After losing his race for governor of Alabama, former Rep. Artur Davis hung his shingle as a DC lawyer, and now he’s recanted his previous opposition to voter ID laws in a very public way, saying that he witnessed instances of voter fraud during his political career, especially in the black community. Davis is himself African American.

We reached out to Davis to get details on the fraud he said he had witnessed. He declined to provide any, responding by email: “I know that those are the talking points that some groups opposed to my article have disseminated and I choose not to play that game with you or them. It strikes me as the ‘shoot the messenger’ politics both the left and the right deploy and I hope you will do me the courtesy of printing my reply.”

Ryan Reilly has more on Davis’ sudden conversion.

Greg Sargent’s been writing about the effort by conservatives to use the Occupy Wall Street protests as a wedge between progressive activists and working class whites/independents. It’s straight from the old playbook: Exploit the cosmetic differences between the two groups to obscure the similarity of their economic interests. We’ve been down this road so many times, it’s hard for me to believe it could still work. Looks like we may find out in the Massachusetts Senate race, where Elizabeth Warren is coming out full square for the protests, even claiming credit for creating the “intellectual foundation” for OWS.

A Flat Tax and Privatized Social Security are fast becoming the new litmus test of the 2012 Republican campaign.

How long till Mitt submits?

Eeeesh. When Pat Robertson says the GOP base is pulling the Republican party too far to the right, that might be bad sign. Watch.

Joe Biden complains about an ambush from a reporter for the conservative Human Events magazine.

Gay rights advocate, on J. Edgar Hoover: “If the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover’s friends and associates resist the notion that the blackmailing, extorting, empire-building, racist, homophobic man was gay, fine, whatever they wish to think. The straights can have him.”

Jon Stewart on Rick Perry’s birtherism: “See, now he’s only six months behind the national conversation. But his ‘n-word’ family hunting ground was, like, 150 years behind. In many ways, Perry’s actually gaining time.” Watch.

Herman Cain edges into the national lead over Mitt Romney in new CBS News/New York Times poll.

Evaluating the prospects of the minor leaguers in the GOP presidential field. Part II in this week’s series.

We’ve compiled some stunning photos from the U.S. decade in Iraq. You might be surprised by how much you’ve forgotten.