After President Obama’s inauguration, the folks who ran the Obama campaign (Obama for America), relaunched the campaign organization and infrastructure as Organizing for America. So what are they doing and what have they been able to accomplish? Our Christina Bellantoni got an exclusive interview and a look at how they’ve fared after one year after the election.

Images from around the country and the world (remember this used to be Armistice Day here, too):

That poll yesterday showing Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) vulnerable to a primary challenge from the right has one conservative PAC licking its chops.

Lou Dobbs reportedly out at CNN. Tonight’s show to be his last.

Late Update: Dobbs said in his departure announcement that he’s considering several other options.

TPM Reader MT points out that the only Republican to vote for the Dems’ health care reform bill is also one of, I believe, only two in the House GOP caucus with any actual experience living in a Communist country, as opposed to the fantasy-Tea Bag version of Communism / Socialism / Fascism / Dictatorshipism.

That’s Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA), who came to America as a refugee from Vietnam.

The other is Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) who was born in Havana in 1954, though I’m not clear in what year Diaz-Balart left Cuba, which could bear on the question.

To be clear, I tend to think Cao’s district may be the prime motivator here, not his early life as a refugee, though his Catholicism may also be a factor.

And as long as we’re on the topic, are there any other House Republicans who began life in Communist states?

Late Update: Okay, we’ve got a third: Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL). She was born in Cuba in 1952. It’s funny. Diaz-Balart’s younger brother is actually in Congress too. And I thought and confirmed that he was born in the US. But I forgot about Ros-Lehtinen. Any others?

Texas Gov Rick Perry goes the full anti-Obama crazy to hold on to Gov’s mansion.

Really crazy, lurid stuff. Dangerous times. Hofstadter perhaps surprisingly ahead of his time.

See the video after the jump. Read More

The vast majority of us understand that in our legal system everyone deserves a fair trial and the legal representation that makes that possible even if many of us, at a gut level, have a hard time understanding being the individual person who mounts a zealous defense of someone who is factually, if not yet legally, guilty of a horrific crime. But today I was surprised and almost nauseated to see Wolf Blitzer go in for the most stereotypical, craven and showboating knock-about of the retired JAG officer who’s representing Nidal Hasan. (Hasan has a regular military defense counsel as well as a civilian attorney retained by his family.) It’s not about ideology certainly or even theories of what’s right or not about the law. But we know bullying and pompous showboating when we see it.

The retired JAG, Col. John Galligan, stood up to it very well. And actually got back in Blitzer’s face in a way that’s pretty hard to do and uncommon for a non-TV personality going up against a big shot host. If we want Hannity, we’ve got Fox for that. Right?

Sean Hannity: “Although it pains me to say this, Jon Stewart, Comedy Central, he was right.” Watch.

It’s crunch time for Obama’s decision on an Afghanistan strategy, with a flurry of new developments. That and the day’s other news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN) finally agreed to sit down to answer questions about that iffy foundation we and others have been telling you about and … well, it did not go well.