The poll, which surveyed 500 voters in May, shows that Bachmann's Democratic challenger Jim Graves has a slight lead, at 47-45 percent -- within the poll's 4.4 percent margin of error.

Bachmann's 2012 presidential campaign is currently under investigation by the FBI, the Office of Congressional Ethics, the FEC and an Iowa state Senate ethics committee over alleged campaign finance violations.

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According to the Washington Post, which cites "a senior White House official":

The Treasury inspector general for tax administration told the White House counsel’s office that it “was completing a report finding that line IRS employees had improperly scrutinized certain 501(c)(4) organizations by using words like ‘tea party’ and ‘patriot,;” the senior White House official said. White House staff were also told the report had not been finalized, and that the publication date had not been set, but would likely come soon.

And The New York Times reports:

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“I don’t know what the issues will be next year. If I were predicting what’s likely to be the biggest issue in the 2014 election, I think it would be Obamacare,” he said on Meet The Press, the Washington Post reports. “I think it’s coming back big-time.”

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According to an administration official, Politico reports, Obama will discuss the policy at the National Defense University in Washington. From Politico:

Obama plans elaborate on "the state of the threats we face, particularly as Al Qaeda core has weakened but new dangers have emerged," the official said. He will also "discuss the policy and legal framework under which we take action against terrorist threats, including the use of drones" and "will review our detention policy and efforts to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay."

The president will also "frame the future of our efforts against Al Qaeda, its affiliates and adherents."

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45 percent now say they disapprove of the President.

From CNN:

"That two-point difference is well within the poll's sampling error, so it is a mistake to characterize it as a gain for the president," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Nonetheless, an approval rating that has not dropped and remains over 50% will probably be taken as good news by Democrats after the events of the last week."

The CNN poll is in-line with Gallup, which also indicated a very slight rise in Obama's approval rating over the same time period. And Gallup's daily tracking poll also indicated a slight upward movement of Obama's approval rating over the past week. But as with the CNN poll, it was within that survey's sampling error.

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On the IRS scandal:

Dan Pfeiffer, a senior adviser to President Obama, addressed the IRS scandal, saying that the law is "irrelevant" though the actions of the IRS were "outrageous and inexcusable."

“I can’t speak to the law here. The law is irrelevant,” he said on ABC's This Week. “The activity was outrageous and inexcusable, and it was stopped and it needs to be fixed to ensure it never happens again.”

When pressed by host George Stephanopoulos, Pfeiffer explained: “What I mean is, whether it’s legal or illegal is not important to the fact that the conduct doesn’t matter. The Department of Justice has said that they’re looking into the legality of this. The president is not going to wait for that. We have to make sure it does not happen again, regardless of how that turns out.”

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on the other hand, said that he cannot believe that the misconduct by IRS employees was so limited in scope. “I can’t believe that one agent sort of started this,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union. “It seems too widespread.”

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"Those of us who have had the briefings, seen the videos, know there was no protest involved," Ryan said. "To suggest afterwards that this was the result of a spontaneous protest, we now know is not the case. So the burden of proof here is on the administration's side. Why did they continue to push this kind of a story when they knew nearly immediately afterwards that that was not the case?"

Host Chris Wallace asked Ryan if he thinks the White House "purposely misled" the American people to help win the election. "I don't know the answer to that question," Ryan replied. "Rather make a conclusion before an investigation has been completed, we just need to investigate this for the sake of good government."

As The Huffington Post points out, this is a slightly different approach from the one Ryan has been taking:

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The Minnesota Post reports:

The FBI joins the Office of Congressional Ethics, the Federal Elections Commission and an Iowa state Senate ethics committee in probing whether Bachmann's presidential campaign paid an Iowa state senator from her MichelePAC, a fund that should not have been used for campaign expenses, and whether the state senator stole the email list of an Iowa home-school group from another Bachmann staffer, Barbara Hekki, prior to the Iowa caucuses in January, 2012.

Andy Parrish, former Bachmann chief of staff and one of the directors of Bachmann's Iowa GOP presidential campaign, will be interviewed by the FBI, according to his attorney, John Gilmore.

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“Anyone who participated in this targeting of Americans for their political beliefs, anyone who knew about it, anyone who simply looked the other way, and anyone under whose watch this occurred needs to be fired,” CNN reports Jindal planned to say in a speech before Virginia Republicans on Saturday, according to his prepared remarks.

“But in this instance, it is the IRS, people in a position of public trust, who have violated the Constitution of the United States of America. You cannot take the freedom of law-abiding Americans, whether you disagree with them or not, and keep your own freedom. When you do that, you go to jail,” he continued.

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CBS News reported last week that emails between the CIA, White House and State Department, leaked to ABC News and purportedly showing the State Department's key role in drafting talking points about the attacks, were sent out by Republicans, and had key differences from the originals released by the White House.

Schiff, a Congressman from California who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement on Saturday that the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who chairs the committee, should provide answers for how the emails leaked in the first place, saying that Congress's oversight authority "certainly does not justify the leak of falsified information intended to further a politically-driven narrative."

From the statement:

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"IRS: No one needs to avoid scandals more than you. You're less popular with Americans than exercise," Meyers said.

"I mean really, the government only keeps you around to make the DMV look good," Poehler added.

Watch:

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This is the question that state governments and federal agencies are faced with, ever since a surge of people who consider themselves "sovereign citizens" began acting on their belief that all aspects of law and government are illegitimate. The Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that in 2011 there were approximately 100,000 "hard-core" believers in sovereign citizen ideology, though it's a tough number to nail down because the movement is so disparate. For the same reason -- and because, by their nature, members of the movement don't believe in laws -- it's also tough to draft legislation to specifically target those crimes favored by sovereign citizens.

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“We have to be persistent but patient,” Priebus told Politico. “I think where there’s smoke, there’s fire. If we present ourselves to the American people as intelligent, we’re going to be in a great place as far as showing that this administration is not transparent, is obsessed with power and hates dissent. But you don’t call for impeachment until you have evidence.”

Republicans like Sen. Jim Inhofe, Okla., and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, Utah, have argued that the President could be impeached over the State Department's handling of the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Libya — not to mention the slew of Republicans who have invoked Watergate when discussing the IRS scandal.

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In a statement obtained by the Washington Post, Fox News Vice President Bill Shine said that “Representative West’s congressional and military experience along with his fearless approach to voicing key issues will provide a valuable point of view to the FOX News lineup."

Since losing his race, West has been hosting an online show on Pajamas Media on which he's described NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg as a “gnome,” called MSNBC host Touré a “coward,” and mocked Fox News’ own Brit Hume for wearing a salmon-colored shirt.

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From the poll:

Republicans are much more likely to say they are following these news stories closely than are independents or in particular Democrats. There is a 21-percentage-point gap between Republicans and Democrats in terms of following the Benghazi story closely, and a 27-point gap on the IRS story.

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Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., told reporters that the House version will differ “in a lot of areas” from that of the Senate, but the agreement is an important first step in a “a very difficult process.”

Bloomberg News reports:

The House proposal, like the Senate’s, offers a path to citizenship for many of 11 million undocumented immigrants already living in the U.S., according to a House aide not authorized to discuss the deal publicly. While none would be barred from seeking that path, they would have to wait 10 years to become legal residents, making them eligible for citizenship after another five years. The bipartisan proposal in the Senate envisions a path to citizenship taking at least 13 years.

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The version of the emails initially sent out last Friday purported to show that the State Department and the White House gave input into the talking points issued by the CIA following the attacks on the U.S. consulate. But on Wednesday the White House released 100 pages of emails that contradict this conclusion.

CBS News reports:

On Friday, Republicans leaked what they said was a quote from Rhodes: "We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don't want to undermine the FBI investigation."

But it turns out that in the actual email, Rhodes did not mention the State Department.

It read: "We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation."

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It began with tweets by Republicans:

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But then the White House started trolling them:

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The hashtag, which began trending, also inspired some political pundits to get in on the joke:

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But even ultra-conservative Republican Rep. Steve Stockman knew where to draw the line:

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Gruenhagen was speaking on the House floor, and cited "facts from CPAC" showing that "in the last 16 years, there's been no global warming." He continued: "So members, I'd recommend that you keep breathing, OK? Because, you know, man-made global warming believes that exhaling causes global warming. I mean, the more you study it the more utter nonsense you see it is."

Watch, via Minnesota City Pages:

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Robertson began by saying the wife should focus on the good about her cheating husband: "Does he provide a home for you to live in? Does he provide food for you to eat? Does he provide clothes for you to wear? Is he nice to the children? ... Is he handsome?"

"Give him honor instead of trying to worry about it," he continued. "But recognize also, like it or not, males have a tendency to wander a little bit and what you want to do is make a home so wonderful that he doesn’t want to wander.”

Watch, via Right Wing Watch:

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