memeorandum: DEA IMPROPERLY PAID $854,460 FOR PASSENGER LISTS (Pete Yost/Associated Press)

9:10 AM ET, August 12, 2014

Top Items:

Actor, comic Robin Williams dies at 63 in apparent suicide — Robin Williams, a comic and sitcom star in the 1970s who became an Oscar-winning dramatic actor, died Monday at 63 in Marin County. The Marin County Sheriff's Office said he appears to have committed suicide.

Discussion: New York Times, Slate, The Democratic Daily, PoliticusUSA, CBS New York, American Spectator, Taylor Marsh, Daily Kos and Outside the Beltway

James Hamblin / The Atlantic Online:

Robin Williams Lived Intensely — Robin Williams is dead at 63. The comedian carried insecurity and self-doubt with contagious intensity. He was so grandiose and wild that it would've irritated audiences to their cores had his eyes not betrayed an insatiable melancholy, imploring, please, I just want to be liked.

Discussion: CNN, Guardian and Daily Mail

TMZ.com:

Robin Williams Dead — Commits Suicide — COMMITS SUICIDE — BREAKING NEWS — UPDATE: Oakland TV station KTVU reported Williams hung himself — Robin Williams has committed suicide. — The Oscar-winning actor/comedian killed himself in Tiburon, in Northern California.

Discussion: Scared Monkeys, The Urban Daily and Western Journalism

Steve Martin / Fox News:

Robin Williams dead at 63 in suspected suicide — Oscar-winning actor and comedian Robin Williams, who dazzled in such wide-ranging dramatic and comedic roles as alien, nanny, therapist and cartoon genie during a four-decades long career, was found dead in his northern California home in a suspected suicide Monday.

Discussion: Patterico's Pontifications and protein wisdom

Hollywood Reporter:

Robin Williams Dies of Suspected Suicide — The Oscar-winning actor and comedian was 63 — Oscar-winning actor and comedian Robin Williams has died at age 63, according to police in Marin County, Calif. — The full statement is below. … Williams' publicist Mara Buxbaum told The Hollywood Reporter …

Discussion: New York Times, Daily Mail, Capital New York, TVNewser, Gawker, Althouse, WTVC-TV, Ed Driscoll and The Daily Caller

Alan Duke / CNN:
Oscar-winning actor Robin Williams dead at 63

Discussion: The Raw Story and Booman Tribune

Nicole Sperling / Inside Movies:
Robin Williams dead at 63

Discussion: Gawker, The Raw Story and PoliticusUSA

Agence France-Presse:

Iran backs choice of new Iraq PM, top official says AFP 31 mins ago — Tehran (AFP) - Iran, a key ally of Iraq's sidelined Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said Tuesday it backed the legal process which led to him being replaced, following the nomination of Haidar al-Abadi as premier.

Discussion: Guardian

Politico:

Barack Obama's mixed messages — President Barack Obama isn't just grappling with what feels like an endless foreign policy nightmare around the world. Now he's got one hell of a messaging problem at home. — The United States will not intervene in foreign crises directly …

Justin Sink / The Hill:
Obama seeks Iraq regime change

Discussion: Politico, Outside the Beltway, his vorpal sword and ABC News

Eli Lake / The Daily Beast:
Exclusive: Inside Obama's Push for Regime Change in Iraq

Discussion: Guardian

Josh Rogin / The Daily Beast:

Exclusive: Obama Told Lawmakers Criticism of His Syria Policy is ‘Horsesh*t’ — Hillary Clinton and Congressmen alike have called on Obama to arm Syria's rebels. But the President fumed at lawmakers in a private meeting for suggesting he should've done more.

Rick Manning / The Hill:

More lost emails — When will Democrats have enough? — Twenty different Obama administration officials have lost or destroyed a portion of their email traffic. Email traffic that was, in some cases, under subpoena or in others requested as part of a larger inquiry into the conduct of the executive branch.

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:

Obama's Immigration Plan Should Scare Liberals, Too — Crossing a Rubicon of presidential authority. — Shares — The Obama years have taught us the sometimes frightening lesson that our Constitution and legal structure alone don't secure the Republic.

Discussion: McClatchy Washington Bureau, Hot Air and No More Mister Nice Blog

Jesse Byrnes / The Hill:

GOP gets hip with Uber — Uber, Lyft and Airbnb have become mascots for a Republican Party looking to promote a new brand of free market conservatism while making inroads with young voters. — Though the companies were engineered in the Democratic bastion of Silicon Valley …

Tim Mak / The Daily Beast:

Democrats Pay Black Staffers 30% Less — Campaign staffers who are people of color routinely get paid less than their white counterparts, and are often given less glamorous jobs. How an antiquated understanding of race relations results in minority staffers getting the short shrift.

Discussion: TPNN, RedState, NewsBusters, Hot Air and Independent Journal Review

Jelani Cobb / New York Times:

Can the G.O.P. Ever Attract Black Voters? — STORRS, Conn. — ON the morning of March 6, 1989, students began to gather at a flagpole on the campus of Howard University. Then they entered the administration building, chained doors shut, locked arms and announced that they would not leave until key demands were met.

Discussion: Weekly Standard

David Rutz / Washington Free Beacon:

Bombs Over Erbil — It was an applause line during almost every campaign address made by President Obama in 2012: “I promised to end the war in Iraq, and I did.” — Now, he's backing off. — President Obama ordered a full troop withdrawal from Iraq, which was completed in December 2011.

Discussion: Power Line, Western Journalism and TPNN

Kyle Cheney / Politico:

Colleen Hanabusa cites ‘irregularities’ in Hawaii vote — Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, who's trailing in the too-close-to-call Hawaii Democratic Senate primary against incumbent Brian Schatz, warned Monday of voting “irregularities” in precincts crippled by a massive tropical storm last week …

Discussion: Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Richard Cohen / Investor's Business Daily:

America's Left Slides Down A Slippery Slope In Iraq — Two “leading national security organizations” — that's their own designation, in case you're wondering — have condemned President Obama's “return to the battlefield in Iraq.” — Their names are a mouthful — the Council for a Livable World …

Discussion: Western Journalism, Washington Post and RedState

Pete Yost / Associated Press:

DEA IMPROPERLY PAID $854,460 FOR PASSENGER LISTS — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Drug Enforcement Administration paid an Amtrak secretary $854,460 over nearly 20 years to obtain confidential information about train passengers, which the DEA could have lawfully obtained for free through a law enforcement network …

Discussion: emptywheel, The Verge, Hit & Run, Hot Air and The Raw Story

Dana Milbank / Washington Post:

Dana Milbank: Obama vacations as the world burns — President Obama must really be teed off. — Hillary Rodham Clinton, his once-loyal secretary of state and his likeliest successor, has gone rogue, criticizing his foreign policy as too timid. — Dana Milbank writes about political theater in the nation's capital.

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System:

Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer — At the “The Great Recession—Moving Ahead,” a Conference Sponsored by the Swedish Ministry of Finance, Stockholm, Sweden — The Great Recession: Moving Ahead — The recession that began in the United States in December 2007 ended in June 2009.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Business Insider, Capitol Report and Calculated Risk

LZ Granderson / CNN:

How many unarmed people have to die? — Editor's note: LZ Granderson is a CNN contributor, a senior writer for ESPN and a lecturer at Northwestern University. He is a former Hechinger Institute fellow and his commentary has been recognized by the Online News Association …

Julia Lurie / The Atlantic Online:

Why Bottled Water Comes From California, Which Can't Spare Much — Bottled-water drinkers, we have a problem: There's a good chance that your water comes from California, a state experiencing the third-driest year on record. — The details of where and how bottling companies get their water …

Discussion: The Huffington Post and Daily Kos