In a more than 2,100-word letter containing 58 separate questions and written on April 13, Karl Rove blasted MSNBC’s Dan Abrams for reporting earlier this month on his alleged involvement in the politicized prosecution of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman, and for using the testimony of Republican operative Jill Simpson. Some excerpts:

– “Did you ever consider that the Governor’s security detail might have taken note of an ample-sized, redheaded woman who kept showing up at his events with a camera?”

– “In fact, it seems you believe that the absence of any concrete evidence is itself evidence of the conspiracy. If you don’t have any proof Karl Rove did it, that absence is proof enough. I am that good.”

– “As a matter of fact, I had other things to occupy my time in the White House in 2002 rather than ‘structuring’ a campaign for an Alabama gubernatorial candidate.”

Perhaps it was at this point that Rove decided to reverse himself and refuse to testify before Congress on the matter.

The whole Atlantic crew seems to love this video but I think it’s kind of dumb:

Among other things, Rocky lost the fight so I don’t even think this makes sense.

I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the rather silly controversy over whether or not Hillary Clinton said “screw ‘em” with regard to white working class southern conservatives at a meeting thirteen years ago (yes, this is the stuff of which controversies are made), but I’d say Theda Skocpol has the definitive take on the matter.

Earlier this week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) delivered a speech on the economy in which he outlined his ambitious plan to cut taxes and balance the budget. McCain’s plan would extend President Bush’s tax cuts, reduce corporate tax rates, repeal the alternative minimum tax (AMT), and increase exemptions for dependents.

But unfortunately for McCain, “economists and nonpartisan analysts” have dug deeper into the details of his plan and concluded that the numbers simply “don’t add up.” The offsets he proposes will not cover the estimated $3.3-$5.7 trilllion cost of the proposal and would end up ballooning the federal deficit. Bloomberg News reports:

“The huge imbalance” in McCain’s plan “is that the tax cuts are specific and large and the spending cuts are small and vague,” said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Washington- based Concord Coalition. [...]

“This is really a massive increase in the deficit,” said Joel Slemrod, an economist specializing in tax policy at the University of Michigan. [...]

Stan Collender, a former analyst for the House and Senate budget committees [... said] “there’s no way McCain could balance [his budget] by the time he leaves, unless he doesn’t leave for 25 years.”

Sloppy preparation may explain some of McCain’s discrepancies. Indeed, his economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin has cited different reports to back-up aspects of McCain’s economic proposals, but in reality they undermine them:

To help pay for the tax cuts, Holtz-Eakin said he would save $30 billion a year by eliminating so-called “rifle shot” provisions. Those include items such as tax breaks for small insurance companies.

A Treasury Department report Holtz-Eakin cited as the source of his estimate states $27 billion could be raised by eliminating narrowly used tax preferences spread over a decade, not a single year.

Despite the country’s sour mood on the economy, McCain said last night that Americans perhaps feel they are better off than they were when Bush took office because “millions of jobs have been created” since then. So therefore, McCain said, “You could make an argument that there’s been great progress economically over that period of time” and that “the fundamentals of America’s economy are strong.” Watch it:

According to tax filings released today, McCain’s net worth rose by $18 million since 1999. Perhaps that increase in personal wealth makes him think that most Americans, too, are better off than they were eight years ago.

U.S. Attorney for the central district of California in Los Angeles Thomas P. O’Brien “is facing sharp criticism from prosecutors within his office who say he is pressuring them to file relatively insignificant criminal cases to drive up statistics that make the office eligible for increased federal funding.” The unnamed prosecutors say the practice — which O’Brien has denied — “amounts to a quota system” and detracts them from working on more significant cases:

The disgruntled prosecutors in Los Angeles say they are now spending an exorbitant amount of time working on less significant cases — mail theft, smaller drug offenses and illegal immigration — to reach quotas. They cited the recent disbanding of the office’s public integrity and environmental crimes section, a unit with a history of working on complex police corruption and political corruption cases, as evidence of a shift toward high-volume, low-quality prosecutions.

The corruption unit, which O’Brien disbanded last month, was handling the ongoing investigation into Rep. Jerry Lewis’s (R-CA) ties to a lobbying firm and earmarks its clients have received. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey for a detailed explanation as to why the unit was disbanded.

As ThinkProgress has previously noted, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) campaign promise to “veto every bill that has a pork-barrel project on it” if elected president would result in $65 billion of cuts to programs, including U.S. funding assistance to Israel and funding for military housing. Now, McCain’s top economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, says that McCain is changing the definition of earmarks. Under the new definition, “there are between $16 billion and $18 billion” of earmarks in the current budget. Holtz-Eakin “declined to say whether McCain would ever begin to name programs he’ll cut.”

John McCain’s campaign released the Senators tax returns, but with a catch — we don’t get to see Mrs. McCain’s taxes, even though she’s an extremely wealthy heiress who actually has the bulk of the family’s money. That’s a preposterous dodge, but it’s actually somewhat less preposterous than the official rationale for the dodge: “In the interest of protecting the privacy of her children, Mrs. McCain will not be releasing her personal tax returns.”

What could that possibly mean? Suppose the Clintons tried to use Chelsea’s privacy as an excuse not to release their financial information — people would have laughed. Then screamed.