Everybody claims to love Joe Biden, but in fact nobody wants to hear his story. They just want to objectify him as the "cool old creep" who somehow became vice president. If people truly cared about Joe Biden, he would've made a lot more than "less than $201" on book sales.
Republicans are still furious over IRS scrutiny of non-profit groups with "Tea Party" and "patriots" in their names, but the life of the scandal depends entirely upon the political affiliation of the hundreds of other groups investigated by tax officials.
Tea Party conservatives are furious over the IRS admission that self-declared non-profit groups with the words "Tea Party" or "Patriots" in their names were checked for political activity not allowed by the rules for 501(c) not-for-profit organizations. What's wrong with a good charity named Tea Party Patriots, anyway? It's not like such groups would engage in election year political activity or anything, right?
After a press conference this morning, assembled to address the crisis in Syria, the status of the federal budget cuts and the continuing Boston bomber investigation, President Obama returned to the podium to answer an encore question about Jason Collins coming out. A fan of both basketball and the gays, the president responded:
A letter addressed to President Obama that was intercepted after a "suspicious substance" was detected has tested positive for ricin, the same substance found on a letter to Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker yesterday, the Dow Jones news wire is reporting.
President Obama held a no-nonsense press conference moments ago where he promised to bring any responsible parties to justice, but clarified that they had no information yet on who those responsible parties might be. He expressed sympathy for the victims, stating that he and Michelle are sending their "deepest thought and prayers to the families of the victims," and assured us that Boston would have every single federal resource available to them. If only it didn't seem as if the President had addressed the nation in a time of tragedy far too many times in recent history.
In an effort to further flesh out his mysterious list of 99 problems, Jay-Z has released a track called "Open Letter" that addresses a couple of his more recent predicaments.
Last night, President Obama and the First Lady hosted the 10th concert in the In Performance at the White House series. Justin Timberlake, professional charmer and sometimes-crooner, encouraged his hosts to join him for Otis Redding's "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay." Timberlake appealed to the whole ragtag bunch of fancy concert-goers by cajoling: "Mr. President, everybody, come on!"
As the Smoking Gun and others have reported, a hacker calling himself (or herself) "Guccifer" claims to have compromised the email account of former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal, revealing memos that Blumenthal purportedly wrote to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about Benghazi and other matters. What seems to have escaped notice is that Blumenthal, a fierce Clinton partisan in the 1990s, was the orchestrator of a subterranean smear campaign against Obama during the Democratic primary and was specifically spiked by the White House as a potential staffer for Clinton when she became Secretary of State. And he was sending notes to Clinton at a private, non-governmental email address. Did Obama know Clinton was consulting with the guy who tried to kneecap him?
National Journal writer Ron Fournier wants President Obama to do something about the government sequestration going into effect today. "I have... faith in him and his off[ice]," he tweets. Fournier's sick of tired Obama excuses like "I'm not a dictator" and "I can't Jedi mind meld" and "I can't send a team of SEALs to murder John Boehner and his wife in their bedroom."
On tonight's World News with Diane Sawyer, ABC will air several interviews with victims of the 2009 Fort Hood massacre, as well as graphic video showing the chaos in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. The video is incredibly disturbing, and shows bodies of the dead and injured scattered across the floor, pools of blood everywhere. What the victims have to say is equally impactful.
If you're looking for a takeaway from White House Counterterrorism Advisor John Brennan's testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, all you need is a line from Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who wanted to assure Brennan that he would keep questions short.
Tonight on 60 Minutes, with Steve Kroft playing Andy Cohen to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's Real Housewives, the president and the secretary of state had the reunion episode of their terrific show Barack Obama's First Term. And boy, were they complimentary of one another:
Today Washington, D.C. was all atwitter with the graduation of President Obama from first-term president to second-term president. Here is your Inauguration 2013 yearbook.
