memeorandum: Can Washington's Gift Economy in Marijuana Work? (Josh Barro/New York Times)

10:20 PM ET, March 20, 2015

Top Items:

Josh Gerstein / Politico:

Feds argue they had no duty under FOIA to search Hillary Clinton's emails — The federal government had no duty under the Freedom of Information Act to produce emails former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent or received on a privately maintained account, Justice Department lawyers suggested …

Discussion: Business Insider

Ben Kamisar / The Hill:

DOJ defends Clinton from email subpoena — The Justice Department is defending former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from a motion to subpoena her private emails under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). — “Such action is unnecessary and inappropriate under FOIA,” DOJ officials wrote in a legal briefing filed Thursday.

Discussion: Hot Air

Stephen Dinan / Washington Times:
Benghazi committee officially requests Clinton surrender her email server

Discussion: CNN, FOX News Radio and The Daily Caller

Lauren French / Politico:
Trey Gowdy to Hillary Clinton lawyer: Turn over server to third party

Discussion: Fox News and The Gateway Pundit

ABC News:

Barney Frank Says Aaron Schock Should Be ‘Exposed’ If He's Gay … Power Players — It took former Rep. Barney Frank 32 years to come out as gay. — But now, as rumors swirl alleging that retiring-Rep. Aaron Schock is gay, Frank said the Illinois Republican should be “exposed” …

Discussion: Out Magazine, Yahoo! News, Raw Story, The New Civil Rights Movement, Politico and The Daily Beast

Steven Petrow / Washington Post:
Civilities: Please stop pink-baiting Aaron Schock

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

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

Discussion: PoliticusUSA, The PJ Tatler and National Review

Trymaine Lee / msnbc.com:

Eric Holder breaks silence on GOP obstruction of Lynch vote — For Attorney General Eric Holder, the GOP's obstruction of Loretta Lynch's nomination to replace him is both a slap in the face to the political process and demeaning to Lynch, an unblemished nominee who has been widely praised on both sides of the aisle.

Discussion: Politico and Mediaite

Amanda Terkel / The Huffington Post:

Obama On Loretta Lynch: 'You Don't Hold Attorney General Nominees Hostage' — WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama chastised Senate Republicans on Friday for refusing to confirm his attorney general nominee, saying it's inexcusable to hold Loretta Lynch “hostage” as a bargaining chip for separate legislation.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Mediaite, Raw Story and US News

The Huffington Post:
Rudy Giuliani Tells His Party To Stop Blocking Loretta Lynch's Nomination

Discussion: Mediaite and Talking Points Memo

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: Washington Free Beacon and The Federalist

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: CNN, Washington Monthly, Washington Post and Haaretz

Andrew Kaczynski / 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: Talking Points Memo and Mediaite

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: CBS San Francisco, Progress Pond, Hit & Run, Raw Story, blog.sfgate.com and Bloomberg Business

FIRE:

Ex-Chicago State Admin: I Was Pressured to File False Harassment Claim Against Faculty Critic — A former high-level administrator at Chicago State University alleged in a statement filed yesterday in federal court that Chicago State President Wayne Watson pressured her to file …

Discussion: Hit & Run and The Daily Caller

Louise Radnofsky / Wall Street Journal:

Paul Ryan Urges State Lawmakers Not to Set Up Health-Insurance Exchanges — Ways and means chairman says GOP is moving ahead on alternative to health law — WASHINGTON—Rep. Paul Ryan urged state lawmakers to resist setting up state insurance exchanges if the Supreme Court rules that key parts …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos and Hullabaloo

Washington Post:

Role of Hillary Clinton's brother in Haiti gold mine raises eyebrows — MORNE BOSSA, Haiti — Drive down the rutted dirt road a couple of miles to the guard house, then hike 15 minutes up to the overgrown hilltop, and there it is: a piece of 3.5-inch-wide PVC pipe sticking out of the ground.

Discussion: The Daily Caller and RedState

Washington Post:
How the Clintons' Haiti development plans succeed — and disappoint

Discussion: Washington Free Beacon and National Review

Paul Waldman / American Prospect:

Why Haven't Republicans Caught On to Marco Rubio? — When you try to assess candidates from the other party, even the most unsentimental among us can have a hard time separating our emotional reactions from our level-headed assessment of who's a strong contender and who isn't.

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog, Washington Monthly, Booman Tribune, National Review, The Cook Political Report, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and The Reaction

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.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Associated Press, Fox News, CNN, New York Times, Center for Security Policy, NPR, New York Magazine and The Week

Mohammed Ghobari / Reuters:
Suicide bombers hit two mosques in Yemen, killing 50

Discussion: The Long War Journal, Guardian, Common Dreams and The Week

Ben Kamisar / The Hill:

Graham threatens to withhold UN funding — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warned Thursday that he would slash U.S. funding to the United Nations if the body decides to lift its sanctions on Iran as part of a nuclear agreement. — “Twenty-two percent of the funding for the United Nations comes …

Discussion: Daily Kos and Bloomberg Business

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: Washington Post, Poynter, The Huffington Post, Mediaite, The Daily Caller, 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

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: Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo

Josh Barro / New York Times:

Can Washington's Gift Economy in Marijuana Work? — It sounds like an idea a stoner might come up with. — In Washington, D.C., it's now legal to possess marijuana, to grow it, to smoke it and to give it away. But you're not allowed to trade in it. You can give your neighbor up to an ounce …

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Kate Torgovnick May / TED Blog:

Imagine walking a mile in someone else's headline: Monica Lewinsky speaks at TED2015 — “Public humiliation as a blood sport has to stop,” says Monica Lewinsky onstage at TED2015. “We need to return to a long-held value of compassion and empathy.” Photo: James Duncan Davidson/TED.

Discussion: Slate, Washington Post, Guardian, New York Times, Vanity Fair, Bloomberg Business and Washington Free Beacon

Alan Carter / CBS Los Angeles:

Parent Sues LAUSD After Teacher Reportedly Used Racially Charged Comments In Class — LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A Brentwood parent is suing the school district, charging that a male teacher made offensive and racially charged comments in his class in front of and focused on his biracial daughter.

Discussion: Raw Story and Talking Points Memo

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, ThinkProgress, Raw Story and Lawyers, Guns & Money

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

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