Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) publicly questions whether his Democratic opponent Tammy Duckworth, who lost two legs in Iraq, is a true war hero.

At the time, GOP’s Pavlovian response to the Supreme Court’s Affordable Care Act ruling was so predictable, it almost seemed worth ignoring.

But that was Thursday — political eons ago. In hindsight it seems like it was a pretty big error. Actually, it looks like amateur hour. It shouldn’t have taken Washington’s top Republican operatives more than a few minutes to recognize that attacking the mandate as a tax would put Mitt Romney in an even more uncomfortable position vis-a-vis the Affordable Care Act than he’s already in and, implicitly, give John Roberts and the Supreme Court a pass on the legal argument.

That strikes me, again in hindsight, as an obvious lose-lose. Read More

GOP Governor (MI-R) vetoes series of vote suppresion/vote ID laws. “Voting rights are precious and we need to work especially hard to make it possible for people to vote.”

Not only is Mitt Romney’s record on the individual mandate out of step with the Republican Party, but there is no one on his side of the aisle that can or will come to his defense on that issue.

Clearly the economy is the first, second and third issue in this year’s election. But I don’t remember a Democrat in a presidential race ever so clearly outpolling the Republican as this time. Look at these numbers. It helps to the be the incumbent. But it’s not just that.

Prosecutor declines to pursue charges against former Commerce Secretary John Bryson in hit and run case.

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg high-fives a giant hot dog. No reports of giant sodas in the vicinity.

CERN accidentally publishes video announcing new particle discovery.

One of our reporters has been pushing me for a few days on the idea that John Roberts wrote both the majority opinion — which goes under his name — and the minority opinion — or at least most of it — signed jointly by the four dissenting justices. I stress though that the TPM reporter who thinks this bases his theory purely on a close reading of both opinions and his own conjecture. No reporting — just the theory of a fevered, perhaps ingenious, mind. But Paul Campos, writing at Salon, claims to have a knowledgeable source at the Court who says this is precisely what happened. As he writes, “it appears Chief Justice Roberts ended up in large part authoring both the majority opinion and the dissent in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius.”

I really don’t know what to think of this, true or not. But I definitely wanted to pass it on.

TPM’s Benjy Sarlin interviews Jonathan Krohn about the backlash he’s getting as a former 13-year-old conservative wunderkind turned 17-year-old Obama supporter. He’s taking it all in stride — and with a great sense of humor.