Not to be outdone in an effort to eke out a few more minutes in the spotlight, Joe The Plumber announces he too has had enough and is leaving the Republican party.

Of course, in Joe’s case, it does raise the question of what party or militia he’s leaving the GOP to join. Any ideas?

A few news sites have picked up the fact that the Republicans’ new back-to-the-future Judiciary Committee chief, Sen. Jeff Sessions said he could see voting to confirm a gay Supreme Court Justice. But the actual quote is so much better and more revealing. If you watch the video, Sessions actually says he’d consider voting for a nominee “with gay tendencies.” That’s sort of one step up from saying, as Austin Powers Dr. Evil once put it, a ‘penchant for buggery’ or perhaps just a ‘swisher’.

See the video here.

Number of Gitmo detainees that the GOP hopes to keep off mainland U.S. soil with its “Keep Terrorists Out Of America Act“: roughly 250.

Number of Axis POWs detained in camps on the U.S. mainland at the end of WWII: roughly 425,000.

Ridge passes on running for Senate. Which, unless I’m missing something, means it’s almost certainly going to be Toomey.

Simon Johnson calls them good PR but “mostly a whitewash.”

The grizzled yet spry Walter Pincus with an unpopular view (among his colleagues) on why newspapers are failing — amidst other pearls of Pincus wisdom.

I was pretty skeptical about those numbers showing Tom Ridge crushing Pat Toomey in the PA Republican senate primary. Not that I thought the numbers were wrong, per se, more that I was skeptical they’d hold up over time, as Toomey and his allies went to work on Ridge over the next year and a half. But with Ridge out, I have to assume that means Toomey’s almost guaranteed the nomination. I’d heard talk about Gerlach getting in. But I doubt it. And if it’s Toomey, that means that any half way reasonable Democrat is a strong favorite. Which means the pressure going to remain on Arlen Specter to at least make some pretense of being a Democrat.

House conservative Patrick McHenry (R-NC) says tax cuts are old news and Republicans need to admit the Reagan era is over.

Curious how long it’ll take till Limbaugh stomps him into an apology.

We’ve gone over the particulars of the EFCA/”Card Check” debate pretty extensively here. And the debate has been flooded with hypotheticals about all manner of potential abuses. But Nathan Newman points out that there’s are a number of states with similar laws already in place — and very little evidence of any abuse at all. This of course stands in contrast to the basically uncontested evidence of massive abuse by employers under the current system.

A particularly bombastic appearance this morning by CNBC faux populist Rick Santelli (via Teablogging.net). I can’t tell if the admonition to “get a better education and make more money!” is directed at poor people, the uninsured, or … well, I’ll leave to your judgment. Watch (starts at about 3:00 mark).