Congratulations, you’ve made it this far through Monday. Now here is some afternoon reading to get you through the rest of the day.

Obama Left in the Dark — The Hill’s Jonathan Easley reports that White House Press Sec. Jay Carney said today that though White House officials were notified of an inspector general report on the IRS by the Treasury Department, President Obama was not. Carney said he supports the decision of White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler’s decision not to disclose the report, saying it would have been inappropriate for the President to be involved in an ongoing investigation, as conclusions often change in the final stages of inspector general reports.

Prosecuting the Press — Politico’s Josh Gerstein examines Attorney General Eric Holder’s stance on prosecuting journalists. Though Holder rejected the idea in last week’s hearing, Gerstein explains that the Justice Department has used the possibility of prosecution to obtain warrants. Citing the case of Fox News’ James Rosen, reported in the WaPo article above, the piece looks at how the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 has been interpreted and which protocols were followed and which were overstepped.

DOJ Deja Vu — The DOJ subpoena is being labeled a major scandal for the Obama administration, but as WaPo’s Ann Marimow reports, it’s not the first time this happened. The piece tells the story of the eerily similar tracking a few years ago of Fox News reporter James Rosen by the Justice Department, which was investigating leaks about North Korea in 2009. In addition to phone records, the DOJ made use of security badge access records to track when Rosen came and went to the State Department as well as his personal emails.

IRS Not Alone in Conservative Targeting — Apparently, the IRS wasn’t the only government agency targeting conservative groups. According to the story by The Daily Caller’s Michael Bastasch, the EPA made acquisition of government records more difficult for conservative groups while giving preferential treatment to environmental groups. Republican lawmakers are now launching an investigation into the claims.

Odd choice for a Friday night, but a functional toilet isn’t something you can just do without. CQ Roll Call‘s Neda Semnani kicked off the weekend by repairing hers.

“The toilet’s been running for months. Its just old or/or maybe poor quality,” she told FishbowlDC in an email. “I didn’t want to pay for a plumber unless I had to, so I went to the hardware store and got a kit and I followed the instructions.”

Semnani tweeted just after 9 p.m. that she was going to get wine and set out on her toilet adventure. Forty-five minutes later she returned and tweeted a photo of her tools, along with Huckleberry, her dog.

What ensued was a series of tweets in which Semnani demonstrated her lack of knowledge of all things commode-related, with her Twitter friends following along: Read more

Journalist Lizzie O’Leary got Twitter all excited on Friday afternoon when she casually tweeted, “Pregnanté.”

Naturally, several people on Twitter assumed this was O’Leary announcing that she was with child. This would have been big news considering that, not long ago, O’Leary spoke to Cosmo about her battle with endometriosis, which puts a damper on baby-making. The congratulatory tweets started coming in. Bloomberg’s Ryan Sutton tweeted, “ZOMG congrats! counting the days until your offspring annihilate(s) the competition on teen jeopardy!” WaPo’s Jim Tankersley responded, “!!!!!! that’s great news.” WSJ’s Victoria McGrane kept up the overuse of exclamations by tweeting, “CONGRATS!!!!!!!!”

So, what’s the problem? Read more

Over 70 percent of Wired is freelance written, and, once you’ve scored a byline, you’re well on your way to landing more assignments. Senior editor Sarah Fallon urges writers to think of Wired‘s coverage as a continuum: “Science leads to technologies. Technologies spawn businesses and whole industries. Businesses flourish and end up influencing and changing culture,” she said.

Based in San Francisco, Wired has a laid-back but focused West Coast feel and a sensibility that welcomes everyone from the worldly generalist to the Vine junkie. There’s plenty of room for freelancers, too, so long as you’re pitching fresh meat. “We want to cover stories that you wouldn’t find in any other magazine,” Fallon explained. “If you’re going to pitch something mainstream, make sure you have a unique angle.”

For more info, read How To Pitch: Wired.

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On “Saturday Night Live” this past weekend the show once again mocked MSNBC host Rev. Al Sharpton‘s inability to read off a teleprompter. More importantly, it suggested that WaPo columnist Dana Milbank, who once called President Obama “our first female president,” has a feminine name.

“What is this about?” Kenan Thompson, who played Sharpton, asked Jason Sudeikis, who played Milbank. “I mean, you’re a man, but your name is Dana.”

Sudeikis replied, “Well, Al, there’s lots of men named Dana.

“Well I don’t trust it,” said Thompson. “You know what– I’m going to call you Dan A.”

Pictured above is a screengrab of SNL’s “Milbank.”

Watch the skit here.

Twitter followers of WaPo‘s Mike DeBonis were rapt Saturday night as the reporter revealed a whole lot more than even he thought he would. Typically DeBonis covers the District of Columbia. But this was infinitely more personal than that. The headlines: 1. Father has a medical emergency. 2. DeBonis pops the question; girlfriend says yes.

First, a warning.

So I’ve had quite a week, and I’m gonna go all @clintonyates Saurday evening Twitter tale on you in a second

— Mike DeBonis (@mikedebonis) May 18, 2013

And so the Twitter novela begins: “So a week ago I had dinner with my parents in Chicago, visiting for a old friend’s wedding. Just like always…martinis, wine, too much food. I told them, after two martinis and a glass or two of wine, to expect a call noontime Saturday. As in today. That’s all I told em.”

The tension builds. “What my mother didn’t tell me, because she couldn’t, was to expect a call from her, at 7 a.m. Tuesday morning,” he wrote.

His father was in the hospital undergoing open heart surgery. “Airlifted by helicopter in the wee hours,” DeBonis wrote.

My old man always talked about ‘having the big one’ … His heart was healthy, but he knew the martinis and the cigars carried a risk.

— Mike DeBonis (@mikedebonis) May 18, 2013

DeBonis explained, “Aortic dissection. Google it. Better yet, YouTube it. The lining of the aorta separates from the outer vessel and high pressure blood tears it away, from the heart to the groin. If the outer layers don’t hold, you’re a goner. Something like 60 percent of cases, you’re dead before you make it to the hospital. But my old man knew something bad was happening.”

Read more

The White House Soup of the Day, as reported by MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown” is…

Tortellini.

“Tortellini Soup.” [CRAZY LONG PAUSE] “It’s PASTA, with a little extra broth,” said host Chuck Todd, taking a stab in the dark on what to say about it.

This just in today from George Washington University…

The School of Media and Public Affairs has announced the hires of three new faculty members who will “significantly expand the school’s expertise and scholarship in key media and public affairs disciplines, such as investigative journalism, multimedia reporting and political communication.”

They are… Read more

Over the weekend Washington Monthly Web Editor Ryan Cooper came a little unglued (this is putting it mildly) when he discovered late Saturday night that the magazine had been compromised. Or at least that’s what he thought.

God fucking dammit, stop hacking our website you assholes

— Ryan L. Cooper (@ryanlcooper) May 19, 2013

He continued by trying to calm himself. “Deep breath,” he wrote. By 10:34 p.m. he appeared to calm down slightly and followed up with this philosophical declaration.

There is a special place in hell for hackers of small, ramshackle websites.

— Ryan L. Cooper (@ryanlcooper) May 19, 201

We also requested comment from Editor-in-Chief Paul Glastris through what is hopefully the publication’s secure generalized email system. Read more

White House Senior Adviser Dan Pfeiffer didn’t take his Sunday off, instead going on a marathon of five show appearances to discuss the myriad of scandals.

During his TV tour, Pfeiffer was grilled on questions that have been raised over the past week during his tour of shows, which included ABC’s “This Week,” NBC’s “Meet the Press,” CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Fox News’ “Fox News Sunday” and CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Perhaps the most controversial remark made by Pfeiffer was made on “This Week,” when Pfeiffer called the legality of the Justice Department’s subpoena of Associated Press phone records “irrelevant.”

“I can’t speak the law — the law here, but the law is irrelevant,” Pfeiffer said.

When questioned on his comment by host George Stephanopoulos, Pfeiffer clarified that he meant the DOJ’s actions were wrong whether they were legal or not.

“What I mean is that whether it’s legal, or illegal is — is not important to the fact that it — that, the conduct as a matter. The Department of Justice said they’re looking into the legality of this,” Pfeiffer said. “The president is not going to wait for that. We have to make sure it doesn’t happen again regardless of how that turns out.”

Pfeiffer took to Twitter shortly after the interview to make sure his statement wasn’t taken out of context.

Before folks quoting me out of context get too far ahead of themselves, of course the law matters, IRS conduct is wrong even if legal

— Dan Pfeiffer (@pfeiffer44) May 19, 2013

That didn’t stop a storm of Tweets questioning not only Pfeiffer’s competence, but also Obama’s decision to send him on the shows. Read more