Okay, I’m still agnostic on Lamont-Lieberman. But this ad’s pretty funny.

Hey, did you know contributions to political campaign’s are now tax deductible?

Me neither.

But on his campaign website, Rep. Greg Walden (R) of Oregon says contributions to his campaign are tax deductible. (Below is a snapshot from the frontpage of Rep. Walden’s site.)

Maybe he got a special dispensation from the IRS? Inquiring minds …

Late Update: Oregon state income tax gives you a small deduction (up to $50) for political contributions. Not the feds. But, hey, for Walden, details, details.

Even Later Update: Actually, the Oregan law has a tax credit, not a deduction. So it seems Walden is back to a plain fraudulent claim.

So Late It’s Tomorrow Update: Seems the Walden tax policies have changed. The donate button now reads, “It’s fast, easy & secure.”

Ivo Daalder analyzes this week’s mainstream media nugget: Bush the multilateralist.

The more you think about it, the more surpassingly amazing it is how big a fool you need to be to fall for the White House’s song and dance today about the falling budget deficit.

The budget deficit last year was $318 billion.

In February, the White House ‘estimated’ (I use quotation marks because this is a standard trick for the Bush White House) the deficit for 2006 would be $423 billion.

Today they released a new estimate that it would be $296 billion.

In other words, between February and July tax cuts reduced the deficit by a whopping $127 billion.

Would you fall for this?

Treason canard 2.0.

House Intel Chief Hoekstra on press leaks: I have no evidence, but probably al Qaeda or foreign spies are responsible for the leaks.

“More frequently than what we would like, we find out that the intelligence community has been penetrated, not necessarily by al Qaeda, but by other nations or organizations. I don’t have any evidence. But from my perspective, when you have information that is leaked that is clearly helpful to our enemy, you cannot discount that possibility.”

Feel safer?

From the Times …

It reads like a tally of terrorist targets that a child might have written: Old MacDonald’s Petting Zoo, the Amish Country Popcorn factory, the Mule Day Parade, the Sweetwater Flea Market and an unspecified “Beach at End of a Street.”

But the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, in a report released Tuesday, found that the list was not child’s play: all these “unusual or out-of-place” sites “whose criticality is not readily apparent” are inexplicably included in the official federal antiterrorism database.

The National Asset Database, as it is known, is so flawed, the inspector general found, that as of January, Indiana, with 8,591 potential terrorist targets, had 50 percent more listed sites than New York (5,687) and more than twice as many as California (3,212), ranking the state the most target-rich place in the nation.

“Nix’s Check Cashing,” “Ice Cream Parlor,” “Tackle Shop,” “Donut Shop,” and “Bean Fest” also made the list.

I’ve been forgetting to make another trip to Bean Fest. Beans!

Question of the day: Do you expect the rate of terror alerts and ‘foiled plot’ arrests to spike in the run-up to the November election as they did in the lead up to the 2004 presidential?

Travis County prosecutor Ronnie Earle draws the shades on his investigation of Tom DeLay. That and other news of the day in today’s Daily Muck.

Following up on the Chairman Hoekstra quote below apparently he’s now actually accusing members of the US intel community of working with and/or for al Qaida, just as his quote below suggests. I hear there’s a big article on this about to pop. So I guess we’ll be hearing more very soon.

Fourth candidate in Connecticut senate race?