We’ve got some primo muck today courtesy of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA). It’s just too good not to squeeze into one long sentence:

The Albanian government and U.S. embassy in Tirana were working together to disguise from the NYT that China was the country of origin for the ammunition that our favorite 20-something Florida arms dealers were buying from an Albanian arms dealer and shipping to Afghanistan under a U.S. government contract, for which same dudes were indicted last week for violating the Arms Export Control Act.

I know, I know. Too much fun.

We’ve got the whole deal laid out at TPMmuckraker.

We’re pleased to have Philip Gourevitch this week at the TPMCafe Book Club. Gourevitch, the editor of The Paris Review, has collaborated with filmmaker Errol Morris on Standard Operating Procedure, a detailed look at Abu Ghraib prison.

In his first post today, Gourevitch explores his reasons for doing the book, not least of which is that we are all implicated in Abu Ghraib: “The crimes of Abu Ghraib, and their cover up, were committed in the name of our security and our freedom – and the crimes and cover up left us all in greater danger.”

Joining Gourevitch will be the poet and essayist Mary Karr, author Rory Stewart, Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic Monthly, E.J. Graff, senior correspondent at The American Prospect, and novelist Robert Stone.

Karl Rove’s latest to Republicans about how to message on Obama …

“Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.”

I just saw John McCain very gravely lamenting Barack Obama’s decision not to accept public financing for the general election campaign and opining about what it says about Obama’s ethics and trustworthiness. And I must confess that I’m a little confused why more Democrats are not hitting this preening peacock with the fact that he is as we speak breaking the campaign finance laws and specifically breaking the law on accepting public financing. Having opted into the system and gotten the advantage of it he’s now spending freely in defiance of the caps he agreed not to spend over. Not a commitment to Common Cause to try to come to deal, but a legally binding commitment to stay within the public system for the primaries (which, by FEC rules, continues through the nominating conventions).

It’s almost surreal that McCain is being allowed to get on his high horse on anything remotely connected to the public financing system.

You can say the press should be hitting him on this. But the truth is that this will only become an issue, if Democrats and Obama-surrogates make it an issue. The guy is not only ‘breaking his word’ he’s breaking the law. But he’s so awash in his own self-righteousness that I’m not even sure this counts as hypocrisy — at least conscious hypocrisy — since just as is the case with the lobbyists he surrounds himself with I think his self-righteousness makes it all invisible to him.

Here’s the video …

Citing two unnamed sources, the AP reports that New York Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno will announce that he will not run for re-election.

The general election is underway and the flip flop charges are flying. This past week both candidates reversed positions – Obama on public financing, McCain on offshore drilling. Whose flip was worse than whose flop? We match ’em up in today’s Sunday Show Roundup episode of TPMtv …

High-res version at Veracifier.com.

Dr. James Dobson claims Barack Obama is “distorting” the Bible. That and other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

It’s not the big report about the U.S. Attorney purge, but DOJ Inspector General Glenn Fine today releases the first of his reports about politicization in Bush Justice, focusing on the hijacking of the prestigious DOJ Honors Program by political appointees.

Israel Army Radio: Gunshots fired at Tel Aviv airport while Sarkozy, Olmert, Peres there. Leaders rushed away and safe.

We’ll bring more information as we get it.

From initial reports it seems like this may not have been terrorism related but rather some sort of aberrant behavior (perhaps a suicide) by an Israeli soldier.

Late Update: 10:07 AM … New updates appear to confirm that an Israeli soldier on the scene committed suicide by gunshot, thus setting off a security scramble to get the dignitaries on their planes or cars. The story from Haaretz.

Late Update: 10:20 AM … Not a suicide. Subsequent reports suggest that the soldier, who was patrolling the perimeter from a high vantage point, fell and his gun misfired.

Top level Justice Department officials were focused on keeping perceived anarchists and wolf-lovers out of its prestigious Honors Program — all in the name of promoting good loyal Bushies.