memeorandum: Rand Paul: I Signed Cotton Letter to Help Obama ‘Negotiate from a Position of Strength’ (David Weigel/Bloomberg Business)

4:30 PM ET, March 20, 2015

Top Items:

CNN:

First on CNN: FBI, federal prosecutors investigating Aaron Schock — Washington (CNN)The FBI and the federal prosecutors in Illinois are investigating whether Rep. Aaron Schock broke the law in accounting for campaign expenses, according to people familiar with the matter.

Discussion: Washington Post, Business Insider, Towleroad News #gay, Mediaite and Joe. My. God.

Steven Petrow / Washington Post:

Civilities: Please stop pink-baiting Aaron Schock — On Tuesday, when former representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.), one of the first openly gay congressmen, heard from a Business Insider reporter that Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) was resigning, he made an immediate assumption. “He was outed or what?”

Discussion: Politico, Washington Blade, The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast and Towleroad News #gay

ABC News:
Barney Frank Says Aaron Schock Should Be ‘Exposed’ If He's Gay

Discussion: Out Magazine, Raw Story, Politico, The New Civil Rights Movement, abc7chicago.com and The Daily Beast

Associated Press:
Source: Resigning Rep. Schock under investigation by Justice

Discussion: PoliticusUSA, The PJ Tatler and National Review

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:

Boehner's Epic Burn — You may have seen that Israeli officials announced this evening that US House Speaker John Boehner will leave at the end of March for a 10 day victory tour through Israel. The trip, purportedly, was planned during Netanyahu's visit to Washington earlier this month …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, CNN, Haaretz and Washington Post

John Podhoretz / Commentary Magazine:

The Crisis Has Exploded — Today, the president of the United States told the prime minister of Israel he was reassessing America's “options” with regard to Israel in light of remarks Benjamin Netanyahu made about potential Palestinian statehood and an election-day Facebook post urging Israeli right-wingers …

Discussion: The Federalist, Washington Free Beacon and New York Times

Jason Horowitz / New York Times: Israel Election Result Complicates Life for Clinton

Marc Ambinder / The Week:

How I unfairly maligned two Secret Service agents in POLITICO Magazine — It seemed like a refrain: News reports surfaced on March 11 about an incident at the White House involving drunken Secret Service agents. The first accounts suggested that the agents' conduct was egregious and even cartoonish.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Washington Post, Poynter, The Daily Caller, Mediaite, US News, FishbowlDC and Politico, more at Mediagazer »

Hadas Gold / Politico:
Marc Ambinder apologizes for POLITICO piece

Discussion: The PJ Tatler and New York Times

Christopher / Sacramento Bee:

California proposal to legalize killing gays hard to stop — › — ‹ — For less than the cost of an Apple iPad, Matt McLaughlin started a statewide legal conversation. — An attorney from Huntington Beach, McLaughlin in late February spent $200 to propose a ballot measure …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, blog.sfgate.com, Hit & Run, Raw Story and Bloomberg Business

Moshe Z. Marvit / The Nation:

These Republicans Want to Take Away Your Weekend — In Wisconsin, a new bill is threatening to kill workers' one day of rest. … As Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed the so-called “right to work” bill on March 9, making Wisconsin the twenty-fifth right-to-work state in the country …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Raw Story, ThinkProgress and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Derek Hunter / Townhall.com:

The Circular Firing Squad — Breitbart's Matthew Boyle had himself a scoop - Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker hired someone to run his social media campaign who disagrees with him on some issues. — Yeah, that's really about it. — But the headline tells a different story.

Discussion: Guardian

Katie Pavlich / Townhall.com:

BREAKING: After Scrapping AR-15 Ammo Ban, ATF Director B. Todd Jones Resigning — UPDATE: ATF has officially confirmed Jones' departure without stating a specific reason for his resignation. — “ATF employees are hard-working, dedicated individuals who serve the public to make our nation safer every day,” said Jones.

Discussion: Washington Post and Hot Air

ABC News:
ATF Director B. Todd Jones Stepping Down After Nearly 4 Years on Job

Discussion: The Daily Caller

Jessica Kershaw / BLM:

Interior Department Releases Final Rule to Support Safe, Responsible Hydraulic Fracturing Activities on Public and Tribal Lands — Fundamental Standards Address Well Integrity, Water Protection, Disclosure of Chemicals — WASHINGTON, D.C. - Following a robust and transparent public process …

Discussion: Yahoo! News, ThinkProgress, UPI, Washington Post, Common Dreams, EcoWatch and The PJ Tatler

Elana Schor / Politico:
Interior's new fracking rules get swift GOP backlash

Discussion: Weekly Standard, Sen. Bob Casey and Associated Press

David Weigel / Bloomberg Business:

Rand Paul: I Signed Cotton Letter to Help Obama ‘Negotiate from a Position of Strength’ — Rand Paul tries to convince realists that he didn't bail on them. — MANCHESTER, N.H. -During a town hall meeting with employees of a cloud computing company, Kentucky Senator and potential 2016 …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Daily Kos

Liz Sly / Washington Post:

Petraeus: The Islamic State isn't our biggest problem in Iraq — Gen. David H. Petraeus, who commanded U.S. troops in Iraq during the 2007-2008 surge, was back in that country last week for the first time in more than three years. He was attending the annual Sulaimani Forum …

Discussion: Politico, The Tower and TalkLeft

Chris Mooney / Washington Post:

Scientists say Arctic sea ice just set a disturbing new record — Two weeks ago, we noted here that the Arctic was on the verge of a scary new record — an unprecedented “lowest winter maximum” for sea ice extent. What that would mean is that during the season of the year …

Discussion: Guardian, Tech Times, Common Dreams, Mashable and Scientific American Content

Politico:

John Boehner defies conservatives, goes bold on budget — The House GOP's battered leadership team is determined to score some wins. — Speaker John Boehner's newest tack is to go big. — Over the next week, the Ohio Republican and his top lieutenants plan to jam two big-ticket items through …

Discussion: The Hill, neo-neocon, Daily Kos and Hot Air

Gallup:

SOCIAL ISSUES … PRINCETON, N.J. — The San Francisco metropolitan area has the highest percentage of the adult population who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) of any of the top 50 U.S. metropolitan areas, followed by Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas.

Discussion: New York Times, CBS San Francisco, Associated Press, Washington Post and Towleroad News #gay

Paul Krugman / New York Times:

Trillion Dollar Fraudsters — By now it's a Republican Party tradition: Every year the party produces a budget that allegedly slashes deficits, but which turns out to contain a trillion-dollar “magic asterisk” — a line that promises huge spending cuts and/or revenue increases …

Discussion: Balloon Juice and CRFB.org

Wall Street Journal:

Obama Marks Nowruz in Statement — Pres. Barack Obama issued his annual statement Thursday to mark Nowruz, the Persian new year. This year's statement comes as Iran and world powers including the U. S. are trying to reach an agreement on Iran's nuclear program and reflects Mr. Obama's hopes for such a deal.

Discussion: Weekly Standard, John Hawkins' Right Wing News, New York Times and Power Line

Reid J. Epstein / Wall Street Journal:
Barack Obama Asks Iran to Free Jason Rezaian and Other Americans

Discussion: Poynter, more at Mediagazer »

Stephen Dinan / Washington Times:

Benghazi committee officially requests Clinton surrender her email server … The committee investigating Benghazi formally requested Friday that Hillary Rodham Clinton turn her email server over to an independent third party so it can be scrutinized to determine whether she and the Obama administration complied with open-records laws.

Discussion: CNN, FOX News Radio and The Daily Caller

Steve Mistler / Portland Press Herald Contributors:

Stephen King: LePage ‘full of the stuff that makes the grass grow green’ — Author Stephen King turned Gov. Paul LePage's effort to kill Maine's income tax into a horror show for the governor Thursday. — In a weekly radio address LePage's office released on Wednesday …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Maine Progressives Warehouse, Mediaite, BostonGlobe.com and Raw Story

Josh Feldman / Mediaite:

Bernie Goldberg to O'Reilly: Let's Face It, Fox ‘Plays Down Conservative Screw-Ups’ — Fox News' Bernie Goldberg told Bill O'Reilly tonight he needs to understand that the liberal media may be biased, but so is Fox News, with many of its regular faces turning a blind eye to conservative problems.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Hullabaloo and The Huffington Post

BuzzFeed:

Steve King: I Don't Understand How American Jews Can Be Democrats — “But anti-Semitism is a component of this and just plain liberalism is another component. I mean the president wants the world to be, he thinks somehow he can force the world can be the world he myopically believes it is.

Discussion: Mediaite

The Huffington Post:

Rudy Giuliani Tells His Party To Stop Blocking Loretta Lynch's Nomination — WASHINGTON — Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) said Friday that Loretta Lynch is an “extraordinary” nominee for U.S. attorney general, and called on Senate Republicans to stop holding up her confirmation vote.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Mediaite

BBC:

Yemen crisis: More than 100 die in attacks on Sanaa mosques — Suicide bombers have attacked two mosques in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, killing at least 126 people and wounding many others, reports say. — Worshippers were attending noon prayers at the Badr and al-Hashoosh mosques when at least four attackers struck.