“The Rev. Fred Phelps Sr., the fiery founder of a small Kansas church who drew international condemnation for outrageous and hate-filled protests that blamed almost everything, including the deaths of AIDS victims and U.S. soldiers, on America’s tolerance for gay people, has died. He was 84.” – KSN.com

“A day that began with high hopes ended with uncertainty late Thursday in Australia as darkness put an end to the search for two objects captured on satellite and described as possible debris from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.” – CNN

“With the new moves, eight Democratic seats now fall into Cook Report’s ‘Toss-up,’ ‘Lean Republican’ or ‘Likely Republican’ categories: Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Montana, West Virginia and South Dakota. Just two GOP seats fall into the corresponding Democratic categories: Georgia and Kentucky.” – Washington Post

“How did Democrats come to be the ‘party of science?’ According to their own narrative, Bible-thumping conservatives have gone to war with empirically verifiable reality in order to shore up the tattered shreds of their antiquated religion. Profit-minded capitalists exploit that reactionary suspicion as a means to escaping prudent regulation on industrial manufacturing. Thus, conservatives come to shun empirical science, and scientists naturally gravitate to the party that takes their findings seriously.” – The Federalist

“A top Commerce Department official pushed back Wednesday against concerns that the Obama administration is opening the door to an Internet takeover by Russia, China, and other authoritarian regimes. The fears stem from the Commerce Department’s announcement last Friday that it plans to give the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, an international nonprofit group, control over the technical system that allows computers to connect to Web addresses.” – National Journal

“Mary Burke is the Wisconsin Democrat standing in the way of Scott Walker’s re-re-election. Her campaign’s official opening salvo was a television ad that was promptly harpooned as ‘pants on fire’ false by left-leaning Politifact.  The spot claimed that Wisconsin’s unemployment ‘is up’ on Walker’s watch.  Wrong.  Team Walker fired back with an ad of their own…” – Hot Air

“CNN host Don Lemon raised the possibility Wednesday night that the missing Malaysia Airlines flight was swallowed by a black hole.” – Daily Caller

“The state of Colorado filed a lien on Sen. Mark Udall’s (D., Colo.) campaign this week for not paying Colorado’s unemployment insurance, according to the Denver Business Journal.” – Washington Free Beacon

“How do political movements end? And how do we assess the impact they had on the political sphere? In the case of the Tea Party, it seems to me that some smart analysts are focusing too much on horserace politics, and less on the bigger picture of how public policy is made.” – Ben Domenech/The Federalist

“Whatever you think of Rand Paul, he’s actually doing something that politicians rarely do — talking at length to audiences who don’t usually agree with him.  And winning over new friends in the process. His recent speech at UC Berkeley, where he apparently got a standing ovation for excoriating runaway government spying on Americans, is only the latest example.” – PJ Media