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.

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 …

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.

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” …

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.”

The One Percent at State U  —  New report finds that student debt and low-wage faculty labor are rising faster at state universities with the highest-paid presidents.

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.

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.

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.

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 …

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.

What to Watch For in Three Primaries  —  Not much matters six months before a midterm election, but Tuesday's primaries are an exception.  Republicans will have an opportunity to nominate candidates in three potentially competitive Senate contests: in Kentucky, Georgia and Oregon.  Here's what you need to know.

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 …

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.

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)

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 …

Higher ed becoming a joke: Column  —  American colleges are fraught with petty politics and bad economics.  —  As college graduates around the country fling their caps into the air, college and university administrators are ending the year in a less positive state.

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 …

Targeted?  Gun sellers say ‘high risk’ label from feds cuts off banking options, restricts business  —  Obama plan pressures financial institutions  —  Gun retailers say the Obama administration is trying to put them out of business with regulations and investigations that bypass Congress …

Here's How Republicans Are Trying To Solve Their Problem With Black Voters  —  The RNC picks fights with liberal media over race, while Rand Paul talks policy with black Democrats.  But mixed signals continue.  —  John Gara  —  On the morning of March 27, Jamilah Lemieux …

Joe Biden says ‘no’ to prom invite  —  High school student Talia Maselli's top choice for prom date turned her down.  But he invited her to visit him at the White House instead.  —  Vice President Joe Biden wrote a handwritten note to Maselli to tell the Connecticut high school student …