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1.) Bye, bye Lois — Lois Lerner is going on an unexpected vacation, reports TheDC’s Patrick Howley:
“Embattled Internal Revenue Service official Lois G. Lerner has reportedly been placed on administrative leave. Lerner, who apologized for improperly scrutinizing conservative nonprofit groups as the director of the IRS Exempt Organizations division between 2010 and 2012, is on administrative leave, according to a tweet from National Review. Lerner pleaded the Fifth Amendment in a congressional hearing Wednesday on the exploding IRS scandal, invoking her right not to incriminate herself. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa publicly rejected Lerner’s plea.”
2.) Raise your voice — But probably not best to do it while the president is in the middle of a speech. TheDC’s Patrick Howley reports:
“A left-wing activist heckled President Barack Obama during his foreign policy speech Thursday, objecting to the president’s inability to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center as promised. ‘There is no justification, beyond politics, for Congress to prevent us from closing a facility that should have never been opened,’ Obama said in regard to Guantanamo Bay, prompting an outburst from veteran Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the progressive activist organization Code Pink, who recently said in an interview that she refuses to allow Obama to shift the blame for not closing Guantanamo to Congress.”
3.) JFK went on a trip to Germany — JFK may be a different person than you knew. TheDC’s Jamie Weinstein reports:
“A young John F. Kennedy thought fascism was the right system for Germany, a new book that reviews the late president’s travel diaries from his trip to Germany pre-World War II divulges. The new revelations are found in “John F. Kennedy — Among the Germans. Travel diaries and letters 1937-1945,’ a book recently released in Germany, according to the Daily Mail. According to the British tabloid’s account of the book’s contents, Kennedy kept a diary during a 1937 journey to Nazi Germany. During the trip, he concluded: ‘Fascism? The right thing for Nazi Germany.'”
That didn’t turn out well.
4.) Michelle Obama is … nice — The first lady is reaching out to the community. TheDC’s Caroline May reports:
“The White House announced Thursday that first lady Michelle Obama will be welcome the child victims of Hurricane Sandy to the White House Kitchen Garden and put them to work harvesting the summer crop. According to a White House press announcement, the children affected by Hurricane Sandy from two New Jersey communities will be joining children from across the country who helped plant the garden in April assist with the harvest.”
Read on.
5.) Tweet of Yesterday — Noah Pollak: We could win the war on terror if only Code Pink would infiltrate Al Qaeda and Hezbollah
6.) Today in North Korean News — BREAKING: “German Guests Visit Mangyongdae”
VIDEO: Most impressive sideburns of the Civil War for Ambrose Burnside’s birthday `