No one buying claim that Lois Lerner's IRS emails were lost  —  Last Friday afternoon, the Internal Revenue Service claimed that Lois Lerner, a former executive tasked with overseeing tax-exemption applications, lost thousands of emails after her computer crashed.

GOP pol raises Obama impeachment  —  Rep. Lou Barletta says the House “probably” has the votes to impeach President Barack Obama.  —  “He's just absolutely ignoring the Constitution, and ignoring the laws and ignoring the checks and balances,” the Pennsylvania Republican said of Obama on the Gary Sutton radio show on Monday.

What to Do in Iraq  —  It's widely agreed that the collapse of Iraq would be a disaster for American interests and security in the Middle East and around the world.  It also seems to be widely assumed either that there's nothing we can now do to avert that disaster, or that our best bet is supporting Iran against al Qaeda.

More US Troops to Iraq; Special Forces Considered  —  The U.S. is urgently deploying several hundred armed troops in and around Iraq and considering sending an additional contingent of special forces soldiers as Baghdad struggles to repel a rampant insurgency, even as the White House insists anew …

WH to honor young illegal immigrants  —  The White House will honor 10 young adults on Tuesday who came to the United States illegally and qualified for the president's program to defer deportation actions.  —  Each person has qualified for the government's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program …

Heritage's ugly Benghazi panel  —  Representatives of prominent conservative groups converged on the Heritage Foundation on Monday afternoon for the umpteenth in a series of gatherings to draw attention to the Benghazi controversy.  —  But this one took an unexpected turn.

NC GOPer: Unlike Blacks Or Hispanics, ‘Traditional’ Population Isn't Growing (VIDEO)  —  State House Speaker Thom Tillis (R-NC), the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in North Carolina, said that the “traditional” voting bloc of his home state wasn't growing like as minority populations in an interview he did in 2012.

Kochs launch new super PAC for midterm fight  —  During a closed-door gathering of major donors in Southern California on Monday, the political operation spearheaded by the Koch brothers unveiled a significant new weapon in its rapidly expanding arsenal — a super PAC called Freedom Partners Action Fund.

Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, and their fellow neocons botched Iraq.  Now they want to tell you what they think.  Ignore them.  —  Let's say you're an academic-turned-public official who helped push your government into war.  You promised an easy victory and an inexpensive reconstruction …

Hillary Clinton's Book Tops Barnes & Noble Sales In First Week  —  Hard Choices sells 24,000 copies in its first week through B&N.  —  Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attends a book signing for with her new memoir, Hard Choices, at a Costco in Arlington, Va., last Saturday.

Hillary Still Doesn't Get It On Iraq  —  The unfortunate re-eruption of warfare in Iraq will lead to many more questions for Hillary Clinton about her past support for the war—a rather unfortunate thing from her point of view, given the issue was a key reason for her 2008 Democratic presidential primary loss.

President Obama seeks political boost from LGBT executive order  —  President Barack Obama's 2014: “pen and phone” — and politics.  —  Monday, the White House announced Obama will sign an executive order that would prohibit federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Court Rulings on Voter Restrictions Create Limbo as Midterms Near  —  MIAMI — With the midterm elections only months away, efforts to carry out some of the country's strictest photo ID requirements and shorten early voting in several politically pivotal states have been thrown into limbo …

Another Factor Said to Sway Judges to Rule for Women's Rights: A Daughter  —  WASHINGTON — It was, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg later said, “such a delightful surprise.”  —  In a 2003 Supreme Court opinion, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist suddenly turned into a feminist, denouncing “stereotypes about women's domestic roles.”

Video Captures MI Police Struggling To Respect Gun-Toting Ranter's Open Carry Rights  —  On a bright day in early May, Joseph Houseman, 63, was out enjoying his Second Amendment rights in Kalamazoo, Mich. As traffic went by on East Cork Street, Houseman stood at the roadside, a rifle resting on his shoulder.

In Texas' Rio Grande Valley, a seemingly endless surge of immigrants  —  The call went out on Border Patrol radios just before sundown one day this week: 31 immigrants spotted illegally crossing the Rio Grande on a raft.  —  No sooner had the migrants been found hiding in the mesquite brush …