Sen. Ted Stevens’ (R-AK) home has been raided by the FBI.

Late Update: If you want to understand the scandal that has just led to Sen. Stevens (R-AK) getting his home raided, we wrapped it all up in a nice little package in this episode of TPMtv …

You can also see TPMmuckraker’s on-going and comprehensive reporting on the Stevens’ scandal here.

For those of you who are going and perhaps even more for those who aren’t, I wanted to mention that TPMtv is going to be covering Yearly Kos this weekend, with multiple reports each day from the convention — interviews with politicians, bloggers, activists, miscellaneous hangers on and whoever else seems interesting to talk to. If there’s someone there who you’d like us to interview, let us know. And if you’re a TPM Reader who’s going to be there, let us know. We’d love to say hi.

Bill Clinton downplays Hillary-Obama spat, says they had a “vigorous agreement” on whether to negotiate with hostile nations. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Morning Roundup.

After FBI and IRS agents spent all day yesterday very carefully documenting Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) Alaska home, a watchdog questions whether Stevens should keep his powerful committee seats.

It’s really sort of uncanny how much muck there is to be raked on the Alaska congressional delegation. You’d sort of figure that might be the case with Young and Stevens, two old ships with plenty of time to collect barnacles. But even Lisa Murkowski, who’s only a couple years into her first term too, though it seems she may have inherited some of her father’s muck-ation.

Perhaps it’s the old story of political systems built on economies with a heavy reliance on relatively primitive extractive industries — a pattern that one sees again and again around the world.

Anyway, as Roll Call reports this morning, it seems that Sen. Stevens’ (R-AK) troubles may extend well beyond corrupt oil services firm VECO and whatever that arrangement he had with their now-disgraced former CEO to renovate his house.

We have Young (R) and Stevens (R) both the subjects of on-going criminal investigations. Murkowski so far just has the embarrassing sweetheart land sale. But even there it seems there may be more to the story.

It’s important to keep up on the war-supporting rump of the Republican party. Here’s a post by Dean Barnett, which explains how “the left” is deeply invested in “defeat” in Iraq and for this, among other reasons, is ignoring, denying and generally trying to cover up the good news now coming out of Iraq day by day.

As Barnett writes, critics of the war “have a lot invested in this war failing and failing miserably.”

At other moments, the pro-war rump seems to oscillate between heralding the untold successes in Iraq and blaming the critics of the war, who’ve never had any hand in its prosecution, for what they appear to believe is the inevitable failure of their enterprise.

What I’d like to focus on though is the increasingly clear and no less disturbing trend for the president’s defenders to ape the tactics, rhetoric and strategy of the post-WWI German revanchist right, which laid the groundwork for and in many respects evolved into the Nazi party.

An inflammatory comparison? Yes. But the inflammatory nature of the comparison shouldn’t scare us into ignoring how strong the similarities are. You see it in the explicit ‘stab in the back‘ rhetoric and the effort to cover up their own authorship and prosecution of the role by blaming their own failures on the critics of the war.

And then perhaps the most telling sign, from an American perspective: As the dead-ender right’s plans and dreams about Iraq come under greater and greater strain from the alternative universe of reality, and as the president’s popularity wanes further and further, there’s a growing tendency for them to think about and write about domestic American politics in terms of violence and extra-constitutional action.

A minor example of this I noticed just yesterday on the Powerline Blog, where Sen. Schumer’s (D-NY) call to remove the “presumption of confirmation” from President Bush’s court appointments a “coup”. “Is This a coup? If not, what is it?” ran the headline to the post.

As the war for faux-democracy looks more and more like a debacle, the lure of authoritarianism at home becomes greater and greater for the war’s dead-end defenders. And as redeployment looks more and more likely, they have to keep raising the stakes on the consequences of doing so. Apparently our whole future, our honor, destiny, certainly our safety from the Iraqi insurgents who will restart the insurgency in the US — all of this is in the balance. The stakes must keep rising because that is, paradoxically, the only way for them to avoid taking responsibility for their failures. And cowardice that militant, in a faction within the body politic, is dangerous for the rest of us.

We’ve been watching Bill O’Reilly’s painstaking effort to peel back the shroud of normality from the Daily Kos hate website. Here’s what we’re going to do about it in today’s episode of TPMtv …

(ed.note: Special moment of Lanny Davis lamery included!)

Mere 70% of Americans thinks Congress should investigate Alberto Gonzales.

As we’re reporting over at TPMmuckraker.com, a Commerce committee clerk who helps keep Sen. Stevens’ personal financial affairs in order has testified before the grand jury investigating Stevens’ ties to VECO corporation, the oil services outfit that helped him out renovating his pad back in Alaska.

But why does a senate staffer help a senator pay his personal bills exactly?

The AP seemed to have a similar question …

Flanders is a longtime aide who helps ensure that Stevens’ bills are paid and his personals affairs are in order, the attorney said. She was questioned about the improvement project and how the bills were paid.

Reached by telephone Tuesday, Flanders would not discuss her testimony or describe her duties involving Stevens’ personal accounts.

“I work for the Commerce Committee,” she said. “I don’t have any comment on any other issues.”

At first I thought that they were saying that Flanders helped make sure Stevens’ senate disclosure filings were in order. But here it sounds much more like she acts as his personal bookkeeper. Anyone up on the Hill want to drop us a line about how common this is? Or if you know anything more about it?

I think I recall that there are some senate staffers who are paid a portion of their salaries from the government payroll and some other portion by the member personally. But my recollection on that is hazy and I may misremembering that entirely.

Anyway, if you can add more to this, drop us a line.

In potential blow to Edwards, Big Labor may not make an endorsement in the Dem Presidential primary. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.