A very good Minnesota blog called The Cucking Stool has writers who have been documenting how Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer’s been sending out all sorts of coded signals to the folks who wished that the South had won and slavery was still legal. These posts have struck a nerve — and comedy gold — by engendering a hilariously disjointed set of desperately handwaving Tweets from local Republican functionary David “Thurmond” Strom, who apparently wants The Cucking Stool to stop pointing out this new wrinkle in the GOP’s Southern Strategy. Heh. Fat chance of that, buddy.

Soon there will be thick carpets of leaves in front of the houses of most of our neighbors… except for the few without any deciduous trees. We will have to rake them into the street for the street cleaning machine that comes along later on to sweep them up…

Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem — America, from The Muppet Show.

Valerie Plame Wilson’s unlikely story of personal survival and perseverance.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I sure am sick of the Obama administration’s congenitally glass-half-empty attitude towards the progressive base. I hear these people saying we’re like radical leftists. These people ought to be drug tested. I mean, it’s crazy. They will be satisfied when we all celebrate the health care and financial reform bills as great progressive victories and donate every spare dollar and minute to the campaigns of Blue Dogs and conservadems. That’s not reality.

The Washington Post really really wants to cut Social Security and can’t resist getting its view in almost every news story that touches on the issue.

The good news keeps coming for incumbent Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer. The latest Field Poll of likely voters has her leading Carly Fiorina by six points.

Paul Volcker has gravitas. And in his advanced age, he’s using it to rip the banksters a new one. Now you will never hear from these whiners that Paul Volcker is anti-business; they would rather deflect that over to Obama. But it’s Volcker, and certainly not Obama, making the most direct critiques of the crime spree they call their business practices.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is launching in $1 million ad buy in the West Virginia Senate race in a serious attempt to expand the Senate playing field; they must now see this state as winnable.

Of course, now that we have the next generation of wireless technologies, Google and the telecoms will do their best to control and monetize them. Not only have they persuaded gullible tea partiers to join the cause, taking advantage of baseless fears about government takeovers of the Internet (strike government and replace with corporate and you’re on to something), but they’re getting help from prominent Democrats as well.