Michael Steele’s RNC tenure has been marked by a series of crises, but the events of the last day and half strike at the fund-raising core of the party. Justin Elliott, on the latest developments and what they mean.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK): Don’t believe everything you hear on Fox News.

Facebook entry from one of the “Young Eagles,” the RNC’s targeted outreach to young wealthy conservatives which ran aground on the shores of lesbian-themed bondage: “My ancestors, actually, weren’t on the Mayflower. They sent the servants over first to get the cottage ready.”

Sounds like we may not have seen the last of the departures from the RNC. We’re hearing that the Steele debacle of the last 72 hours — as opposed, I guess, to last week’s Steele debacle or I guess the debacle of the last month in general — has been the straw that broke the camel’s back. And a bunch of RNC staffers are now sending out resumes looking for a way off the USS Steele before it goes under the waves.

Read Jennifer Senior’s must-read piece in New York Magazine about why old and new, right and left, even the people in the senate think the institution has broken down and is just an awful place to be.

We’re still piecing together the story of this guy in Washington state who’s been charged by the feds with threatening to kill Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) for her yes vote on health care reform. But what we do know based on the charging documents in the case (which you can read here) is that at one point to make sure they had the right guy an FBI agent called the suspect and pretended to be from the anti-reform group Patients United Now. That’s a real industry-backed group (or at at least was real during the reform debate; our call just now to the phone number listed on their website reached a line that has been disconnected). Read More

CNN analyst Alex Castellanos, who was a Michael Steele ally and adviser, says Steele has lost the confidence of congressional Republicans and major donors and it’s time for a “a change in leadership” at the RNC.

A federal judge has ruled that Norman Leboon, the man charged with threatening to kill House Minority Whip Eric Cantor and his family, is not fit to stand trial and ordered him to undergo psychiatric treatment.

I’m usually not very sympathetic to arguments that the big corporations are destroying our culture. But then I hear something like this and I have to wonder. Mattel is changing the rules of Scrabble to allow proper nouns.

WTF?

Late Update: Alas, some utterly spoilsport readers have pointed out that the BBC report was, shall we say, a tad overstated.

Last month Juneau County (WI) District Attorney Scott Southworth sent out 24 letters to top officials in the county 5 school districts telling them to suspend sex education classes in their schools or face possible charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. “Forcing our schools to instruct children on how to utilize contraceptives encourages our children to engage in sexual behavior, whether as a victim or an offender,” Southworth wrote. (Someone apparently has a pretty healthy attitude toward sex.)