At the end of the day

FISA & telecom immunity -- We will live to fight another day. However, Claire McCaskill sold the Bill of Rights for pocket change. Expect some unpleasant repercussions come re-election time.

Democrats unite! -- Hillary: "As soon as we have a nominee, we will be strongly united because the most important thing is to put a Democrat in the White House starting in January 2009." What did Obama say? The better question is what didn't he say? Read Jane Hamsher from last night.

GOP voters don't seem too excited about the elections. For analysis and numbers, Down With Tyranny!

Dennis Kucinich gives up on the WH. "He was regularly shut out of presidential debates - even after he went to the courts to seek airtime in Las Vegas.... ...commentators have given Kucinich credit for giving a greater airing to anti-war sentiment." We still love you, Dennis!

Krugman evaluated the economic stimulus program and it's not pretty. Robert Greenstein at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted that "the two most targeted and economically effective measures under consideration — a temporary extension of unemployment benefits and a temporary boost in food stamp benefits — were zeroed out, apparently at the insistence of House Republican leaders."

Anti-Abortionists MIA -- Republicans say they're pro-life but they don't show up for the Big March. How convenient.

Hate crimes slimebag -- During the Jena march, a "white man accused of driving past a group of black civil rights activists with two nooses dangling from the back of his pickup truck" was indicted for "conspiring to threaten and intimidate the marchers and with having committed a federal hate crime."

Fighting torture could land 11 activists in the federal pen for as much as six months. The Nation

"Attacks Imperil U.S.-Backed Militias in Iraq" -- "American-backed Sunni militias who have fought Sunni extremists to a standstill in some of Iraq’s bloodiest battlegrounds are being hit with a wave of assassinations and bomb attacks, threatening a fragile linchpin of the military’s strategy to pacify the nation." Intel Dump offered further insights, particularly on the political front: "I think that Crocker and Petraeus have written off the Iraqi government at all levels as too corrupt and ineffective to be a part of the long-term counterinsurgency strategy in that country."

Afghanistan backslides -- The warlords shall rise again! See how invading Iraq diverted our forces from the right war at the wrong time?

Et tu, media? -- The honeymoon must be wearing off. Via Kevin Drum, yesterday Obama got some of the same type of media B.S. that was dumped on Hillary today. With enough time -- and it doesn't take long -- media svengalis could transform Barack into a divisive figure (jpg) like they have Clinton. This is how our morally-bankrupt press corp screws America (h/t Taylor Marsh for the jpg).

Bush legacy scrutiny -- An advocacy group "plans to spend $8.5 million" on advertising Bush's failed presidency. "Framing his legacy helps us in the '08 elections, there is no doubt about that," Woodhouse said. "But our principal mission would be defining the failures of Bush and the ideology he represents." Swopa

[That's all...no more after the jump.]