I expected the anti-mosque folks to try to disguise their opposition under broader concerns like zoning regs, general NIMBY-ness, and other more parochial concerns. But it’s clearly OK just to be blatantly anti-Muslim, like this Southern Baptist pastor in Riverside County, California: “The Islamic foothold is not strong here, and we really don’t want to see their influence spread.” We take a look at the opposition to mosques popping up around the country.

West Virginia has cleaned up its special election law. Gov. Joe Manchin (D) signed the new law last night. It provides for a special election this year. But with a twist. Republicans secured a provision that allows candidates already on the ballot in other races to simultaneously run in the Senate special election. Someone like, oh, say, Rep. Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV).

July in DC would be notorious for the lack of news and of anything much happening except that August is even worse. Today is a welcome exception. The Senate Judiciary Committee votes on the Kagan Supreme Court nomination; Carte Goodwin is sworn in as West Virginia’s new senator (he’s a mere 56 years younger than his predecessor); the Senate votes on extending unemployment benefits; and Senate Democrats and Republicans have their respective weekly lunches, which gives reporters a chance to buttonhole senators. We’ve got our reporters in the field and will bring you the latest. Get it while it lasts, before DC returns to the inexorable march toward the torpor of August.

Speaking of BP, why are they photoshopping pictures of their command post in Houston?

That’s the hush-hush phone number that BP set up years ago for California politicos to call to score free tickets to Arco Arena in Sacramento: NBA games, Britney Spears concerts, you name it. At least it was hush-hush. No one picks up your call since Josh Harkinson started reporting on the BP freebie ticket scheme.

Supporters of the tea party candidate challenging Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) from the right parade through town carrying campaign signs — oh, and guns. Watch.

The NAACP, with one well-timed resolution condemning Tea Party racism, sends tea partiers into paroxysm of racism.

Well, in fairness, not all tea partiers. One bunch, so distraught over the charges of racism, is planning an event in Philadelphia later this month to show off tea party diversity. They’re calling the event Uni-Tea.

Tea party conservatives are not happy with former Majority Leader-turned-lobbyist Trent Lott who ripped the movement over the weekend, saying: “We don’t need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples. As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.”

That’s Lott’s way of saying these guys and gals don’t know how the game is played here in Washington and they get in the way of doing business. (If anything might give me a soft spot for tea partiers …)

But the best part of this whole tempest is watching an old TPM fave, former Rep. Chris “The Count” Chocola (R-IN), rip Lott right back. Chocola, who is now president of Club for Growth, goes straight for the kill, referencing Lott’s 2002 comments about Strom Thurmond that cost him his leadership post: “To paraphrase the former Leader himself, if recent Senates had had more Jim DeMints and fewer Trent Lotts making economic policy, ‘we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years.'”

Oh snap.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) becomes first member of the House Republican leadership to sign on for Michele Bachmann’s new Tea Party Caucus, with a Palinesque “You betcha.”