A century and a half after the Civil War ended, the GOP-dominated North Carolina legislature is finishing the destruction Gen. Sherman’s troops never got to visit upon Raleigh, NC. Over 150 people have been arrested at the Legislative Building in four weeks of protests led by the NAACP. A crowd of 600 gathered last week for the latest Moral Mondays protest against a flood of conservative legislation targeting the poor and minority voters.

A few short years after Barack Obama won the state’s electoral votes, Republicans are firmly in control of the legislature and the Governor's Mansion. They are busily unmaking the American Century in what has been one of the South's most progressive states. The Washington Post calls it “a sweeping conservative agenda”:

Legislators have slashed jobless benefits. They have also repealed a tax credit that supplemented the wages of low-income people, while moving to eliminate the estate tax. They have voted against expanding Medicaid to comply with the 2010 federal health-care law. The expansion would have added 500,000 poor North Carolinians to the Medicaid rolls.

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Monday night Rachel Maddow expanded on her Friday report about the weird ad running in opposition to Chuck Hagel's nomination. The group running the ad calls themselves "Use Your Mandate" and claims to be a group of liberals -- gay liberals, even -- who are afraid to come out into the light for fear of White House retribution.

Because this White House has been so bitterly retributive, don't you know? When I first heard about it I thought it was bull too, because liberals tend to oppose nominations loudly and without any guise of secrecy. In fact, I can't think of a time where any liberal group I've had contact with has been secretive about who they are and why they're running an ad. That seems to be the province of the US Chamber of Commerce and Koch-funded front groups..

Rachel's instinct seems to be right on the money. As she reports, "Use Your Mandate" used a media buyer in San Diego to place the ad by the name of Del Cielo Media, LLC*. Del Cielo Media is the company name for Sarah Linden, who is the west coast media director for Smart Media Group.

On Smart Media Group's resumé: Official media buyers for the McCain-Palin campaign, Republican National Committee, NRSC, and the US Chamber of Commerce, among others.

DelCielo Media's website is a splash page and a link to a map now, but as Rachel reports, one of Linden's clients is the Emergency Committee for Israel, a relatively new neocon group whose directors include Bill Kristol, Gary Bauer, and Michael Goldfarb. Michael Goldfarb is an advisor to Liz Cheney's neocon message machine, Keep America Safe, where Kristol also serves as a director.

The other firm Rachel mentions is Tusk Strategies. Michael Tusk was Michael Bloomberg's campaign director in 2009 and now has his own New York PR firm. Tusk's client list boasts of relationships with Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst and Education Reform Now, two groups which call themselves liberal but which are not, by any stretch of the imagination, liberal.

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So basically, everyone says they just love DNC chair Tim Kaine so much, they don't even care if they lose Congress this year. And that yucky Howard Dean, the one whose leadership led to taking the House, the Senate, and the White House? They seem to pretend he had nothing to do with that:

Senior Democrats in the White House and on Capitol Hill are expressing confidence in party Chairman Tim Kaine despite the possibility of huge losses in the midterm elections.

In an interview with The Hill, White House senior adviser David Axelrod said the Obama administration will “absolutely” have confidence in Kaine’s leadership even if Democrats take a drubbing this fall.

Axelrod praised Kaine’s work on the nuts-and-bolts of party building, especially in comparison to the more controversial leadership style of Kaine’s GOP counterpart, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.

“I think Tim Kaine is out there doing what he should be doing — building the party, building the party apparatus,” Axelrod said. “That is what you want a party chair to do. That is the guts of the job.”

Even though it really upset party insiders when Dr. Dean did it!

Lawmakers and party insiders contacted by The Hill expressed unified support for Kaine’s work as chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and praised him for working to channel President Obama’s grassroots support into a tool for governing.

Kaine has worked quietly to integrate the White House’s political arm, Organizing for America (OFA), into the party’s structure while also juggling a heavy travel and fundraising schedule to prepare for the midterm elections.

Those efforts have seemingly insulated Kaine from the maelstrom of blame that can often tarnish party leaders who sustain heavy electoral losses during their time in charge.

[...]Kaine’s smooth relationship with congressional leaders stands in stark contrast to that of his predecessor at the DNC, Howard Dean.

Dean famously bickered with then-Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) during his tenure, though the former Vermont governor also attracted accolades for his “50-state strategy,” which some say helped Democrats regain control of Congress in 2007.

Kaine is much more reserved than the outspoken Dean.

The former Richmond mayor isn’t known for his sound bites, and unlike Dean and Steele, he is not gaffe-prone.

Thank God we don't have to worry about Tim Kaine ever telling Democrats they need to stand up for the voters! Because that would really hurt their feelings.

The Party of Fiscal Responsibility? Seriously?:

The Washington Times reports today, however, on a new matter that has nothing to do with Steele's notorious gaffes, and more to do with his notorious mismanagement.

The Republican National Committee failed to report more than $7 million in debt to the Federal Election Commission in recent months -- a move that made its bottom line appear healthier than it is heading into the midterm elections and that also raises the prospect of a hefty fine.

In a memo to RNC budget committee members, RNC Treasurer Randy Pullen on Tuesday accused Chairman Michael S. Steele and his chief of staff, Michael Leavitt, of trying to conceal the information from him by ordering staff not to communicate with the treasurer -- a charge RNC officials deny.

Mr. Pullen told the members that he had discovered $3.3 million in debt from April and $3.8 million from May, which he said had led him to file erroneous reports with the FEC. He amended the FEC filings Tuesday.

When it comes to consequences, the financial problem could cause all kinds of trouble for Republicans. Deliberately filing deceptive FEC reports is criminal, and could lead to stiff penalties -- if not formal charges -- before the elections.

And while the Republican National Committee is already downplaying the significance of this, there's reason to believe the party is aware of the seriousness of the situation.

Actually, despite the fact that this is not strictly Michael Steele's fault, unnamed members of the RNC are quick to start pointing fingers his way:

Mr. Pullen said that Mr. Leavitt, acting on orders from Mr. Steele, tried to limit his access to the unreported past-due bills that the RNC owes for goods and services by barring staff members from providing him any information unless approved by the chairman. According to Mr. Pullen, he complained and Mr. Steele then allowed the information to flow.[..]

A faction of committee members has been critical of Mr. Steele's fundraising operation.

Before Mr. Steele took over as chairman in January 2009, RNC fundraising typically far exceeded donations to the Democratic National Committee.

Back on May 31, 2006, for example, the RNC had $43.1 million in cash on hand compared with the DNC's $10.3 million. Part of the RNC's edge over the DNC stemmed from Republicans holding the presidency, though they were about to lose control of Congress that year.

Wow. That's a whole lotta money they've lost. And they think we should trust them with the deficit?

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Ron Paul went on CNN with Don Lemon on Sunday and actually defended Michael Steele for his bizarre comments attacking Obama for the war in Afghanistan:

LEMON: And before we misconstrue everything, you are coming out in support of the comment, right?

REP. RON PAUL (R), TEXAS: Not in the entirety. I come out in support of Chairman Steele because I think it was overkill. He made a casual comment. He wasn't setting policy and all of a sudden people jump on him like we're not allowed to have a discussion?

As a matter of fact I did like what he said so I enjoyed the fact that we're willing to have a discussion about the popularity of this war. And truly it is Obama's war, even though it was started during the last administration. Obama said this is the good war. He's expanding the war. The American people aren't with him.

The majority of the American people are tired of the ward and they'd like to see it ended; they'd like to see our troops come home.

I mean this idea that as soon as somebody has a discussion, even if it's not in the discussion, people are clamoring for him to resign? I don't think that's quite fair.

LEMON: Congressman, you have to let me get in on this because it seems like, you know -- I understand what you're saying -- you want people to talk about the war. But it seems like he wasn't factually correct. Very little of what he said, if anything, was correct factually in those comment. And he came back himself --

PAUL: What I'm saying --

LEMON: Hang on one second. He came back himself and clarified them. Why are you supporting him for a comment that he had to clarify?

(CROSS TALKING)

PAUL: Well, he -- I didn't hear his clarification. But if he clarified his statement because -- he wasn't making a policy statement. If he came back and said, I'm not stating policy, that is not exactly my position --

STEELE: But he wasn't telling the truth.

PAUL: Pardon me?

STEELE: He wasn't telling the truth.

PAUL: Well, I think you're not telling the truth right now yourself.

LEMON: He said that this war -- he said that this war was started by -- or basically saying the war was started by the Obama administration. No one even wanted --

PAUL: No, he did not say that.

LEMON: That no one wanted to go -- let me finish -- no one wanted to go into this war. In fact, when we went into the war, most of the country supported it and it was started, again, under President Bush. So most of what he said if not all of it was not factually correct.

PAUL: That's right. But he's saying politically this is Obama's war. Even in the last campaign -- as a matter of fact, I thought Obama was more hawkish on this war than McCain was because he was calling for increasing troops in Afghanistan before the Republicans were.

So I think in many ways, at least politically, this is Obama's war. And it is a political issue. The Republicans really suffered from the fact that the Iraq war continued for so long and hurt us at the polls.

So, I think that Republicans ought to have a right to at least say that maybe this war isn't going well and not blindly support every single thing that is being done. And then all of a sudden, if an individual does -- you know, people accuse you, oh, you're un- American, you're unpatriotic. You know, they pile on and then they pressure somebody like Steele -- like Chairman Steele that he has to back off.

He didn't have a policy statement. He was merely making a casual statement. And when he said, for over 1,000 years and even longer, nobody's been successful in invading Afghanistan, he is telling the truth.

Paul wants to have his cake and eat it too: He admits that Steele was just flat wrong when he claimed that Obama got us into this war. But he then wants to claim that Steele is right that it's "Obama war".

Republicans are such lovely creatures. If Obama were to play the consummate pacifist and immediately withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, the attacks would be even more savage. They're going to attack him no matter what he does.

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I'm almost as interested in the reaction of the Republican observers in the phone video that showed Michael Steele making those bizarre comments about the war in Afghanistan:

Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama's choosing. This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.

Well, if [Obama is] such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that's the one thing you don't do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed. And there are reasons for that.

It's not clear if anyone in the audience is really aware that the Republican National Chairman's career is going up in flames before their very eyes. Indeed, those who are not too busy chatting and ignoring Steele seem to enthusiastically agree with him. At least the baldheaded guy seems aware that what Steele is saying is just weird.

I agree with Greg Sargent's take:

Let me have a stab at guessing what happened here. I say Steele initially meant to say that the Afghan war wasn't a war of our choosing because we were attacked on September 11th, forcing us to invade. But that came out all wrong because he garbled it by mixing it with an attack on Obama.

Next, Steele tried to attack Obama by pointing out that during the campaign he insulated himself against charges that he's a dove by calling for a ramp up in Afghanistan. Fair enough. But then he compounded the mess by slipping into a kind of auto-pilot mode where he just started criticizing the Afghan war as a disaster and unwinnable because it's now Obama's war. Result: Steele said that Obama chose this war, that we shouldn't be there, and we now can't win.

Worst of all, for Steele, is that he trod all over the GOP's favorite narrative, which is that Obama hasn't done enough in Afghanistan (and, subsidiarially, that Democrats have always been weak on the war in Afghanistan, blah blah blah). So immediately the loudest voices selling that pitch were quick to denounce him. Indeed, Bloody Bill Kristol called for his resignation.

On Fox News, you could watch the negative reviews roll in:

Karl Rove: "Well, that was a boneheaded comment by the chairman of the Republican National Committee."

Stephen Hayes: "It is an absurd comment, it is something I think certainly should cause him to resign."

Charles Krauthammer: "I think he has to go. This is a capital offense."

Well, his tenure has been nothing if not entertaining. Indeed, Michael Steele was the Democrats' best hope in 2010. We'll be sorry to see him go.

From TPM, evidence that Michael Steele really has no right talking on behalf of the Republican National Committee or, in fact, any legitimate political organization that has any sense at all.

"The McChrystal incident, to me, was very comical. And I think it's a reflection of the frustration that a lot of our military leaders have with this Administration and their prosecution of the war in Afghanistan," said Steele. "Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama's choosing. This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in."

Really?? Where was this guy in October 2001? Or for that matter, was he awake at any point in time between2001 and the end of 200? Really love this line also:

"Well, if [Obama is] such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that's the one thing you don't do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed. And there are reasons for that."

It's "never get involved in a land war in ASIA," asshole, a reference to Southeast Asia, not Central Asia. And is he seriously suggesting that the Republican position is to have our troops leave Afghanistan? as Obama's proposing to do starting in 2011? Michael Steele's spokesman later explained that Steele has also missed the numerous times where Obama has explained his strategy for Afghanistan. But hey, keep this good man at his post in the RNC. By the Republican politicians' silence, that must mean they endorse his idiotic comments. And that goes to show, once again, that the Republicans have absolutely no credibility discussing national security issues.

In case you haven't figured out by now, we need to fix the Citizens United decision - and we need to switch to all-public financing. Because the politicians are already far too adept at perverting the system to their own ends. From Rolling Stone (subscribers only):

One afternoon in late April, Karl Rove welcomed an elite group of conservative political operatives and moneymen into his home in Washington, D.C. Along with his protégé Ed Gillespie, who succeeded him as George W. Bush's top political adviser, Rove had gathered together the heavyweights of the GOP's fundraising network. In attendance were the political director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as the leaders of two new megadollar campaign groups loyal to Rove: American Crossroads and the American Action Network. Rove's plan was straightforward: to seize control of the party from Michael Steele, whose leadership of the Republican National Committee was imploding in the wake of a fundraiser at a lesbian bondage club. By building a war chest of unregulated campaign cash – an unprecedented $135 million to be raised by these three groups alone – Rove would be able to wage the midterm elections on his own terms: electing candidates loyal to the GOP's wealthiest donors and corporate patrons. With the media's attention diverted by the noisy revolt being waged by the Tea Party, the man known as "Bush's brain" was staging a stealthier but no less significant coup of the Republican Party.

"What they've cooked up is brilliant," says a prominent Democrat. "Evil, but brilliant."

Rove and Gillespie, who effectively ran the Republican Party throughout the past decade, recognized that Steele's weakness represented an opportunity to stage a quiet comeback. But taking control of the party, they knew, would require a new kind of political machine. The Supreme Court, in its recent decision in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, opened the floodgates for unlimited political spending by corporations and individuals. But the court left in place strict limits on contributions to party committees – and it preserved the legal firewall that bars campaigns from coordinating directly with the outside groups now empowered to spend millions on their behalf.

That's where Rove and Gillespie come in. As free-agent strategists, they are in a unique position to skirt such prohibitions and coordinate all parts of the GOP – both inside and outside the official party structure – because they're not officially in charge of any of it. In the run-up to November, they will be the ones ensuring that the many tentacles of the court-sanctioned shadow party – from startups like American Crossroads to stalwarts like the National Rifle Association – operate in concert. "They will be making sure that everybody is expending themselves properly, as opposed to duplicating efforts or working at cross-purposes," says Mary Matalin, who served with Rove in the Bush White House. "That's something that the committees and the campaigns really don't do – legally cannot do."

As demonstrated by the big-money meeting at Rove's home – first reported by the National Journal and confirmed to Rolling Stone by one of its boldface-name guests – Rove's fundraising prowess makes him the undisputed ringleader on the "independent" side of the firewall. At the same time, he continues to strategize with party officials, enabling him to coordinate the GOP's national effort with individual campaigns across the country. "Members of Congress in both chambers continue to be in touch with him," Matalin says. "Governors continue to be in touch with him. Individual races continue to be in touch with him. That's just Karl, and that's undeniable."

For the man known as Turd Blossom, it's been a treacherous, four-year climb back to the pinnacle of GOP politics. The Rove brand was tarnished in 2006, when Republicans lost control of both the House and Senate. His exit from the White House the following year was dogged by scandals, from the political firing of U.S. attorneys to the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. And with his longtime enemy John McCain serving as the party's standard-bearer in 2008, Rove could only sit by and watch as the fearsome big-money machine he built over the course of a decade – his political Death Star – was blasted out of orbit by an insurgent Obama campaign powered by hundreds of millions in small-dollar donations.

This is a tale of how the empire strikes back.

You know, if these Republicans really resent Godwin references (at least, in reference to themselves), it might be easier to avoid them if they didn't open themselves up by hiring someone like Fred Malek:

Bob McDonnell's choice for Chairman of [the Governor's Commission on Government Reform and Restructuring], Fred Malek, is kind of scary on the topic of government restructuring:

"Malek is best known in political circles for resigning in 1988 as George Bush's hand-picked deputy chairman for the Republican National Committee after the Post's Walter Pincus and Bob Woodward reported that 17 years earlier, Malek had, at Richard Nixon's request, counted the number of Jews then working for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Thirteen, if you must know, though Malek only looked at 35 of the bureau's 50 top employees.) "

Some people might ask- what is the statute of limitations on a mistake someone made like this 40 years ago? I don't think such a thing exists when you are talking about identifying and counting the number of Jews in government positions less than 30 years after the Holocaust. It's petrifying that this could have happened in this country.

If you're interested in delving into this nasty business of Nixon's anti-Semitic paranoia, Slate has the full story. Of course, the man who thinks we should have a Confederate History Month and that working women are a threat to the family and contraception should be illegal cannot be accused of having the sensitivity to realize what a disgusting man Malek is. Because Republicans forgive all sins except not being conservative enough in their perception or being willing to work with Democrats (Sorry, Bob Bennett), it should come as no surprise that Malek also worked on McCain's campaign, and by the looks of his personal blog, has worked up a nice career as a TV talking head.

Sigh. It just goes to show you that old bigots never fade away in the GOP, they just keep getting hired again and again. The Not Larry Sabato blog has a statement from a Virginia state delegate:

UPDATE: Statement from Delegate David Englin:

While I support the effort to create a top-level commission to recommend policies to reform government, it is deeply disturbing that Governor McDonnell would appoint as its chair Fred Malek, whose history in "reforming" government includes creating lists of Jews serving in government to track and remove from government service. Was there really no more qualified individual in Virginia to lead this panel? Has he done anything to disavow and make amends for his previous anti-Semitism? Otherwise, it's one more slap in the face from McDonnell to Jewish state employees, coming right on the heels of allowing uniformed state police chaplains to proselytize to Jewish troopers and their families. These continued missteps from the McDonnell Administration are distractions from the competent and effective governing Virginians expect and deserve.

Hey, a common-sense decision -- unanimous, no less -- from a Texas appeals court. Via Austin Legal:

The Austin appeals court erred in deciding that the state’s money-laundering statute - used to prosecute associates of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay - did not apply to transfers made via checks, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled today.

The court’s 9-0 decision also upheld the state’s election laws prohibiting corporations from making political contributions to candidates. DeLay’s associates - John Colyandro and Jim Ellis - had challenged the law as an unconstitutional infringement on First Amendment right.

Nice to know there are limits somewhere on First Amendment rights. I can almost understand the logic behind the Supreme Court's ruling about issue-based contributions, but candidates? Not so much. Glad to see it fail.

The issue in this case centered around a big check exchange between the RNC and a candidate's PAC. Here's what they did:

Colyandro and Ellis also were charged with money laundering by transferring $190,000 in corporate contributions to the Republican National Committee by a check, with a similar amount later returned to the state organization.

The law prohibits corporate contributions to candidates. That's why there are PACs, and that's why PAC contributions are limited to $5,000 for any one candidate. These two buddies of Tom Delay's argued that corporations OUGHT to be able to give directly, but since they didn't, it's not money laundering if the transactions weren't in actual bags of cash.

They almost got away with it, too. The definition of proceeds of criminal activity (the direct donation of money to a candidate) was a little bit vague, in that it didn't specifically say checks. It also didn't specify PayPal or EFT transfers, but I doubt anyone wouldn't consider those to be money.

In 2008, the appeals court ruled that the money-laundering law did not apply to Colyandro and Ellis because it did not specifically refer to checks.

The appeals court evidently also figured it out pretty quickly.

The appeals court had no authority to determine that the law only applies to cash payments, Keller wrote.

Keller also noted, however, that the statute could also be read to apply to checks, Keller wrote, noting that “foreign bank notes” operate on the same principle as checks.

The only thing that could make good news like this great? Discovering Tom Delay right smack dab in the middle of a check swap scheme like this.