Today’s edition of quick hits.
* When a very large “shredding services” truck shows up at the Vice President’s house, I get a little nervous.
* Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.) — you know, the guy who allegedly accosted a cocktail waitress in a Las Vegas parking lot — is now officially under a criminal investigation. I know Nevada is generally a “red” state, but voters couldn’t still elect this guy, could they?
* Just in time for Halloween, a new Gallup poll reveals that a little more than 1 in 10 Americans object to Halloween “on religious grounds.” That number, 11%, climbs to 27% among those who attend religious services weekly. Additionally, more than 1 in 4 evangelicals object to Halloween.
* South Dakota’s ballot measure to ban abortions doesn’t appear to be doing very well. Good.
* I’ve seen goyim give Jewish voters the hard-sell before, particularly in Florida, but I’ve never seen anyone go quite as far as Katherine Harris.
* My friend Cliff Schecter has a terrific piece on AlterNet today about Joe Lieberman’s “evolving” opinions on almost everything, including the war in Iraq. After reading it, one wonders how anyone could take Lieberman seriously anymore.
* Speaking of must-read pieces, Will Evans did a fantastic job for Salon about federal judges who gave financial contributions to Bush and other Republicans who helped place them on the bench. Amazing.
* Republican Reps. Joy Padgett, Rick O’Donnell, and Curt Weldon are supposed to be candidates the GOP is committed to protecting this year. Today, however, the Republicans started backing away from all three of them.
* I’m kind of amazed reporters don’t care about the timing of the Saddam Hussein verdict. I’m even more amazed CNN would mock those of us who think it’s a legitimate question.
* Wait, the Dem establishment thinks the netroots aren’t ambitious enough to find for every seat? Don’t they realize they have that backwards?
* John Dickerson is right; the GOP’s new push polls seem to misunderstand the whole point of push-polling. The idea is to fool people into thinking it’s a legitimate survey. If the script includes all kinds of absurd claims that the voter doesn’t believe, the whole project is useless.
* How’s that GOP outreach to African Americans coming along? Not very well.
* When statewide Republican candidates start apologizing for their party affiliation in TV ads, you know the party is having a rough cycle. Wow.
* You TimesSelect subscribers will definitely enjoy Tom Schaller’s piece today on the myths of the 2004 election. It’s amazing so many professional pundits get so many facts wrong about an election that just happened two years ago.
* It’s scary to think that Katrina is the “forgotten disaster,” but I’m afraid it’s clearly the case.
* And in case we needed any more reasons to question the efficacy of the no-fly list, Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D), a five-term lawmaker from California, was denied access to a United Airlines flight last week, and a United employee told her she was on the terrorist watch list. “I handed over my congressional ID and he started laughing and said, ‘I’m going to need an ID that has your birthday on it,'” Sanchez said in a phone interview with the Associated Press.
If none of these particular items are of interest, consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.