For reasons that have always struck me as paradoxical, one place where Republicans totally excel Democrats is in their ability to survive sex scandals. Admittedly, Bill Clinton managed to get that ball pretty far down the field for the Democrats in the 1990s. God bless’em.

But since then you’ve got Larry Craig, David Vitter, John Ensign, Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons — who had so many affairs that he eventually decided to just get divorced and go legit. (Who am I forgetting?) In fact, in Gibbons’ case, even the fairly credible allegations that he attempted to rape a woman in a parking garage in 2006 hasn’t seemed to seriously break his stride. Read More

A year ago, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor launched a conservative ideas factory to tackle the country’s big problems, a move that at the time was hailed as a huge development toward Republicans becoming relevant again. Good news: all the country’s problems must have been solved because Cantor’s group is now defunct.

Jon Stewart asks a genuinely worrisome question: what happens when the terrorists start sending in their A-Team, as opposed to the goofs who’ve tried the last couple operations?

Local TV in Las Vegas reported that a steady stream of local political types were seen entering and leaving a hotel in the city yesterday where Senate Ethics Committee investigators are interviewing witnesses in its probe of Sen. John Ensign’s cuckolding of his former top aide — and then allegedly trying to find the poor bastard work and business opportunities.

Eric Kleefeld takes a close look at retiring Rep. David Obey’s Wisconsin district and Democratic prospects for holding on to his seat.

Republicans: The capture of the Times Square bomber was just dumb luck. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

The UK election turned out to be perhaps the only election I can think of where all three parties managed to lose at the same time. Each in a different way.

Dramatic accounts from the survivors of the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

The results of not yet complete out of today’s UK election. But the broad outlines are coming into view. And that view is messy.

It’s a big win for the Tories. But they look very unlikely to achieve an absolute majority or even come close enough to an absolute majority that they could cobble together a majority government with a mix of unionists from Northern Ireland and right-wing minor parties. That said, even if Labour and the Lib Dems could find a basis for a coalition government, it doesn’t seem like they’ll have enough MPs between them to do so. So if those numbers hold it’s sort of like a double-hung parliament. Of course, some minor shifts could change the picture significantly.

What reminds me of Bush v. Gore is the jousting and muscling for one or another to just get out. The Tories are making dramatic statements about Labour’s “humiliating” defeat and that, as David Cameron said, it’s “clear that the Labour government has lost its mandate to govern.”

Don’t get me wrong. Those statements are hard to quibble with. But obviously numbers should speak for themselves. But it’s in these cases where the actual result is unknown but also ambiguous that you’ve got these chest-thumping efforts to force the other guy off the stage, to create a fait accompli where the votes won’t quite do it themselves.

You can watch the latest numbers and BBC video feed here.

Spencer Ackerman reports from Guantanamo this evening that the Pentagon has banned four of the most experienced journalists covering the detention facility after they reported the classified name of an interrogator who testified as a witness this week in the pre-trial hearing of a detainee before the military commission.