I wanted to post this Monday night; now it's not news, but it remains a doozie. Virginia Representative Ed Schrock - married, father, cosponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment, and vocal opponent of gay rights -- was about to be outted as a gay man. So he resigned, saying only that the "allegations" would distract from his ability to serve. Here's more. Of course, the tactics used to prompt his resignation are open to debate, but for some activists, all bets are off when dealing with such a vocal and spiteful homophobe. (Have you noticed that hypocrisy just doesn't trouble Republicans like it does Democrats? Just asking.)

In the aftermath of that Schrocking resignation --
Here's a story on the role of blogs in shaping the news...

Warms my heart --
I love it when conservatives grumble about Bush. The only time I give any credence to anything George Will writes or says is when he grumbles about Bush. Here he slams Bush and Kerry both, but is particularly wrought over Bush's toying with 527s:

Bush, a supposed critic of the imperial judiciary, wants a court to order the Federal Election Commission to, in McClellan's words, "shut down" all such groups. And if a compliant court cannot be found, McClellan says Bush will try legislation. First try judicial fiat, then legislation as a last resort. Ah, conservatism.
[...]
Bush receives so much rotten advice because he does not seem indignant when he does (see: Iraq). He signed the McCain-Feingold speech restrictions in 2002 because incompetent advisers assured him that by the time the Supreme Court and the Federal Election Commission were done construing it, Republicans would be advantaged. Now Democratic 527s, which were active in 2000 but which evidently were not considered by Bush's advisers in their cynical calculations, may outspend Republican 527s by $100 million. This McCain-Feingold fallout -- the diversion of ideological money from the Democratic Party to left-wing groups, the diversion of business money out of electoral politics and into lobbying -- was predicted in a 2001 report by Cleta Mitchell, a campaign finance lawyer, for the American Conservative Union.

Few voters care about questions of political process. That is why the political class feels free to act with scandalous impunity, as in this Bush-Kerry collaboration to silence what the political class persistently calls "outside groups." A question: Outside of what?

More on Blowhard of the House Dennis Hastert --
Josh Marshall follows up, and remarks:

"These are scary times. And it's an ominous sign of the times that the Speaker of the House can float such a false and extremely defamatory charge and have the behavior go almost unnoticed in the press.

Think about it."

Oopsy - yet another appearance of collaboration between the Bushies and the Swiftboat Veterans for Slander and Deception --
William Schacte Jr., one of the liars, lobbied for a company that just won a $40 million contract from the Bushies.

So he really is a "uniter, not a divider" --
Sunday's NYC protest, with between 100,000 and 400,000 taking part, must have been a thrill to see. And this one is powerful in its own way. The Village Voice has a great feature on Bush's ability to mobilize protestors from all walks of life:

"As George W. Bush steps forward on the red, white, and blue stage at the Garden this week to accept his party's nomination, he will claim many accomplishments for his first term in office. There is one, however, he will never mention: that fear and hatred of his regime have managed to turn even ordinary Americans into full-fledged activists committed to his ouster, while at the same time regalvanizing a progressive movement in American politics that had sputtered along for years without clear direction."

You can't prove they're breaking the law if you can't find the law --
Molly Ivins' latest includes this unbelievable item:

The Department of Justice has asked the Government Printing Office "to instruct depository libraries to destroy five publications the department has deemed 'not appropriate for external use.' Of the five publications, two are texts of federal laws. They are to be removed from libraries and destroyed, making their content available only to those with access to a law office or law library," according to the American Library Association. All the documents concern either federal civil or criminal forfeiture procedure, including to how to reclaim items that have been confiscated by the government during an investigation.

I don't know how you feel about living in a country where the citizens are not allowed to read the law, but I find it... surprising.

"God is not a Republican" --
Please consider helping Sojourners get this ad into regional papers around the country. I made my paltry contribution toward the glorious full-pager that appeared in Monday's New York Times, and I'm putting the ad in the window. But I live in San Francisco, where many of us who even contemplate the issue already assume that God is not a Republican. What I wish I could give to see this in a paper like, oh, The Findlay Courier...

Keep reading --
Hey, last week we snuck up over the 1000 reader mark! That is, 1000 readers since Left at the Altar launched in April, not 1000 per day. And I'm not sure how many of you come back, because I haven't figured out how to read all the stats on the Site Meter link in the side bar. But we're getting around a bit, and that's nice to know. (The surge last week came from readers linking to the Late Night Humor rehash, which was picked up by Corrente, a blog I'd never perused before. Take a look at them.) I know that the readership doesn't include many regular visits from my own family, because they told me as much. They tell me it leaves them depressed and despairing. Hmm. Not what I had in mind. Informed and compelled -- good. Depressed and despairing -- bad. Best medicine? Do something. Register voters, write letters to the editors of papers less provincial than The Findlay Courier, send money to progressive causes, send money to your candidate, help voters get to the polls on Election Day, help monitor election sites http://www.moveon.org/front/, pray without ceasing - especially if all of those other things are impossible for you. Now is not the time to despair. If Bush is elected in November, ok, then we despair.