In case you haven’t noticed, the GOP is fixin’ to rebrand itself.  The last eight years haven’t worked out so well, and now that first cowpoke W has ridden off into the sunset the Republicans plan to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start all over again.  So get ready – they’ve formed the National Council for a New America, and it’s going to change everything! And Erick Erickson is psyched because Sarah Palin finally decided to get involved:

For those who were questioning the National Council for New America based on who was not on board, one of the names of those not on board has been Sarah Palin. She is now on board.

What a relief!

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[Latest… Live, Local and DEVELOPING HARDER: We got two houses of the Maine Legislature (that would be all of the houses there are) on board with gay marriage.  House vote is 89:57.  Goes back to the Senate for one last check in the mirror before presentation to Governor, probably later this week.  Bean suppah!]

D.C. recognizes same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, may sanction weddings in its own right.

Morning Line — Odds on who decides, first, to hold D.C. appropriations hostage over this

Sens. Inhofe / Coburn (Oklahoma Entry) — 4:5
Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo., on subcommittee) — even
Sen. Bitch McConnell (R-Ky., on committee) — 3:1
Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo., ranking on subcomm.) — 4:1
Sen. Dick Shelby (R-Ala., on committee) — 6:1
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska, on subcomm.) — 10:1
Field — 12:1

Our interest in the Bush Administration’s torture program remains focused on its early development, but with the Zelikow Memo heating up, it might help to look at what light it sheds on what we’ve learned.

Philip Zelikow, Condoleezza Rice’s counselor at State and executive director of the 9/11 Commission, will be testifying before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee next Tuesday. Zelikow saw the torture memos from Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel shortly after they were issued in May 2005, and wrote up “an opposing view of the legal reasoning.”

Zelikow was not on Rice’s legal team, and so had no official standing in the discussion. But apparently a written memo was more than the torture advocates could bear:

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Christianity Today interviews Joe the Plumber, bringing our prediction of a porn video that much closer:

People don’t understand the dictionary — it’s called queer. Queer means strange and unusual. It’s not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we’re supposed to do — what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we’re supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins.

We count greed, wrath, envy and pride, with a strong case for lust, a tossup for gluttony, and sloth something of a judgment call. Does Joe ever work?

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You’ve probably heard by now about Condoleezza Rice ducking a torture question from a fourth-grader Sunday, but this footnote catches our attention:

According to Misha’s mother, he originally planned to ask a tougher question — “If you would work for Obama’s administration, would you push for torture?” — but he was asked to change it. “They wanted him to soften it and take out the word ‘torture.’ But the essence of it was the same,” Inna Lerner said.

That moment may sound familiar to cult fans of Freaks and Geeks, the high school series set in 1981. In a late episode, Vice President Bush plans to visit the school and take questions from students, but the students are surprised to discover their pre-screened questions have been mangled before the visit.

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We will never finish cleaning up after the Dear Leader:

US soldiers have been encouraged to spread the message of their Christian faith among Afghanistan’s predominantly Muslim population, video footage obtained by Al Jazeera appears to show.

Military chaplains stationed in the US air base at Bagram were also filmed with bibles printed in the country’s main Pashto and Dari languages.

If you can tell me something that pisses Muslims off more than telling them their god sucks, I’d like to hear it.

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