Last Thursday wasn’t a very good day for Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. Not at all.

How do you cope when you travel several time zones away? It seems to me that traveling west is more difficult, since you must wake up earlier and then stay awake even later, and, so you end up burning the candle at both ends of the day. And, in my case, I woke at my usual east coast time, but translated into west coast time.

Alice Cooper — Welcome To My Nightmare, on The Muppet Show.

I went around knocking on doors for the state Democratic Party last weekend. Does this make me a traitor to the progressive cause?

Oh look, a Republican advocating violence. But only if the GOP doesn’t retake the House, which I think makes him a moderate now.

Yes on Proposition 19 has just released a set of internal numbers for polling they conducted last week, which compared responses given to live interviewers versus automated telephone polling. Interestingly, there is a huge divide between the level of support expressed for Prop 19 with the two methodologies. They find that if an individual is responding only to a computer program, they are much more likely to express support for Prop 19.

It’s nice to end the week with a victory lap for LBGTs — goddesses know we need one this week.

As you’ve no doubt heard, the right wing conspiracy does exist. As the NYT reported the other day, the Koch brothers host semi-annual secret get-togethers to strategize with other rich conservatives and media people about how to advance their views.

But one detail of the NYT report deserves further scrutiny: the report that Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia have attended the gathering.

Administrative Law Judge at the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission), George Painter, revealed in his retirement letter that a colleague of his, Judge Bruce Levine, has never awarded a case in favor of a plaintiff in 20 years on the bench. He traces this back to a deal Levine made with Wendy Gramm, the former head of the CFTC and the wife of Phil Gramm (R-Enron and UBS). Indeed, the numbers check out, at least for the time period we know about; Judge Levine has never decided in favor of a plaintiff, i.e. never decided in favor of an investor crying mistreatment or fraud by a commodity dealer or major broker in commodity futures and derivatives trading.

Al Jazeera has this video and the Guardian a story on Frago 242, which both outlets say is one of the most alarming revelation in Wikileaks’ new document dump. From the Guardian:

This is the impact of Frago 242. A frago is a “fragmentary order” which summarises a complex requirement. This one, issued in June 2004, about a year after the invasion of Iraq, orders coalition troops not to investigate any breach of the laws of armed conflict, such as the abuse of detainees, unless it directly involves members of the coalition. Where the alleged abuse is committed by Iraqi on Iraqi, “only an initial report will be made … No further investigation will be required unless directed by HQ”.