memeorandum: Rick Perlstein: “Ronald Reagan absolved America almost in a priestly role not to have to contend with sin. (David Dayen/Salon)

8:20 AM ET, July 31, 2014

Top Items:

Democrats Are Way More Obsessed With Impeachment Than Republicans — House Speaker John Boehner said Tuesday that Republicans have no plans to impeach President Obama, and that all the impeachment talk was driven by Democrats hoping to stir up their base. — Boehner's statement isn't literally true …

Discussion: Right Wing News, Washington Post, Taylor Marsh, The New Republic, Bloomberg View, PJ Media, Capitol Words, National Review, dccc.org, Independent Journal Review and Los Angeles Times

David A. Graham / The Atlantic Online:

21 Emails From the Democratic Party About Impeachment — President Obama's supporters are using fringe threats as a potent fundraising tool. Here's what it looks like. — By almost every indication, President Obama is not going to be impeached. — Sure, there are rabble-rousers …

Discussion: Slate, Hot Air, RedState, Mediaite and Townhall.com

Politico:

House GOP in border-crisis chaos — House Republicans will vote to rein in the Obama administration's power to halt deportation for undocumented immigrants — a surprise move that comes as they struggle to attract support for their bill to address the crisis at the border.

Discussion: Capitol Report and CNN

Joe Klein / TIME:

Begging for Impeachment — To improve its standing with voters, the White House tries to drum up some trouble for itself — At 10:02 on Friday evening, July 25, I received the following personal message from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee: “THE IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT OBAMA IS NOW A REAL POSSIBILITY.”

Cristina Marcos / The Hill:

House votes to sue Obama — The House voted Wednesday to rebuke President Obama by passing a resolution authorizing a lawsuit against his use of executive power. — The 225-201 vote fell along party lines, with five Republicans voting against the measure. No Democrats supported it.

Discussion: Guardian, Politico, Real Clear Politics, The PJ Tatler and Talking Points Memo

CNN:

GOP-led House authorizes lawsuit against Obama — (CNN) — The Republican-led House approved a resolution on Wednesday authorizing Speaker John Boehner to sue President Barack Obama over claims he abused his powers at the expense of Congress and the Constitution. — The vote was 225-201.

Discussion: New Day

Lauren French / Politico:
House votes to sue Obama

Discussion: Little Green Footballs

Josh Israel / ThinkProgress:
House Republicans Vote To Sue Obama

Discussion: Daily Kos, Hinterland Gazette, Associated Press and The Hill

CNN:
Top House Democrat: 'You bet we're going to run' on impeachment

Discussion: Hot Air, The Huffington Post, OnPolitics, Associated Press and New York Times

Robert Costa / Washington Post:
Cruz whipping tonight against Boehner border bill

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Politico, Political Capital, CNN, Hot Air, Talking Points Memo and The Lonely Conservative

Mike Lillis / The Hill:
Pelosi: Lawsuit first step down ‘road to impeachment’

Discussion: Roll Call and Politico

NBC News:
Analysis: Impeachment Talk Becomes a Cynical Game

Discussion: New York Times, ThinkProgress, msnbc.com, CNN, The Hill and Washington Free Beacon

Damian Paletta / Wall Street Journal:
Paul Ryan on Immigration, Inversions, Impeachment and 2016

Discussion: National Review and Washington Post

Alexandra Jaffe / The Hill: Dems fear a debacle on turnout

Amie Parnes / The Hill:
Obama to GOP: Stop hating

Discussion: Liberal Values, Politico and Taegan Goddard's …

Katherine Miller / BuzzFeed:

We Never Tried To Impeach Bush, Says Democratic Lawmaker Who Co-Sponsored Bush Impeachment Bill — “We did not seek an impeachment of President Bush, because as an executive, he had his authority.” — View Video › — Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee argued Wednesday …

Discussion: Mediaite

David Dayen / Salon:

Rick Perlstein: “Ronald Reagan absolved America almost in a priestly role not to have to contend with sin. The consequences are all around us today" — From climate change to foreign affairs, Reagan pushed America toward easy lies, just as reckoning seemed possible

Discussion: FIRST DRAFT, CANNONFIRE and Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality

Nathan Schacht / Media Trackers:

Secretive Leftwing Network Discovered through WI Records Law — A low-profile Google Group used by over 1,000 state and national leftwing leaders and activists has been discovered thanks to Wisconsin's open records law. A Media Trackers inquiry into the actions of a University …

Discussion: The Mahablog, RedState and Vox Popoli

Brent Budowsky / The Hill:

John Kerry is right — Robert Kennedy, speaking of John Kennedy, using words they would both probably use to praise John Kerry, said that JFK's favorite quote was this: “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.”

David D. Kirkpatrick / New York Times:

Arab Leaders, Viewing Hamas as Worse Than Israel, Stay Silent — CAIRO — Battling Palestinian militants in Gaza two years ago, Israel found itself pressed from all sides by unfriendly Arab neighbors to end the fighting. — Not this time. — After the military ouster of the Islamist government …

Discussion: Politico, Israel Matzav, Guardian, Belmont Club and Prairie Weather

Paul Rolly / Salt Lake Tribune:

Blogger fired from language school over ‘homophonia’ — Homophones, as any English grammarian can tell you, are words that sound the same but have different meanings and often different spellings — such as be and bee, through and threw, which and witch, their and there.

Discussion: Prairie Weather, Washington Post, The Raw Story and Joe. My. God.

Liz Goodwin / Yahoo! News:

Exclusive: Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Hobby Lobby Dissent Yahoo News with Katie Couric 17 hrs ago — Katie Couric — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, fresh off a bruising loss in the Hobby Lobby birth control case last month, told Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric in an exclusive interview …

Discussion: Business Insider

Roger Cohen / The Atlantic Online:

Yes, It Could Happen Again — Pessimism is a useful prism through which to view the affairs of states. Their ambition to gain, retain, and project power is never sated. Optimism, toward which Americans are generally inclined, leads to rash predictions of history's ending in global consensus and the banishment of war.

ABC News:

US Condemns Shelling of UN School in Gaza — The White House condemned the shelling Wednesday of a U.N. school in the Gaza Strip that was sheltering Palestinians displaced by the fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza. — The U.S. didn't assign responsibility for the shelling …

Discussion: blogs.telegraph.co.uk, Gawker and Rush Limbaugh

Washington Post:
Israel presses attack; 20 killed at U.N. school

Discussion: Here & Now, Global Voices, Hot Air, Outside the Beltway, emptywheel, UNRWA and Mondoweiss

Associated Press:

Bush 43 writing about Bush 41 — NEW YORK — His paintings made news worldwide, but it turns out that former President George W. Bush has been working on another, highly personal project since leaving the White House: He has quietly completed a biography of his father, former President George H.W. Bush.

Associated Press:

POWELL MAYBE NOT TOLD EARLY ABOUT CIA TECHNIQUES — WASHINGTON (AP) — A Senate report on the CIA's interrogation and detention practices after the 9/11 attacks concludes that the agency initially kept the secretary of state and some U.S. ambassadors in the dark about harsh techniques and secret prisons …

Discussion: NewsBusters

Kyle Mantyla / Right Wing Watch:

Michele Bachmann Claims President Obama Wants To Use Unaccompanied Children For Medical Experiments — Rep. Michelle Bachmann has a new theory about the unaccompanied minors fleeing violence in Central America who have come in large numbers to the southern U.S. border: they are future victims …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Liberaland and The Raw Story