Exclusive: VA Scandal Hits New Hospital  —  Veterans with serious heart conditions, gangrene, and even brain tumors waited months for care at the Albuquerque VA hospital, a whistleblowing doctor tells The Daily Beast.  —  Add Albuquerque, New Mexico's to the growing list of VA hospitals accused …

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.

Cochran campaign knew of wife's taping for weeks  —  Sen. Thad Cochran's (R-Miss.) legal team apparently held onto information concerning a man's taping of the senator's bedridden wife for as many as two weeks before turning it over to the police.  —  Cochran's campaign spokesman …

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.”

Florida Lawmaker: Common Core Will Turn ‘Every One Of Your Children’ Gay  —  Florida Republican Rep. Charles Van Zant, left, believes that increasing educational standards cause homosexuality.  —  CREDIT: AP Photo/Phil Coale  —  Common Core may not be a well-intentioned set …

Marco Rubio's ‘pot’ hole  —  Why won't Sen. Marco Rubio say whether he's ever smoked pot?  —  The Florida Republican, who maintains a strict stance against the legalization of marijuana, refuses to answer whether he's ever personally smoked it.  Rubio told “Politics Confidential” …

For 2016 Hopefuls, Washington Experience Could Do More Harm than Good  —  Military Service Top Positive, Atheism Top Negative for Potential Candidates  —  As the 2016 presidential campaign begins to take shape, Washington experience has become less of a potential asset for those seeking the White House.

Why Democrats Are Aching to Run Against Jeb Bush  —  On Friday, Hillary Clinton spoke at the New America Foundation's “Big Ideas” conference (disclosure: I'm a New America senior fellow).  Her basic theme was familiar—the American dream of upward mobility is in peril—though she did offer a couple of intriguing twists.

Data Pirates of the Caribbean: The NSA Is Recording Every Cell Phone Call in the Bahamas  —  The National Security Agency is secretly intercepting, recording, and archiving the audio of virtually every cell phone conversation on the island nation of the Bahamas.

The state of conservative media  —  We've come a long way.  We have a long way to go.  —  Some new and familiar faces...  I  —  n the beginning, long ago, before the rise of talk radio, cable TV, and blogs, the liberal-leaning mainstream media was the only game in town.

Read What Georgia's Michelle Nunn Actually Said About Obamacare  —  Former President George H.W. Bush walks onstage with Points of Light Institute CEO Michelle Nunn for a speech on October 16, 2009, in College Station, Texas.  —  Earlier today the GOP oppo group America Rising sent out a series …

Student Debt Grows Faster at Universities With Highest-Paid Leaders, Study Finds  —  At the 25 public universities with the highest-paid presidents, both student debt and the use of part-time adjunct faculty grew far faster than at the average state university from 2005 to 2012 …

Exploring the Origins of the Legend of Joe Biden  —  I've been wondering about this for a while: I just noted this story about how a Connecticut teen invited Joe Biden to her prom and he replied by sending a corsage.  But I've wondered for a while about the origins of what I'll call the still-growing Joe Biden Legend.

James Webb: “I Heard My Country Calling”  —  Former U.S. Sen. Jim (D-VA) is a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam war.  Among his awards, he received the Navy Cross and two Purple Hearts serving as a Marine.  In a new memoir he writes of how growing up in a military family helped shape …

Federal Judge Strikes Down Oregon Same-Sex Marriage Ban, Weddings Can Start Immediately  —  State officials have said they will not appeal the ruling.  Judge's order is effective immediately.  —  Supporters of same-sex marriage gather for a rally in Portland, Oreg., on April 22.

Watch the Homophobic Ad That a Losing Candidate is Running in Georgia  —  The Georgia airwaves are largely full of TV ads for Republican Senate candidates (and a few for Michelle Nunn, who's sailing to a Democratic primary win), and I saw maybe eight of them while in the state last week.

Marc Andreessen on the Future of Silicon Valley(s), and the Next Big Technology  —  Silicon Valley is starting to feel a little less exuberant these days.  —  Some big start-ups are having trouble raising money.  Others are delaying plans to go public.  Hot new technologies like Bitcoin …

President Obama golfs with Bain Capital lobbyist  —  One of President Barack Obama's golf partners this weekend was a lobbyist for the financial firm Bain Capital.  —  According to a White House pool report, Obama hit the links on Saturday at the exclusive Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville …

U.S. Charges Five Chinese Military Hackers for Cyber Espionage Against U.S. Corporations and a Labor Organization for Commercial Advantage … A grand jury in the Western District of Pennsylvania (WDPA) indicted five Chinese military hackers for computer hacking, economic espionage …

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)