Good morning! We’re just two days away from the New Populism Conference headlined by Elizabeth Warren in Washington, DC. If you’re nearby, consider checking it out. And if you aren’t, all the good stuff will be streamed online.
Turning a political war into a shooting war –> House Republicans are poised to authorize a real war over Benghazi. Ari Rabin-Havt reports for The American Prospect that the AUMF will be virtually identical to the one passed after 9/11.
Another domino falls –> A federal judge struck down Oregon’s same-sex marriage ban on Monday. LGBT folks in the Beaver State rushed to start tying the knot, according to Jeff Mapes at The Oregonian.
Too little, too late –> A variety of preventable diseases have spread in Pakistan — and from Pakistan to neighboring countries — since the CIA used a fake vaccination program to locate Osama bin Laden. Mark Mazzetti reports for The New York Timesthat the agency has now banned the practice.
So what’s the holdup? –> A new poll finds 64 percent of likely Republican voters backing comprehensive immigration reform. Katie Glueck has the details at Politico.
Free speech much? –> Arturo Garcia at The Raw Story: “NC Republicans want prison time for revealing what frackers are pumping into the ground.”
There may be more to the story –> A conservative blogger allegedly went into the nursing home room of Sen. Thad Cochran’s bedridden wife and took pictures of her, possibly in support of Cochran’s primary opponent. Now Therese Apel reports for the Clarion-Ledger that police are looking at the possibility that the incident was part of a broader conspiracy.
Not going quietly –> The Nation’s Dave Zirin says LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling “may be going nuclear” in his fight with the NBA.
I spy –> Ryan Devereaux, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras report for The Intercept that the NSA “is secretly intercepting, recording, and archiving the audio of virtually every cell phone conversation on the island nation of the Bahamas.” ALSO: The DOJ indicted five Chinese hackers for the kind of commercial espionage that Marcy Wheeler says “the NSA does all the time.”
“You can’t Sister Souljah your own brother” –> The Atlantic’s Peter Beinart thinks Democrats are itching to run against Jeb Bush in 2016.
One percent U –> A new study by Andrew Erwin and Marjorie Wood at the Institute for Policy Studies finds that “student debt and low-wage faculty labor are rising faster at state universities with the highest-paid presidents.”
Mistakes were made –> New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger gives his first interview since the controversial firing of Executive Editor Jill Abramson to Vanity Fair’s Sarah Ellison.
Thailand is under martial law –> The military insists that it’s a temporary situation — and not the 12th coup since the end of Thailand’s absolute monarchy in 1932. The BBC’s Jonathan Head explains what’s going on, with all the background info you need.
Old Uncle Joe –> Vice President Joe Biden turned down a Connecticut girl’s invitation to be her prom date, but he did send her a handwritten thank you note, along with a corsage. Christopher Hoffman has the story for The Courant.
There are plenty of legitimate concerns over Common Core –> But we’re going to have to file one Florida lawmaker’s worry that it will “attract every one of your children to become as homosexual as they possibly can” under wacky conspiracy theories.
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