Every morning, Politico’s Mike Allen calls the White House to see if the usual White House Coward or one of his lackeys will feed him some nice tidbit from the daily White House Spin. Today’s is about Social Security.

On “Morning Joe” this AM, JoeScar started laying the groundwork for Haley Barbour, claiming that he’s going to be labeled a “racist” by “the media” if he runs against Obama—just because he’s a “white Southerner.”

This morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Rolling Stone Executive Editor Eric Bates discussed Ari Berman’s latest article on marijuana legalization, appropriately entitled “Just Say Now” (catchy, isn’t it?).

The timeline around the Ramzi bin al-Shibh tapes suggests a knowledge on the part of DOJ that someone had destroyed the torture tapes. And given the identification of the date that destruction was approved — November 8, 2005 — DOJ would have known that the tapes had been destroyed days before DOJ told Leonie Brinkema they didn’t “have” video tapes of the interrogations at question.

With the end of the combat mission in Iraq, we have our next big reporting project: who’s getting those security contracts from State for Iraq? How long do they last and for how much money? What oversight measures will State’s congenitally dysfunctional Bureau of Diplomatic Security provide?

During the worst spell of the recession, in early 2009, the number was at 650,000. But today’s jump brings us to 500,000, a high for the year. Somebody should do something.

Gary Johnson, the Republican former governor of New Mexico, was on MSNBC with Cenk Uygur to talk about the need to end marijuana prohibition. He knocked it out of the park; catch his interview here.

• We left Iraq! Oh wait…
• America, the stupid.
• The fruits of socialism saving hundreds of thousands of jobs.
• The limits of the generic ballot.
• And we thought Walmart was bad.
• Have I mentioned lately how much I hate the Chamber of Commerce?
• Emily’s List vs. The Quitter.

Thank goodness there’s so little illogical hatred going around.

Bette Midler — In The Mood.