Portions of this video will someday be repurposed to make a compelling argument for death panels.

Because data is just fungible to the political leanings of whoever confronts it, we predictably saw a number of conservatives question today’s jobs report, suggesting that the Bureau of Labor Statistics fudged the data to help the President’s re-election campaign. Leading this charge was former GE CEO Jack Welch on Twitter. I think the government should make a deal with Welch – they’ll admit to massaging the data if he cleans up all the PCBs in the Hudson River personally.

On a more serious note, this is really pretty outrageous, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, whose department includes the BLS, is right to be insulted.

The hidden camera moment of this election cycle comes not from the long-awaited Michelle Obama Whitey tape, but from a fundraiser for the Republican nominee.

Mother Jones’ David Corn has obtained video – catnip for 24-hour news networks – of Romney speaking at a gathering of high-dollar donors, wherein he gave his strategy for the election. In so doing, he basically describe everyone disinclined to vote for him as a moocher living off the government dole.

I guess after Grandpa Clint’s senior moment during the RNC, we messages from Hollywood conservatives are out there in attempt to resonate with some unidentified demographic out there. “Eastwooding” has taken the country by storm.

The Republican platform is too large a document and covers too many issue areas for one person to dissect entirely. I covered my core competency by going through the housing plank. But for those who did have the time and resources to do a full overview, the picture becomes clear that this is a pretty extreme document that, contrary to the beliefs of a John Boehner, does have some import.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, attempting to beat the clock with about five hours to go before the first hurdle of getting Todd Akin off the ballot in Missouri passes, released a list of conservative pundits who have asked Akin to step down. But that’s apparently not enough: Todd Akin says he will stay in the race for Senate in Missouri; he just announced it on Mike Huckabee’s radio show.

Mitt Romney is scared, and his choice of Paul Ryan to be his VP proves it.

What scares him isn’t Obama or Obamacare or higher taxes. What scares him isn’t Harry Reid’s comments about him not having paid taxes over the last decade (that’s more embarrassing than frightening). What scares him isn’t unions or liberal SuperPacs or progressive think tanks who will run ads against him.

What scares him is Kansas. And it scares him a lot.

Sam Brownback just purged the Kansas GOP of anyone who gets in his way, and Romney doesn’t want that to happen to him. But how to avoid it? Maybe naming Romney’s former legislative director as his VP will help.

Following up on a previous item, Congressional leaders have indeed agreed to a 6-month stopgap spending bill to avoid a government shutdown at the end of September. It continues current funding. However, the votes won’t be help until after the August recess, so the agreement may unravel by then.

A couple wayward House Republicans have walked off the reservation and rejected the ideological purity demanded by the party’s conservative base. Rep. Richard Hanna, elected in 2010 as part of the Republican takeover of Congress, lashed out at his caucus yesterday, and Steven LaTourette, a veteran of the Gingrich revolution in 1994, is definitely not much longer for the caucus after announcing a sudden retirement with 99 days to go until Election Day.

House and Senate leaders continue to work on a stopgap spending bill to close out the year, and could announce it as early as today. The bill would extend a continuing resolution on the budget for a mere six months, until the end of March 2013. But they won’t bother to pass it until September, at the earliest leaving a narrow window before the elections.