Sources with knowledge of key congressional briefings earlier this year on administration emails regarding the Sept 11, 2012 Benghazi attack tell TPM that those in attendance were provided clear information that the …

Colorado GOPer Accused Of Storming Away From Aurora Victim’s Dad

Tom Sullivan said he was just trying to show someone a few photos of his son.

Alex Sullivan, 27, was one of the young men killed last year in the Aurora, Colo. movie theater shooting, and his father wanted a high-ranking Republican lawmaker to know what gun violence had taken away from him.

So this week, Tom Sullivan went to a forum being held by Denver Post. State Senate Minority Leader Bill Cadman was there answering questions about the recent legislative session in which several gun control measures were debated and passed.

Flake Continues To Twist Gun Vote In Response To Latest Bloomberg Attack

In the face of a fresh attack on Friday, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) continued to imply that he agrees with those who support expanding background checks for gun purchases despite voting against a measure last month that would have done just that.

Flake was hit with the latest ad unveiled by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s pro-gun control group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, that featured the mother of a young man killed in last year’s movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colo. The ad criticized Flake for breaking a promise he made to the mother to support expanded background checks.

Massachusetts Senate Election: GOP Candidate Lashes Out At Ed Markey For Invoking Newtown In Attack Ad

In the Massachusetts Senate race, Republican nominee Gabriel Gomez is reacting strongly to a TV ad launched Thursday by Democrat Ed Markey criticizing him for opposing a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, which the ad noted were used to carry out the Newtown, Conn. shootings.

“Gomez is against banning assault weapons,” a narrator in the ad says. “And Gomez is against banning high-capacity magazines, like the ones used in the Newtown school shooting.” The narrator continues: “The more you know, the clearer the choice.”

Poll: After Gun Bill Failure, Public Wants Senate To Move On

An effort to pass new gun laws went up in flames last month in the U.S. Senate, and, according to a poll done for a pair of Libertarian groups, so did the public’s desire for the Senate to take up the issue.

A majority, 62 percent, of Americans said that they want senators to move on to other issues, according to the latest Reason-Rupe poll released on Friday. Only 33 percent said they want the Senate to take up gun legislation again. The poll was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

Ohio Republicans Push Law To Penalize Colleges For Helping Students Vote

Republicans in the Ohio Legislature are pushing a plan that could cost the state’s public universities millions of dollars if they provide students with documents to help them register to vote. Backers of the bill describe it as intended to resolve discrepancies between residency requirements for tuition and voter registration, while Democrats and other opponents argue it is a blatant attempt at voter suppression in a crucial swing state.

“What the bill would do is penalize public universities for providing their students with the documents they need to vote,” Daniel Tokaji, a professor and election law expert at Ohio State University told TPM. “It’s a transparent effort at vote suppression — about the most blatant and shameful we’ve seen in this state, which is saying quite a lot.”

Conservatives’ Last-Ditch Chance To Destroy Obamacare — And How The IRS Scandal Helps Them

Republicans haven’t been able to resist the temptation to link the IRS scandal to the Affordable Care Act, and use it to build support for mucking up or slowing implementation of the law.

IRS will administer key ACA revenue and subsidy provisions, and a major scandal at the agency offers the GOP a unique opportunity to question the wisdom of expanding its authority.

But some conservatives hope to draw a less direct, but in theory much more consequential, connection between Obamacare and IRS malfeasance — one which they hope will result in denial of benefits to millions of uninsured taxpayers, and perhaps the unwinding of the entire law.

House GOP Votes To Repeal Obamacare — And Chop The GOP’s Own Budget

House Republicans voted on Thursday afternoon to repeal Obamacare — the third dead-end vote to wipe out the law entirely and the 37th vote to partially repeal or dismantle it.

The party line vote was 229-195. Two Democrats joined every Republican in voting for it.

GOP leaders weren’t especially interested in holding the symbolic vote but their hand was forced by conservative and freshman members, who complained that they hadn’t yet had the chance to vote to repeal the law and last month quashed a health care messaging bill about pre-existing conditions pushed by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA).

“Obamacare is not the answer,” Cantor said Thursday on the House floor. “We should repeal Obamacare and replace it with the health care that the American people desire.”

Reid To Pentagon: No Special Sequestration Treatment For You

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has bad news for Pentagon officials, defense contractors, national park vacationers and other powerful constituencies dealing with the consequences of sequestration: unlike the Federal Aviation Administration, you won’t be getting any special treatment.

At a reporter roundtable in his Capitol Hill suite Wednesday, Reid claimed responsibility for Democrats’ decision to provide the FAA — and only the FAA — unique flexibility under sequestration to move money between accounts, and thus to avoid scheduled tower closures and controller furloughs causing major travel delays that were expected to drag on for months.

“I take all the blame,” Reid acknowledged.

Administration Officials Downplay CIA-State Department Squabbling In Benghazi Emails

At a briefing for reporters at the White House Wednesday, senior administration officials — including a senior intelligence official — sought to stamp out the last embers of controversy surrounding the inter- and intra-agency processes that yielded official, early talking points about the attacks on a U.S. facility in Benghazi, Libya.

Responding to pressure from reporters and Republicans on Capitol Hill, the administration released what they claim are all emails internal to, and between, relevant government agencies drawing up the talking points that Susan Rice used when appearing on Sunday talk shows a few days after the attacks that left four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, dead. Those emails are characteristic of the laborious bureaucratic process required to finalize the talking points, but do reflect disagreements between senior officials in agencies outside the White House over what information the talking points should contain.