memeorandum: Cochran team questions challenger on activist's arrest (Alexandra Jaffe/The Hill)

8:25 PM ET, May 17, 2014

Top Items:

Man arrested for sneaking into Thad Cochran's wife's nursing home — A Pearl man who runs a political blog is accused of sneaking into a nursing home where U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran's wife is bedridden and photographing her, then posting the image in a video political “hit piece” on the internet.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, The Moderate Voice, Outside the Beltway, Hot Air, Business Insider, Mediaite, National Review, The Daily Caller, Politico, The Raw Story, Fox News and Washington Post

Geoff Pender / The Clarion-Ledger:

McDaniel camp knew about Cochran break-in before it was public — U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran's campaign is questioning how Chris McDaniel's campaign manager, state Sen. Melanie Sojourner, apparently knew about Clayton Kelly's arrest before news of him allegedly sneaking into Rose Cochran's nursing home room and taking photos broke.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Liberaland and Jackson Jambalaya

Alexandra Jaffe / The Hill:

Cochran team questions challenger on activist's arrest — HERNANDO, Miss. — Sen. Thad Cochran's (R-Miss.) campaign is raising questions about when his primary challenger knew about the arrest of an activist who videotaped the incumbent's bedridden wife. — A voicemail from Sen. Chris …

Dylan Scott / Talking Points Memo:

Blogger Arrested For Sneaking Nursing Home To Photograph GOP Senator's Wife — A Mississippi political blogger has been arrested for allegedly sneaking into the nursing home where Sen. Thad Cochran's wife resides and taking her picture for an online video, the Clarion-Ledger reported Saturday.

Kingfish / Jackson Jambalaya:

Madison Police arrest Clayton Kelly for sneaking into Rose Cochran's room (Updated) — Update II (4:27 PM CST, 5/17/14): The first update was posted between 9:00 and 10:00 AM today. The original post was published at 11:40 PM last night. It did not mention the identity of Rose Cochran.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Byron York / Washington Examiner:

Would Democrats amend Constitution to stop the Koch brothers? — HARRY REID CAMPAIGN FINANCE 2014 ELECTIONS FREEDOM OF SPEECH KOCH BROTHERS CONSTITUTION — It's no longer news when Majority Leader Harry Reid takes to the floor of the Senate to denounce the Koch brothers.

Discussion: Power Line, his vorpal sword and Independent Journal Review

Erica Martinson / Politico:
EPA carbon crackdown set to launch

Discussion: Hot Air and The PJ Tatler

Kevin Robillard / Politico:
GM suggested engineers avoid ‘judgment words’ like ‘death trap,’ ‘grenademaker’

Discussion: Hot Air and Mediaite

Washington Post:

Federal health-care subsidies may be too high or too low for more than 1 million Americans — The government may be paying incorrect subsidies to more than 1 million Americans for their health plans in the new federal insurance marketplace and has been unable so far to fix the errors …

Discussion: RedState, The Moderate Voice, Hot Air, Power Line, The PJ Tatler, Talking Points Memo and Fox News

James Morgan / BBC:

‘Biggest dinosaur ever’ discovered — Fossilised bones of a dinosaur believed to be the largest creature ever to walk the Earth have been unearthed in Argentina, palaeontologists say. — Based on its huge thigh bones, it was 40m (130ft) long and 20m (65ft) tall.

Discussion: The Week, The Verge, Gawker and Mashable

Jon Prior / Politico:

Castro to be tapped for HUD secretary — San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, a rising star in Democratic national politics, is expected to be nominated to the post of secretary of housing and urban development, according to a source familiar with the plan. — Current HUD secretary Shaun Donovan …

Discussion: Washington Post, ABC News, CNN and Outside the Beltway

John Bresnahan / Politico:

911 call released in Monica Wehby saga — Andrew Miller, the ex-boyfriend of Oregon GOP Senate candidate Monica Wehby, told Portland police in a 911 call in April 2013 that Wehby was “very, very upset and angry” with him and he was going to file a restraining order against her.

Discussion: NewsBusters and The Huffington Post

Imani Perry / Washington Post:

Five myths about Brown v. Board of Education — Imani Perry, the author of “More Beautiful and More Terrible: The Embrace and Transcendence of Racial Inequality in the United States,” is a professor of African American studies at Princeton University. — In the 1954 Brown v. Board …

Amanda Terkel / The Huffington Post:

Alan Grayson Ready And Willing To Serve On Benghazi Panel — WASHINGTON — Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) is willing to serve on the committee established by House Republicans to investigate the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, a prospect that is likely causing heartburn for the GOP.

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, Booman Tribune and The Raw Story

Dana Milbank / Washington Post:

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki needs to go — Eric Shinseki has served his country honorably as a twice-wounded officer in Vietnam, as Army chief of staff and finally as President Obama's secretary of veterans affairs. — But his maddeningly passive response to the scandal roiling his agency suggests …

Discussion: NPR, Hot Air and The Dish