memeorandum: The worst excuse ever: The Rhodes memo debacle (Jennifer Rubin/Washington Post)

4:00 PM ET, May 1, 2014

Top Items:

Jennifer Rubin / Washington Post:

The worst excuse ever: The Rhodes memo debacle — The White House damage control on the latest batch of Benghazi emails is not going well. The White House's belated release of the documents at the very least show it has been actively evading legitimate congressional requests for relevant information.

Discussion: his vorpal sword, CNN, Fox News, Taylor Marsh and Althouse

Andrew C. McCarthy / National Review:

Obama's ‘Blame the Video’ Fraud Started in Cairo, Not Benghazi — The e-mail revelations and the Obama administration's lies — Here is the main point: The rioting at the American embassy in Cairo was not about the anti-Muslim video. As argued here repeatedly (see here and here) …

Discussion: protein wisdom and The Gateway Pundit

Michael D. Shear / New York Times:

Email Suggests White House Strategy on Benghazi — WASHINGTON — A newly released email shows that White House officials sought to shape the way Susan E. Rice, then the ambassador to the United Nations, discussed the Middle East chaos that was the context for the attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.

Discussion: Washington Post, JustOneMinute and NewsBusters

Justin Sink / The Hill:

Can Obama get his groove back? — It's been more than a year since President Obama saw his approval rating hit 50 percent, and his still-souring numbers have Democrats fretting about his toxic effect in November. — Party strategists say the solution is for the White House to shake …

Discussion: Politico, Weekly Standard, Fox News and Jammie Wearing Fools

Yahoo! News:
When the White House hates your tweet

Discussion: Politico, Hot Air and The Huffington Post, more at Mediagazer »

Wall Street Journal:
New evidence that Ben Rhodes told Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton to blame the video.

Discussion: The Daily Banter, The Dish, Townhall.com, Betsy's Page, Power Line, Mediaite, Outside the Beltway, National Review, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Daily Caller and The PJ Tatler

Larry O'Connor / Washington Free Beacon:
Brother of CBS News President at Center of Latest Benghazi Bombshell

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The Heritage Foundation and Washington Post

Sahil Kapur / Talking Points Memo:

Antonin Scalia's Blunder Is Unprecedented, Legal Experts Say — Justice Antonin Scalia's factual error in a dissenting opinion Tuesday has become the talk of the legal community as experts puzzle over the extraordinary nature of the Reagan-appointed justice's blunder, which the Supreme Court quietly corrected as of Wednesday morning.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, NPR, Hit & Run, The Mahablog, SCOTUSblog, ACS Blog, Bloomberg View, Prairie Weather, DownWithTyranny!, Josh Blackman's Blog, The Raw Story, Legal Planet and New York Times

Lyle Denniston / SCOTUSblog: Commentary: From the bench to the podium

New York Times:
State-Sponsored Horror in Oklahoma

Discussion: Guardian, The Week, The Daily Caller, Boing Boing, The Dish, Tulsa World, Democracy in America, KFOR-TV, Los Angeles Times and NationalJournal.com

Jonathan Cohn / The New Republic:

Obamacare Is Getting the Benghazi Treatment, Courtesy of House Republicans — House Republicans just put out a new report on the Affordable Care Act. You should take is as seriously as you take all reports from House Republicans these days. — In other words, you shouldn't take it seriously.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, NationalJournal.com, Washington Post, Hit & Run, The Gateway Pundit, ACASignups.net, Vox, Energy & Commerce Committee, Daily Kos, Washington Examiner, The Dish and Eric Cantor …

Stephanie Condon / CBS News:
Report: 67% of Obamacare enrollees have paid so far

Discussion: ACASignups.net, American Spectator, The Week and CBS DC

Allahpundit / Hot Air:
Uh oh: House committee claims only two-thirds of federal ObamaCare enrollees paid first premium by April 15

Discussion: National Review, Talking Points Memo, Hit & Run, VodkaPundit and Patterico's Pontifications

Globe and Mail:

Rob Ford takes leave as recent drug video emerges — A second video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking what has been described as crack cocaine by a self-professed drug dealer was secretly filmed in his sister's basement early Saturday morning. — The clip, which was viewed by two Globe and Mail reporters …

Discussion: Business Insider, CNN, Talking Points Memo, CBC News, Poynter, New York Times, Washington Post, The Daily Caller, Toronto Sun, RT, Mediaite and The Week

Royson James Toronto / Toronto Star:
Rob Ford is out of time and must resign: James

Discussion: VodkaPundit

Frank Gunn / Toronto Star:
Rob Ford did cocaine on wild night, witnesses say

Discussion: Boing Boing, Globe and Mail, Blazing Cat Fur, The Daily Caller and Mashable

Marlow Stern / The Daily Beast:

John Oliver on ‘Last Week Tonight,’ Turning Down CBS, and ‘Nauseating’ American Politics — The newly minted host of HBO's ‘Last Week Tonight with John Oliver’ sat down to discuss his new gig, the strange state of U.S. politics, and more over coffee. — “I'm still getting used to this whole interview thing,” says John Oliver.

Discussion: Althouse, Mediaite and Yahoo! News

Snapchat:

Putting the Chat into Snapchat — Building Snapchat has taught us a lot about what makes conversation special. When we first started working on an application for sharing disappearing pictures, we had no idea how much we would learn. Our classmates were quick to point out that you could always take a screenshot.

Discussion: Re/code, ThinkProgress, Mashable, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and VentureBeat

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:
Real talk: the new Snapchat brilliantly mixes video and texting

Discussion: New York Times, PandoDaily, Gigaom, The Week and Globe and Mail

ed.gov:

U.S. Department of Education Releases List of Higher Education Institutions with Open Title IX Sexual Violence Investigations — Contact: Press Office, (202) 401-1576, press@ed.gov — The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released today a list …

Discussion: WGGB-TV, The Week, NPR, New York Times, Business Insider, CBS DC and Feministing

Oren Dorell / Associated Press:

General: Military should've tried to rescue Benghazi Americans — WASHINGTON — U.S. military personnel knew early on that the Benghazi attack was a “hostile action” and not a protest gone awry, according to a retired general who served at U.S. Africa Command's headquarters in Germany during the attack.

Discussion: The PJ Tatler, Washington Free Beacon and Hot Air

Katie Pavlich / Townhall.com:
Top Intel Chief Testifies: ‘We Should Have Sent Help For Americans in Benghazi’

Discussion: Daily Kos and The Gateway Pundit

Politico:

What is Hillary Clinton afraid of? — Over the 25 years Hillary Clinton has spent in the national spotlight, she's been smeared and stereotyped, the subject of dozens of over-hyped or downright fictional stories and books alleging, among other things, that she is a lesbian …

Discussion: Associated Press, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Week, NewsBusters, Hullabaloo and National Review

Ilya Somin / Washington Post:

Victims of Communism Day — Today is May Day. Since 2007, I have advocated using this date as an international Victims of Communism Day. I outlined the rationale for this idea (which I did not originate) in my very first post on the subject: … Our relative neglect of communist crimes carries a real cost.

Discussion: Hit & Run

Detroit Free Press:
Moscow revives Red Square May Day parade

Discussion: Hot Air

Catherine Thompson / Talking Points Memo:

Tom Coburn: I Don't Believe There Should Be A National Minimum Wage — Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said Thursday that he doesn't believe there should be a national minimum wage. — Senate Republicans voted Wednesday to block debate on legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10.

Discussion: Hullabaloo, Patterico's Pontifications and Shakesville

Catherine Thompson / Talking Points Memo:

Fox News Brands Scientific American Editor A ‘Coward’ (VIDEO) — A Scientific American editor must have struck a nerve over at Fox News this week when he tweeted about having a “Fox & Friends” producer shoot down his idea to talk about the impacts of climate change on the show.

Discussion: The Raw Story, The Moderate Voice, Scientific American …, The Huffington Post and Mediaite

Sam Youngman / Lexington Herald-Leader:

Kentucky GOP seeks pledge from McConnell and Bevin to support party's nominee — The Republican Party of Kentucky has begun the tricky task of trying to unify its party nearly three weeks before GOP primary voters choose between U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Louisville challenger Matt Bevin.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Mediaite

A.B. Stoddard / The Hill: Dems on thin ice for 2014

George F. Will / Washington Post:

The heavy hand of the IRS seizes innocent Americans' assets — Earnest moralists lament Americans' distrust of government. What really is regrettable is that government does much to earn distrust, as Terry Dehko, 70, and his daughter Sandy Thomas, 41, understand.

Discussion: VodkaPundit

Eleanor Clift / The Daily Beast:

Meet Mary Burke, the Woman Who Could Beat Scott Walker — She's a political novice—and that may be what it takes to knock off Wisconsin's governor, of whose jobs plan she says: 'I've seen eighth-graders' term papers that are more thoughtful.' — Republicans call her “Millionaire Mary,” …

Discussion: Althouse, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Hot Air