In these late days, the question of who John McCain will pick to run with is... well, I'm interested in it, but it doesn't seem like anyone else is these days. Except for Mike Huckabee, who is now openly campaigning for the spot. I take that to mean that McCain told him no or nothing, and now Huckabee is trying to throw it out there as an option for the red meat conservative base. Very clever, Mister Mike.

They've had military parades. They've thrown our diplomats out of the country. Recently Mikhail Gorbachev has also accused the United States of running 'an imperialist conspiracy against Russia.' Russia is being awfully hyper-aggressive lately. Can't we be friends? Is it 1987 or something?

From Saturday's Rio Grande Guardian:

Speaker Tom Craddick has dismissed claims from a Republican House colleague that anti-immigrant bills will be moved to a committee where they are more likely to pass.

Translation: anti-immigrant bills will be moved to a committee where they are more likely to pass.

Bill Kristol is like a never-ending experiment in hilarity.

Well, not directly. But they are running anti-SCHIP / anti-Democrat / anti-Heather Wilson ads in New Mexico's Senate race. You can see the ad over at TPMElection Central, and then spend a few minutes wondering why Club for Growth is full of meanie-heads. It still amazes me that, to some people, giving little kids health care is seen as nothing more than a tax hike or a welfare trip.

Truly, these are strange days. The tale of the production assistant who gave John McCain some overwhelmingly positive feedback (A++++ Candidate, Would Vote For Again) on the red carpet at a Time Magazine to-do ends with her being canned by News Corp. If this were to become a trend, how long would it take to empty out the FoxNews studios for blatant bias?

The Republican Party has lost three seats in Congress in special elections since the year turned to 2008, and they face a fourth test in Mississippi on Tuesday. The district has been reliably Republican for years, but that's been no firewall to loss so far, and the GOP leadership has the slightly sick feeling that Tuesday could make the DCCC four-for-four in special elections. The Washington Post has the story.

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TPM Muckraker has some audio excerpts from meetings between former Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld and the retired officers the Pentagon sent to the news networks on domestic psy-ops.

Can anyone give me one good reason why increased testing for mad cow disease by meatpackers is a bad idea? I mean, I get how conservatives might argue on behalf of the Bush administration in general, that they're trying to keep regulation down and whatnot, but come on. Increased mad cow disease testing seems like it should be a bi-partisan issue.