASHINGTON (AP) — Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Weasel Zippers, The Hinterland Gazette, The Mahablog, The Gateway Pundit, americanthinker.com and Jammie Wearing Fools

Jim Mustian / Baton Rouge news …:

Sheriff's Office sets up park stakeouts to ensnare gay men — An undercover East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff's deputy was staking out Manchac Park about 10 a.m. one day this month when a slow-moving sedan pulling into the parking lot caught his attention. The deputy parked alongside …

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland, ThinkProgress, BuzzFeed, The Raw Story, LGBTQ Nation and Towleroad News #gay

Peter Schroeder / The Hill:

Lew: IRS exhibited ‘equal opportunity bad judgment’ in targeting — Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said Sunday the Internal Revenue Service exhibited “equal opportunity bad judgment” in the improper targeting of political groups, and there was no evidence of political pressure.

Discussion: Hot Air, Crooks and Liars and americanthinker.com

Meghashyam Mali / The Hill:
Lew: No federal bailout for Detroit

Discussion: Outside the Beltway

Peter Schroeder / The Hill:
Lew warns GOP to avoid ‘false crises’ over spending, debt limit

Discussion: Politico and CNN

Burgess Everett / Politico:

GOP senators to Liz Cheney: We like Mike Enzi — Republican senators are nearly united in their response to Liz Cheney's challenge to their low-key Wyoming colleague: We like Mike. — That is Mike Enzi, the three-term senator from the Cowboy State who was otherwise on a glide path …

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland

Alan Duke / CNN:

Police: Robbers tell man, ‘This is for Trayvon Martin’ — (CNN) — A weekend robbery in a racially diverse neighborhood of Washington may have been a hate crime, police said. — “This is for Trayvon Martin,” one of the three black men told a white man as they approached him early Saturday …

Discussion: Mediaite and NewsBusters

Associated Press:

Col. Bud Day, Medal of Honor Recipient, Dies at 88 — Retired Col. George “Bud” Day, a Medal of Honor recipient who spent 5½ years as a POW in Vietnam and was Arizona Sen. John McCain's cellmate, has died at the age of 88, his widow said Sunday. — Day, one of the nation's …

Discussion: Conservatives4Palin, Outside the Beltway and The Gateway Pundit

New York Post:

Stalker terrorizes CNN's Anderson Cooper — CNN's Anderson Cooper has a stalker — a gaunt, scraggly-haired, 40-year-old Queens man who has the steely-eyed anchor stud fearing for his life. — Since 2008, Alex Hausner — described as a gay, Jewish white supremacist …

Discussion: Weasel Zippers

Peter Buffett / New York Times:

The Charitable-Industrial Complex — I HAD spent much of my life writing music for commercials, film and television and knew little about the world of philanthropy as practiced by the very wealthy until what I call the big bang happened in 2006. That year, my father, Warren Buffett …

Discussion: Crooks and Liars and The Reality-Based Community