Democrats are pushing a vote to suspend congressional pay in the event of a government shutdown.

Oh man oh man. Like a bass flailing out of the water, the office of Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) just reeled in a lunker in the person of CNN’s Joe Johns. Truly hilarious. Johns just went on the air and said that he’d “just got off the phone with [Duffy’s] office and they say that this tape that has been circulating and up on TPM, on the internet and what not, is actually a case of selective editing.”

Wow, Joe. Way to get punk’d, man.

Let’s try this again. TPM doesn’t do selective editing of video. And before you accuse us of that on the air you should really watch the video, check with us or just find out really anything about what actually happened. Read More

Senate Iraq hawks berate Bob Gates over handoff of Libya operation to NATO.

Angry lawmakers grill Bob Gates over War Powers Act.

Tea partiers rallied at the U.S. Capitol Thursday, and our Ryan Reilly was there to ask them what they thought of Donald Trump and his road to Damascus conversion to birtherism. Watch.

My favorite exchange:

Tea partier: “With this joker in the White House, Donald Duck would be better.”

Ryan: What about Donald Trump?

Really do watch.

Wisconsin Democrats say they have now collected more than enough signatures to recall state Sen. Dan Kapanke, less than half way through the statutory 60 day window for gathering signatures. The petitions are being filed today.

(ed.note: We’re trying to figure out now what the official terminology is in Wisconsin, whether he’s “recalled” when his continuance in office goes on the ballot or he’s only “recalled” if he loses that election.)

Late Update: An official from the State Elections office in Madison tells us they are not sure there’s an official terminology but they suggest “recall” as the verb for actually getting bounced whereas the successful collection of signatures ‘triggers a recall vote.’ So there you have it.

As you know, we’ve been hiring here at TPM. And we’ve got some further expansion plans we’ll be announcing shortly. But I wanted to take a moment to congratulate our whole growing staff here at TPM in New York and Washington. Our audience continues to grow and at a quickening pace. The first quarter of 2011 was the best traffic quarter in the site’s history. And March 2011 was our top non-election month to date (2.65 million unique visitors). A lot of variables play in to that. But the overwhelming and irreplaceable factor is a hard-working, smart and hungry staff of reporters, editors and publishing staffers working together to break stories, get the news right and fast and just deliver, day after day.

How the Tea Party helped make ‘sovereign citizens’, state currency systems, nullification, secession and various other forms of treason large and small mainstream again.

The University of Wisconsin has responded to that FOIA request for Prof. William Cronon’s emails and they’re releasing them. But the fine print is key here.

26 year old Katherine Windels has been charged with two felonies for allegedly sending email death threats to Republican state senators in Wisconsin at the height of last months collective bargaining controversy.

Rep. Mike Pence (R) tells MSNBC that if Dems won’t accept GOP budget cuts, “shut it down.” Watch.