Story from the LA Times about Sarah Palin and her upcoming tour of the US.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced Friday that some top al-Qaeda 9/11 conspirators will be tried by jury in New York not far from the scenes of devastation that they had wrought. Predictably, Republican critics vowed to fight the decision, since they much prefer to hold people forever without trial while torturing them, sort of the way some English kings did in North America before there was that pesky American constitution. In fact, on a whole range of issues, the contemporary Republican Party is a party of medieval romanticism. Its disquisitions on when the human person begins are theological in character and rooted in assumptions even a lot of medievals would have questioned. Its faith that bankers would never steal from us and so do not need to be regulated is a form of mysticism that medievals would have applied to saints. And its fascination with arbitrary arrest and imprisonment and with torture more recalls the star chambers of yore than the deliberations at Philadelphia over 200 years ago.

Before opening your big mouth, sometimes it is best to know what the hell you are talking about. This is one lesson Republicans in Congress just refuse to learn. For so very long, they offered up no ideas for healthcare reform and when they did they offered TORT Reform and allowing insurance companies to prey upon consumers across state lines. As if that were not bad enough, now a Republican Congressman has opened his mouth and once again inserted his own foot in it.

Privately, GOP sources acknowledge that they failed to anticipate the political consequences of a “no” vote on the amendment. And several aides said that Republicans are engaged in an internal blame game about why they agreed to a roll-call vote on the measure, rather than a simple voice vote that would have allowed the opposing senators to duck criticism.

Yesterday, the Senate Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation and Community Development held a hearing on ending veterans' homelessness, a growing problem, especially in the midst of the current recession. The hearing was noticeably without its Republican members.

Every day I wake up with the same thought: "I used to be such a goddamned idiot." I am a former Republican. And I wasn't merely the libertarian, live-and-let-live, fun-at-parties kind of conservative whose primary concern is balancing the budget; I was a spiteful, narrow-minded, fire-breathing paranoid lunatic who questioned the patriotism and morality of my liberal fellow citizens. Recognizing the error of my ways has done wonders for my mental health but left me with constant, unremitting remorse; I really want to go back in time and kick my own ass.

Between John Boehner waving the constitution at a tea party rally against health care and believing he was quoting from it when he was quoting the Declaration of Independence, or actor John Ratzenberger calling healthcare reform the product of "Woodstock Democrats whose philosophy comes from overseas", Republicans are finally exposing themselves to one truth that is self-evident - they are either lying or dumb.

Ah, the teabag movement has once again marshalled it's forces in Washington D.C. Ultra-Conservatives with selective memories and misplaced outrage are once again having public hissy-fits. Not that I do not think that is their right, I believe it is perfectly within their rights to gather in Washington and protest. It is certainly more polite than yelling in the ears of your neighbors and talking over them. And like those townhalls, it gives great perspective at where these folks are coming from and makes me so very glad to be on the other side.

The Republican Party is imploding. Democrats should take no glee in the mess on the right, unless they play it right. It should be seen as a warning bell: Let the Republicans fracture into two parties, but it is critical that liberals fix – and maintain – the Democratic Party, and thus retain a majority that can advance a progressive agenda. We must not allow a party schism to occur in the Democratic Party.