Thanks for the Senate seate, Teabaggers!

Outrageous douchebaggery international edition.

Honeydripper All Star Band — Going Down Slow.

Conservative Intellectuals* have something of a problem in regards to the entirely phony Mosque in the General Vicinity of Ground Zero Controversy, namely, that it is transparent ginned-up hate-baiting nonsense that they have to dress up as something  Smart and Profound. Fortunately for them they have as much experience in dressing up in this regard [...]

I know Democrats are thrilled that Chris Coons, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Delaware, will be running against the kook Christine O’Donnell.

But I’m a little troubled by the treatment of O’Donnell’s anti-masturbation stance as just one more kooky proposal.

It’s not.

Rather, it’s the logical extension of the conservative assault on reproductive freedom.

A story at Truthout reports that a Department of Defense Office of Inspector General investigation into allegations of drugging of detainees, completed almost exactly a year ago, was nevertheless hidden from public knowledge for months. Its results remain hidden, labeled classified. This is especially strange as this document was publicly requested by no less than now-Vice President (then Senator) Joe Biden, along with Senators Carl Levin and Chuck Hagel, after a couple of articles — one by Jeff Stein and one by Joby Warrick at the Washington Post — blew the whistle on dozens of reports of alleged drugging of detainees.

We still have no indication whether the Justice Department will appeal the US District Court ruling finding the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy unconstitutional. In the meantime, Congress will try to put the finishing touches on a legislative repeal of the policy. But two Senators, mindful of using every avenue possible to end the discharges, are advocating that the Justice Department drop the lawsuit and let the ruling stand.

Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) have written Attorney General Eric Holder to ask that his agency not appeal the decision from Judge Virginia Phillips. Several experts believe that the DoJ has no obligation to defend the policy, and all of the principals in the executive branch: the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the President – oppose it.

Sometimes you need a Rosetta Stone to translate the New York Times when it tries to unravel the moral muddle of the Obama Administration’s Afghanistan policy. Today’s example shows the Times hopelessly mired in doublespeak from the very first paragraph.

Given that the State Department gave Blackwater follow-on contracts after Blackwater failed to keep Bhutto safe, then have they at least done a real assessment of what went wrong? Last we heard from Blackwater publicly, they had a purportedly perfect record. But they don’t. And no one told us that. If we’re going to give another $120,000,000 to Blackwater, have we at least studied, first, what went wrong with Blackwater’s notable failure with Bhutto?

I hate to disrupt the “GOP goes extreme” narrative the media has latched onto (hampered somewhat by the fact that Christine O’Donnell was the nominee for US Senate for Delaware, um, two years ago), but that wasn’t the only story coming out of last night’s end to the primary schedule. In fact, we saw a fair number of progressive candidates, a mix of incumbents and challengers, knock off opponents running to their right.