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Thursday's Mini-Report, 4.3.14

Today's edition of quick hits.
Today's edition of quick hits:
 
* Fort Hood: "The Fort Hood shooter bought his gun at the same Texas gun shop where the 2009 gunman purchased his, law enforcement sources told NBC News. Guns Galore in Killeen turned over information to the feds, presumably over the .45-caliber Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol used in Wednesday's shooting."
 
* An unraveling process: "Israel has called off plans to release a fourth group of Palestinian prisoners, people involved in the threatened peace talks said Thursday, an indication of the severity of the impasse between the two sides despite the pressure from Secretary of State John Kerry to keep the negotiations alive."
 
* The final procedural hurdle for UI, at least in the upper chamber: "The Senate is set to pass an unemployment extension Monday after voting to end a final GOP filibuster Thursday. The cloture tally was 61-35."
 
* Torture report: "The Senate Intelligence Committee voted 11-3 Thursday to ask the White House to declassify parts of a controversial investigation into Bush-era torture that has led to a historic clash between the committee and the Central Intelligence Agency."
 
* This seems more efficient than investing in a U.S.-backed radio station Cubans can't hear: "The U.S. government masterminded the creation of a 'Cuban Twitter' -- a communications network designed to undermine the communist government in Cuba, built with secret shell companies and financed through foreign banks, The Associated Press has learned."
 
* Couldn't hurt to ask: "White House officials sought valuable primetime air for a rare, impromptu Tuesday night address to tout the accomplishment of signing up more than 7 million people under the Affordable Care Act." The networks were not amenable.
 
* E.J. Dionne Jr. asks the right questions: "Is there any accountability in American politics for being completely wrong? Is there any cost to those who say things that turn out not to be true and then, when their fabrications or false predictions are exposed, calmly move on to concocting new claims as if they had never made the old ones?"
 
* If you tried to enroll for health insurance before the deadline, you'll have until April 15 -- 12 days from now -- to sign up.
 
* Conservatives can ignore 90% of the country all over again: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) urged Congress on Thursday to reconsider legislation to expand background checks in the wake of a deadly shooting at Fort Hood."
 
* New Jersey: "The Hoboken city council voted Wednesday night to approve a measure that would allow Mayor Dawn Zimmer to waive attorney-client privileges, paving the way for a city attorney to comply with a subpoena for documents from the U.S. Attorney's office."
 
* Speaking of the Garden State, this is depressing: "In a grim day of reckoning at the state's largest newspaper, the owners of The Star-Ledger today said they were eliminating the jobs of approximately 167 people, including 25 percent of the newsroom."
 
* Texas: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry has decided to take another stand against the federal government. This time, his target is an anti-prison rape law."
 
* While I generally don't care about news related to Hollywood, Fox News' Greg Gutfeld took an unusually cheap shot at Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis yesterday, which also turned out to be wrong.
 
* And while it's the sort of mix-up that can happen to anyone, it was an extremely rare sight when Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) asked David Cohen, undersecretary of treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, a rather bizarre question during a Senate hearing this afternoon. A staffer then handed Coats a note; the senator realized he was in the wrong room; and the veteran lawmaker promptly left.
 
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.