Why Democrats Are So Scared of Benghazi  —  They insist we don't need another committee to investigate the attack—but they're really afraid of the incompetence the truth will reveal.  —  I read with interest my Daily Beast colleague Michael Tomasky's column Wednesday …

What Timothy Geithner Really Thinks  —  “This is kind of like a hearing,” Timothy Geithner said, swaying uncomfortably, face scrunched and hair perfectly tousled.  “Do you guys always do it this way?”  —  The former Treasury secretary was looking up from behind a long desk at his audience …

Why are so many white men trying to save the planet without the rest of us?  —  Climate change affects minorities and women, the elderly and the poor.  But the leadership of the environmental movement is pale and male.  That doesn't look like progress  —  The future of the environmental movement isn't pale and male.

CEO Of Biggest Fast Food Chain Comes Out In Favor Of A Minimum Wage Increase  —  The founder and CEO of Subway says a minimum wage increase wouldn't be such a bad thing for his stores and workers and believes it should be changed so that wages rise automatically with inflation.

Hillary's State Department Refused to Brand Boko Haram as Terrorists  —  Under Hillary Clinton, the State Department repeatedly declined to fully go after the terror group responsible for kidnapping hundreds of girls.  —  The State Department under Hillary Clinton fought hard against placing …

Defiant Donald Sterling Unapologetic In First Public Comment Since Scandal, Insists 'I'm NOT A Racist' & WON'T Sell The Clippers — 'You Can't Force People To Sell Property In America!'  —  Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has gone into lockdown mode since tapes of his racist rant went public earlier this month.

Report: Journalists Are Miserable, Liberal, Over-Educated, Under-Paid, Middle-Aged Men  —  Today, the term ink-stained wretches is exactly one-third accurate.  —  Journalists aren't quite so blotched from pens and printers, now that the newspaper die-out has wiped out 50 years of advertising gains in a decade.

U.S. criticizes racist North Korean screed against Obama  —  The White House on Thursday sharply condemned a lengthy and racist North Korean screed against President Obama, calling the rhetoric from Pyongyang “particularly ugly and disrespectful.”  —  The rebuke came in response …

How Much Porn Does It Take to Get Fired at EPA?  —  As a U.S. House committee looked at allegations that a special homeland security unit within the Environmental Protection Agency was blocking investigations by the EPA's Inspector General, lawmakers also veered into other internal probes at that agency …

Obama Unleashes the Left  —  How the government created a federal hunting license for the far left.  —  In the U.S., the politics of the left versus the right rolls on with the predictability of traffic jams at the George Washington Bridge.  It's a lot of honking.  Until now.

Meet the Sex Hypnotherapist Helping the GOP Retake the Senate  —  Loren Parks and other megadonors are trying to make the Oregon Senate race competitive.  —  Loren Parks in one of his many hypnotherapy videos Loren Parks/YouTube  —  As Democrats and Republicans jostle for control of the Senate in 2014 …

Bill Clinton Was Racialized, Too  —  My colleague Peter Beinart rebukes Congressman Bennie Thompson's claim that Clarence Thomas is an “Uncle Tom.”  He then goes on to challenge the explanatory power of racism in understanding some of President Obama's more unhinged foes:

Warren Buffett, Joe Nocera and 'Fessing Up to Readers  —  Mistakes are inevitable.  So, too, are newspaper corrections, since newspapers are full of those pesky things known as facts and are produced by human beings, who have a tendency to get things wrong sometimes.

Four Years in, GOP Support for Tea Party Down to 41%  —  Support for the movement nationwide drops to 22%  —  PRINCETON, NJ — About four in 10 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents classify themselves as supporters of the Tea Party, while 11% are opponents and 48% are neither.

Vulnerable Democrat Gives Stunningly Strong Defense Of Obamacare At Hearing  —  In a flipping of the proverbial script, a Senate Democrat facing a tough re-election race used a confirmation hearing of Sylvia Mathews Burwell, nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services, to advocate forcefully in favor of Obamacare.

‘Check Your Privilege’ Means ‘Shut Your Mouth’  —  We've all known forever that Princeton University is a place of many privileges.  It has recently gotten a new one: Starting an argument from there, filled with conservative sentiments and anecdotes, is now a surefire way to command the attention of the Internet.

Germans Fight Neo-Nazis by Liking Their Facebook Page and Flooding It With Love This didn't go over very well By Gabriel Beltrone  —  Sadly, there's still a Nazi presence in Germany.  Recently, an organization named Laut Gegen Nazis, or Loud Against Nazis, decided to combat the hate with lots of love—or rather, lots of likes.

Called by Republicans, Health Insurers Deliver Unexpected Testimony  —  WASHINGTON — House Republicans summoned a half-dozen health insurance executives to a hearing Wednesday envisioned as another forum for criticism of the Affordable Care Act.  But insurers refused to go along with the plan …

BLM workers on alert after wrangler threatened with gun on I-15  —  Terror ploy?  » Assailants hide behind hoods, mask license plate while making death threat.  —  | The Salt Lake Tribune  —  With anti-government sentiments roiling in the aftermath of Cliven Bundy's Nevada standoff …

Harry Reid's claim that the Koch brothers are ‘one of the main causes’ of climate change  —  “While the Koch brothers admit to not being experts on the matter, these billionaire oil tycoons are certainly experts at contributing to climate change.  That's what they do very well.

The Harry S. Truman Union Station?  Senators want to rename D.C.'s train hub.  —  Ronald Reagan's name is already on the name of a local airport, so why not also name the train station for a former president?  —  That's what Missouri Sens. Claire McCaskill (D) and Roy Blunt (R) …

Report finds one federal layoff from sequester  —  A new government report has found that last year's sequester led to only one federal layoff, a conclusion that Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said Wednesday was an outrage.  —  Coburn said the finding from the Government Accountability Office …