In Minnesota, Franken And Ciresi Suspend Campaigns — But RNC Continues On

Al Franken and Mike Ciresi, who are running against each other for the Democratic nomination for Senate, have both suspended their campaign activities in light of yesterday's tragic bridge collapse. This includes the cancellation of a scheduled appearance by Franken on the David Letterman show. On the other hand, the New York Times reports that the Republican National Committee is continuing with their summer meeting in Minneapolis, which had already begun yesterday and continues through Saturday, with appearances by Ann Romney, Rudy Giuliani's campaign manager Michael DuHaime, First Lady Laura Bush, Governor Tim Pawlenty and others.

TNR Confirms The Writings Of "Scott Thomas"

The New Republic has put out an official statement on Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the Soldier in Iraq who has written of various tales of horror going on in the country. Beauchamp's stories prompted days and days of attacks on TNR from a whole battery of winger blogs, who made all sorts of wild claims about his alleged fraudulence, mendacity and worse.

But as it turns out, TNR's thorough fact-checking of his pieces has found only a single error: Beauchamp misremembered a conversation he had at a base in Kuwait, writing that it had occurred inside of Iraq. Other than that, everything he wrote about — from troops finding mass graves and playing sick games with the bones, to cruelty to injured Iraqis and even dogs — all checked out. We're sure the mea culpas will be coming on the winger blogs any day now.

Clintons, Giuliani, Howard Dean, All Set To Descend On Hamptons This Weekend

In what has become an annual ritual of sorts, a whole bunch of high-profile candidates are all heading out to the Hamptons this weekend to raise money from wealthy east-enders. The coming swarm of pols — including the Clintons, Rudy, and Howard Dean — has the locals simultaneously looking forward to their arrival, and dreading it, too. The absolute best line about this goes to Democratic strategist and top fundraiser Robert Zimmerman, who drolly noted: "Forget the traffic. The political egos alone will clog the area."

Kos: Hillary Respects Us

Courtesy of Ben Smith at the YearlyKos convention, Markos "Kos" Moulitsas spoke well of the Democratic presidential candidates — and noted how the liberal blogosphere has earned a newfound respect from the party establishment. "Hillary's response these last couple weeks defending Daily Kos and Yearly Kos and the Netroots from Fox News partisans is a sign of growing respect," Kos said. "A year ago there wasn't that respect within her inner circle."

Romney: Cut Off Funds To Cities That Harbor Illegal Immigrants

Mitt Romney told an Iowa crowd that so-called "sanctuary cities" — where the local authorities don't turn illegal immigrants over to the federal government — should pay a penalty via their federal subsidies. The Des Moines Register is interpreting the pronouncement as thinly-veiled shot at Rudy Giuliani, whose New York City administration did not actively police immigration and only turned over violent offenders to the federal government. "We send hundreds of millions of dollars to these cities, even billions of dollars, from the federal government," Romney said. "We ought to stop doing that."

Hillary And Obama Both Get High-Profile Gay Endorsements In One Day

Hillary Clinton's campaign announced today the endorsement of Wisconsin Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, who in 1998 became the first and so far only openly gay person to be elected to Congress as a non-incumbent. Meanwhile, New Hampshire's openly gay Episcopalian bishop, Gene Robinson, has announced his support for Barack Obama.

Don Young Has Cordial Meeting With Lobbyist Who Is Also His Dem Opponent

Congressional Quarterly reports that scandal-plagued Rep. Don Young (R-AK) today met with Jake Metcalfe, an Alaska lobbyist for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Metcalfe wanted to thank Young for crossing party lines to support legislation making it easier to form a union. And the meeting went well — even though Metcalfe has filed to be Young's opponent. "It was a bit of a bold move, but being visited by an Alaskan was appreciated, as always," said a spokeswoman for Young.

Club For Growth Releases TV Attack Ad Against Huckabee

The Club For Growth is targeting Mike Huckabee in the run-up to the Ames straw poll next weekend, clearly hoping to blunt any appeal he might have with state's religious right GOP base. This TV ad, with a buy costing a total of $85,000, attacks Huckabee for raising various taxes when he was governor of Arkansas, tax hikes that Huckabee has said were necessary to improve the state's ragged infrastructure.