Though last week's report on initial unemployment claims was a jolt of unexpectedly bad news, the new figures out this morning point in a more encouraging direction.

The number of people who applied for new unemployment benefits fell by 23,000 to 340,000 in the week ended May 18, the U.S. government said Thursday, keeping the level of initial claims in a range consistent with modest job growth. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected claims to drop to a seasonally adjusted 343,000. The average of new claims over the past month, a more reliable gauge than the volatile weekly number, edged down by 500 to 339,500, the Labor Department said Thursday. That's just above a five-year low.

To reiterate the point I make every Thursday morning, it's worth remembering that week-to-week results can vary widely, and it's best not to read too much significance into any one report.

In terms of metrics, when jobless claims fall below the 400,000 threshold, it's considered evidence of an improving jobs landscape, and when the number drops below 370,000, it suggests jobs are being created rather quickly. We've been below the 370,000 threshold 20 of the last 23 weeks, and below 350,000 in five of the last seven weeks.

Above you'll find the chart showing weekly, initial unemployment claims going back to the beginning of 2007. (Remember, unlike the monthly jobs chart, a lower number is good news.) For context, I've added an arrow to show the point at which President Obama's Recovery Act began spending money.

In "The Princess Bride," there's one word that Vizzini uses repeatedly and inappropriately: "inconceivable." The problem, of course, that the circumstances that he describes as "inconceivable" are actually quite predictable, leading Inigo Montoya to eventually respond, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Likewise, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) may be equally confused.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Wednesday said he believed it was "inconceivable" that President Obama did not learn sooner about the Internal Revenue Service's political targeting of Tea Party groups.

"It's pretty inconceivable to me that the president wouldn't know," Boehner told Fox News's Greta Van Susteren.... "[W]ith as many people that were involved in the audit, the number of people involved in the investigation, somebody -- and the number of people in the White House that knew -- it really is inconceivable that he wouldn't have known about it," he added.

He keeps using that word, but I do not think it means what he thinks it means.

It really isn't inconceivable at all. The president is the chief executive of a very large federal bureaucracy, filled with all kinds of departments and agencies. He's also the president during a time of war and economic crises, so it stands to reason that Obama doesn't have a lot of time to micromanage a division of an IRS office in Cincinnati.

But maybe he knew of allegations that the division of an IRS office in Cincinnati was accused of using ill-advised standards when scrutinizing organizations seeking tax-exempt status? Boehner thinks it's "inconceivable" Obama wasn't aware of this; I think it's "inconceivable" that the Speaker of the House could seriously believe something so deeply silly -- why inform the president and raise the prospect of undermining the Inspector General's investigation? What would be the point?

Ken Cuccinelli's Twitter avatar

House Ways and Means wants to hear tales of IRS woe from the public.

VA's gubernatorial hopeful Ken Cuccinelli has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the current governor.

David Koch is hosting a fundraiser for Ken Cuccinelli.

A Senate committee approves the president's nominees for the National Labor Relations Board.

Gun-rights groups sue Connecticut over its new gun laws.

CO Gov. Hickenlooper questions the death penalty.

A ricin scare leads to a Washington state man's arrest.

You know you want to click... President Obama's high school prom pictures.

When Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service's director of Exempt Organizations, invoked the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today, it might be said that she 

Need help? Need to shout out the answer without spoiling anyone else's game?

There's a thread for that.

*Remember to mention the number of the puzzle you're talking about.

Citations for Wednesday night's show are listed after the jump.

Tonight's guests include:

Wesley Lowery, reporter for the Boston Globe, live from Orlando

Jeh Johnson, former Pentagon general counsel

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, (D) New York, member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which held today’s IRS hearings

And here's executive producer Bill Wolff with a look at what will come up on the show when the sun goes down:

The ancient response to tornadoes in school remains -- and, in many places -- the current one.

A bunch of you who grew up sitting in hallways during tornado warnings wrote in yesterday about Moore, Oklahoma. Neither of the two schools hit by a tornado this week had special "safe rooms" for protection from storms. The students and teachers took shelter the same way they have taken shelter for generations -- in hallways and bathrooms, wherever they could, with horrifying and tragic results.

Oklahoma state Representative Joe Dorman grew up sitting in hallways, too, and hoping for the best. Now he is proposing that Oklahoma spend $500 million building safe rooms for schools and other public facilities. As part of the Democratic minority, Dorman will need bipartisan support if he's to get anywhere with a bill. He tells us:

"There is that Big Brother mentality that says, 'You can't tell me what to do. We will never get a mandate that says you have to have a safe room in your home. . . . [I]f we are going to mandate that our kids must be in school, then we need to mandate that they have somewhere safe to go when there's a tornado."

As it happens, the mayor of devastated Moore now says he'll push for an ordinance requiring safe rooms in new homes. Even as Oklahoma has offered funding for schools to build safe rooms, the state has also resisted having the government regulation needed to require them and the expense of building them.

Oklahoma's 2013 legislative session is down to its last few days, so Representative Dorman's proposal might not get considered until next year. For now, the House budget chief tells the local press that they're considering the $500 million bond issue, along with other responses to the storm. Dorman says that if he can't get a vote in this session, he'll ask for a study committee over the summer and hearings to follow. He's term-limited out of office after next year. "Knowing this is my last stand in the legislature, I'm going to be tenacious about this," he says. 

After the jump, our segment last night on safe rooms and the Oklahoma town they saved.

Today's edition of quick hits:

* London: "A man was killed by knife-wielding assailants on a London street Wednesday, and a bloodstained suspect at the scene holding a meat cleaver was captured on video telling passers-by: 'We swear by the almighty Allah.'"

* Oklahoma: "At the White House press briefing on Wednesday, Press Secretary Jay Carney announced that President Obama will travel to Oklahoma on Sunday, May 26 to inspect the damage from the tornado that hit the state on Monday. Carney added that the president will visit with affected families and thank first-responders."

* Drone strikes: "[T]he Obama administration revealed Wednesday that drone strikes since 2009 had killed four Americans overseas -- one of whom, Anwar al-Aulaqi, was targeted in Yemen because he'd planned and was planning terrorist attacks on the United States – principally the plot to blow up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Eve 2009. Three others who were not 'specifically targeted' were killed in circumstances the administration did not explain."

* The Waltham muders: "Dead Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and another man -- who was killed by the FBI on Wednesday -- murdered three people in Massachusetts after a drug deal went wrong in 2011, law enforcement sources tell NBC News."

* Lois Lerner: "The Internal Revenue Service official who first disclosed that the agency had targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny, and in doing so ignited a controversy that has ensnared the White House, denied on Wednesday that she had ever provided false information to Congress. She then invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and declined to testify at a House hearing on the agency's actions."

* The need for systemic action grows: "A sergeant first class on the staff of the United States Military Academy at West Point faces charges for allegedly videotaping female cadets without their consent, sometimes when they were in the shower, according to Army officials."

* Climate crisis: "China is taking steps to tackle its huge carbon output. Today, the country announced the details of its first carbon trading program, which will begin in the city of Shenzhen next month. The southern city is one of seven cities and provinces, including Beijing, which will take part in the pilot program, set to be completely implemented by 2014."

* And the Presidential Commission on Election Administration -- also known as Obama's election-reform panel -- now has members.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke to the Joint Economic Committee this morning, and as expected, much of the attention was on his expectations with regard to monetary policy. The Fed will, Bernanke explained, pull back from its quantitative easing, but not before the economy shows it can handle the departure.

But as it often the case, what interested me were Bernanke's not-so-subtle hints to lawmakers about their role in making the economy worse.

Bernanke touted the Fed's efforts to lift the economy but warned Congress that the central bank's actions will be insufficient to stave off a drag on the economy caused by rising taxes and spending cuts.

A bevy of fiscal policy issues -- including the expiration of the payroll tax cut, tax increases, budget caps on discretionary spending and the cuts to government spending from sequestration -- are creating headwinds that will "exert a substantial drag on the economy this year," he said.

"Taking them all together, they have the effect of being a drag on economic growth, perhaps more than necessary."

With interest rates near zero, the Fed "does not have the capacity to fully offset an economic headwind of this magnitude." ... "Monetary policy is not omnipotent," Bernanke said.

To be sure, this is all very polite and professional in tone, and I suspect some of the members of Congress on the Joint Economic Committee didn't fully appreciate what Bernanke was saying.

So let's translate a bit: the Fed chairman was telling Congress that taking money out of the economy, as Republicans insist we keep doing, is the one thing holding an American economic recovery. While Bernanke is trying to make it easier for the economy to grow, his efforts are being negated by Congress, which is making it harder for the economy to grow by embracing austerity measures and focusing on deficit reduction. The unsatisfactory status quo is, quite literally, largely lawmakers' fault.

He'd never say this out loud, of course, but Bernanke was effectively trying to argue, "While I'm trying to keep the water out of the boat to keep it from sinking, you guys are inexplicably trying to pour more water back into the boat. Please stop."

This isn't the first time the Fed chairman has pleaded with Congress to get smarter about economic policy, and I'll confess, it amazes me every time.

Associated Press

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.)

It's hardly unreasonable to think the Internal Revenue Service took some serious missteps when it came to groups seeking tax-exempt status, and will need to improve the way the agency is managed. But being critical of the IRS's missteps does not mean one should necessarily start making wild assumptions about imaginary misdeeds.

You may recall last summer, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) caused quite a stir claiming he'd heard from a Bain Capital investor that Mitt Romney hadn't paid income taxes for 10 years. Which investor? Reid didn't say. Why should anyone take the claim seriously? Reid couldn't say. He heard an unsubstantiated rumor, and he passed it along.

Nearly 10 months later, the right has decided to revisit the issue, in light of the ongoing IRS controversy. Last week, for example, the Daily Caller ran a report, based on literally nothing, asking whether "someone at the IRS" leaked Romney's tax information to Reid.

As is often the case, the story worked its way from Republican media to Republican lawmakers. During a congressional hearing today, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) was incensed when former IRS commissioner Doug Shulman said he no idea whether Romney's tax documents had leaked.

"Do you know how Mr. Reid obtained that information? Did you look into this?" he asked Shulman.

Shulman stumbled, then said, "I have no idea."

"Doesn't that alarm you that all of a sudden, this pertinent information comes up, and you're the head of this agency, and you're not asking questions? Shame on you. Absolutely shame on you," Gosar responded.

Look, I criticized Reid at the time for repeating unsubstantiated rumors, which struck me as irresponsible. And if lawmakers want to read IRS officials the riot act over its mistakes on dealing with tax-exempt applicants, more power to 'em.

But Gosar's tirade today wasn't just over the top; it was plainly ridiculous.

Associated Press

In competitive states, we're seeing two kinds of politicians: those who support new measures intended to reduce gun violence and those who pretend to support new measures intended to reduce gun violence.

In New Hampshire, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R), shortly after voting to kill the bipartisan bill to expand background checks, benefited from new ads claiming she voted for "a bipartisan plan to make background checks more effective." In Arizona, Sen. Jeff Flake (R), who voted the way the NRA demanded last month, this month is telling anyone who'll listen how much he loves "to strengthen background checks."

And in Nevada, as Jon Ralston noted today, Sen. Dean Heller (R) is sending out interesting correspondence to his constituents.

"Knowing your interest in gun control, I wanted to give you an update on legislation I have cosponsored and supported recently."

Imagine how Nevadans felt when they received a letter that began that way from none other than Sen. Dean Heller, who voted against the Manchin-Toomey bill, saying he feared a creation of a gun registry despite his general support for the concepts in the measure. He was hailed by NRA types and blistered by gun control advocates.

I wonder how many folks who received that missive fell for the having-it-both-ways Heller approach.

Probably quite a few. That's the point -- politicians who do unpopular things have to cynically hope they can mislead voters, not by explicitly lying, but by taking advantage of public confusion over details.

In this case, Heller's letter (pdf) makes him sound like quite the reformer, boasting of his support for background checks, keeping firearms from the mentally ill, endorsing an amendment sponsored by a Democrat, and cosponsoring "bipartisan" legislation.

The typical person, who may not follow the news closely, would probably have no idea that Heller helped filibuster the bipartisan measure on background checks, and helped kill the entire bill on gun reforms.

But therein lies the point: the Nevada Republican is embarrassed enough to try to give people the wrong impression, and that level of embarrassment tells us something important.

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A week ago, it looked like the Senate was gearing up for some major nominating fights. Richard Cordray's nomination to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was ready to be brought the floor, as were Thomas Perez's Labor Secretary nomination and Gina McCarthy's EPA nomination. The result would some knock-down-drag-out fights that could dictate the future of how the chamber deals with administration nominees.

And then ... nothing. Even Cordray's nomination, which was slated for tomorrow, was pulled from the schedule. What happened? Brian Beutler reports this morning:

Cordray will now most likely get his chance after immigration reform legislation clears the Senate. And not because Reid is giving up on Cordray's nomination, but because he wants to turn Cordray and a handful of other nominees into a test of the GOP's vows to filibuster top Obama picks, including two designated cabinet secretaries.

The move serves two purposes: First, it removes one of the largest pretexts Republicans will have to walk away from immigration reform. Second, it puts Republicans on the spot in an exquisite -- and in Reid's mind necessary -- way, thus providing the nominees their best chance at confirmation, and leaving Democrats little choice, if the GOP blocks them, but to change the rules to immunize executive and judicial nominees from filibuster.

A senior Democratic aide told Brian the idea is to set up "back-to-back-to-back confirmation votes" on Cordray, Perez, and McCarthy. My sources have suggested President Obama's nominees to lead the ATF and sit on the NLRB may also in the mix as part of the same effort.

If the Senate is allowed to exercise its advise-and-consent role, fine -- these nominees will be confirmed and the chamber will move on to other business. If the Republican minority blocks some or all of these nominees, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will, in theory, be able to credibly argue that the GOP has given him no other choice but to pursue the "nuclear option."

Why not do this sooner rather than later? Two reasons.

Today's installment of campaign-related news items that won't necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* In New Jersey, Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Barbara Buono has her first television ad of the cycle. It's generally just a light, bio ad, but note the Andrew Cuomo reference. [Update: It turns out the video below is Buono's first online ad, while this is her first televised spot of the campaign.]

* In Massachusetts' Senate special election, Republican Gabriel Gomez released his first attack ad of the race, though several local reports are drawing attention to the commercial's obvious falsehoods.

* On a related note, Karl Rove's American Crossroads said this week it's "watching" the Massachusetts race "closely," but would not commit to intervening on Gomez's behalf.

* In Minnesota, a new Public Policy Polling survey shows Sen. Al Franken (D) leading each of his potential Republican challengers by margins ranging from 15 to 17 points. He appears to be a safe bet for re-election.

* In Virginia, we continue to learn more about E.W. Jackson, the Virginia GOP's nominee for lieutenant governor, including the fact that he worked to oppose housing desegregation in Boston in 1988.

* Virginia Republicans' gubernatorial nominee, state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, endorsed Jackson publicly yesterday, but said he would refuse to comment on all of the nutty things his new running mate has said over the years.

* In Michigan, a new statewide poll shows incumbent Gov. Rick Snyder (R) with a one-point edge over former U.S. Rep. Mark Schauer (D), who has not yet announced his plans, 39% to 38%. The same poll found U.S. Rep. Gary Peters (D) as the early favorite in the open U.S. Senate race.

* In New York City, former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D) launched his mayoral campaign overnight.

* And the 2014 Senate retirements may not be over just yet: Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) acknowledged this week that he has not yet decided whether to seek re-election next year.

It must be tiresome to have to update political talking points. Partisans go to a lot of trouble to write, poll test, memorize, and repeat them, and when the talking points are no longer accurate, it must be terribly inconvenient to come up with new ones.

For example, Republicans were heavily invested in arguing that the unemployment rate was "above 8 percent of x months," which was fine until the unemployment rate dropped below 8 percent, forcing the right to come up with new talking points.

The same is true on deficit reduction. Conservative condemnations of "trillion-dollar" deficits made more sense right until the point the deficit shrunk below $1 trillion.

Alas, some folks stick to their old talking points, even when they're now wrong.

Now, this is ordinarily the point at which I note that China owns only a small portion of U.S. debt; large deficits are wise under the economic circumstances; and if Sen. Paul is really eager to reduce the deficit, he should endorse some tax increases.

But putting all of this aside, Rand Paul is using out-of-date math. "We are borrowing $4 billion a day"? Let's see -- there are 365 days in a year ... multiplied by 4 billion ... carry the one ... that means we'll have annual federal budget deficit of over $1.4 trillion.

Except, we won't. The latest CBO estimate says this year's deficit will be $642 billion, down $400 billion from last year, and nearly $800 billion from when President Obama took office. Paul's argument, in other words, isn't even close to being accurate -- we're not borrowing $4 billion a day; we're borrowing less than $2 billion a day.

If the right wants to argue that's still too much, fine. I disagree, but we can at least have a debate. But to use talking points from 2009, as if we have haven't already seen the fastest deficit reduction in modern U.S. history, is absurd. What Rand Paul is telling his followers is simply and demonstrably wrong.

Updating talking points may be annoying, but when the facts change, politicians' rhetoric needs to change with them.