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5:40 PM ET, May 20, 2014

memeorandum

 Top Items: 
Ron Fournier / NationalJournal.com:
Quiz: How Dumb Does Obama Think We Are?  —  The Veterans Affairs policy fiasco is magnified by an insulting-public relations strategy.  —  News quiz: President Obama and his communications team hope that Americans are: 1) Dumb; 2) Distracted; 3) Numb to government inefficiency; 4) All of above.
RELATED:
Ron Christie / The Daily Beast:
The Scandal at the VA Is Real, and Obama Is Ducking It  —  Democrats can dismiss Benghazi and the IRS as pseudo-scandals, maybe, but 40 veterans have died, and where has Obama been?  Totally absent.  —  Up to now, President Obama and congressional Democrats had thought “so-called” …
Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
ABC, National Journal: White House fumbling VA scandal
Jeremy Herb / Politico:
Can Eric Shinseki survive the VA scandal?
Discussion: CNN
Chris Geidner / BuzzFeed:
Federal Judge Strikes Down Pennsylvania Same-Sex Marriage Ban  —  “We now join the twelve federal district courts across the country [that] ... have concluded that all couples deserve equal dignity in the realm of civil marriage.”  —  Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett delivers an address …
RELATED:
Sahil Kapur / Talking Points Memo:
Bush-Appointed Judge Cites Scalia In Axing Pennsylania Gay Marriage Ban  —  Upon striking down Pennsylvania's gay marriage ban Tuesday, a federal judge cited Justice Antonin Scalia's “cogen[t]” argument that the Supreme Court had essentially paved the way for nationwide marriage equality last year.
Maryclaire Dale / Associated Press:
Pennsylvania Gay Marriage Ban Overturned By Judge
RELATED:
Benjamin Weiser / New York Times:
D'Souza Expected to Plead Guilty to Charge
Nicole Levy / Capital New York:
Jeff Zucker talks CNN's post-plane plans  —  Last night, CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker gave a hint of where the network will go next now thats its two-plus-month coverage of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is subsiding.  —  “I don't think there's any question about our commitment …
Discussion: Mediaite, Hot Air and The Daily Banter
RELATED:
Caitlin MacNeal / Talking Points Memo:
CNN President: We Won't Be ‘Shamed’ Into Covering Benghazi
Discussion: Pat Dollard and Mediaite
Geoff Pender / The Clarion-Ledger:
Wife, attorney say blogger was pawn  —  It's still unclear how a political blogger gained access to the bedridden wife of U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran in her nursing home, but the man's wife and his attorney said he didn't sneak into the facility, and that he appears to be a pawn in a big political game.
RELATED:
Daniel Strauss / Talking Points Memo:   Break-In Blogger's Wife: McDaniel Told Husband To Take Anti-Cochran Video Down
David Folkenflik / NPR:
NPR To End ‘Tell Me More,’ Eliminate 28 Positions  —  NPR announced Wednesday that it would cease broadcast of the weekday program Tell Me More on Aug. 1 and eliminate 28 positions as part of a larger effort to end the company's persistent budget deficits.  —  “These times require …
Niels Lesniewski / Roll Call:
Reid Hints at ‘Nuclear’ Summer Over Debate Time  —  On the morning of his Republican counterpart's primary back home in Kentucky, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he would not change the chamber's rules in his absence.  —  But Minority Leader Mitch McConnell might well be advised …
Discussion: Booman Tribune
Charles Levinson / Wall Street Journal:
Comey: FBI ‘Grappling’ With Hiring Policy Concerning Marijuana  —  Monday was a big day for the nation's cyber police.  The Justice Department charged five Chinese military officials with hacking, and brought charges against the creators of powerful hacking software.
AL.com:
Convicted former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.: Presidential pardons for all ex-offenders  —  Former Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who is serving the end of his federal prison term in a Montgomery federal prison.  —  ctoner@al.com By Casey Toner |  ctoner@al.com
Bloomberg:
Businesses Turn Out Workers' Votes to Stomp Tea Party  —  Photographer: Joe Jaszewski/The Idaho Statesman/AP Photo  —  Ben Tarbutton has never worked so hard in a primary election to urge his company's employees to vote early or educate them on a candidate's record.
Discussion: Washington Post
Eli Lake / The Daily Beast:
Exclusive: Al Qaeda's American Fighters Are Coming Home—And U.S. Intelligence Can't Find Them  —  The number of American extremists who have flocked to Syria is higher than previously understood, American intelligence sources say.  And some of the fighters are coming home.
Discussion: Washington Post
Brian Tashman / Right Wing Watch:
As Candidate For Congress, Ted Yoho Suggested Limiting The Right To Vote To Property Owners  —  Recently unearthed footage of Rep. Ted Yoho speaking at Berean Baptist Church in Ocala, Florida, during his candidacy for Congress in the 2012 election cycle shows the Republican politician suggesting …
Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
The next big fight over the safety net  —  Word has it that Democrats are set to take a shellacking in the 2014 elections, in part because midterm electorates tends to be older and whiter.  So what if Dems campaigned on expanding Social Security, rather than allowing themselves to get drawn …
Discussion: Washington Monthly and Eschaton
A. J. Delgado / National Review:
Crying Rape  —  Is there really a rape epidemic?  Probably not.  —  Rape.  Decades ago, women who were raped and reported it, particularly those raped by someone outside their race or social class, were often disbelieved and shamed.  That is tragic.  —  But how far the pendulum has swung in the other direction!
Discussion: Balloon Juice
Matt Vespa / CNSNews:
Video: College Students Ace Pop Music Quiz, Bomb Benghazi Question  —  Last week, “Professor” Dan Joseph of MRCTV ventured onto the hallowed grounds of George Mason again to give students their final exam.  Over the course of the semester, these students have struggled miserably with Professor Joseph …
Discussion: Pat Dollard
Joe Miller / Salon:
Alaska's climate denial fiasco: Joe Miller's battle to be the state's biggest kook  —  Alaska has long been a home for “colorful” political characters from the time it was a territory.  Back in the 1950s and '60s there was a gentlemen named Fred Stickman, a prodigious writer of letters to the editor …
Discussion: Daily Kos, Hullabaloo and ThinkProgress
Jeryl Bier / Weekly Standard:
Kerry: If We're Wrong on Climate Change, 'What's the Worst That Can Happen?'  —  Secretary of State John Kerry did not shy away from pejorative language when addressing “climate change” in his commencement speech at Boston College on Monday.  Kerry referred to those skeptical …
Kim Janssen / Chicago Sun Times:
Lawsuit: Chicago cops physically, verbally abuse woman on video  —  A Chicago police officer hit a handcuffed, kneeling woman in the head, while another shouted racially charged comments at her and threatened she'd be murdered during a raid of a West Side tanning salon.
 
 
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 More Items: 
Bloomberg:
Russia Close to $400 Billion Gas Pipeline Deal in Pivot to China
Discussion: Bloomberg View and The Diplomat
Andrew Cohen / The Atlantic Online:
Will Russell Bucklew's Execution Be the Next Death-Penalty Disaster?
Discussion: Guardian and TalkLeft
Jonah Goldberg / National Review:
The VA and the Limits of Liberalism
Adam Kredo / Washington Free Beacon:
Dems Kill Key Pro-Israel bill to Appease White House on Iran
Discussion: Hot Air and Pat Dollard
Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
Indiana's Gov. Pence taking the Obamacare money and running with it
 Earlier Items: 
Daniel D'Addario / Salon:
Adam Carolla: The gay mafia is real
Discussion: Towleroad News #gay and Mediaite
James Hohmann / Politico:
Primary day: 6 states, 5 things to watch
Catherine Thompson / Talking Points Memo:
Chipotle To Customers: Please Don't Carry Your Gun Into Our Restaurants
Discussion: CBS Dallas, The Raw Story and Gawker
Joseph Shapiro / NPR:
As Court Fees Rise, The Poor Are Paying The Price
Megan Garber / The Atlantic Online:
Thomas Piketty and the End of Our Peaceful Coexistence With Inequality
Josh Feldman / Mediaite:
Krauthammer: Obama Acts as if He ‘Stumbled Upon the Presidency’
 

 
From Techmeme:

Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google rolls out interactive Audio Overviews in NotebookLM, an “experimental feature” that lets users talk to the AI “hosts” of the overviews

Adam James / The Block:
A Texas man gets a two-year sentence for underreporting capital gains from selling $3.7M in bitcoin, the first such prosecution based entirely on cryptocurrency

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
The EU finds it breached its own privacy rules in a 2023 ad campaign on X that intended to sway opinions for a proposal to force messaging apps to scan for CSAM

 
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