Sherrod Story False  —  It isn't true.  —  Shirley Sherrod's story in her now famous speech about the lynching of a relative is not true.  The veracity and credibility of the onetime Agriculture Department bureaucrat at the center of the explosive controversy between the NAACP …

Raw Journolist emails on 'Palin's Downs child'  —  I actually hesitate to bring this up...  But is anyone following this:  —  Adam Serwer  —  Dylan Matthews  —  Obama absolutely cannot touch this.  Even if it's true.  —  I think the press would justify covering it on the issue of trust …

Tancredo will run for governor as American Constitution Party candidate  —  Republican Tom Tancredo, right, supported Scott McInnis' gubernatorial bid last November.  Now, Tancredo is saying he will run for governor.  (Matt McClain, Special to the Denver Post)

Sherrod: “We Must Stop The White Man And His Uncle Toms ...”  —  First, a note of heartfelt appreciation for Joan Walsh of Salon.  Her moving post on Charles Sherrod - in defense of his wife, Shirley - provided the inspiration required to dust off my Google skills.

Tennessee Lt. Gov: Religious Freedom May Not Count For Muslims (VIDEO)  —  Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, currently running third in the state's Republican gubernatorial primary race, says he's not sure if Constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion apply to the followers of the world's second-largest faith, Islam.

Obama slams GOP on Disclose Act  —  President Obama called out Senate Republicans on Monday for holding up a vote on a contentious piece of campaign finance legislation.  —  Senate Democrats plan to vote on cloture for the Disclose Act on Tuesday, though it remains unclear whether they have the 60 votes necessary to end debate.

Review of WikiLeaks docs sees no smoking gun  —  Pentagon still reviewing records, but so far finds no threat to U.S. security  —  WASHINGTON, D.C. — An ongoing Pentagon review of the massive flood of secret documents made public by the WikiLeaks website has so far found no evidence …

EFF Wins New Legal Protections for Video Artists, Cell Phone Jailbreakers, and Unlockers  —  San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) won three critical exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) anticircumvention provisions today, carving out new legal protections …

Armageddon Wars: Overpopulation Vs. Global Warming  —  My colleague Ross Douthat has a nice column today that reminded me of the famous 1980 bet between Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon.  —  Mr. Ehrlich, an ecologist, expected population growth and economic growth to set off a mad scramble for natural resources.

Senator Barbara Boxer: serving in the military is like being a member of Congress  —  At a campaign event over the weekend in Inglewood, California, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer seemingly equated being a politician to serving in the military — and an Iraq War veteran supporting Boxer's November opponent is calling on her to apologize.

The (Possible) Mother of All Battles: What If a Conservative Supreme Court Justice Retires?  —  This is not a prediction.  I don't know how to see into the future, and I've long lamented the besetting journalistic sin of confidently asserting what's going to happen.

Why Tax Estates Instead of Inheritances?  —  A friend on facebook asks a reasonable question: what is the justification for taxing estates, rather than inheritances?  After all, why should we care if Bill Gates wants to leave $300 apiece to millions of people?

Rangel: ‘Trauma,’ ‘more alleged violations’  —  After sounding defiant in his first round with reporters just now, embattled Rep. Charles Rangel sounded sad and seemed downcast and somewhat gaslit as he talked about how “traumatic” he had found the experience.

The Care and Feeding of the Liberal Psyche  —  I have a Netroots Nation wrap piece up at The Daily Beast saying that progressive activists are depressed and the White House hasn't done very much to offer the kind of psychic goodies that keep people's spirits up: … My prescription to cure the malaise is Elizabeth Warren:

The Democratic Fisc  —  The White House budget office offers a scorecard on Obamanomics.  —  Democrats have been running Congress for nearly four years, and President Obama has been at the White House for 18 months, so it's not too soon to ask: How's that working out?

What went wrong with stimulus  —  The original stimulus package should've been bigger.  Rep. David Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, says the Treasury Department originally asked for $1.4 trillion.  Sen. Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, wanted $1.2 trillion.

McCain On The Iraq War: ‘We Already Won That One’  —  Earlier this month, law professor Marjorie Cohn and Iraq Veterans Against the War board chairman Geoff Millard attended a reception to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Vietnam and spoke with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

BP boss Hayward to get immediate £600,000 pension  —  Mr Hayward has been the public face of BP's response to the spill  —  BP chief executive Tony Hayward will get an immediate annual pension worth about £600,000 ($930,000) when he leaves in October, the BBC has learned.