Man, I really hate to find myself nodding along to a David Brooks column. Sure, he's a conservative columnist looking to score points off of a Democratic president and Congress, but that doesn't make him wrong. At least not today:

Tom Perriello  wanted to vote against the bill as an act of conscience. He had his arm twisted and wound up voting yes,  giving cover to Blue Dogs like Gene Taylor so they could vote "no."

Gene Taylor is utterly and completely safe.  He won 74.6% of the vote in 2008, and 79.8% in 2006.  He's beloved.

Periello, on the other hand, was a photo finish at 50.1% to Virgil Goode's 49.8%.

Whatever this is about, it ain't about protecting "vulnerable" Blue Dogs at risk of losing their seats.  

My biggest question for months was not whether or when Monica Conyers would accept a plea deal in a pay to play bribery scandal--as she did today. But whether or not her legal problems would make her husband, John Conyers, timid in his role as House Judiciary Chair.

Norm's staffers bailing as the MN Supreme Court decision looms...

"It's not politically smart, but morally it's the right thing to do," Ghaemi concluded

The Las Vegas Sun has posted the letter John Ensign's cuckold, Doug Hampton, sent them not long before Ensign admitted his affair. In it, he reveals there was a confrontation over the affair in February 2008 that Tom Coburn attended. The unethical behavior and immoral choice of Senator Ensign has been confronted by me and others on a number of occasions over this past year.

Jim Himes bristles at the notion that he's a corporatist, or that his statistics come from wingnuts like Pete Peterson who cherry pick them for the purpose of dismantling Social Security.

Effective online activism is going to mean stepping out of the preexisting mold that serves to reinforce traditional power structures, and approaching politics from a new direction.

Obama whipped the Blue Dogs personally on the supplemental, had them over to the White House, called them and pressured them. Every single Blue Dog voted for the supplemental, despite the fact that they had huge concerns about the enormous price tag, and it went totally against their "fiscal responsibility" mantra.

Here is our final whip count. For those who have been following, Barney Frank called me on Thursday June 4, after the Republicans said they would vote en masse against the supplemental. Barney told me about the Graham-Lieberman photo suppression which really wasn't on anyone's radar yet. Our first commited vote was Eric Massa, 11 days ago on June 5.