The Note: Obama Floats Above The Fray - For Now Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo STEADY AS HE GOES: Americans, in a new ABC News-Washington Post poll out today, sharply reject special scrutiny of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service, suspect an administration cover-up of the Benghazi incident and express substantial distrust of the federal government more generally, ABC News Pollster GARY LANGER notes. His job approval rating is stable at 51 percent. Moreover, the partisan gap in views of his performance is its smallest since December 2011, and Obama has majority approval among men for the first time since December 2010. Both may reflect the effects of an improving economy: 56 percent of Americans now say the economy is beginning to recover, up by a dramatic 20 percentage points in the past year and a half, to the most since ABC and the Post first asked the question in late 2009. Additionally, 53 percent now say they're optimistic about the economy's prospects in the year ahead - a majority for the first time in four years. See the full ABC News-Washington Post poll: http://abcn.ws/17WKvON RISKS REMAIN: Longer-term impacts of contentious current issues remain to be seen, Langer writes, but there's potential for significant damage to the administration. Americans by a vast 74-20 percent see the IRS" behavior as inappropriate and 56 percent see it as a deliberate attempt to harass conservative organizations, not a mere administrative error. WEAK TEA: At a time when Tea Party groups have been in the spotlight, today's poll finds a continued roughly even split in views of the movement, with 40 percent of adults saying they support the Tea Party overall, 43 percent opposed. THE HILL: President Obama leads the GOP in trust to handle the economy by 46-37 percent. And he has a larger advantage on a more general question: 51 percent of Americans say he is "mainly concentrating on things that are important to you personally." ABC's JONATHAN KARL: The White House's answer to "who knew what and when?" shifted again yesterday as White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters that Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and "other members of the senior staff" knew about the investigation into the IRS's targeting of conservative groups last month. Carney said yesterday that White House Counsel Kathy Ruemmler was told on April 24 that the IRS Inspector General "was finishing a report" about "IRS employees improperly scrutinizing" organizations applying for tax exempt status by using words like "tea party and "patriot." "But that's all they were informed as a normal sort of heads up." http://abcn.ws/18ZDxYu ABC's RICK KLEIN: Yes, people are paying attention. No, they're not blaming the president - at least not yet. Strong majorities are condemning the Obama administration's handling of the IRS scandal, and the response to the attack in Benghazi; 55 percent say they suspect a cover-up after the tragedy in Libya, in the new ABC News-Washington Post poll. But voters are filtering out much of the politics, with the president's approval rating basically holding steady, at 51 percent. It may be that congressional Republicans learn the same lesson Mitt Romney did, that a little economic boost makes everything about the incumbent less sticky. Yet the results are also likely to be read by Republicans as a series of good reasons to stay on their investigative paths, and maybe even turning up the heat so the president himself starts to feel it. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul made another stop in an early voting state last night, speaking at a GOP fundraiser in Concord, N.H. It's been just ten days since he was in Iowa speaking at the Iowa Republican Party's Lincoln Day Dinner in Cedar Rapids. In his speech he continued his call for the GOP to broaden its outreach, saying Mitt Romney is an "upstanding" person, "but as a party we need to grow bigger." "If you want to be the party of white people, we're winning all the white vote," Paul said. And it's not just Paul who is getting an early start on the early states. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker heads to Iowa Thursday. He will speak at the Polk County GOP Dinner in West Des Moines and Rick Santorum, the belated winner of the 2012 Iowa caucuses, heads back to that state in August. ABC's MICHAEL FALCONE: Will Los Angeles elect its first female mayor? Long-time city official Wendy Greuel is hoping that by the time all the votes are counted in today's mayoral run-off in the nation's second largest city, she will have done what no other woman has done before. But heading into Election Day, Greuel, the city controller, appears to be locked in a tight race with City Councilman Eric Garcetti. And no matter who wins, only a small fraction of Angelenos are expected to cast ballots in the contest. The March mayoral primary drew just 21 percent of registered voters to the polls and today's run-off - as close as it loos - is expected to be a low-turnout event. Dan Schnur, the director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California, lamented to The New York Times" Jennifer Medina today: "Voters just don't seem to think that the outcome will make much of a difference." First responders are in a race against time in the search for any survivors of a devastating tornado that ripped through Moore, Okla., killing at least 51 people, including 20 children, and destroying homes and businesses in a 12-mile path, officials said. ABC's LAUREN EFFRON, DEAN SCHABNER and ANTHONY CASTELLANO report that spokeswoman Amy Elliott of the Oklahoma City Medical Examiner's office said she believes at least 91 people are dead. Elliott said an additional 40 bodies are being moved to the medical examiner's office, but she was unable to say how many of those bodies were children. The Oklahoma chief medical examiner said at least 20 children were confirmed dead. Moore Mayor Glenn Lewis and National Guard members told ABC News the search-and-rescue operation at the school is now a body-recovery effort. http://abcn.ws/17XYdkw TODAY AT THE WHITE HOUSE: President Obama continued to receive updates on the storm damage and response throughout the night. This morning, according to ABC's MARY BRUCE, he will be briefed in the Oval Office by Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Lisa Monaco, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, Deputy Chief of Staff Alyssa Mastromonaco and other senior members of the President's response team. At 10 a.m. ET the president plans to deliver a statement on the storm and the federal response in the State Dining Room. Apple has avoided paying tens of billions of dollars in U.S. taxes by creating a complex web of subsidiary companies, particularly three in Ireland, a new Senate investigation has found, according to ABC's JEFF ZELENY. After investigating Apple for 18 months, Senate investigators said one of the Ireland subsidiaries was only discovered Sunday evening. http://abcn.ws/117CEW0 HAPPENING TODAY: Apple officials, including chief executive Tim Cook, are scheduled to testify today before the Senate committee. According to a copy of his testimony released by Apple, Cook will say: "Apple does not use tax gimmicks. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul made a stop in the early primary state of New Hampshire on Monday evening, continuing to feed the speculation that he will possibly run for president in 2016. Addressing a GOP fundraiser in Concord, Paul said the targeting of tea party groups by the IRS was "un-American," reports ABC's SHUSHANNAH WALSHE. "Any person who would use the power or abuse the power of government to go after their political opponents, I don't care if you are a Republican or a Democrat or an independent, to take that brute force, that bullying force of government and to use it against your opponents, there is something distinctly and profoundly un-American about that," Paul said at a fundraiser for the state Republican Party. The Republican senator joked that the scandals facing the Obama administration all reminded him of a children's song. "Old MacDonald's Farm of Scandals: here's a scandal, there's a scandal, everywhere a scandal," Paul said. We've allowed the presidency to become too strong." http://abcn.ws/10ResrV Neither of the nation's two largest cities, New York and Los Angeles, have ever had female mayors, but that could change big time this year, as both cities have strong female candidates with a chance of becoming mayor, in races where the incumbents are term-limited, reports ABC's RICK KLEIN. Los Angeles" mayoral runoff election is today, with a tight contest pitting Councilman Eric Garcetti and City Controller Wendy Greuel. But that race could get a whole lot more interesting this week, with former Rep. Anthony Weiner widely expected to declare his candidacy. http://abcn.ws/16FT2WT Things could hardly have broken better for Republicans these last few weeks - a trio of scandals, all combining to embarrass the Obama administration at the same time. But now, ABC's SHUSHANNAH WALSHE notes, a growing number of Republicans are worried their party will screw it up. For every cry of "impeachment," there's a louder cry from the GOP establishment not to get too far ahead of themselves. While Priebus and others like him are stressing investigations over the politics of scandal, he of course acknowledges the obvious ... cautiously: "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know it won't play well for Democrats and the president, but I don't think it's the focus right now," Priebus said in an interview. They are important issues." http://abcn.ws/17XJI09 More than 100 conservative and Tea Party groups as well as high-profile leaders and grassroots activists are taking a stand against the immigration reform bill now making its way through Congress. The opponents have penned an open letter to the Senate: "We write to express our serious concerns regarding the Gang of Eight's immigration bill, S. 744. We oppose this bill and urge you to vote against it when it comes to the Senate floor. No matter how well intentioned, the Schumer-Rubio bill suffers from fundamental design flaws that make it unsalvageable. Many of us support various parts of the legislation, but the overall package is so unsatisfactory that the Senate would do better to start over from scratch. Signers include: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families; Erick Erickson, Editor of RedState; David Frum, Frum Forum; Laura Ingraham, Nationally Syndicated Radio Host; Mark Levin, Author and Radio Host; Jenny Beth Martin, Co-Founder and National Coordinator, Tea Party Patriots; Phyllis Schlafly, President and Founder Eagle Forum; Richard Viguerie; and former Congressman Allen West, among others. Read the letter: http://www.stopgangof8.com/ The pro-Democratic House Majority PAC released a video today highlighting Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn."s, recent troubles. According to a release from the group announcing the video, "Bachmann is not only facing investigations by the Office of Congressional Ethics, the Federal Election Commission and an Iowa Senate Ethics Committee, but now the Federal Bureau of Investigation is involved, too. Plus, Bachmann awoke Monday morning to the news that she is losing to her Democratic opponent, confirming she's in real political trouble. WATCH: http://youtu.be/NtneUoSCy_8 The abortion rights group, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and the Bridge Project, an offshoot of the Democratic super PAC, American Bridge 21st Century, have come together to release a new report detailing what the two organizations say is the "truth behind the deceptively named Susan B. Anthony (SBA) List in order to reveal the group's extreme agenda and political efforts ahead of the 2014 election cycle." The Susan B. Anthony List is a conservative group dedicated to electing anti-abortion rights women to Congress. "This report is intended to expose their true agenda to do away with abortion, contraception, and even sex outside of reproduction," Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement. Read the report: http://bit.ly/YWjoOT "A DOSE OF REALITY ABOUT IG AUDITS," an Op-Ed in The Hill by Michael R. Bromwich, who served as the Inspector General at the Department of Justice from 1994-1999. "The May 14 audit report of the Treasury Inspector General (IG) for Tax Administration has created quite a stir. ... Unfortunately, many people, including politicians in both parties, are not prepared to wait for the orderly development of the facts. They want swift and dramatic action, and explanations as to why such actions against those responsible have not already been taken. Already, condemnation by politicians has extended beyond IRS personnel to include high-level officials in the Treasury Department and the White House for their failure to intervene more quickly, and take summary disciplinary action against the IRS personnel involved. This suggestion ignores many important considerations. It ignores the independence of inspectors general; it ignores the limited information that is generally provided to political officials by IGs while their audits or investigations are in progress; it ignores the risk that summary disciplinary actions could obstruct the IG's activities; and it ignores the strong likelihood that summary disciplinary actions would not stand up to subsequent administrative and legal challenges." http://bit.ly/12pBRSQ MaryFallin: RT @theoklahoman: Ways to help tornado victims http://okne.ws/18djMeu Please keep them in your prayers. @katiecouric: My heart is with Oklahoma today. Devastating scenes on the news... praying for families & loved ones to reunite and help to arrive swiftly @TomCoburn: My thoughts and prayers are with those in Oklahoma affected by the tragic tornado outbreak. @guycecil: Today is a reminder that perspective is important. Prayers are with Oklahoma @nycjim: "God answered one prayer." Okla. #tornado survivor finds her dog buried alive under rubble. Amazing video http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50147264n ...