memeorandum: Tea Party's Poll Setbacks Don't Limit Its Washington Clout (Patrick O'Connor/Wall Street Journal)

9:20 AM ET, June 26, 2014

Top Items:

Odds tilt toward GOP Senate — Republicans are in the strongest position to win back the Senate since losing it eight years ago. — Over several months, the party has expanded its range of targeted seats, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has helped defeat insurgents …

Discussion: Politico and Taylor Marsh

Patrick O'Connor / Wall Street Journal:

Tea Party's Poll Setbacks Don't Limit Its Washington Clout — Conservatives in Congress Threaten Several Programs that Chamber of Commerce Supports — Republican Sen. Thad Cochran's runoff victory Tuesday exposed the limits of tea-party power at the polls, but conservative activists retain …

Discussion: ABC News

Sam Levine / The Huffington Post:

NAACP Wants Thad Cochran To ‘Show Some Reciprocity’ — Black voters played a huge role in helping Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) fend off tea party challenger Chris McDaniel in a runoff election Tuesday, and now the state NAACP is asking the six-term senator to return the favor.

Discussion: New York Times, Weasel Zippers, Taegan Goddard's … and Mediaite

The Right Scoop:

Chris McDaniel: “We're not going to concede right now, we're going to investigate” — Chris McDaniel was on the Mark Levin Show tonight and said that he is not going to concede the election right now. Rather, there are a couple of things he intends to investigate:

Discussion: Washington Times, Doug Ross, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Quinton Report and Mediaite

Daniel Strauss / Talking Points Memo:

Conservative Freakout Blames ‘Uncle Tom’ And Voter Fraud For McDaniel Loss — Some conservatives aren't happy that their preferred candidate, state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) lost to Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) in the runoff of the GOP primary for U.S. Senate in Mississippi.

Discussion: The Daily Beast, Washington Post, New York Times, Daily Kos, Wall Street Journal, Capital New York, Business Insider and Prairie Weather

Alexander Burns / Politico:
The staggering price of crushing the tea party

Discussion: WJLA-TV

Molly Ball / The Atlantic Online:
The Tea Party Blew It

Discussion: American Spectator, Hot Air, NBC News, Washington Post, The Moderate Voice, Politico, Prairie Weather, The Dish, Talking Points Memo, RedState, Mediaite, The Hill and The Other McCain

Alec MacGillis / The New Republic:
Black Voters Saved Thad Cochran and the GOP Establishment. Here's What Republicans Owe Them In Return.

Discussion: New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Obsidian Wings, Talking Points Memo, alicublog, Lawyers, Guns & Money, BuzzFeed and Washington Post

Alexander Burns / Politico:
How Cochran bounced back from disaster

Discussion: Business Insider

Harry Enten / FiveThirtyEight:
It Looks Like African-Americans Really Did Help Thad Cochran Win

Alexander Burns / Politico:
How Cochran bounced back from disaster

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, Washington Post, The Moderate Voice, The Raw Story, New York Times, Taylor Marsh, Right Wing Watch, Washington Monthly, Power Line, Talking Points Memo, The Mahablog, The Clarion-Ledger, The Hill and Firedoglake

waysandmeans.house.gov:

REVEALED: GOP Senator Targeted by Lerner Ways and Means investigation uncovers push to audit Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) — f t # e — Washington, DC - Today, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) announced the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) targeting of conservative individuals includes …

Discussion: Hot Air, The Federalist, The Gateway Pundit, Power Line, Weasel Zippers and RedState

Stephen Ohlemacher / Associated Press:

EMAILS: IRS OFFICIAL SOUGHT AUDIT OF GOP SENATOR — WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional investigators say they uncovered emails Wednesday showing that a former Internal Revenue Service official at the heart of the tea party investigation sought an audit involving a Republican senator in 2012.

Discussion: Questions and Observations, Scared Monkeys, The Daily Caller and Mediaite

Fox News:
Lerner sought IRS audit of sitting GOP senator, emails show

Discussion: Right Wing News and Fox News Insider

Linda Greenhouse / New York Times:

The Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Cellphone Privacy — Fourteen years ago, the Rehnquist court interrupted a string of law enforcement victories to rule that when looking for illegal drugs, the police couldn't simply walk down the aisle of an intercity bus and squeeze the bags and soft-sided luggage on the overhead rack.

Discussion: ACS Blog, Washington Post, CNN, Democracy in America, Forbes and NBC News

New York Times:

A More Nuanced Breakdown of the Supreme Court — This is the time of year that the news media roll out a familiar graphic: Nine head shots of Supreme Court justices, arrayed from most liberal to most conservative. — In spacing the head shots at equal intervals, the graphics suggest a steady procession from left to right.

New York Times:
Aereo Loses at Supreme Court, in Victory for TV Broadcasters

Discussion: SCOTUSblog, Los Angeles Times, Cato Institute, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Washington Post, Outside the Beltway, The Verge, Guardian, Capital New York, Hit & Run and Bloomberg View, more at Mediagazer »

Lyle Denniston / SCOTUSblog:
Opinion analysis: Broad cloak of privacy for cellphones

Discussion: New York Times, Slate, Washington Times, The Daily Beast, The Atlantic Online, Politico, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Taylor Marsh, National Review, Outside the Beltway and TalkLeft, more at Mediagazer »

Eric Katz / Government Executive:

EPA Employees Told to Stop Pooping in the Hallway — Environmental Protection Agency workers have done some odd things recently. — Contractors built secret man caves in an EPA warehouse, an employee pretended to work for the CIA to get unlimited vacations and one worker even spent …

Discussion: Washington Examiner, Outside the Beltway, Power Line, Weasel Zippers, The Daily Caller, Mediaite, The PJ Tatler, The Quinton Report, National Republican …, TheBlaze.com, Washington Free Beacon, Hot Air, The Right Scoop, Hit & Run, The Jawa Report and Gawker

Caitlin MacNeal / Talking Points Memo:
EPA Memo To Employees: Please Stop Pooping In The Hallway

Discussion: VodkaPundit

Annalyn Kurtz / CNNMoney.com:

3 reasons not to freak out about -2.9% GDP — Well, this picture keeps getting uglier. — Gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic growth — contracted at a 2.9% annual rate in January through March, according to the latest revision from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Discussion: msnbc.com, NewsBusters, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, AEIdeas, Washington Monthly and Scared Monkeys

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis:
Jeannine Aversa: (202) 606-2649 (News Media)

Discussion: The Week, Hot Air, Zero Hedge, Washington Post, BizzyBlog and Daily Kos

Jeanna Smialek / Bloomberg:
U.S. Economy Shrank in First Quarter by Most in Five Years

Discussion: Businessweek, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Bloomberg View, White House.gov Blog, Yahoo! News, Washington Post and Weekly Standard

Sean Davis / The Federalist:
The Economy Tanked Last Quarter And It's Everybody's Fault But Obama's

Discussion: Reuters, Ed Driscoll, Twitchy and Shot in the Dark

Danny Vinik / The New Republic:
Today's GDP Number Is Not as Bad as it Sounds. But the Recovery Is Still Weak.

Discussion: Hullabaloo

Politico:

Barack Obama becomes mocker-in-chief on climate change skeptics — The sarcastic bear is loose, and he's loving every minute of it. — President Barack Obama is letting his inner Don Rickles run free, mocking climate deniers as the crowd who used to think the moon was made out of cheese …

Andrew Restuccia / Politico:

Obama mocks climate skeptics at LCV dinner — President Barack Obama lit into GOP climate change skeptics in a speech tonight, delighting a crowd of 800 to 900 environmentalists in Washington's Ronald Reagan Building. — He said Republicans in Congress are out of touch with the American public …

Discussion: Mediaite and Weasel Zippers

Timothy Cama / The Hill:

Another agency tells Congress: File not found — The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the IRS share a problem: officials say they cannot provide the emails a congressional committee has requested because an employee's hard drive crashed. — EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy confirmed …

Discussion: Twitchy and BizzyBlog

Erica Martinson / Politico:
EPA joins IRS lost emails club

Discussion: Hot Air, NewsBusters, The Hill and The Gateway Pundit

Igor Volsky / ThinkProgress:

Fox Host Yells At Michele Bachmann For Trying To Sue Obama: 'You're Being Silly' — “Fox Host Yells At Michele Bachmann For Trying To Sue Obama: 'You're Being Silly'” Share: — Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto blasted Republicans on Wednesday for preparing to file a federal lawsuit challenging …

Discussion: ThinkProgress and The Raw Story

Dana Milbank / Washington Post:

John Boehner wants to sue President Obama — Republicans, after years of squabbling with President Obama, have decided to resolve their differences with him according to a time-honored American tradition. — They are going to sue him. — “What we have seen clearly over the last five years …

Discussion: Prairie Weather, ABC News and Outside the Beltway

Lauren French / Politico:
John Boehner: President Obama hasn't ‘faithfully’ executed laws

Discussion: Yahoo! News, msnbc.com, The Daily Beast, Weasel Zippers and The Hill

Amy Chozick / New York Times:

Sales of Hillary Clinton's New Memoir Drop Sharply in 2nd Week — Sales of Hillary Rodham Clinton's new memoir, “Hard Choices,” declined 43.5 percent to 48,000 copies in its second week on the shelves, according to Nielsen BookScan. — The sales figures put pressure on the publisher …

Discussion: Mediaite