Find out about yesterday’s Supreme Court decision that will probably let a lot of political crooks out of jail and make it harder to put new ones in.

Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) presses DHS Secretary Napolitano for more surveillance of Hezbollah operations along the US Mexico border.

My favorite quote so far: “Former intelligence officials have pointed to the terrain that makes up our border, especially in the San Diego border sector, as a reason why drug cartels have been partnering with Hezbollah. This terrain is very much like the areas around Israel’s borders. As we well know, Hezbollah is extremely skilled in the construction of tunnels.”

Full Myrick press release after the jump … Read More

Have you heard of the anchor baby/global terrorist nexus?

Texas Louie Gohmert (R-TX) went on the floor of the House last night to reveal a new terrorist plot to send Islamic women to the US to birth their babies, then take them back to the House of Islam for 20 or 30 years of terrorist preparation so they can reenter the country as US citizens in the late 2030s. Watch it.

You’ve heard all the blaring headlines. But what happened on the big four reform issues in financial services reform? Brian Beutler has your answers.

Tennessee House candidate (TN-6) declares opposition to Muslim community center in Murfreesboro, cites Martin Luther King for her opposition.

Explaining her opposition, Lou Ann Zelenik writes: “Until the American Muslim community find it in their hearts to separate themselves from their evil, radical counterparts, to condemn those who want to destroy our civilization and will fight against them, we are not obligated to open our society to any of them.”

Earlier this week, we heard this conspiracy theory — and I say that in the sense of knowing that conspiracy theories are not infrequently true — about Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) somehow being tied to the state-registered ‘Florida Tea Party’ in an attempt to siphon off votes from whatever Republican he ends up facing. I really wanted to figure out what was going on. And there was enough smoke to make me wonder. So I asked Christina Bellantoni to get to the bottom of what was going on. One thing I’m pretty sure of is that Christina’s head is still spinning from what a bizarre scene it is down there. But here’s her take on what she found out.

While our Brian Beutler is working on a longer piece, here’s a quick run down of what is and isn’t in the financial reform compromise bill.

Earlier in the Florida Senate campaign, Marco Rubio pledged his support for full repeal of Health Care Reform. Now he’s hedging on that, saying he thinks we should keep the ban on denial for preexisting conditions and allow kids to stay on their parents’ plans until they turn 26.

In political terms, that’s enough to count as your classic flip-flop. You can see the video here.

But there’s a deeper substantive point, which is actually worse, but will likely get less play. Read More

Did MSNBC really play it as ‘Republicans and Democrats fail to agree on unemployment extension’? It’s a rhetorical question. They did. But my God, ‘filibuster‘ just goes further and further down the memory hole.

TPM Reader TW asks …

In all the news about derivatives compromises I’ve not seen any mention of how the other major issues were resolved. Will banks create a fund to pay for future meltdowns or will it simply be paid by selling off assets? What happens to financial institutions (not just banks) that take on too much risk? Will anyone in the govmt have the power and process to safely resolve their obligations? Did they come to any conclusion on whether anything was “too big to fail”?

Our Brian Beutler is up on the Hill dogging the story as we speak. We’ll try to get you those answers.