One of the more shadowy groups organized to protect Wall Street in the financial reform debate is now running ads in Washington State in the senate race, attacking Patty Murray.

The Committee for Truth in Politics ran ads in ads in Arkansas, Connecticut, Colorado, Illinois, Montana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin "aimed at confusing people by portraying the financial reform bill as a 'new $4 trillion bailout for banks.'"

And by "shadowy," here's what I mean:

The committee, incorporated two years ago in North Carolina, has refused to file paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission.

It is suing the federal government arguing that it should not file any spending reports with the FEC, alleging that reporting violates its 1st Amendment rights to corporate free speech.

One of the key players in the group, who we know anyway since the rest of the group remains secret, is attorney James Bopp, Jr., one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Citizens United case. He's also the guy who wrote the widely ridiculed and totally failed RNC "purity" resolution.So why are they getting involved in this race? He has a local connection, too.

He represented Washington gay marriage opponents in their recent unsuccessful effort to shield initiative petition signatures from public disclosure.

Bopp also represented Murray's Republican challenger, Dino Rossi, in a 2007 Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) complaint filed by the state Democratic Party.

The complaint alleged that a nonprofit Rossi founded had illegally acted as a political committee supporting his 2008 gubernatorial campaign. But the PDC investigation rejected that claim and cleared Rossi.

That PDC complaint was about Rossi's "Forward Washington Foundation," a non-profit he set up to pay him a $75,000 annual salary to travel around the state making speeches after his defeat in the 2004 election. Rossi stepped down from the Foundation when the investigation began. Another PDC investigation of Rossi centered on the support he got from the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW), his primary funder in both failed gubenatorial campaigns, the primary funder behind most Republicans and conservative initiatives in the state.

True to form, Rossi is getting the slimiest folks he can to do his dirty work in this campaign.

From the most southeastern point in the 50 United States to the most northwestern, it's primary night!

Among the contests at stake, this evening we learn whether Democrats will be represented by Kendrick Meek or Jeff Greene in Florida's U.S. Senate race, whether Republicans will be represented by Rick Scott or Bill McCollum in Florida's gubernatorial race, whether John McCain will return as the GOP's nominee for U.S. Senate, and whether or not Sarah Palin's chosen allies will prevail in her home state primary.

Here's a schedule of poll closing times (times given are Eastern and Pacific, a transparent attempt to avoid figuring out Arizona and Alaska's atypical time zones):

Stay tuned throughout the evening as we update you on results and developments.

In the mean-time, via Crisitunity at SSP, here's PPP's most recent poll of the U.S. Senate general election in Florida:

Public Policy Polling (8/21-22, likely voters, 7/16-18 in parens):

Kendrick Meek (D): 17 (17)
Marco Rubio (R): 40 (29)
Charlie Crist (I): 32 (35)
Alex Snitker (L): 3 (4)
Undecided: 8 (15)

Jeff Greene (D): 13 (13)
Marco Rubio (R): 37 (29)
Charlie Crist (I): 36 (38)
Alex Snitker (L): 4 (3)
Undecided: 10 (16)

As Crisitunity notes, the big shift here is Rubio appearing to pick up support from undecided voters and from Crist supporters, though it's always possible that this particular poll simply reflects a slightly more conservative sample. Crist's job appears easier with Greene as a nominee, mostly because Greene would be a worse nominee for Democrats than Meek. PPP's Tom Jensen also flags an interesting challenge for Crist:

Crist's support continues to show an awkward balance that may ultimately make victory for him impossible. 57% of those planning to vote for him if Meek is the nominee think he should caucus with the Democrats in the Senate if elected while 28% think he should side with the Republicans. He's more likely to find the additional support he needs to get elected from Democrats than Republicans, but can he do that without losing the 20% of Republicans who are still with him? Whether he finds a way to thread that needle or not will probably determine his fate.

Of course there's still plenty of time between now and election day and by the end of the night we'll have at least one more important piece of data in our hands: we'll know who the candidates will be.

Update: Some very early results in Florida before all the polls in the Panhandle are closed:

U.S. Senate (D): Kendrick Meek leads Jeff Greene by 15 points, 51-36 -- but less than 10% reporting.
Governor (R): Rick Scott leads Bill McCollum by about 6 points, 48-42 with about 5% reporting.

Update 2:

U.S. Senate (D): Kendrick Meek is crushing Jeff Greene by 20 points with about a quarter of precincts reporting.
Governor (R): Rick Scott leads Bill McCollum by 2 points, 46-44, with a bit over 15% reporting.

On how President Obama can prove he's a Christian (and whether or not Mitch McConnell is a human-turtle hybrid):

The DSCC is hitting Colorado Republican Ken Buck on his one-time support for repealing the 17th amendment--the one that provides for direct election of Senators. Once Buck realized that this was a slightly nutjob position to run a race for Senate on, he recanted. But it's still a good ad.

As crazy as repealing the 17th amendment, or the 14th, or really any of them other than the revered 2nd, sounds, there's crazier out there.

[O]ur favorite proposed amendment was introduced by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R) of Minnesota. It would prohibit the president from “entering into a treaty in which he would recognize as legal tender currency issued by someone other than the United States.”

Take that, yuan. Euro not wanted here.

What she lacks in coherency, she makes up for in creativity.

Via Greg Sargent, the latest Angleism to emerge out of Nevada:

On a radio interview conducted on the day she announced her Senate run in 2009, Sharron Angle clearly and unequivocally agreed with an interviewer who asserted flatly that there are "domestic enemies" and "homegrown enemies" in the "walls of the Senate and the Congress."

The audio and transcript, as Greg says, are unequivocal:

MANDERS: You know I talk often about this oath that they give and it is to defend the Constitution and all that. But one of the things that is very important to me in this oath that they give is that they will defend against foreign and domestic enemies.

ANGLE: Yes. Yes.

MANDERS: We have domestic enemies. We have home-born homegrown enemies in our system. And I for one think we have some of those enemies in the walls of the Senate and the Congress.

ANGLE: Yes. I think you're right, Bill.

Now that Angle has the nomination, it's time she either disavow her agreement with Manders or start naming names and providing evidence.

Assuming she disavows her original agreement, she ought to explain why she agreed with the claim in the first place -- and why there's such a long list of things that she said earlier in the campaign only to now repudiate. And if she doesn't disavow what she said, she ought not be given a free pass: if she can't name names and prove her case (something nobody in their right mind thinks she'd be able to do), it'll be time for responsible Republicans to disavow Sharron Angle.

Update: Actually, doesn't this put her comments about "Second Amendment remedies" in an even more sinister light? Maybe the time for responsible Republicans to disavow Angle is now.

While the headlines are emphasizing the RNC's anemic fundraising numbers:

The Republican National Committee's $5.5 million in July receipts includes a $900,000 insurance payment, helping boost anemic fundraising by the national party.

... and Democrats are mocking the RNC for benefitting from the AIG bailout:

The Republican Party's insurance payment was from Illinois National Insurance, a subsidiary of insurance giant American International Group.

... the real question is, what was the $900,000 payout for?

A party official said the money was for an insurance claim but said there was a confidentiality provision in the agreement. The official was not authorized to discuss the claim publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

It's hard to imagine what kind of secret insurance claim worth $900,000 the RNC could possibly have. Unless perhaps one of their "Young Eagles" was injured at a bondage-themed, lesbian sex club ...

While we await the tallying of the ballots from coast to coast (and beyond, if you count the Aluetian Islands in Alaska), here are a few nuggets of election day news in the four states holding primaries today:

• In the Grand Canyon State of Arizona, J.D. Hayworth is predicting victory, while tempering that by suggesting that he will support incumbent Senator John McCain should Tuesday go as every poll seems to hint that it will. Some of his supporters, meanwhile, are less charitable towards the senior senator from Arizona:

  "The tea party movement saw what [McCain] did to J.D. They're mad at him because he didn't beat [President] Obama and turns around and attacks J.D. with more intensity than he did Obama, so that makes people mad," said Shane Wikfors, a blogger who was hired by Hayworth to help with field operations. "They're going to turn around and get behind a libertarian or probably this independent candidate. They're going to make McCain feel some pain."

  McCain's victory is anticipated, so much so that no new polling has emerged from this race in weeks.

• Additional evidence refuting the strategy of Hayworth will be resurrected by a crush of angry teabaggers: Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett noted that early turnout was soft, describing it as normal for a primary, or even a bit below normal.
• In Florida, Democrat (or so he insists) Jeff Greene apparently has not conceded defeat in his Senate primary against Kendrick Meek. He has made a trio of late adds to his election day schedule, adding stops in Broward County. Greene may well have been responding to criticism that his Election Day schedule was...shall we say...a bit light.
• In other Senate news, a new poll out today from PPP indicates that a slight resurgence for Kendrick Meek might be pushing Marco Rubio to the lead, as Democrats who had flirted with Indie candidate Charlie Crist come home to Meek. The new survey puts the Republican at 40%, with Crist at 32% and Meek at 17%. If Jeff Greene were to defy expectations and clinch the Democratic primary, the race would be a one-point coin flip.
• Meanwhile, on the other side of the ballot in Florida, Republican state Attorney General Bill McCollum voted earlier in the day, and sounded a note of confidence as he chatted with reporters.

  McCollum wouldn't predict victory, but he said Rick Scott's unprecedented TV advertising barrage failed. "He's thrown up $50 million. We've sustained that, and we've overcome that," he said.

  In a side note, the St. Petersburg Times is predicting a possibly early night, as they estimate that 40% of the ballots are already in the hands of Florida election officials via mail-in ballot.

• In Alaska, as noted on last night's edition of the Polling and Political Wrap, Sarah Palin cut a late robocall trying to pull her preferred candidate, attorney Joe Miller, across the finish line in his battle with GOP incumbent Lisa Murkowski.
• Finally, to Vermont, where I was remiss during yesterday's preview of today's contests. There is, in addition to the very competitive Dem primary for Governor and a less-competitive GOP primary to challenge Congressman Peter Welch, a Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate. Physician Daniel Freilich is challenging incumbent Senator Pat Leahy, who is, it is safe to say, more than a betting favorite tonight.

• Every Republican candidate for higher office in New Mexico is a climate change denier. That's just depressing.
• More depressing? It's catching. Every GOP Senate candidate running to replace Sen. Judd Gregg--all six of them--are also climate change deniers.
• From the silver linings department. That whole egg recall?

  Sales of eggs at farmers markets, co-operatives and roadside stands reportedly spiked over the weekend as news of the outbreak linked to at least 1,300 illnesses reached shoppers.

  Passing that beefed up food safety would be an excellent solution, as well.

• This will come as a shock, I'm sure:

  The biggest U.S. companies stepped up their lobbying on Monday to block Democrats' plans to let taxes on wealthier Americans rise at year's end, asking lawmakers not to cut short the hearing process in Congress.

• Shirley Sherrod isn't ready to go back to the Agriculture Department that tossed her, though she's leaving the possibility open for a future return.

  Sherrod and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that she may work with the agency in a consulting capacity in the future to help it improve its outreach to minorities. She told reporters she did not think she could say yes to a job "at this point, with all that has happened."

• Aren't Republicans supposed to hate earmarks?

  House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said a House GOP majority will focus on aggressive oversight of the Obama administration, will work to defund the agencies responsible for implementing health care and will push a "zero tolerance" ethics policy. He also said Republicans may roll back their ban on earmarks, as long as the spending items have "merit."

  More debt, a return to politically-fueled witch hunts, and no HHS?

• Ooookay.
• An Australian scientists has developed a theory on the benefits of homosexuality in birds: "whichever gender spends less time caring for young tends to have sex with more partners."
• In other bird--and human news, the pesticide aldicarb is being phased out in the U.S., and will be gone by 2014. A single granual of the pesticide is enough to kill a songbird, so imagine what it means for our peanuts, potatoes, citrus, coffee, and soybean consumption.
• And since I'm on an winged-creature roll here, the BLM is joining the Forest Service in closing down all bat caves to recreation, hoping that this will help stem the spread of the white-nose syndrome that has already decimated bat populations in the east.
• It's primary day in Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, and Vermont. As always, Swing State has your guide.
• What Atrios said.

Only Allen West, the Republican challenger in Florida's 22nd District, could see a lone man with a video camera and conclude:

I know here today we have a representative from the Florida Democratic party and he is here to film me and his whole purpose of filming me is to take what I say and allow other people to distort it so they can misrepresent me. You know if we allow those Gestapo-type intimidation tactics to prevail in the United States of America what happens to our liberties, what happens to our freedoms?

Yes, the campaign tracker -- this one who happens to be the grandson of Holocaust survivors -- is like the secret police of the Nazis, and videotaping candidates for public office, while they're in public, will somehow take away our freedom. Mr. West doesn't explain exactly how this will happen, but he's not backing down:

"We are not apologizing for that,'' responded West's campaign manager Josh Grodin, who said the videotaped event was at an event attended by clergy including rabbis. "What the Florida Democratic Party is doing is they are just using intimidation tactics. They are following West around everywhere."

Of course they are. Otherwise they would have missed him calling Islam a:

... very vile and very vicious enemy that we have allowed to come in this country because we ride around with bumper stickers that say co-exist.

... or telling his supporters that the way to handle his Democratic opponent, Rep. Ron Klein, is to:

... make the fellow scared to come out of his house. That’s the only way that you’re going to win. That’s the only way you’re going to get these people’s attention.

... or his suggestion that:

... the tea party fight against a Chicago politician like Obama in the Chicago style that's described in The Untouchables: "They send one of yours to the hospital. You send one of theirs to the morgue."

Of course there were no cameras rolling when this happened:

... West was forced to retire from the Army and fined $5,000 after he admitted to apprehending an Iraqi policeman he suspected of planning an ambush, watching as his troops beat him, and then firing a gunshot by the Iraqi’s head in order to scare him into divulging information. West said the decision saved lives by preventing an ambush. But no plot was ever discovered and the policeman in question later told The New York Times that he had no knowledge of any attacks.

Speaking of Gestapo-type intimidation tactics ...

If the sacred ground of the defunct Burlington Coat Factory is replaced by a community center rather than new strip clubs, the terrorists win! Right? Uh, not exactly. As it turns out, terrorists have said all along that American commitment to religious freedom and tolerance was nothing but lip service, and now it seems that the people crowing about the protests over the construction of Park51 aren't limited to Fox News.

The supercharged debate over the proposed center has... has become the No. 1 topic of discussion in recent days and proof positive, according to some of the posted messages, that America is indeed at war with Islam.

"This, unfortunately, is playing right into their hands" ... "Extremists are encouraging all this, with glee.

Who would have guessed that blatant discrimination and massive hypocrisy might have consequences? Other than anyone paying the least bit of attention.

As it turns out, treating the most moderate Muslim citizens as if they are terrorists is helping to radicalize some portion of young Muslims in the country. Of course, our only option now is... crack down harder on Muslims! That's means no more mosques, anywhere in the nation. Certainly not so close to Ground Zero as Tennessee.

A new Islamic center is going up near Nashville, Tenn., and as in New York, the proposal has fractured the community along a divide over religious freedom.

Recently hundreds of protesters marched around the town square in Murfreesboro, Tenn. They carried signs that read, "Enough Is Enough" and "Stop Terrorism."

After all, it's not like they're building synagogues in Mecca and why should the United States be one bit more free than Saudi Arabia?

In making comparisons between religious freedom in the United States and those in the most repressive regimes around the world, those working to limit religious freedom here are giving extremists exactly what they want, and behaving exactly as the most radical have long predicted.

All this controversy and vitriol are not only encouraged; they're welcomed. Extremists and radical clerics posted a stream of "I told you so" messages: After years of telling followers that Islam was under attack by the West, the harsh reaction to a simple community center seemed to prove it.

Since many of those protesting the community center at least claim to be Christians, here's a small bit of advice that's also been around for a long time. It's not only good spiritual advice, it's good policy. If you want to claim that the United States is based on Christian principles, why not start there?

For the moment, these protests are the best thing that ever happened to some of the worst people among the radicals.

"Over the past nine to 12 months, Anwar al-Awlaki has tried to promote this notion that the West, and particularly the United States, will turn on its Muslim citizens," Fishman said. "And some of the anti-Islamic tone that has been going around the country in connection with the mosque debate feeds into this notion that people like Anwar al-Awlaki can take advantage of."

(A grateful tip of the hat to Dina Temple-Raston and the folks at NPR News for this well-reported story. Go read the whole thing.)

Published by Rupert Murdoch

The book closes with an appendix containing a fatwa issued by five Muslim clerics on September 27, 2001, at the request of the most senior Muslim chaplain in the American armed forces. Ending his book with a fatwa! Yes! Cunningly, it’s a “Fatwa Permitting U. S. Muslim Military Personnel to Participate in Afghanistan War Effort.”

What’s Right with Islam, by the way, was published by HarperSanFrancisco, which last I looked is owned by Rupert Murdoch.

So not only is the second-largest shareholder of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. funding Imam Rauf's initiatives in the U.S., but Murdoch himself is responsible for publishing Rauf's theological and political writings.

The fact that conservatives haven't blasted Murdoch's links to Imam Rauf demonstrates the insincerity of their attacks on Imam Rauf and American Muslims. As Gitlin argues (and should be obvious from the book's title), Imam Rauf's book is in fact a celebration of the U.S. Constitution, an embrace of religious freedom and pluralism, and an outright rejection of radical fundamentalism.

Imam Rauf's critics -- like Rick Santorum who last night called him a jihadist -- attack him as being outside of the ideological mainstream of American political and religious thinking, but their claims are without merit. Indeed, the Bush and Obama administrations asked Imam Rauf to represent the United States to the Islamic world precisely because he believes that the United States form of government should be a model for Muslims across the world -- not the other way around.

Indeed, in many respects, Rauf's critics have more in common with the fundamentalist Muslims they claim to be fighting than they do with mainstream Americans -- including Imam Rauf. The critics are the problem. Not Imam Rauf.

Earlier today in Cleveland, House Republican Leader John Boehner delivered a speech framing the central themes of the GOP's campaign to retake control of Congress and deliver him the Speaker's gavel. In the speech, Boehner presented five different priorities, each of them structured as a demand on President Obama. In order of delivery, Boehner identified his priorities as:

1. Extend Bush tax cuts for wealthy.

2. Pledge to veto EFCA or energy reform legislation passed by Congress after the November election but before the new Congress.

3. Tell Democrats to support the GOP's effort to repeal a provision of the health care law that Boehner claims would require businesses to itemize all expenditures over $600. (Note that Republicans actually blocked a vote to repeal the mandate in House and the small jobs bill in the Senate, currently being blocked by the GOP, is also a vehicle for repeal.)

4. Submit a massive spending reduction package to Congress.

5. Fire his entire economic team.

The thing about that list is that there isn't a single thing about what Republicans would actually do. It's just a list of demands on President Obama and except for the first one -- in which Boehner demands Obama extend Bush tax cuts for the wealthy -- they are purely rhetorical in nature.

To be fair to Boehner, in the conclusion of his speech he actually does circle back to his fourth point -- the one on spending reduction -- and offers some specifics to flesh out his plan.

Republicans on the House Budget Committee, led by Congressman Paul Ryan, have already identified $1.3 trillion in specific spending cuts that could be implemented immediately.  

These are common-sense steps – like canceling unspent ‘stimulus’ and TARP bailout funds – that put the brakes on Washington’s out-of-control spending spree.

Obviously, two sentences really isn't that specific when it comes to outlining spending cut proposals, but at least it references a specific plan -- Ryan's -- and mentions two programs (the stimulus and TARP). Of course, Boehner would like you to forget that he actually voted for TARP and with respect to the stimulus, canceling it would require raising taxes since one-third of the package consisted of tax cuts.

As for Ryan's plan, Boehner is endorsing a proposal that would:

1. Eliminate Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program and replace them with vouchers to defray the cost of private health insurance.

2. Pay for partially privatizing Social Security by cutting benefits to 1950 levels when half of elderly Americans lived below the poverty line.

3. Cut taxes in half for the wealthiest 1% of Americans, including an average cut of $502,000 per year for families earning more than $1 million and $1.7 million per year for the wealthiest 0.1% of Americans. These tax cuts would be on top of the Bush cuts, if made permanent.

4. Raise taxes on families earning between $25,000 and $200,000 by an average of $900 per year (relative to a continuation of current tax rates).

Despite positioning itself as a plan for fiscal austerity, the Ryan roadmap wouldn't actually solve our long-term budget problems. Why? Because he simply doesn't count the cost of his tax cuts when calculating his proposals final price tag.

In other words, far from being some brilliant new innovation, Ryan's Roadmap is basically the same sort of economic mumbo-jumbo peddled for years by the Bush administration and conservative Republicans.

And it's now the centerpiece of John Boehner's economic platform as he campaigns for Speaker, which brings us back to the central question voters will face this November: do they want to allow Democrats to continue trying to revive the economy, or do they want to give up on the Dems and go back to the Bush economic policies of the Republican Party?

With the new week, let us celebrate yet another out-of-state GOPer who wants to tell New Yorkers what to do (even as New Yorkers, according to at least one poll, have a quite different view of Cordoba House than national Republicans).

This one goes even further, though...not only does he want to tell NYC politicians and zoning officials what to do, this guy wants to tell the construction workers of New York what to do.

Best of all, his name is quite a familiar one, as of late. Ladies and gentlemen, Wisconsin Republican Senate frontrunner Ron Johnson:

"Those folks are trying to poke a stick in our eye," Johnson said. "I just hope the zoning officials and the city, the state revisit that, rezone that piece of property."

The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate continued: "If they don't do it I hope the construction workers in New York show their outrage and say we are not going to do that."

Pretty cheeky of a multi-millionaire to demand that an industry where unemployment is as high as 20 percent should voluntarily refuse work in order to buttress a right-wing talking point.

Here is the big question: Will there be the same synergy between Johnson and the national GOP on this point, as there already was on his (and their) absurd anti-science crusade?

When WikiLeaks released its massive trove of documents on the Afghanistan war, the Pentagon immediately responded that the release would endanger Afghans who were helping the Army. WikiLeaks countered that they had attempted, using the New York Times as an intermediary, to ask the administration for help in redacting those names. The Pentagon claimed that it had not had direct contact with WikiLeaks and had not had the opportunity to redact critical information in the release.

A new report from Newsweek's Mark Hosenball puts that assertion into question.

A lawyer representing the whistle-blowing Web site WikiLeaks  says U.S. government officials have been given codes and passwords granting them online access to official U.S. government documents that WikiLeaks so far has not published.

Timothy Matusheski, a lawyer from Hattiesburg, Miss., who says he represents whistle-blowers and has been in touch with both WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and at least one government official involved in investigations of WikiLeaks, said the site had set up a “secure channel” through which authorized users could access the unpublished material. He said credentials for using this channel had been forwarded to representatives of the U.S. government whom he did not identify. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Matusheski indicated that the reason WikiLeaks had taken these steps was to make good on its offer to try to work with U.S. authorities to remove from reports, published in the future by the Web site, sensitive information that could put innocent lives in jeopardy....

Earlier this week, Assange and Pentagon spokesmen indulged in a bout of long-distance name-calling, with Pentagon spokesmen denying that U.S. defense officials had “any direct contact with WikiLeaks," and Assange insisting, in an interview  with the Associated Press in Stockholm, that the U.S. had expressed a willingness to discuss a request from WikiLeaks that U.S. officials help the Web site redact Afghan war documents that it has in its possession but hasn’t yet published. In an e-mail to Declassified, Assange insisted: “We are correct, the Pentagon lies or misleads, as per usual.”

Not long after the “liar, liar” accusations began flying between Assange and Pentagon spokesmen, WikiLeaks posted, via Twitter, a copy of an Aug. 16 letter that Jeh Johnson, the Defense Department’s general counsel, had sent to Matusheski. In the letter—which was sent out before the Pentagon spokesman gave us their denials of any “direct” contact with WikiLeaks—Johnson claimed that Matusheski, on behalf of WikiLeaks, had sought a conversation with someone in the U.S. government to discuss “harm minimization” with regard to 15,000 official Pentagon reports on the Afghan war that WikiLeaks has been threatening to make public.

In the letter, however, Johnson reiterates the Defense Department’s position as it was stated by official spokesmen to Declassified: “The Department of Defense will not negotiate some ‘minimized’ or ‘sanitized’ version of a release by WikiLeaks of additional U.S. Government classified documents. The Department demands that nothing further be released by WikiLeaks, that all of the U.S. Government classified documents that WikiLeaks has obtained be returned immediately, and that WikiLeaks remove and destroy all of these records from its databases.”

So the Pentagon did have direct contact with WikiLeaks or a representative prior to the release of documents--the letter Johnson sent to Matusheski proves it. WikiLeaks should have redacted that information before releasing documents. This seriously undercuts, as Adam Serwer notes, the Pentagon's argument that WikiLeaks alone will have "blood on its hands" in this episode. The Pentagon might not like the fact that WikiLeaks is releasing these documents, but it and administration officials need to be honest in this debate.

As slinkerwink pointed out over the weekend, corporate America is neither hiring nor investing. The report came from the Washington Post:

Corporate profits are soaring. Companies are sitting on billions of dollars of cash. And still, they've yet to amp up hiring or make major investments -- the missing ingredients for a strong economic recovery.

Many Democrats say the economy needs more stimulus. Business lobbyists and their Republican allies say it needs less regulation and lower taxes.

And as for business executives?

They blame their profound caution on their view that U.S. consumers are destined to disappoint for many years. As a result, they say, the economy is unlikely to see the kind of almost unbroken prosperity of the quarter-century that preceded the financial crisis.

Businesses blame consumers. They think there will be inadequate consumer spending for many years. They're being cautious because consumers are being cautious. Of course, unlike the corporations, consumers aren't sitting on piles of money. They aren't spending because they have nothing or too little to spend. Which brings us back to the idea of helping consumers attain enough money and confidence so that they will resume spending, which brings us back to the idea of more stimulus. Not bailouts for failing corporations or subsidies for thriving corporations, but jobs programs. Corporations are sitting on the money they already have. They don't need more help, and they aren't helping. But consumers have too little money. They do need help. And when they gain enough income and confidence they do tend to spend, which is why bottom-up stimulus is much more effective than top-down.

Republicans want what they always want: less taxes and less regulation, the economic model that drove the economy into the ground, the model championed by Reagan, which began the steady expansion of the income gap, and the steady erosion of the middle class. It also was the model championed by Bush-Cheney, which all but destroyed the economy. The banking crisis, the health care crisis, and the environmental crisis in the Gulf of Mexico are but a few of the many proofs that less regulation leads to disaster. But less regulation is all the Republicans have to offer.

As economists such as Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz (video) warned, the Obama stimulus was far too little. It prevented things from getting worse, but it didn't make things significantly better. Unemployment is not abating. It's again getting worse. As Krugman wrote last month:

I really don’t think people appreciate the huge dangers posed by a weak response to 9 1/2 percent unemployment, and the highest rate of long-term unemployment ever recorded

He was referring to this post by Brad DeLong:

However, even a minor and hasty acquaintance with the Great Depression teaches that the belief that the government should stand back and wash its hands because the self-regulating market quickly returns to full-employment equilibrium is the most arrogant belief possible.

And even a minor and hasty acquaintance with the Great Depression teaches that having the government stand back and wash its hands is the most risky strategy conceivable.

Businesses aren't creating jobs, and they have no intention of doing so unless they see signs that consumers will again resume spending. Consumers won't be spending as long as they have nothing or too little to spend. It's a feedback loop. There is only one way to break it. It has to be the government. The government has to create jobs. Infrastructure. Clean energy. Mass transit. There are plenty of social goods for government to fund, and there are plenty of people who are willing and able to be trained and employed. It has to happen. And only the government can do it.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

Terror Baby: The C&J Interview

Thanks to an urgent, hair-on-fire warning sounded by Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX), we now know that America is crawling with toddlers hellbent on destroying us from the inside. It's a plot so fiendishly clever that the evidence can only be seen with special goggles that Gohmert alone possesses. Who are these "terror babies?" Where do they come from? What do they want? When do they want it? How will they get it? And who will they get it from? Over the weekend, C&J was led, blindfolded, to a secret underground crib to talk with an authentic member of the toothless drooling horde. For the purpose of this interview, he goes by the name "Toddler X":

Cheers and Jeers: My first question, Toddler X, is one I think all Americans have been asking since this story broke: Who's da dastardliest terror baby of all? Are you da dastardliest terror baby of all? Are you? Are you? I think you iz! Yes I doooo!
Hee hee hee hee! Ungsprgl boof!

What exactly is the goal of the terror baby movement? What's that? You want me to pull the lever on your See and Say toy? Okay...
"The cow says: nothing less than world domination will satisfy our craving for power and bottomless sippy cups filled with yummy juice!"

Once you hatch your plan, what is the secret weapon you'll employ to achieve world domination?
Gaaah banky!!!!! [Thwack!]

Ow! I see you plan to snap your Dora the Explorer terror blankie to victory. Very stealth of you. But tell me this: how do you plan to escape from your crib to launch your attack?
Obeeday brrm!!!

My god---a crude rope ladder fashioned from diaper threads secretly hidden in your Fisher Price barn silo? Ingenious. You really plan to go through with this, don’t you? What? Pull the See and Say lever again?
"The pig says: you bet your ass I do. You're goin' down, beeyotch!"

What do you think of Congressman Louie Gohmert, who blew your cover and set the terror baby movement back, perhaps by decades?
Aaaaaa-hole!

Finish this sentence: In the kitchen I make a mean...
Poopies!

No waffling here: Dogs or cats?
Barney!

Hey, that's a cute baby rattle. Toddler X wanna play with da wittle rattle? [shake shake shake] Yes he does! [shake shake shake] Yes he does!
N...n...no.....!

[shake shake... BLAM!!!]

No babies were harmed during the course of this interview. And I trust the shards of rattle shrapnel in my face will increase my standing with the Pulitzer Committee.

Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Your one stop pundit shop.

Eugene Robinson:

The hysteria over plans for an innocuous Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan -- two blocks from Ground Zero, amid an urban hodgepodge of office buildings, eateries and strip clubs -- is wildly out of proportion. It would be laughable if it didn't threaten to do great harm to the global campaign against Islamic terrorism.  [...]

The whole "controversy" is ridiculous. Yet conservatives who should know better are doing their best to exploit widespread ignorance about Islam by transforming it into fear and anger. They imply, but don't come right out and say, that it was Islam itself that attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, rather than an extremist fringe that espouses what the vast majority of the world's Muslims consider a perversion of the faith. They paint Park51 as a "victory dance" over the hallowed ground where thousands of Americans died -- never mind that there wouldn't even be a sight line between the building and Ground Zero -- and suggest that the project, even though it would be run by an imam who's practically a flower child, could somehow serve as a recruiting center for terrorists.

Message to anyone who will listen: You're a victim. Be very afraid.

Richard Cohen:

Appearing on ABC's "This Week with Christiane Amanpour," Daisy Khan, a founder of the mosque (and the wife of the imam), rejected any compromise. She was right to do so because to compromise is to accede, even a bit, to the arguments of bigots, demagogues or the merely uninformed. This is no longer her fight. The fight is now all of ours.

It has become something of a cliche, I know, but no one ever put this sort of thing better than William Butler Yeats in his poem "The Second Coming." "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

Some passionate intensity from the best is past due.

Bob Herbert talks baseball:

I was surprised — but probably shouldn’t have been — that so many people had never heard of Bobby Thomson, who died at his home in Savannah, Ga., last week at the age of 86.

Thomson was among a small handful of public figures whose names have resonated most strongly with me through nearly my entire life. I was fresh out of kindergarten when he hit the most famous home run in history — the “shot heard round the world” that deeply traumatized the Brooklyn Dodgers and their fans and propelled the New York Giants into the 1951 World Series against the Yankees.

Derrick Z. Jackson:

In welcoming the world to the World Cup in June, South African President Jacob Zuma boasted that the tournament exemplified his country’s leading role for all of Africa. Sixteen years after a multiracial democracy emerged from the oppressive apartheid system, South Africa has a constitution that, as Zuma put it, “enshrines human rights to ensure that this nation never returns to that painful past.’’ The nation, he said, “would never be the same again.’’

Yet now, just a month removed from soccer’s glitz, Zuma is threatening to return to grimmer days by clamping down on news organizations that criticize his government. This misguided effort threatens the foundations of the new South Africa, which up to now has set an inspiring example for all young democracies.

Jayne Merkel:

The irrational economic exuberance of the 1990s and 2000s has been rightly criticized for creating overheated markets and overextended pocketbooks, particularly in housing. That money, especially in luxury apartment towers, promoted a group of designers who emerged largely in the wake of postmodernism and who brought an unprecedented level of futuristic glamor to domestic lifestyles. Think Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel and Herzog & de Meuron, people referred to, derisively or not, as “starchitects.”

Now, in the wake of the housing-market collapse and the recession, these architects and their work are being accused of prioritizing surface over substance. But it’s likely that decades in the future, historians will look back at this period as one of unusual architectural creativity, particularly on the domestic front.

The Washington Times continues to employ Ted Nugent for reasons known only to them.

Dennis Byrne:

As for the rest of Fitzgerald's critics, stay away from our stinking mess.

Fitzgerald is not just the most effective tool against corruption Illinois has had in memory. Basically, he's about the only one. The sages out East might regard Fitzgerald as hyperaggressive, but it's funny that we didn't hear those complaints when he convicted Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman for the first World Trade Center attack in 1993. Or when he indicted Osama bin Laden years before 9/11.

Kathleen Parker defends Dr. Laura.