Maybe it’s because it’s way out in Alaska and there’s a big time difference, but GOP Senate nominee Joe Miller’s declaration last week that he’s not going to talk about his past anymore is so comical and indefensible that I’m surprised it hasn’t gotten a bit more attention and put the national Republican committees more on the spot.

It would be an absurd position under any circumstances, but a guy who comes in out of the blue to wrest his party’s nomination away from the incumbent U.S. senator deserves the scrutiny and owes it to voters to be open to it. Add in the fact that Miller’s recent past contains some incidents deserving of scrutiny, and you start to wonder if Miller can really sustain this facade of his past being off limits.

Then this morning comes this quote, via Justin Elliott, from Miller’s old boss at the law firm he worked for in Anchorage back in the ’90s after graduating Yale: “We at this firm were not eager to have him stay, and so when he announced he was leaving, we were relieved.”

Do tell.

He goes by “Bobby Thompson.” But that’s not his real name. In fact his real name isn’t known. Nor are his whereabouts. He’s under indictment in Ohio for allegedly running a scam charity called the U.S. Navy Veterans Association. It succeeded in raising millions of dollars, and “Thompson” succeeded in pocketing about 90 percent of it, authorities allege.

In the course of running the scam, “Thompson” became a generous donor to Republican causes. He also liked getting photographed with GOP bigwigs, including President Bush. We’ve compiled a slideshow of his greatest grip-and-grin moments. If real people hadn’t been fleeced, the whole thing would be funny. OK, I’ll admit the pics are pretty funny.

Ginni Thomas cancels previously scheduled interview with NPR’s On Point at last minute. (Robert Reich to fill in.)

It’s always sad to see a factchecking out get punk’d. Especially this badly. If you’re a long-time reader you’re familiar with the GOP word game bamboozlement surrounding the ‘privatization’ of Social Security. For about twenty or more years, up until 2002 or, Republicans favored way of describing their plan for Social Security was ‘privatization’. After 2002, the public turned so hard against privatization that Republicans started casting about for different language to use to describe it.

They’d almost got there by the time President Bush pushed for privatization in 2004 and 2005. But they were basically using different vocabularies at different points. One of the more comedic aspects of the Bush Social Security privatization saga was Republicans complaining to Democrats and to members of the press that ‘privatization’ was an anti-Republican or biased phrasing when those same Republicans had been championing ‘privatization’ only a few months before. It made for some very funny moments.

The preferred words were ‘personalization’ instead of ‘privatization’ or ‘personal accounts’ instead of ‘private accounts’. The whole thing got very silly. And while a lot of journos fell for it, most eventually got wise to the privatizers’ word games. But it looks like Politifact, even while acknowledging the word games, still somehow seems to be falling for them. Very sad.

Crazy story out of Cincinnati where a juror realized during opening statements in a criminal domestic abuse trial that she was the anonymous caller to 911 in the case. She reportedly blurted out: “I was the person who made the 911 call. It woke me up out of my bed and I saw him beating on her. I thought she must be dead.” The judge declared a mistrial, and the juror will be a state witness in the new trial.

TPM Reader DS looks behind the Sestak surge

Isn’t it clear what’s happening in the Keystone State? John Raese’s entry into the race is now splitting the conservative vote and creating an opening for Sestak. Palin’s endorsement of Raese may yet come back to bite the GOP.

In their debate last night, freshman Rep. John Adler (D-NJ) asked former Philadelphia Eagle Jon Runyan (R) for “an example from the last 10 or 15 years of a Supreme Court decision in which you strongly disagree?”

Runyan’s response: Dred Scott. Watch.

Hey, given the position of many tea partiers this year, I’m just glad he agrees Dred Scott was wrongly decided.

Rand Paul begins to open up about history as Aqua Buddhist.

His main answer seems to be he doesn’t remember the incident — but that does seem possibly consistent with the Aqua Buddhist lifestyle.

I wanted to step back a few paces and take stock of where we are two weeks out from election day. It seems to me we’re seeing two basic trends. On the one hand, the generic congressional ballot, which had bobbled back and forth over recent months and seemed to be trending back toward the Dems, has moved decisively back in the Republican direction. Read More

Glenn Beck: “I don’t think we came from monkeys. I think that’s ridiculous. I haven’t seen a half-monkey, half-person yet.”