POLITICO poll shows mounting danger for Dems  —  President Barack Obama's job approval slump and voters' entrenched wariness of his health care law are dogging Democrats ahead of the 2014 midterm elections, and Republicans have captured a lead in the areas home to the year's most competitive races, according to a new POLITICO poll.

Springtime for Bankers  —  By any normal standard, economic policy since the onset of the financial crisis has been a dismal failure.  It's true that we avoided a full replay of the Great Depression.  But employment has taken more than six years to claw its way back to pre-crisis levels …

Haverford College commencement speaker lambastes students  —  In a surprising move, a commencement speaker at Haverford College on Sunday used the celebratory occasion to deliver a sharp rebuke to students who had mounted a campaign against another speaker who had been scheduled to appear but withdrew amid the controversy.

Lessons of the VA Scandal  —  If our government has any obligation to fulfill its many promises on health care, it should be first and foremost to the men and women who served in our armed forces.  But the scandal over hidden waiting lists at a growing number of veterans' hospitals …

Abramson's Exit at The Times Puts Tensions on Display  —  Back in 2010, before she became executive editor of The New York Times, Jill Abramson sent me a handwritten attaboy note about a big story.  It still hangs in my cubicle: “You wrote a story about the trashing of a once great American institution and people never tire of that.”

In Arkansas, Obama is a Four-letter Word Hampering Democrats  —  What Bill Clinton's home state says about racial politics, control of the Senate, and Hillary Clinton in 2016.  —  Jerry Hood gives Richard Wyatt a trim while talking politics at his Little Rock barbershop.  (Ron Fournier)

No more liberal apologies as Elizabeth Warren takes the offensive  —  BOSTON  —  Elizabeth Warren is cast as many things: a populist, a left-winger, the paladin against the bankers and the rich, the Democrats' alternative to Hillary Clinton, the policy wonk with a heart.

Is This the Democrats' War on Women?  —  In 2013, an ex-boyfriend called the cops on Monica Wehby—and four days before her GOP primary, the police report resurfaced.  To blame for the leak?  A Democratic attack, say Republicans.  —  Republicans are crying foul over an eleventh-hour flurry …

Boehner's big reform decision  —  It's up to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).  —  Republican and Democratic advocates see one final, long-shot chance to pass immigration reform this summer, and its fate rests with a Speaker stuck between his party's resistance and his search for a career-defining legacy.

Missouri Prisons Ban Magazine For Article Critical Of The Death Penalty  —  Missouri's Attorney General Chris Koster (D) once suggested reviving the gas chamber as a method of execution due to legal uncertainty over whether his state could execute prisoners through lethal injection.

The 9/11 museum's absurd gift shop  —  The museum at Ground Zero tells the dark story of the 9/11 terror attacks with spectacular artifacts and exhibits.  It pays heart-wrenching tribute to the innocents and heroes killed that day.  —  It also has a gift shop.

The Great Society at 50  —  LBJ's unprecedented and ambitious domestic vision changed the nation.  Half a century later, it continues to define politics and power in America.  —  One day shortly after starting his new job as presidential adviser and speechwriter, Richard N. Goodwin was summoned to see the boss.

Poverty Is Not a State of Mind  —  Paul Ryan and Jeb Bush, the didactic-meets-dynastic duo, spoke last week at a Manhattan Institute gathering, providing a Mayberry-like prescription for combating poverty in this country: all it takes is more friendship and traditional marriage.

Science Standards Divide a State Built on Coal and Oil  —  CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Sitting in the headquarters of the Wyoming Liberty Group, Susan Gore, founder of the conservative think tank, said new national science standards for schools were a form of “coercion,” adding, “I don't think government …