memeorandum: John Kerry Tells The Truth ... Therefore He Has To Apologize, Ctd (Andrew Sullivan/The Dish)

2:40 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: CNN, Fox News, Taylor Marsh and Althouse

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: JustOneMinute, Washington Post and NewsBusters

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

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

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

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

Yahoo! News:
When the White House hates your tweet

Discussion: Hot Air, more at Mediagazer »

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

Discussion: Hot Air, Daily Kos and The Gateway Pundit

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, Washington Post, NationalJournal.com, Hit & Run and Daily Kos

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

Discussion: 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: ACASignups.net, VodkaPundit and Patterico's Pontifications

Energy & Commerce Committee:
Committee Learns Who's Paid for Obamacare: As of April 15, Only 67 Percent of Enrollees …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, National Review, Hit & Run, CBS News, ACASignups.net, The Gateway Pundit, Reuters, Hot Air, Vox, The PJ Tatler, Washington Examiner, Washington Post, The Dish, “The Lid” and Eric Cantor …

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, DownWithTyranny!, Bloomberg View, Prairie Weather, Josh Blackman's Blog, New York Times, The Raw Story and Legal Planet

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

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

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

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, Liberaland, Patterico's Pontifications and Shakesville

New York Times:
State-Sponsored Horror in Oklahoma

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

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 and National Review

Politico:
The White House beat, uncovered

Discussion: The Week, Fox News and The Huffington Post

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

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

Discussion: VodkaPundit, Boing Boing, Globe and Mail and Blazing Cat Fur

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: Mediaite and Yahoo! News

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, Scientific American …, The Moderate Voice, The Huffington Post and Business Insider

James Taranto / Wall Street Journal:

If Data Were a Journalist — He'd work for Ezra Klein. — “Vox.com joins a crowded field of data-driven news sites,” USA Today reported earlier this month on Ezra Klein's new venture. Maybe “Data” should have been capitalized. — A pair of articles the site published yesterday …

Discussion: Althouse

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

Ben Smith / BuzzFeed:

Benjamin Netanyahu Has Had Enough Of Your Selfies — “You are slaves.” — View Entire List ›

Discussion: Guardian, Mediaite and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

A.B. Stoddard / The Hill:

Dems on thin ice for 2014 — Amid a torrent of fresh and frightening polling, Democrats are clinging to some comforting silver linings: flush war chests, a few strong individual polls, a robust gender gap. But it will be months before we know if they are kittens balancing on branches or cats with nine lives.

Scott Johnson / Power Line:

Bill Henck: Inside the IRS, part 2 — William Henck has worked inside the IRS Office of the Chief Counsel as an attorney for over 26 years. We posted his personal account, including his testimony to a retaliatory audit conducted by the IRS against him, this past February in “Inside the IRS.”

ThinkProgress:

Veteran Offers Up His Burial Plot So That A Lesbian Couple Can Rest In Peace — Navy veteran Madelynn Taylor was denied when she asked to have her spouse buried next to her — An Idaho veteran last week was told that her now-deceased wife wouldn't be buried next to her in a veteran's cemetery.

Discussion: Reuters, Idaho Statesman and Washington Post

Detroit Free Press:

Moscow revives Red Square May Day parade — MOSCOW - Tens of thousands of Russians marched through Red Square on Thursday as part of May Day celebrations in the first such display of Soviet-era-like ceremony since 1991 - the year the Communist Soviet Union dissolved.

Discussion: Hot Air

Quinnipiac News + Events:

Release Detail — May 1, 2014 - Jeb Bush Is Top Dog In Florida 2016 GOP Pack, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; But Clinton On Top, Despite Bad Obama Grades — Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is way out in front over U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and other possible Republican candidates …

Discussion: Washington Post, Washington Monthly, Politico and The Week