The Republican National Committee Wednesday formally requested a series of documents related to the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups.

The request, filed under the federal Freedom of Information Act, seeks a host of data, including "any and all documents and correspondence"  between Treasury officials and the White House from January 1, 2010 and Monday. The documents would include terms like tea party and patriot.

The RNC also wants documents related to "be on the lookout criteria" the IRS used.

"As each day passes, Americans find ourselves with more questions about the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups and donors—and what the White House and Treasury Department knew and when,” said RNC Chairman Reince Priebus. “Because the administration refuses to be forthright with the American people, I instructed the RNC counsel’s office to file a FOIA request with the IRS to make the facts available for the public.

Priebus noted that Lois Lerner, the head of the tax exempt organizations division of the IRS, is expected to take the Fifth Amendment before a congressional committee Wednesday.

"There’s clearly something serious the American people are not being told,'' Priebus said.

The Internal Revenue Service and Benghazi stories may be consuming Washington, but in the rest of America, not so much.

"The amount of attention Americans are paying to the IRS and the Benghazi situations is well below the average for news stories Gallup has tracked over the years," a new Gallup poll found.

Democrats are not paying much attention, nor are independents, said the survey released Friday--though Republicans are paying a lot of attention.

"Republicans are also much more likely than Democrats to strongly agree that both situations are serious enough to require investigation," according to a Gallup analaysis.

Here's reaction to the White House release of Benghazi emails from Brendan Buck, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio:

"The House interim report found that senior State Department officials requested the talking points be changed to avoid criticism for ignoring the threat environment in Benghazi’ and that those changes were ultimately made.

"Those findings are confirmed by the emails released today, and they contradict statements made by the White House that it and the State Department only changed one word in the talking points. The seemingly political nature of the State Department’s concerns raises questions about the motivations behind these changes and who at the State Department was seeking them.

"This release is long overdue and there are relevant documents the Administration has still refused to produce.  We hope, however, that this limited release of documents is a sign of more cooperation to come.”

The top Republican and top Democrat on the House Ways & Means Committee joined forces Tuesday to express outrage at the news that the Internal Revenue Service has targeted certain conservative organizations.

Reps. Dave Camp, R-Mich., and Sander Levin, D-Mich., noted that "despite repeated calls for cooperation, the agency failed to be completely truthful in its resposnse to the committee during its nearly two-year invesigation of this matter in testimony before the committee."

It was "especially concerning," they wrote, that the new came out on the eve of an inspector general's report on the matter.

The two lawmakers asked the IRS a series of questions, including what the White House knew and when. And, they asked, "Did the IRS single out other organizations based on their political views?"

Ways & Means plans a hearing Friday morning. The letter to the IRS: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/uploadedfiles/camp-levin_5_4_13.pdf

Rep. Ed Markey, the Democratic candidate for a Massachusetts' U.S. Senate seat "is the favorite, but it does look like this could be another closer than expected Massachusetts Senate special election," according to a new analysis and poll from Public Policy Polling.

Its first survey found Markey leading Republican Gabriel Gomez, 44-40.

"Gomez is starting out as a pretty popular candidate, with 41% of voters rating him favorably to 27% with an unfavorable opinion," the poll analysis said.

Gomez does well with independents. But, the poll found, "To put Gomez's 16 point lead with independents in context though, our final poll in the 2010 special election found (Republican) Scott Brown winning them by a 64/32 margin. So he still has a long way to go to replicate the formula that let Brown pull off that upset."

Some other poll findings: http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/05/markey-starts-general-with-4-point-lead.html

To read more:

An early poll on the Massachusetts Senate race shows Democrat Ed Markey with a 6 percentage point lead over Republican Gabriel Gomez, 42-36 percent.

They are vying to fille the seat vacated by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who earlier this year became Secretary of State.

Markey, a veteran Democratic congressman, is seen as the favorite in a state long considered friendly to Democrats. But Felix Chen, society president, said in a statement Gomez was enjoying a post-primary bounce.

"While the race is currently very close, it may only be a honeymoon period for the Republican who was a virtual unknown just a few months ago," he said in a press release.

Other findings:

Could Democrats break the six-year jinx?

Often the party of the incumbent president in his sixth year suffer losses in the midterm congressional elections. But a new Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday found that by a slight margin, voters say they're more likely to vote Democratic next year.

If the elections were held today, Quinnipiac found, 41 percent of voters said they'd pick the Democrat, while 37 percent would choose the Republican.

And, the survey found, "By small margins, voters trust Democrats on Capitol Hill more than Republicans to handle health care, while they prefer the Republicans on the budget deficit and
gun policy, and they see the two about the same on the economy and immigration."

Democrats now control 55 of the Senate's 100 seats. Thirty-five seats are up next year, including 21 now controlled by Democrats and 14 held by Republicans. The eight seats considered most vulnerable by independent anaylsts are held by Democrats.

Republicans control the House of Representatives, but by a 48-43 percent margin, voters said they'd prefer one party to control both Houses.

Sarah Palin is trashing the White House Correspondents Association dinner, a change of heart from the days when she attended such gatherings in Washington.

"That #WHCD was pathetic," she tweeted Saturday evening. "The rest of America is out there working our asses off while these DC assclowns throw themselves a #nerdprom."

For the record, Palin attended - and apparently enjoyed - a big media dinner when she came to the winter dinner of the Gridiron in December 2009. The jobless rate then was 10 percent.

In April 2011, she attended DC parties associated with the White House Correspondents Association Dinner and apparently enjoyed it. The unemployment rate then was 9 percent.

The unemployment rate now is 7.6 percent.

Other than the juxtaposition of the dinner while Americans are working hard, Palin did not elaborate on her complaint about the dinner, during which the association awards scholarships to students and awards to journalists and heard jokes from Conan O'Brien and President Barack Obama.

Republicans Saturday used their weekly address to blast the Obama administration for its handling of the air traffic system this week.

"Many Americans had their flights delayed or cancelled because of the way in which the Obama administration chose to implement the president’s automatic sequestration cuts," said House Transrportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa.

"Travelers were fed up, and rightly so.  Sequestration is bad policy – the wrong way to reduce the deficit.  That’s why House Republicans have voted twice to replace these automatic cuts with smarter ones."

Republicans as well as Democrats voted for the automatic spending cuts.

Nevertheless, Shuster continued, "After a public outcry and pressure from Congress, the Obama administration agreed to a legislative solution to address these flight delays."

To read more:

People are increasingly concerned about the economy and increasingly skeptical of government and business institutions, a new Allstate-National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll released Thursday found.

The annual survey focuses on the middle class. Forty-six percent see themselves as middle class, and 85 percent "consider themselves a part of an expanded definition of being middle class" that includes upper and lower middle class, the survey said.

The poll found that overall, the mood of the nation is worse. Twenty-nine percent said the U.S. is headed in the right direction, down from 41 percent in November.'

Democrats' optimism is down 23 points to 54 percent, and 32 percent of the middle class feel the country is headed in the right direction.

"Over the last four years, Americans' views in this poll have been consistently right about the economy. Today, they are sounding the alarm bell that the economy is not on track for sustainable growth. More affordable college education, job creation and stability are seen as key priorities," said Thomas J. Wilson, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Allstate, in a statement.

See the poll here.