Tonight's guests include:

Rep. Rick Larsen, (D) Washington, represents the district where the Skagit River Bridge collapsed, member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee

Mark Segraves, reporter for WRC-TV in Washington, DC

And here's executive producer Bill Wolff with a preview of the show you can have at 9 p.m. ET:

Today's edition of quick hits:

* President Obama delivered the commencement address at the U.S. Naval Academy this morning, which was especially noteworthy because he addressed the ongoing problem of sexual assaults in the military. Obama said, "We have to be determined to stop these crimes. They've got no place in the greatest military on earth."

* Afghanistan: "Taliban insurgents blasted their way into the compound of an international organization on Friday, killing at least two people, and starting a gun battle that continued into the night, Afghan officials said."

* Here's hoping North Korea listens: "The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, bluntly told a North Korean envoy Friday that his country should return to diplomatic talks designed to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons, according to a state-run Chinese news agency."

* Mount Vernon: "Federal officials were searching the country for a possible temporary replacement for a bridge that collapsed along the crucial Interstate 5 corridor, but Washington Gov. Jay Inslee cautioned Friday that major disruptions will last for weeks, if not months."

* Have Democrats completely given up hope on working cooperatively with Republicans? Not just yet.

* Not at all what I was expecting from John McCain and Lindsey Graham: "Two of the strongest Republican critics of the Obama administration's handling of the attack on the diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, offered strong support nonetheless on Friday for the nomination of Victoria Nuland, who played a role in editing the much-disputed talking points about the incident."

* Hey look, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) found one Latino staffer after all.

* The right's freak out over gay Boy Scouts really is a sight to behold.

* Fox's Andrea Tantaros told her audience today, in reference to a majority of American voters who elected President Obama, "If you see any of those people today, punch them in the face." Stay classy, Andrea.

* Saying goodbye to one of the greats, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Haynes Johnson, who died today. He was 81.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

Getty Images

The Affordable Care Act, like every landmark piece of legislation in modern times, has faced its share of trials. Getting it through Congress was nearly impossible, and the law was very nearly killed by the Republican appointees on the U.S. Supreme Court.

But with the law now secure and President Obama re-elected, there's one more major challenge for "Obamacare" to overcome: the implementation hurdle. As we discussed several weeks ago, this is at least as big a hurdle as the others, and more than a few observers have raised the prospect of a "train wreck." Even those who generally defend the law are worried.

They are, however, a little less worried today. As Matt Yglesias explained, implementation of the law is "fundamentally" going quite well.

The latest evidence comes to us today from California, America's largest state and one of the states that's tried the hardest to actually implement Obamacare. As Sarah Kliff explains, their exchanges are getting set up, and it looks like premiums for "silver" and "bronze" plans are both going to be lower than was previously expected. Far from a "train wreck," in other words, the biggest single set of clients for the program is getting something like a nice, smooth high-speed train ride.

There was also good news from Oregon recently, where insurers that had initially come in with high premium bids are now asking to resubmit with cheaper offerings in the face of competition. And the Affordable Care Act's goal of slowing the growth in aggregate health expenditures is also coming true.

Yep, at least for now, everything anti-ACA Republicans predicted -- on premiums, on competition, on exchanges, on escalating costs -- is proving to be the opposite of reality.

Now, because of state-by-state differences, there will be quite a bit of variety in outcomes. If you live in California or another state dominated by Democratic officials, you'll likely have a very positive impression of how the law is being implemented, and how it benefits you, your family, and your community.

If you live in, say, Texas, you're likely to have a very different kind of experience.

As Jonathan Cohn explained this morning:

Unfortunately, millions of uninsured and under-insured Americans live in places like Florida and Texas, where there is far less sympathy -- and a great deal more hostility -- to the idea of Obamacare. It's entirely possible that the insurance bids in those states will be a lot higher, precisely because state officials there are doing nothing to help and quite a bit to hurt implementation. But if that happens, blame won't belong with the heath care law or the federal officials in charge of its management. It will belong with the state officials who can't, or won't, deliver to their constituents the benefits that California's officials appear to be providing theirs.

It's not necessarily an explicitly partisan matter -- I'm not saying that Democrats are necessarily better at health care governance. Rather, the point is, Democrats don't have an ideological axe to grind when it comes to trying to sabotage federal health care law. Rick Perry, however, does.

To be sure, these red-state residents won't be left out entirely, and they'll still benefit from all kinds of consumer protections and expanded access that they'll really appreciate, even if they don't yet realize the available benefits. But the full benefits of implementation will elude them for a while in ways blue-state residents won't have to deal with.

Regardless, the news out of California is a bit of a breakthrough, and heartening news for anyone hoping to see the Affordable Care Act succeed. For more on this, also take a look at the reports this morning from Klein, Krugman, and Beutler.

The Star's Kevin Donovan and Robyn Doolittle have seen the video in question. They explain what they saw.

No, that headline isn't about Stefon's favorite new nightclub.

Tonight we are going to be updating a truly crazy story out of Toronto. In short: an editor from Gawker and two Toronto Star reporters have seen a video that reportedly shows Toronto Mayor Robert Ford smoking crack.  Like, actually smoking crack and then saying some really offensive things.  Mayor Ford denied it's him in the video.

Unfortunately we don't have that video. (Gawker is trying to buy it.) But we DO have this video of the two Toronto Star journalists describing it. Their plainspoken descriptions are maybe better than the original. Watch it here! It's weird and wonderful. And that's just the half of it. More tonight...

As we get further away from the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, and the political focus shifts away from proposed gun reforms, it stands to reason that public support would diminish for new restrictions. It wouldn't be the first time we saw a public-opinion spike after a horrific event, only to fade soon after.

It was interesting, then, to see the results of the latest Pew Research poll, which found support dipping from earlier highs, but not quite as much as I would have guessed. In all, 81% of Americans support broader background checks on firearm purchases -- not quite the 9-out-of-10 data we saw in previous months, but not far from it, either. What's more, note that 81% of self-identified Republicans support background checks for private gun sales, too.

So what's the catch? Republicans support the concept, but were far less sure about the legislation.

Republicans are decidedly less supportive of this legislation than of the general idea of making private gun sales subject to background checks; 57% support the Senate bill, while 81% favor expanding background checks. Many of those who have reservations about the bill express concerns that it includes other restrictions beyond background checks, or that it opens a 'slippery slope' toward more government power.

This, in a nutshell, is why the NRA and congressional Republicans lied so blatantly and so often about the effects of the Manchin/Toomey proposal -- Americans hear bogus claims, are unsure what to believe, and doubts are raised about the merit of popular ideas.

One other polling detail on guns to remember: in the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, by a three-to-one margin, Americans blame congressional Republicans for killing the background check bill.

I mention this, not only because it helps explain the GOP's unpopularity, but also because an entire legion of Beltway pundits insisted President Obama was responsible for the actions of congressional Republicans. This never made any sense, and it appears the public overwhelmingly disagrees.

The facts are still coming together following last night's collapse of a bridge near Mount Vernon, about 60 miles north of Seattle, though given what we know, it's not too soon to note how remarkable it is that no one was killed.

Without more information, clearly it's best to wait before pointing fingers. That said, in terms of some of the details that seem especially relevant today, let's not forget that on the state's list of structurally deficient bridges, the Skagit River Bridge was deemed "functionally obsolete" in 2000. It was built in 1955, and in an inspection last year, was given a sufficiency rating of just 57.4 out of 100.

That sounds bad, of course, but there are 759 bridges in the state of Washington that have a lower sufficiency score.

And with this in mind, while we wait for more details from the area, it's not to soon to talk about the larger value of infrastructure investments. Joe Weisenthal posted this chart showing public construction spending reaching a 20-year low as a percentage of the overall economy.

I feel like I could write the same post every day, but let's just go ahead and review the basics: we have high unemployment, the need for economic stimulus, the ability to borrow at incredibly low rates, and systemic infrastructure needs -- needs that will only grow more acute as time progresses. Indeed, it costs us more, not less, by waiting to tackle these projects that are going to have to be tackled eventually anyway.

There's an assumption among many in Congress that all public investments are necessarily bad investments because, you know, "government spending" is bad. The sooner policymakers are more responsible, the better.

Associated Press

When the recent Inspector General's report was released on problems at the Internal Revenue Service, the public got a good look at an ugly picture: overwhelmed IRS bureaucrats struggled with the ambiguities of federal tax laws, and ending up crafting unwise standards for groups seeking tax-exempt status.

Over the last week or so, we've seen several detailed reports -- from the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, among others -- each of which say roughly the same thing: officials with little direction or legal clarity struggled to implement vague guidelines.

And barring additional information, that's pretty much the end of the story as it relates to the White House. For all the talk on the right about President Obama's possible involvement in the matter, there's just nothing to even hint in that direction.

The result, Jon Chait argues, is a "metastasizing" controversy, created by desperate conservatives.

[T]he accusation is metastasizing into the claim that Obama has sicced the agency on conservatives through audits of their tax returns. Peggy Noonan sees dark patterns of Republicans facing audits, apparently unaware that there are lots of audits every year and nearly half the country voted Republican. Larry Conners, a local reporter in St. Louis, became a right-wing hero by claiming the IRS started persecuting him after he asked Obama tough questions in an interview, only for Conners to subsequently concede, “I should disclose that my issues with the IRS preceded that interview by several years.” Tom Coburn and John Cornyn’s spokesman today began echoing the audacious claim that the IRS unfairly singled out Romney donors.

And sure — it could be true. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, as a wise man once said. But the entire basis for this belief appears to be that something bad has happened at the IRS, and Richard Nixon once directed the IRS to do bad things, therefore Obama has probably directed the IRS to do bad things. Instead, down, down, down the rabbit hole we go.

Also keep in mind, the IRS is not in a position in which it can fairly defend itself. In Peggy Noonan's mind, there are Republicans who've been audited, ergo, Obama is a power-mad tyrant. Maybe the IRS had perfectly legitimate reasons to launch those audits? Of course, but therein lies the rub -- the IRS auditors can't talk about the process, leaving those who've been audited to say anything they please with impunity.

But I remain fascinated by the ever-changing trajectory of the allegations, which have quickly become incoherent.

Phase One: Maybe the Obama White House gave orders to the IRS!

Phase Two: We demand to know why the Obama White House didn't give orders to the IRS!

Phase Three: The president must have known what was going on at the IRS!

Phase Four: We demand to know why the president didn't know what was going on at the IRS!

Phase Five: Never mind all that other stuff, maybe the president ordered IRS audits on Republicans!

Look, this is getting a little silly. If Republicans want the American mainstream to see this as a legitimate "scandal," they're going to have to get their story straight. Because at this point, listening to the White House's GOP critics get increasingly confused about details they should understand by now is getting a little tiresome.

There's a real story here: the IRS appears to have made some poor decisions, which were a direct result of flawed tax laws. It deserves scrutiny, accountability, and action. But the conspiracy theories and contradictory allegations aren't getting anyone anywhere.

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 Massachusetts' U.S. Senate special election, Republican Gabriel Gomez, already under fire for running an ad with false claims, is starting to lose his cool. Yesterday he called his Democratic opponent, Rep. Ed Markey (D), "pond scum." For what it's worth, Gomez's over-the-top complaints really don't make sense.

* On a related note, Gomez trails Markey in a new Emerson College poll, 45% to 33%. The Democrat's 12-point lead is double the advantage he enjoyed in a similar poll earlier this month.

* The news for Gomez is not, however, all bad -- the National Republican Senatorial Committee has committed to sending at least four staffers to give the Republican candidate a boost. The special election is a month from tomorrow.

* Rep. Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) announced late yesterday that he will resign later this year after a decade in Congress to take a job at the University of Alabama. There will be a special election to fill his vacancy, and while the date has not yet been set, the seat is expected to remain in Republican hands.

* In anticipation of a likely presidential campaign, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has scheduled a series of out-of-state visits, including an appearance in Iowa yesterday.

* In Arkansas, as expected, Mayors Against Illegal Guns is continuing to run ads against Sen. Mark Pryor (D), who appears to be a vulnerable incumbent next year.

* And in Louisiana, there's growing chatter about Sen. David Vitter's (R) interest in possibly running for governor after Bobby Jindal (R) wraps up his second term.

Associated Press

After all the Republican complaints last year about the Obama administration's loan to Tesla Motors, I was eager to hear how GOP officials would respond to the news that the auto manufacturer is paying off its taxpayer loans nine years earlier than expected.

Alas, they're not responding well.

"When they're picking all these losers, it's nice for them to have one where they can point to," Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican who held a hearing last month on Fisker's loan, said in an interview yesterday.

There are two broad problems with this approach -- one political and one substantive.

On the former, as Markos noted yesterday, it is a bit unseemly to see an elected member of Congress root against a loan program that benefits American companies. There's nothing wrong with cheering some good news, even if you predicted bad news.

On the latter, Rep. Jordan makes it sound as if the Department of Energy's clean-energy loan program has generally been a failure, and isolated success stories don't change that. Except, that's backwards -- the program has generally done quite well, and isolated failures don't change that. As the New York Times reported yesterday

"Today's repayment is the latest indication that the Energy Department's portfolio of more than 30 loans is delivering big results for the American economy while costing far less than anticipated," Ernest Moniz, the energy secretary, said in a statement. [...]

"Tesla is arguably making the most exciting car in the world today," said [Greg Kats, president of Capital-E, a firm that invests in clean-energy companies], who worked in the Energy Department during the Clinton administration. "This loan program has exceeded expectations."

Fortune's Dan Primack added that there is "now a very real chance" that the Department of Energy loan program "will end up in the black."

Anything to add, Congressman Jordan?

There was an interesting argument on the Senate floor yesterday in which Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) debated Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) on the budget process. McCaskill believes, as both parties used to agree, that there should be a conference committee to reconcile the House and Senate budget plans; Lee believes there should be no budget talks until Democrats agree to let Republicans hold the debt ceiling hostage in the fall.

This was all relatively routine, albeit exasperating, until Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) jumped in on the fight -- taking McCaskill's side.

Pay particular attention to the clip around the 9:25 mark, and you'll notice that McCain not only disagrees with his far-right Republican colleague, he also makes Mike Lee look like a fool for failing to understand the basics of what a conference committee even is.

Watching the video, though, got me thinking about John McCain and his actions of late, which I must confess are not what I've come to expect of him. As part of this same budget dispute, for example, McCain upbraided Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), too, as we discussed the other day.

It's not just the budget fight, either. On immigration, McCain has worked in good faith to advance a comprehensive reform bill. On national security, while many of his allies were condemning President Obama's speech on terrorism yesterday, McCain issued a statement that was cautiously supportive. On filibuster reform, which McCain opposes, the Arizona Republican has nevertheless suggested that Senate Democrats would have a legitimate reason to pursue the "nuclear option," given his party's tactics.

There is, of course, a substantive angle to all of this that clearly matters. As Greg Sargent explained well yesterday, many of today's more extreme Republican senators have "decided that they no longer have any obligation to engage in basic governing," making it a welcome sight that some of the party's old guard push back. It suggests, Greg said, "that allowing the Tea Party trio to continue calling the shots may be increasingly untenable."

Here's hoping that continues.

But on a purely political note, it does surprise me a bit to see McCain playing such a constructive role.

As long-time McCain watchers may recall, the senator has gone through several iterations. He was, for many years, a rather predictable conservative Republican lawmaker. After the Keating Five scandal, McCain gave himself a makeover and became a more reform-minded "maverick."

By the time of his presidential campaign 13 years ago, McCain had positioned himself as decidedly moderate, became a media darling, and even opposed much of the Bush/Cheney agenda in early 2001.

As the Republican Party moved sharply to the right, and then even further to the right, McCain gave himself another makeover in advance of his 2008 campaign, rejecting nearly everything he'd said and done in the preceding seven years. The "maverick" was gone, replaced with a bitter and reflexive partisan.

It's far too premature to say McCain is reinventing himself all over again. Indeed, listen to him talk for two minutes on Benghazi and it's clear the senator is still quite capable of jumping off a far-right cliff. Also take a look at his votes on gun reforms -- he's become a staunch NRA ally -- that bear no resemblance to positions he took during his "maverick" days. [Update: I remembered a key incorrectly, and McCain actually supported the Manchin/Toomey background-check compromise. This should be counted on the pro-Maverick side of the equation.]

But having said that, McCain has taken steps in recent months that are out of character for him -- in a good way.

Time will tell whether this is a fleeting shift, but my colleague Anthony Terrell flagged this item for the other day, and in the larger context, it's suggests McCain isn't quite the same politician he seemed to be a year ago.

President Barack Obama has an important new ally as emboldened Republicans work to derail his agenda: John McCain.

The shift is striking: The 2008 rivals never got along throughout Obama's first term in office. McCain has been Obama's chief tormentor on issues ranging from the budget to Benghazi, tartly saying in late 2010 that the two men had "no relationship."

Yet during one of Obama's toughest times as president, there was McCain, sitting down last week with him in the Oval Office for a private strategy session. At the urging of new White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, who has sought better ties with Republicans, Obama has had more substantive discussions with McCain in the past five months than he did in his first four years in office, according to associates of both men. Suddenly, the two are working together on issues ranging from immigration to the deficit.

"I'm getting nervous," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), McCain's closest friend in the Senate. "I told Denis McDonough, 'I don't know what you've done: You've hijacked him.'"

We'll see how long this lasts, but let's not forget that it was also McCain who chided some of his right-wing colleagues as "wacko birds" in March.

Associated Press

The State Department's Victoria Nuland

Well, that's a gutsy political move.

President Obama defied Republican critics on Thursday by nominating to a high-ranking State Department job an official involved in editing controversial talking points about the attack last year in Libya.

Mr. Obama sent the Senate his choice of Victoria Nuland, a former spokeswoman for the State Department, as assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs. Ms. Nuland had long been in line for the position, but some had questioned whether the nomination would go forward after drafts of the talking points became public.

Nuland's name will no doubt be familiar to those who've followed the manufactured political controversy surrounding last September's attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi. When Congress requested talking points soon after the deadly violence, there was a bureaucratic tug of war between the State Department and the CIA, which was fairly routine, but nevertheless became a flash point for those who see a hidden conspiracy.

Representing the State Department in this tug of war was none other than Victoria Nuland.

Republicans will, without a doubt, use her nomination to relitigate their various Benghazi theories, but it's worth emphasizing that Nuland need not be seen as a partisan actor. As the NYT report noted, she's a "career Foreign Service officer," with "strong ties on both sides of the aisle, having served as deputy national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney and ambassador to NATO under President George W. Bush."

But when it comes time for the confirmation hearing, this won't matter. As Kevin Drum noted, this is an example of Obama "waving a red cape in front of a bull."

I'm glad the president's doing it anyway.

As Kevin explained:

Give Ted Cruz a few minutes to warm up and he'll be claiming that Nuland's suggested changes to the Benghazi talking points should be prosecuted as a war crime. [...]

This [nomination] is obviously a political risk, but apparently [Obama] doesn't care anymore. He thinks Nuland is the best person for the job, so he's nominating her. If the whackjobs start frothing at the mouth over it, let 'em froth.

Quite right. I can't say with confidence whether Republican apoplexy derailed Susan Rice's chances of becoming Secretary of State, or whether John Kerry was likely to get the nod either way, but it's not unreasonable to think the president has been cautious in picking his battles, and this wasn't the fight he was looking to have at the time.

But by eyeing Nuland for a promotion, Obama seems to be signaling a less conciliatory approach -- he won't back down from a qualified nominee he supports because he's worried what Republicans and Fox News are going to say. Good for him.

Associated Press

Periodically, the CBPP's Jared Bernstein publishes new installments of his "Sequester Watch" series, helping document the real-world consequences Americans are facing as a result of the ongoing, needlessly stupid sequestration cuts. The latest list is a doozy.

What's more, note that this is a problem that simply doesn't end.

Three of the largest federal agencies will close to the public on Friday, the first time since the government shutdowns of the 1990s that large corners of the government have ceased operations on a weekday.

The mass furlough of 115,000 employees at the Internal Revenue Service, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Housing and Urban Development and the small Office of Management and Budget -- 5 percent of the federal workforce -- is happening because of the budget cuts known as sequestration.

Ed Kilgore added this morning, "Now this is very old news if you are, say, a Meals on Wheels beneficiary denied services, a parent of a child in Head Start who didn't make the cut, someone trying to survive on a smaller unemployment check, or an employee of a government contractor who has made anticipatory furloughs or layoffs. But today they are joined by 115,000 fellow-citizens who can proudly say they've contributed to a symbolic victory over a largely imaginary enemy."

For what it's worth -- and in my dreams, it's worth quite a bit -- the sequester is being felt by an increasingly large segment of the population. New Washington Post/ABC News polling found that 37% of Americans say they've felt a negative impact as the result of sequestration, which may not sound like much, but that's pretty good size chunk of the population, and it's growing. The same poll found that most of the public also opposes the policy, regardless of party affiliation.

It reached the point this week in which House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), looking ahead to an ongoing sequestration problem, called the situation "idiotic."

So here's a wacky idea: why not turn the darned thing off? House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters yesterday, with a straight face, that job creation remains his party's "number one priority." I find that literally unbelievable, but Boehner can easily prove me wrong -- the sequester is set to cut U.S. job creation by 750,000 jobs this year. If lowering unemployment is House Republicans' "number one priority," why not stop sequestration and give jobs a boost?

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the nation's second highest federal bench, has 11 seats. For the last five years, four of those seats have been vacant, which has not only put a strain on the court, but left Republican appointees as the clear majority, pushing the bench to the right.

And so, yesterday offered something of a breakthrough when the Senate unanimously approved Sri Srinivasan, President Obama's first confirmed judge to the D.C. Circuit. That leaves three vacancies on the bench, and the White House intends to send nominees for those slots to the Senate soon.

For Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), that's a problem. Indeed, Dylan Matthews noted yesterday that Grassley believes rascally Democrats and the Obama administration are trying to "pack the court" through a "court-packing" scheme. Grassley was reading carefully from a prepared text, suggesting the Iowa Republican was quite serious about the argument -- he repeated it five times.

It fell to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Grassley's colleague on the Senate Judiciary Committee, to gently explain that Grassley has no idea what he's talking about. "Court packing" was an FDR-era idea in which the executive branch would expand the number of seats on a bench in order to tilt the judiciary in the president's favor. The idea was floated in the 1930s, but not seriously pursued.

What we're talking about in 2013 is very different. There's a vacancy on the federal bench; the president chooses a nominee to fill that vacancy; the Senate Judiciary Committee scrutinizes that nominee and sends him or her to the floor; and then the Senate's full membership has an opportunity to vote "yea" or "nay" on confirmation.

Chuck Grassley sees this as some kind of underhanded Democratic scheme. The rest of us should consider it basic American governance.

Postscript: I should note that if Senate Republicans reclaim the majority after the 2014 midterms, Grassley would become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, despite his apparent confusion on these issues.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) appeared on CNBC yesterday, and made a comment about the IRS controversy that struck me as problematic. Cantor, like most Republicans, seems have abandoned the argument the White House intervened and directed the tax agency on tax-exempt applications, and is now arguing that the White House should have intervened and directed the tax agency on tax-exempt applications, even during the Inspector General probe.

"If you've got an ongoing IG investigation or audit and there comes to you information about this type of behavior where you are discriminating against political opponents, I do not accept the fact that the White House says well we couldn't interfere with that audit or that investigation. That's not true. They know that kind of activity was going on. That is clearly a point at which they should have gone in and said, 'Don't do that anymore.' And that would not have interfered with the continuance of that investigation by the Inspector General."

There's quite a bit wrong with this. In fact, Cantor, who routinely struggles with the details of various developments, seems confused about some of the basics.

First, there's the "there comes to you information" phrase -- as Cantor sees it, the White House was notified about potential trouble at the IRS in 2012 and had a responsibility to act. He's mistaken -- the White House was notified of the Inspector General's investigation in April 2013, once it was complete and ready to be published. Cantor's theory seems to be based on his trouble with the calendar.

Second, and just as important, Cantor believes White House officials who didn't know about IRS troubles could have given agency officials instructions without interfering with the ongoing investigation. You know who disagrees? House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who said the exact opposite just last week. And I think it's fair to say Issa has no interest in helping bolster the White House's arguments.

And while we're at it, let's go ahead and note that Cantor believes the IRS office in Cincinnati was "discriminating against political opponents," but let's not forget that several liberal groups were subjected to the same scrutiny.

So what in the world is Eric Cantor talking about? And why is he repeating bogus arguments on national television?

A Cantor spokesperson told Dave Weigel:

"As soon as questions were raised or an investigation known, IRS and Administration leaders could have and should have reiterated the nonpartisan operating principles to employees, and perhaps taken further steps, to ensure this political targeting of American taxpayers had ceased and would not happen ever again. The White House continues to say that an investigation ties their hands completely, and that simply is not true."

Of course, by this reasoning, congressional Republicans could have "reiterated the nonpartisan operating principles to employees" as well, since they were notified of the IG probe last summer. And why didn't they? Because congressional Republicans, like the administration, decided to let the IG investigation proceed so officials would have all the facts.

That was the right call. That Cantor is so eager to manufacture an administration scandal that he chooses not to understand this is a shame.

The Boy Scouts of America voted yesterday to end some of its discriminatory policies yesterday, lifting a ban on gay kids and teens from joining the organization. Group officials announced the intended shift last month, and the policy was codified yesterday with the support of a majority of the Scouting's National Council.

Some discrimination, however, will persist -- gay young people will be welcome, but gay adults hoping to serve as Scout leaders will still be prohibited. It led to an odd message from the group, effectively saying gay youths are fine, but gay adults are inherently suspect. Yesterday's move, then, was a step in a more just direction, but it is not yet a full breakthrough for equality.

Nevertheless, the outrage from right bordered on hysterical. I enjoyed scrolling through the Twitter feed for Right Wing Watch last night, and was amazed at just how over the top social conservatives' criticism was.

For example, Matt Barber, a lawyer with a group called Liberty Counsel, said the Scouts have become the "latest formerly honorable institution to crumble" under the "homofascist agenda." The American Family Associations Bryan Fischer added, "BSA now stands for Boy Sodomizers of America, because that's what will happen. Mark my words."

If recent history is any guide, we'll see some kind of far-right boycott and perhaps the formation of some rival Scouting organization. The efforts will fail and in a few years, folks will look back at this moment and wonder what all the fuss was about.

Associated Press

For many Americans, President Obama's speech on national security yesterday was long overdue. The president effectively presented a vision to end the nation's post-9/11 war footing -- rejecting the notion of perpetual war, repealing the AUMF, emptying the Guantanamo detention facility, ending subpoenas for reporting, and improving oversight of drone strikes.

It was a big, bold move, and with the proper follow-through, yesterday may well prove to be a turning point for the nation. And within a couple of hours of the speech, one thing was clear: some notable Republicans really didn't care for it.

The top Republican on the Senate Intelligence panel, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, dismissed the speech as rewarding detainees at Guantanamo who are carrying out hunger strikes.

"The President's speech today will be viewed by terrorists as a victory," Chambliss said in a written statement. "Today's speech sends the message to Guantanamo detainees that if they harass the dedicated military personnel there enough, we will give in and send them home, even to Yemen."

As Josh Marshall joked, "Who could have imagined that a Senator who came into office on a commercial morphing his opponent into Osama bin Laden would declare Obama speech a victory for terrorists."

That's a good line, and it reinforces a larger truth. Those who were following politics in the Bush/Cheney era will no doubt recall a cliche that was used a little too often: if we do _____— then the terrorists win. Republicans used it with great sincerity for many years, using it to condemn just about every Democratic idea on national security and the use of military force. It became easier to rely on the cliche -- using it to stifle dissent and debate -- than to engage in a serious exploration of foreign policy wisdom.

In time, the line of thought became more of a punch-line than a position, but Chambliss' knee-jerk reaction to the president's speech suggests some of his opponents remain stuck in the past. For many Republicans, it is, and will always be, 2002.

And it's not just Chambliss.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters afterward that "there are parts of this speech that I could've given." But Obama's overall view of the war is wrong, Graham said, adding that the president's policies would make the country less safe. "The enemy is morphing. It is spreading," he said. "There are more theaters of conflict today than there have ever been. Our allies are more afraid than I've ever seen; our enemies more emboldened." [...]

[A]ppearing at the same news conference with Graham, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said Obama's stated desire to repeal the 2001 authorization shouldn't even be considered.

So ... perpetual war forever?

The skeptical reaction from the usual suspects does not surprise anyone, of course, and I suspect the White House expected GOP skepticism. But therein lies the point: there hasn't been much of a debate on these issues, and the president's speech should renew the discussion in (hopefully) constructive ways.

The status quo is unsustainable and Obama has a vision for a smarter way forward. If Republicans have a credible alternative, great. Let the debate begin.

3 people pulled from the water after a bridge on an Interstate collapses in Washington State.

Was the bridge design to blame?

The NY Times on the CIA as it begins evolving from a paramilitary organization back to traditional espionage.

The Boy Scouts of America vote to let openly gay scouts in, but not openly gay scout leaders.

Sen. Tom Harkin: no action on ENDA until July.

IRS official Lois Lerner is placed on administrative leave.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage moves out of his office because of a dispute over a t.v. screen. 

What is that on the bottom of the Sea of Galilee?

Though the challenges President Obama faces in trying to shut the prison at Guantanamo Bay are more political than legal, we still might call the case he's making...

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 Thursday night's show are listed after the page break.

Tonight's guests include:

Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU

Robert Gibbs, former White House press secretary and MSNBC contributor

Jeremy Scahill, national security correspondent for The Nation and author of “Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield”

And here is executive producer Bill Wolff with how tonight's show will blow your mind:

Today's edition of quick hits:

* A bipartisan group of senators today unveiled new legislation intended to prevent sexual assault in the military.

* Oklahoma: "Three days after one of the most destructive tornadoes to strike Oklahoma in decades, people here [in Oklahoma City] filed into a mortuary chapel Thursday morning amid heavy rain and flashes of lightning for the first of two dozen funerals."

* A shift in posture? "A North Korean envoy, Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, said the North would 'accept the proposal' by China to "open up dialogue," the China News Service reported Thursday. The comments were reported after Marshal Choe met Liu Yunshan, a member of the Communist Party Standing Committee and the politician who heads ideological affairs for the Communist Party."

* House Republicans embraced the one resolution they know won't become law, because they're not especially serious about governing: "The House on Thursday passed legislation to head off a doubling of student loan interest rates on July 1, instead tying rates to prevailing market trends and ending federal subsidies."

* London: "A day after two alleged Islamic extremists brutally killed a British soldier, Prime Minister David Cameron vowed that his nation would not succumb to fear and promised a vigorous investigation into what appears to be this city's first successfully executed terror attack since the coordinated transit system bombings in 2005."

* Ricin: "The FBI has arrested a suspect in a case involving the discovery of a pair of letters containing the deadly poison ricin and says investigators are working "around the clock" to address any remaining risks."

* Middle East: "As he embarked on another round of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Thursday in an effort to revitalize the peace process, Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged the doubts being expressed on both sides over his chances of success."

* Responsible policymakers need to know when to ignore constituents who are mistaken: "Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said Thursday his constituents have suggested they were audited by the Internal Revenue Service because they donated to Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign."

* And when conservative pundits get to the point at which they think sexual assaults in the military may be a secret ploy to divert attention away from White House "scandals," maybe it's time they write about something else for a while.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

We're accustomed to President Obama delivering big political speeches, and thinking about them in political terms -- was the rhetoric persuasive, will various constituencies approve or disapprove, how will the arguments be received, etc. But some speeches are important for reasons that have nothing to do with politics and everything to do with policy.

President Obama's speech on national security this afternoon, delivered at the National Defense University, clearly falls into this latter category. This wasn't about inspirational oratory; this was a war-time president charting a new, more constructive course when it comes combating terrorism.

Indeed, it was arguably a key moment in marking a possible end of the 9/11 era. [Update: Transcript here.]

It's a little tough to summarize, largely because the president covered so much ground, and for detailed analysis, I'd strongly encourage you to tune in to tonight's The Rachel Maddow Show. But for now, let's talk a bit about Obama's approach to national security going forward.

"[M]ake no mistake: our nation is still threatened by terrorists. From Benghazi to Boston, we have been tragically reminded of that truth. We must recognize, however, that the threat has shifted and evolved from the one that came to our shores on 9/11."

This isn't what the right wants to hear, of course, but it's very much in line with the assessments of nearly all credible experts on counter-terrorism. The nature of the threat has changed, and a responsible U.S. policy must change with it. That the president realizes this is a low bar to clear, but it's nevertheless encouraging.

"America is at a crossroads. We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us, mindful of James Madison's warning that 'No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.' Neither I, nor any President, can promise the total defeat of terror. We will never erase the evil that lies in the hearts of some human beings, nor stamp out every danger to our open society. What we can do -- what we must do -- is dismantle networks that pose a direct danger, and make it less likely for new groups to gain a foothold, all while maintaining the freedoms and ideals that we defend. To define that strategy, we must make decisions based not on fear, but hard-earned wisdom."

Right. The "total defeat" of a possible terrorist threat, now and forever, is not going to happen, and basing a national foreign policy on such a goal is counter-productive.

"[W]e must define our effort not as a boundless 'global war on terror' -- but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America."

It's a genuine relief to hear a president say this out loud.

"[A]s our fight enters a new phase, America's legitimate claim of self-defense cannot be the end of the discussion. To say a military tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it is wise or moral in every instance. For the same human progress that gives us the technology to strike half a world away also demands the discipline to constrain that power -- or risk abusing it. That's why, over the last four years, my Administration has worked vigorously to establish a framework that governs our use of force against terrorists -- insisting upon clear guidelines, oversight and accountability that is now codified in Presidential Policy Guidance that I signed yesterday."

All of this was in reference to drone strikes, and while I'm glad the policy has been codified, it's worth emphasizing that this policy was signed "yesterday." That said, Obama went on to explain the fact that the "need for unmanned strikes" will "reduce" once the war in Afghanistan ends, that the U.S. "does not take strikes when we have the ability to capture individual terrorists," and that Congress "is briefed on every strike that America takes."

And what of the civilian deaths? "For me, and those in my chain of command, these deaths will haunt us as long as we live, just as we are haunted by the civilian casualties that have occurred through conventional fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq."

As for the Stand with Rand crowd, the president added, "For the record, I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen -- with a drone, or a shotgun -- without due process. Nor should any President deploy armed drones over U.S. soil."

"I believe, however, that the use of force must be seen as part of a larger discussion about a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy. Because for all the focus on the use of force, force alone cannot make us safe. We cannot use force everywhere that a radical ideology takes root; and in the absence of a strategy that reduces the well-spring of extremism, a perpetual war -- through drones or Special Forces or troop deployments -- will prove self-defeating, and alter our country in troubling ways."

In this context, it was especially heartening to hear the president tout the benefits of foreign aid as being "fundamental to our national security and any sensible long-term strategy to battle extremism."

"The Justice Department's investigation of national security leaks offers a recent example of the challenges involved in striking the right balance between our security and our open society. As Commander-in Chief, I believe we must keep information secret that protects our operations and our people in the field. To do so, we must enforce consequences for those who break the law and breach their commitment to protect classified information. But a free press is also essential for our democracy. I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable. Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs. Our focus must be on those who break the law."

A media shield law will still be a heavy lift in Congress, but I'm glad it's part of Obama's comprehensive vision.

"The AUMF is now nearly twelve years old. The Afghan War is coming to an end. Core al Qaeda is a shell of its former self. Groups like AQAP must be dealt with, but in the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States. Unless we discipline our thinking and our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don't need to fight, or continue to grant Presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states. So I look forward to engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF's mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further. Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That's what history advises. That's what our democracy demands."

This is no small moment. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the United States adopted a war footing -- and never stopped. What Obama is describing here is a fundamental shift.

As for the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, this is when protestors began interrupting the speech, but Obama nevertheless characterized the prison as a facility that needs to be closed and "should never have been opened." The president is asking for Congress to lift the restrictions; he's appointing a new envoy to complete transfers; and he will demand "judicial review be available for every detainee."

And what about those protestors? It was interesting to hear Obama express some sympathy for their perspective, saying he's willing to cut one of his interrupting critics "some slack, because it's worth being passionate about." After another interruption, he added, "The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to. Obviously I do not agree with much of what she said. And obviously she wasn't listening to me and much of what I said. But these are tough issues, and the suggestion that we can gloss over them is wrong."

It would have been easy for the president to ignore these critics, or dismiss their outbursts as fringe nonsense. I'm glad Obama chose a more substantive approach.

These are just some of the elements from my notes, and whether you agree with it or not, the video of the speech is worth your time. For real analysis, I'd strongly recommend tuning into MSNBC tonight at 9 p.m. eastern.

Associated Press

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals

Of all the recent judicial confirmation votes, today's was the most important.

After five years of trying, President Barack Obama has placed his first nominee on a key appeals court in Washington.

The Senate voted unanimously on Thursday to confirm Sri Srinivasan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The court is considered the most important in the country after the Supreme Court. The Senate voted 97-0 in favor of his nomination.

Srinivasan is currently the principal deputy in the Office of the Solicitor General. He has worked in both Democratic and Republican administrations and served as a law clerk to former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Srinivasan's name also came to public prominence in March: he's the attorney who argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that the Defense of Marriage Act should be struck down.

So why is his confirmation so important? For one thing, the D.C. Circuit is generally considered the second highest federal bench in the nation, behind only the U.S. Supreme Court, in part because it hears so many regulatory cases related to the federal government. President Obama named exactly zero jurists to the D.C. Circuit in his first term, which has proven to be a problem.

Indeed, Senate Republicans, as recently as last month, said they hoped to keep that going indefinitely, preventing each of the president's nominees from reaching the D.C. Circuit for both of Obama's terms. Obviously, as of today, that strategy is no more.

Also note the circumstances that led to today's vote.

[T]his week, Reid used the Senate rules to provoke a confrontation: Technically he filed cloture on Srinivasan's nomination, guaranteeing him at least a test vote this week. More meaningfully, he forced McConnell to choose between sustaining a filibuster against Srinivasan through early June (a move that would have helped Reid build his case for changing the rules this summer) and agreeing to a confirmation vote now (effectively caving).

McConnell caved Thursday morning on the Senate floor. A small cave. But a cave nonetheless.

So, does all of this mean people like me should complain less about judicial vacancies and Republicans blocking the president's nominees? Well, no, at least not yet. Srinivasan's confirmation was a welcome development, but let's not forget that his seat on the D.C. Circuit has sat empty for nearly five years.

What's more, Srinivasan enjoyed unanimous support, but it nevertheless took nearly a full year to confirm him (Obama nominated him last June).

As for what's next, three of the 11 seats on the D.C. Circuit are still vacant. The White House insists nominations for each of these vacancies is on the way.

Postscript: If you haven't already heard the scuttlebutt, Srinivasan is already being talked about as a possible Supreme Court justice in the future. In other words, remember the name.

Associated Press

It's an election year in Virginia, and it doesn't help the state Republican Party that its slate of statewide candidates are dominated by right-wing extremists. It also doesn't help that the outgoing Republican governor of the commonwealth is in the middle of a scandal that now has an outside prosecutor.

Virginia's attorney general has appointed an outside prosecutor to investigate Gov. Bob McDonnell's financial disclosures, in a widening scandal over a political donor who wrote a $15,000 check for the wedding of the governor's daughter, and who was also a benefactor of the attorney general.

Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the attorney general, who is also the Republican candidate for governor this year, said on Wednesday that he named the outside prosecutor last November to look into Mr. McDonnell's disclosures.

Mr. Cuccinelli said "information came to my attention" triggering the appointment of the prosecutor. His referral of the case to the Richmond commonwealth's attorney, Mike Herring, whose role is similar to that of a district attorney, "was not a conclusion that any violation occurred,'' Mr. Cuccinelli said in a statement.

Cuccinelli did not, by the way, make this announcement proactively, but rather, acknowledged the investigation after the Richmond Times-Dispatch uncovered the investigation through a Freedom of Information Act request.

What's more, it's not immediately clear whether Cuccinelli appointed an outside prosecutor because he's caught up in the same controversy, because the governor is currently working to help elect the state A.G., or perhaps a combination of the two.

Regardless, the scandal is an increasingly serious problem for the Virginia governor. For background on what the story is all about, take a look at our previous coverage.