Jim Clark, the chief of staff for former Governor of Alaska Frank Murkowski, has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy in his role to shove tax incentives down Alaskans' throats that would have benefited one of his fat-cat cronies.

Are you as surprised as I am?

I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but there are an unusually high number of hotspots around the globe on the brink of all-out war today.

Check out who below the fold...

When the House Judiciary Committee starts taking up the whole "DOJ is a disaster" issue, you can expect Chairman John Conyers to hit hard on this administration's failure to hire any black attorneys to replace those who have left since 2003.

According to local Washington, D.C., ABC TV affiliate WJLA Channel 7's investigative reporting (transcript and video), today's US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division has a severe lack of minority lawyers.

How severe? Out of 50 staff attorneys, only 2 are minorities. That's the same number of minorities they had back in 1978, when the department only had 25 staff attorneys.

Appalling, isn't it?

This morning to get my fix all political junkies need before they face the world, I was reading Chris Cillizza's Senate Line when I came upon his #6 most vulnerable senator, Susan Collins.

Here's what he had to say:

Still, Collins remains popular and Democrats have yet to make a convincing case as to why voters should fire her.

Poppycock. We all know the reason to fire her. Follow me below to hear the clackety clack of the cogs in my head whirring to elaborate...

Being rather a novice at the whole political game and noting how instrumental the DSCC and DCCC chairs were for us this cycle, I decided to dig down a little and find out some details about the newly elected NRCC chair, Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma.

My findings? Be prepared, folks. We're in for an even more brutal fight next time around.

Details on Rep. Tom Cole below the fold...

This isn't a strictly "by the guidelines" diary, but I am sure everyone who is on this site and watches the punditocracy has noticed that, increasingly, Republican pundits can no longer say "Democratic" but instead say "Democrat Party" when clearly the adjective form is required.

Given the spread of this trend like a virus (and so similar to all Republican Media Machine campaigns), one gets the feeling that some sinister campaign is at work. Some typical war of rhetoric is at work, but what is it?

Slightly more below the fold.

As he prepares to testify beofre the House Ethic Committee, the DNC points out John Shimkus still doesn't get it:

Yesterday, Shimkus told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that, facing the same situation today, "I probably would have done the same thing." (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 10/12/06)

This morning I saw this article in which my congressman, Rep. John Shimkus (whom I prefer to refer to as Rep. Shamekus), says the last week of the swirling Foley scandal have been a "learning experience" (presumably because he repeatedly was angry and sarcastic to various reporters daring to question him about his role in the whole mess).

So, what is it that Rep. Shimkus has learned? Did he learn that he should've involved the entire Page Board when faced with allegations of inappropriate contact between a congressman and a page? Did he remember back from his days as a high school teacher, that something was quite possibly not right? Indeed, did he learn that he did even one little thing wrong in this matter?

Of course not. (more below...)

I've never even written a diary before, but today I decided to give it a shot to try to draw attention to the IL-19 congressional race between Rep. John Shimkus (R) and his democratic challenger, Danny Stover.

more below the fold...