Could Ensign’s resignation have Sharron Angle heading straight to the House of Representatives? Without passing go?

I’m not sure I’ve heard a story in a while that captures so much about the gonzo, Obama-era far-right. Notorious Koran-burning freak Pastor Terry Jones is up in Dearborn today protesting the purported (i.e., non-existent) imposition of Sharia Law in the city. And he made a big to-do about bringing a pistol to the protest.

And now, alas, there’s been a fatality: the floorboard of Jones’ car.

Jones is apparently so handy with a firearm that he managed to accidentally discharge his weapon in his car.

How bad are the current federal deficits and debt by historical standards? Not as bad as you might think.

As many of you have noticed, comments are still unavailable for many readers as of this morning. As you may have heard there’s been a major and on-going outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) going back to yesterday morning. In addition to the Amazon where you buy stuff, they have a major secondary business selling (“cloud-based) web hosting services. And their outage has either brought down or seriously disable sites across the web.

Luckily for us we only make pretty limited use of AWS. But the effect it’s had on us is that login and comments are still down for many of you trying to access the site. We’re working on getting them back up as soon as possible.

Dearborn, Michigan Mayor Jack O’Reilly tells Quran-burning freak Pastor Terry Jones: No, Dearborn is not under Sharia Law and we’ve got the strip clubs, bars and pork sausage factories to prove it.

Jones’ band of freaks plan to protest the purported imposition of Sharia Law in Dearborn tomorrow in front of Dearborn’s Islamic Center of America.

Jones says he’s coming in peace, albeit armed with a handgun.

It’s not a riddle or a Zen Koan. Like who lobbies for the interests and issues of the lobbyists themselves and what does he do? Meet Howard Marlowe, head of the League of American Lobbyists.

It’s increasingly clear that the real negotiations on budget cutting are going to happen with the self-styled “gang of six” in the senate, the efforts of which have implicitly gotten the blessings of the White House. Three Dems and three Republicans. But only one of the three Dems can by any definition be called a progressive. That’s Dick Durbin. The other two are Sens. Conrad and Warner. So just how committed is he to protecting Social Security? Brian Beutler looks at all the evidence.

Sen. Franken to Steve Jobs: I want answers on this iPhone tracking thing.

I’m not sure what to say about this beside the fact that this is a short video of Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) playing Satisfaction on a Fender Telecaster while getting interviewed by Human Events and explaining his devotion to Silvio Berlusconi and his hope that the unfortunate underage prostitution scandal isn’t the end of him.

As far as I know the video was not produced by the producers of Spinal Tap or Waiting for Guffman. Video after the jump … Read More

There’s always a bit of a problem with self-appointed media fact-checkers: what if they come to a topic with very little knowledge of the subject and are easily duped? Or what if they assume on its face that every dramatic sounding claim must be false just because, well, it sounds a little dramatic and people should agree to talk about things reasonably?

That’s what we see to have today with Politifact’s take on a Democratic party ad which claims that the Republican budget plan “ends Medicare.” Politifact’s argument is that since there will still be a program and that it will be labeled “Medicare” that, heck, it can’t have ended since it’s still there. That may sound too credulous. But it’s about that bad. If my memory serves — and perhaps someone can find the link for me — Politifact was similarly bamboozled by President Bush’s efforts to partially phase out Social Security. Read More