Today’s edition of quick hits.
* I hope all of our friends in Southern California are safe and sound: “A magnitude-5.4 earthquake has struck just east of Los Angeles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The quake’s epicenter was about 2 miles southwest of Chino Hills and about 5 miles southeast of Diamond Bar, the USGS said. Chino Hills is about 30 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. The center was about 7.6 miles deep. In general, earthquakes centered closer to the Earth’s surface produce stronger shaking and can cause more damage than those further underground.”
* Less than encouraging economic news: “Home prices tumbled by the steepest rate ever in May, according to a closely watched housing index released Tuesday, as the housing slump deepened nationwide. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city index dropped by 15.8 percent in May compared with a year ago, a record decline since its inception in 2000. The 10-city index plunged 16.9 percent, its biggest decline in its 21-year history. No city in the Case-Shiller 20-city index saw price gains in May, the second straight month that’s happened. The monthly indices have not recorded an overall home price increase in any month since August 2006.”
* Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), now under indictment, had to start dropping his committee assignments this afternoon: “Consistent with GOP bylaws that require Members who are under felony indictment to relinquish their ranking posts on committees, Stevens, the longest-serving Republican Senator, has officially stepped down as ranking member of both the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.”
* Speaking of Stevens, I found this take from a local journalist fascinating: “In Alaska, the presence of so-called Stevens money is as prevalent as the winter snow. Everywhere you look, Stevens has left his mark. … Stevens’ ability to deliver–and his invulnerability to electoral challenge because he could deliver–transformed him from an elected official into something of a frontier fertility god–worshiped, propitiated, feared. Stevens answered to no one.”
* Imagine that: “[W]hen you increase the number of teenagers eligible to receive family planning services through Medicaid you get fewer teen pregnancies.”
* My friend Jed calls the new AFL-CIO mailing the “most effective anti-smear message of the campaign,” and makes a compelling case as to why that is.
* TPMM: “Among our coverage yesterday of the OIG report, was the specific case of an ‘experienced terrorism prosecutor’ who was denied a DOJ promotion because Monica Goodling discovered that his wife was a longtime Democrat. That man has now been identified by The Buffalo News as William J. Hochul Jr., a career federal prosecutor from Western New York, whose wife, Kathleen Hochul, was a longtime Democrat.”
* The lead political story on Time magazine’s The Page this afternoon told readers, with a red siren, “****McCain Veep Pick Might Not Be on Media Lists.****” I have no idea why this is important. McCain’s running mate may be one of the names we’ve heard bandied about, or maybe not. So?
* Remember that enormous budget deficit we talked about yesterday? It’d be closer to $600 billion were it not for “creative accounting” by the White House.
* Glenn Greenwald explains today why “pushing conservative Democrats out of Congress could help the party stand up to the GOP.”
* Ed Kilgore offers a competing thesis, urging Dems to wait until Bush is gone.
* Chart of the Day: Annual rates of employment growth, by president.
* McClatchy: “President Bush on Monday approved the execution of an Army soldier who terrorized Fayetteville, N.C., for months in the late 1980s and was eventually convicted of raping and killing four women, and raping and attempting to kill another…. Bush’s action was the first time in more than half a century that a president has approved the execution of a member of the Armed Services.”
* The madman who killed two people this week in a Unitarian church in Tennessee was consumed with hatred for “liberals and gays.” Police found books by Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly in his home.
* The McCain campaign had previously referred to the politicization scandal at the Justice Department as “mostly a combination of nonsense and politics and provides us no concern at all.” Great judgment there, guys.
* And on a related note: “Despite yesterday’s explosive report confirming that top Justice Department officials, including Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson, had violated federal law, the White House press corps has not asked White House press secretary Dana Perino a single question about it. Both yesterday’s and today’s press briefings included no discussion of the report, nor a question on whether Attorney General Mukasey would follow through on a criminal perjury referral from Congress.”
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.