memeorandum: Election 2015: Exit poll puts Tories close to majority (BBC)

8:15 AM ET, May 8, 2015

Top Items:

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Nate Silver: Polls are failing us — Nate Silver fared terribly in Thursday's UK election: In his pre-election forecast, he gave 278 seats to Conservatives and 267 to Labour. Shortly after midnight, he was forecasting 272 seats for Conservatives and 271 for Labour.

Discussion: New York Times, Betsy's Page, Outside the Beltway, Guardian and Althouse

BBC:

Election 2015: Exit poll puts Tories close to majority — The Conservatives are set to be the largest party in the Commons but just short of a majority, according to the general election exit poll. — The survey taken at polling stations across the UK suggests the Tories will get 316 MPs …

Discussion: FiveThirtyEight, Guardian, Hit & Run, Political Wire, Reuters, Washington Post, NPR, Taylor Marsh and Power Line

P. J. O'Rourke / The Daily Beast:
Limey Liars & the Country That Doesn't Love Them

Discussion: RedState

Brendan Bordelon / National Review:

How Five Republicans Let Congress Keep Its Fraudulent Obamacare Subsidies — Health-care experts call it D.C. insiderism at its worst. — The rumors began trickling in about a week before the scheduled vote on April 23: Republican leadership was quietly pushing senators to pull support …

Discussion: Hot Air and Power Line

Manu Raju / Politico:
GOP consultant on hot seat over Rand Paul attack

Discussion: RedState

Politico:
NSA ruling puts lawmakers on edge

Discussion: Hullabaloo

Politico:
Edward Snowden fans see vindication in court ruling

Discussion: US News and Fox News

Jordain Carney / The Hill:
McConnell, GOP defend NSA

Discussion: Bloomberg View, American Civil Liberties Union, Politico and Boing Boing

Washington Post:

One of Jeb Bush's top advisers on Israel: George W. Bush — When asked this week at an exclusive Manhattan gathering about who advises him on U.S.-Israel policy, Jeb Bush surprised many of the 50-plus attendees by naming his brother, former president George W. Bush, as his most influential counselor.

Discussion: Salon, New York Times, Talking Points Memo, Hot Air, Mediaite, The Week, The American Conservative, Business Insider and No More Mister Nice Blog

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, Senators Both, Lead Republican Attacks on Congress — WASHINGTON — His voice exuding disgust, Jeb Bush could have been describing a blistering rash. — “I'm not a United States senator — thank God,” he told a ballroom full of people here the other day.

Jonathan Easley / The Hill:

Walker hits bump in '16 race — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has hit a bump in the presidential race as new candidates have crowded the field, and his national poll numbers have faltered. — He was seen as an early favorite to win the Iowa caucuses after taking the race by storm …

Discussion: Hot Air, Liberaland, Washington Post, RedState, OnPolitics and Washington Monthly

Katie Glueck / Politico:

Lindsey Graham looking at June 1 to announce White House run, sources say — The announcement would likely take place in South Carolina, possibly near his home base of Seneca — Lindsey Graham is telling donors that June 1 is the likely date for his presidential announcement …

Discussion: USA Today, The Week and Business Insider

Dylan Byers / Politico:

The media's real role in 2016 — Let's be honest with ourselves for a second: This is Hillary Clinton's election to lose. — On Nov. 8, 2016, Clinton will start — start — with a minimum 247 of the 270 electoral votes she needs to win. If you give her Colorado and Virginia …

Discussion: CNN, Balloon Juice, Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Hot Air

Ramesh Ponnuru / Bloomberg View:
Hillary Clinton, Immigration Extremist

Discussion: Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Bloomberg Business and Mediaite

Patrick Healy / New York Times:
Hillary Clinton Shows New Willingness to Tackle Risky Issues

Discussion: Hot Air, Washington Post, Taylor Marsh, RealClearPolitics Videos, US News, Daily Kos, The Atlantic and Fox News

Meghan Barr / Associated Press:

Activist: No regrets about cartoon contest ended by gunfire — 6 photos — NEW YORK (AP) — Does Pamela Geller regret organizing the Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest that ended in gunfire? — No, she says confidently. In fact, she says, she probably saved lives by hosting the event …

Discussion: Washington Post, The Gateway Pundit, NPR, Ed Driscoll and Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs

Andrew Kaczynski / BuzzFeed:
Peter King: Pam Geller Event Put “People's Lives At Risk For No Good Reason”

Discussion: Mediaite, Talking Points Memo and Washington Monthly

Economist:

The dawn of artificial intelligence — Powerful computers will reshape humanity's future. How to ensure the promise outweighs the perils — From the print edition — “THE development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race,” Stephen Hawking warns.

Discussion: Shot in the Dark

Michael E. Miller / Washington Post:

‘Shawshank’ prison escape ends 56 years later with cinematic stakeout — A man convicted of manslaughter who escaped from an Ohio prison farm in 1959 was arrested in Florida Monday. But a friend says she hopes 79-year-old Frank Freshwater won't be sentenced. (AP)

Yaroslav Trofimov / Wall Street Journal:

Saudi Arabia Considers Nuclear Weapons to Offset Iran — As a deal to curb Tehran's nuclear program nears, Iran's regional rivals feel vulnerable — RIYADH—The nuclear deal that the U.S. and other world powers hope to reach with Iran would put a 10-year curb on the Islamic republic's nuclear program.

Discussion: Hot Air

abc7news.com:

VIDEO: Sexual predator attacks 13-year-old girl in West San Jose — San Jose police are trying to track down a man who tried to sexually assault a woman in a grocery store restroom last month and this week forced his way into the home of a 13-year-old girl as she arrived home from school.

Discussion: Scared Monkeys and Q13 FOX News

Jordain Carney / The Hill:

Senate overwhelmingly approves Iran review bill in 98-1 vote — The Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday to approve legislation allowing Congress to review a nuclear deal with Iran in a 98-1 vote. — Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) was the only senator to oppose the bill.

Discussion: Washington Post, Bloomberg Business, Hot Air and Israel Matzav

Heather Digby Parton / Salon:

Rise of the GOP's culture-war zombies: Why the party of right-wing extremism will never give it up — One of the more predictable tropes on the left side of America's political dial is the notion that the culture wars are over, that Christian conservatives are in retreat, and that the far right is breaking up due to its irrelevance.

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Science:

Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook — 1Facebook, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA. — 2School of Information, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. — ↵† These authors contributed equally to this work. — Exposure to news, opinion …

Discussion: New York Times, Crooked Timber and Mashable, more at Mediagazer »

Hadas Gold / Politico:

Bloomberg plans 2016 reporter game show — Bloomberg is planning a “parody sports-style game show” with reporters on the campaign trail as the contestants, the On Media blog has learned. — Matt Negrin, a writer for Bloomberg Politics, has been emailing reporters who will be at the South …

Discussion: Hullabaloo

George Parry / Philly.com:

Double standard on offending Christians and Muslims — In 1987, Andres Serrano submerged a crucifix in a glass of his own urine and took a picture. Entitled “Piss Christ,” the photograph won first place in a contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Discussion: Weekly Standard and Hot Air