The freak show has come to staid, pedestrian Delaware, in the form of Christine O’Donnell and her litany of crazy. But while the national media and late-night comics focus on condoms, masturbation and witchcraft, the man who is likely to become the next Senator from the state has quietly gone about his business. I had the opportunity to talk with Coons about the race, the O’Donnell madness, and his specific positions on issues he could face shortly in the Senate.

We’re pleased to announce the brand-new online store from Just Say Now. Featured in our store are hemp t-shirts, hemp tote bags, stickers, pins, t-shirts – just about everything you need to show your support for legalizing marijuana and support our organizing to pass marijuana ballot initiatives in November. Even though we complied with Facebook’s censorship of pot leafs, all of our ads for the Just Say Now store were rejected. And the rejection came with some blatantly false statements, and a harsh warning.

As someone who has been reading Arianna’s books since the 1980s when she was still Arianna Stassinopoulos, I think that “Third World America” is her most compelling and important work to date — and it is an important work. Her vantage point mediating between the insular political realm and a vast, interconnected online communications world has given her unique insights into the chasm between political groupthink and the way that ordinary Americans experience current events. This book offers a clear, concise warning to those who think an uptick in the stock market for a few days means our economic worries are behind us.

The ballot initiative Proposition 19, which would legalize, tax and regulate marijuana in California, still leads by nine points in the latest poll from PPP.

DeParle: “It’s a new day when it comes to oversight. There’s a tension, it’s an inherent tension, but I’m happy about where it’s going.”

Bob Woodward reports that Obama repeatedly asked the generals to provide a plan in Afghanistan that had an exit plan, and they refused. So it’s not clear why he didn’t clean house right then and there. But now, he has no choice but to relieve Petraeus of his command.

With Friday’s appointment of Elizabeth Warren as an “adviser” to have input in the shaping and launch of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Tuesday’s rapidly-arranged announcement that Larry Summers will be stepping down as head of the White House National Economic Council and this morning’s suggestion that Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel could be resigning before the end of October to pursue the Chicago mayor’s seat, progressives have more reason to be optimistic this week than they have had in quite some time. But since this President was elected through the hard work of progressives who since then have been largely shut out of his administration and even ridiculed by him and other administration figures, it makes sense to look a little more closely at these events and how they are likely to lead to further disappointments.

Blanche Lincoln just joined Republicans to scuttle the defense bill, and with it the DREAM Act and DADT repeal–both purportedly Administration priorities (to say nothing about the Defense bill itself). Moreover, no amount of money is going to get Blanche out of her electoral hole this year. And her patrons, the Waltons, have plenty to give her all by themselves, without picking the pockets of Boston liberals.

So why is Joe Biden wasting some of his precious time and political capital helping a woman who, yesterday, broke with the party on the defense bill?

It’s worth noting that nothing has to change here. The legislative repeal remains in the defense authorization bill. Harry Reid has vowed to take that up after the elections, and the opposition would still need 60 votes to strip out the repeal. And, the Pentagon study is due December 1, eliminating the ability of Republicans to argue “wait for the study.”