Making up stories about your time in the military when you never served is getting pretty old hat these days in political circles. Like tired late 70s arena rock, it’s a form that has been crying out for innovation or a new direction. And it’s now been supplied by Dan Maes, Republican nominee for Governor of Colorado.

Mae’s now had to admit that he made up his earlier claims that he worked undercover for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation to take down a major gambling and drug dealing ring.

I’m curious to see how many Dems that could only have gotten elected in 2006 and 2008 are going to go down to Republicans who could only get elected in 2010.

Gov. Christie (R-NJ) fired Ed Commissioner and former GOP rising star Brett Schundler and publicly accused Schundler of lying. Now Schundler’s has come forward with the email evidence. And it’s not looking good for Christie.

The White House gives the readout on the afternoon’s multilateral meetings on day one of the Middle East peace talks in Washington: Read More

Gizmodo runs down the list of new products that Apple unveiled today.

The gunman who allegedly took hostages at the Discovery channel’s headquarters in suburban Washington, D.C., has been shot dead by police and the hostages rescued.

As we’ve been reporting, there have been a flurry of incidents around the country in recent weeks in which people have tried to intimidate or attack American Muslims or people they believed to be Muslims. But along with these ugly incidents there have been a backdrop of no less unfortunate cases of people who seemed to want to commit a hate crime but were either too drunk, too stupid or too disorganized to pull it off or even give a really clear idea of what they were trying to do.

Meet Kevin Morris, 31, of West Haven, Connecticut.

Last Thursday Morris swaggered into the Fire & Ice Hookah Lounge on Campbell Avenue in West Haven. Just what happened next isn’t entirely clear since there appears to be only one press account of the incident — and that one limited in detail. But after entering the Lounge, in the words of Amanda Pinto of the New Haven Register, Morris began “shout[ing] profanities and racial epithets at a group of black and Arabic people.” Read More

Over the weekend we brought you the news of the apparent arson attack at the construction site of the future Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The day after the incident, members of the congregation’s board went to inspect the vandalized equipment and heard gunshots near the site.

Board member Saleh Sbenaty called police. But now police believe that the gunfire was unrelated to the mosque controversy. Detective Sgt. Dan Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office tells TPM the shots were likely from hunters in the area taking advantage of the beginning of squirrel hunting season which officially opened the day before.

What would it look like if a Republican-controlled Congress followed through on threat to shutdown the government rather than fund the new health care law? Brian Beutler talks to experts like Donna Shalala and Robert Reich who experienced the 1995-96 shutdown. Here’s his report.

Will she or won’t she? Elizabeth Warren makes last-minute change to her Harvard Law teaching schedule.