Patrick Fitzgerald ain’t done with Rod Blagojevich.

Also, charges dropped against Blago’s brother, which may be an ominous sign.

Last night in Queens Omar Rivera walked into the al-Imam Mosque on 24 Steinway Street with a bottle of beer and penis in hand and proceeded to urinate on the congregation’s prayer rugs while uttering various anti-Muslim slurs curses.

The “clearly very intoxicated” Rivera was taken into custody by the NYPD.

Late Update: The New York Post originally reported Rivera using ‘anti-Muslim slurs’. But they’ve now revised their story. The NYPD would not confirm to TPM whether Rivera’s curses were tied to Islam. And subsequent reporting by the Washington Post suggests Rivera was so drunk he probably didn’t know he was in a Mosque. So probably just your standard random urination in place of worship issue.

Later Update: NYPD now confirming to TPM that they are not treating this as a bias case.

A lot of Dems were excited when former Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Chet Traylor got into the race against scandal-plagued Sen. David Vitter (R-LA). The very connected establishment Republican’s entry in the race suggested big players in the GOP were turning against Vitter; and it seemed certain that Traylor would be able to raise plenty of cash. But apparently the folks who leaned on him to get into the race abandoned him soon after and he didn’t have the money to seriously contest the race.

Was former Carnahan campaign worker responsible for “fire-bombing” Rep. Russ Carnahan’s (D-MO) campaign office?

The Daily Show‘s Aasif Mandvi: Peaceful Muslims in Tennessee are ruining it for the rest of us. Watch.

In yesterday’s post-mortems about the apparent big upset in Alaska, I heard a lot of commentators going back and forth about Sarah Palin’s winning percentage in the various endorsements she’s made over the last year. I think that line of commentary misses the point. While her percentage is pretty decent, what really stands out has been her ability to completely transform a handful of races, taking some candidates who weren’t even in contention and make them winners, almost entirely on the strength of her endorsement.

Let’s focus on one point: whether Alan Simpson says teats or tits or whatever, what this is really about is his desire to dismantle Social Security. That’s what this is about. And it’s probably what this fall is going to be about. Whether it’s about phasing the program out or slow dismantlement through means testing.

Remember Brent Furer? Sen. David Vitter’s (R-LA) top aide who kept his job after a knife slashing attack on his girlfriend? Turns out Vitter’s lawyer’s been sending threateningly worded letters to Louisiana newspapers telling them to back off their coverage of Furer’s crime.

The Cardinals are in town this weekend for a series against the Nationals, which I usually would manage to resist mentioning (Go Cards!). But this is also the weekend of Glenn Beck’s big Aug. 28 rally, and the St. Louis paper is reporting that Cardinals manager Tony La Russa and star first baseman Albert Pujols (who has a chance to win the Triple Crown this season, which hasn’t been done since Carl Yastrzemski pulled it off in 1967 — but I digress) will be attending. Pujols is being honored at the event, and La Russa is introducing him, the paper reports. Read More