memeorandum: A Modest Proposal — WASHINGTON — Enough with all the phony impeachment talk. (Maureen Dowd/New York Times)

4:20 PM ET, August 6, 2014

Top Items:

Amash after win: Ellis is 'what's wrong with politics' — GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD/AP) — After Republican U.S. Rep. Justin Amash beat challenger Brian Ellis in the Third Congressional District primary, he said Ellis's campaign was “disgusting” and “despicable.”

Discussion: Roll Call, The Daily Caller, National Review and The Lonely Conservative

Washington Post:

Justin Amash's absolutely amazing victory speech — Politicians who win campaigns, no matter how dirty, will almost always kiss and make up with their political opponents in their election-night speeches. — Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), of course, is not your average politician.

Discussion: Mediaite, The Daily Caller, Hit & Run and Fox News

Dave Spencer / Fox17:

Rep. Justin Amash says Challenger Brian Ellis ‘owes an apology’ and calls Rep. Pete Hoekstra a ‘disgrace’ — GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - While wrapping up his victory speech in a win during the primary election, Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan's 3rd District called former Rep. Pete Hoesktra of Holland …

Discussion: Outside the Beltway, Washington Post, Talking Points Memo, ThinkProgress, emptywheel, Politico, Business Insider, Hit & Run and The Raw Story

George Packer / New Yorker:

A Friend Flees the Horror of ISIS — A humanitarian crisis that could turn into genocide is taking place right now in the mountains of northwestern Iraq. It hasn't made the front page, because the place and the people are obscure, and there's a lot of other horrible news to compete with.

Discussion: Michael J. Totten's blog, VodkaPundit, Al Jazeera English, Booman Tribune, National Review and The Dish

Loveday Morris / Washington Post:

Iraqi Yazidis stranded on isolated mountaintop begin to die of thirst — BAGHDAD — Stranded on a barren mountaintop, thousands of minority Iraqis are faced with a bleak choice: descend and risk slaughter at the hands of the encircled Sunni extremists or sit tight and risk dying of thirst.

Discussion: Guardian, Al Jazeera English, The Lonely Conservative, UNICEF, CNN, Lawfare, Hot Air, ThinkProgress, The Gateway Pundit, Agence France-Presse, BizPac Review, Prairie Weather, Yahoo! News and National Review

Steve Deace Show:

Deace Show Podcast 08-04-14 — Mike Huckabee previews his trip to the first-in-the-nation caucus state. Big update on the Mississippi Senate scandal with Chris McDaniel. Open borders and Ebola, what could possibly go wrong? — PODCAST — 4 AUG - — LET ILLEGAL MINORS STAY...IN YOUR HOUSE.

Discussion: PoliticusUSA and Washington Post

Brian Tashman / Right Wing Watch: Mike Huckabee: Obama ‘Acting Like God,’ ‘Worthy Of Impeachment’

Caitlin MacNeal / Talking Points Memo:
Mike Huckabee: Obama ‘Worthy Of Impeachment’ (AUDIO)

Discussion: Mediaite and National Review

Mark Murray / NBC News:

America's Fed Up: Obama Approval Rating Hits New Low — Yet because this discontent differs - among Democrats, Republicans, and independents - Hart cautions that Americans still aren't likely to be storming the polls on Election Day in November. — “We're unhappy, but we aren't coalescing around an issue,” he said.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Hot Air, The Strata-Sphere, Questions and Observations, The Hugh Hewitt Show, Daily Kos, Scared Monkeys, Pat Dollard and The PJ Tatler

Maureen Dowd / New York Times:

A Modest Proposal — WASHINGTON — Enough with all the phony impeachment talk. — Onward to a real impeachment! — In the absurdist capital we live in, it would be good for all sides — in ways you may not have considered. — President Obama's threat to bypass obstinate Republican lawmakers …

Discussion: Hot Air, Mediaite, BarbWire.com and Talking Points Memo

Cassie Spodak / CNN:

George W. Bush calls on Africa's ‘first spouses’ to break down stigmas in fighting cancer, AIDS — Washington (CNN) - Former President George W. Bush said Wednesday it takes something special to get him out of Dallas nowadays, and with the Africa Leaders Summit in Washington this week it gave …

Kendall Breitman / Politico:
Michelle Obama: ‘Women are smarter than men’

Discussion: CNN

Elizabeth Wagmeister / Hollywood Life:

Hillary Clinton Launching Presidential Campaign In New York City? — It appears Hillary Clinton has launched her 2016 presidential campaign. HollywoodLife.com can exclusively report that Hillary has leased office space on a high-level floor of a corporate New York City office building …

Discussion: CNN, msnbc.com, Talking Points Memo, Gothamist, Business Insider, Fox News and BuzzFeed

Jonathan Topaz / Politico:
Battle of the brag: Hillary Clinton vs. Stephen Colbert

Discussion: CNN

Andrew Levison / The New Republic:

Democrats Have a White Working Class Problem—and Not Just in the South — Whenever elections approach, there is always a flurry of concern among Democrats regarding the white working class. Despite a steady and gradual decline in its size over the last several decades …

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Sam R. Hall / The Clarion-Ledger:

McDaniel staffer drawn into Fielder controversy (UPDATE) — Stephen Fielder, the self-proclaimed pastor from Meridian, says a member of Chris McDaniel's campaign paid him $2,000 to give an interview in which he accused a Thad Cochran campaign staffer of asking him to pay people to vote for the GOP incumbent.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, ThinkProgress, WJTV, Washington Post, Mediaite and WLOX-TV

Radley Balko / Washington Post:

Since marijuana legalization, highway fatalities in Colorado are at near-historic lows — Since Colorado voters legalized pot in 2012, prohibition supporters have warned that recreational marijuana will lead to a scourge of “drugged divers” on the state's roads.

Discussion: Hit & Run, National Review and Hullabaloo

James Carville / The Hill:

Are we facing a GOP takeover in 2014? — Democrats, myself included, tend to respect and value expertise, and find that people who have established a record of accuracy and developed a model that's proven to be beneficial over time should be people accorded great deference when they opine …

Noemie Emery / Washington Examiner:

Intellectual hubris hampers presidential geniuses — It's now two and a half years to the can't-come-too-soon end of President Obama's adventure, but his legacy seems to be settled already; he is the smartest man in all of U.S. history to screw up so many big things. — That he is brilliant is something we already knew.

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

New Washington Post project discloses fabrications from a source — The Washington Post's “Storyline” project has posted a bruising editor's note on a story about black men and HIV: … As laid out in its initial posting, “Storyline” hovers where people and policy mingle: “We care about policy as experienced by people across America.

Discussion: Politico, Talking Points Memo and Mediaite, more at Mediagazer »

Politico:

How Pat Roberts beat Milton Wolf — The Republican establishment's latest triumph over tea party activists in a Senate primary this year — Pat Roberts' narrower-than-expected win over challenger Milton Wolf on Tuesday night — came with a big lift from party headquarters in Washington.

Discussion: Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Outside the Beltway

Washington Post:
Sen. Pat Roberts takes early lead in primary fight

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Political Insider blog and Instapundit

Lori Montgomery / Washington Post:

U.S. policymakers gird for rash of corporate expatriations — Washington policymakers are bracing for a wave of corporations to renounce their U.S. citizenship over the next few months, depriving the federal government of billions of dollars in tax revenue and stoking public outrage ahead of the Nov. 4 congressional elections.

Discussion: Bloomberg, The Democratic Daily, ThinkProgress, Reuters, Shakesville and American Thinker

Gregory Korte / USA Today:

$619 billion missed from federal transparency site — WASHINGTON — A government website intended to make federal spending more transparent was missing at least $619 billion from 302 federal programs, a government audit has found. — And the data that does exist is wildly inaccurate …

Discussion: NewsBusters, Fox News, MichelleMalkin.com, Weekly Standard and RT

Mike Lillis / The Hill:

Democrats throw kitchen sink at Republicans ahead of midterms — Democrats are throwing the kitchen sink at Republicans in a bid to keep the Senate and erode the GOP's House majority in November's elections. — While the Democrats' official campaign strategy focuses wholly on the economy …

Washington Post:

Former Va. governor's trial: McDonnell staffers called Williams the ‘tic tac man’ — Former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, are battling a 14-count public-corruption indictment that alleges they lent the prestige of the governor's office to a Richmond-area businessman in exchange for gifts and loans.

Discussion: National Review and The PJ Tatler