Hooray for progress! The Senate Judiciary Committee just approved Eric Holder for the Attorney General spot, by 17-2, which means the full Senate will now happily okay his nomination and America will have its first-ever African-American head of the Justice Department. There is a certain justice to this development, MMMHMMM? Anyway let’s hope Holder is a little bit better than the first Mexican attorney general, jesus fucking christ. [Reuters]

The new Attorney General for President Hopesalot is Eric Holder, who was the deputy AG back when Bill Clinton was doing whatever slimy stuff, etc., this is what you get, but wait! Doesn’t this character look exactly like a convicted space monster from the early 1980s? Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff suggests Holder is actually a smuggler who ran spice out of Bill Clinton’s Mena Airport in Arkansas.

• THEY’RE MORE LIKE ‘GUIDELINES’: Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced today that former Justice Department officials like Monica Goodling will not face prosecution for hiring D.O.J. staffers based explicitly on their political views — i.e. how many awesome things they could say about Alberto Gonzalez in 20-second lightning round interviews. Mukasey’s statement came replete with a classic Bush Administration sound bite: “not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime.” Ha ha, the top legal official in the country just said that “violation of the law” and “crime” are different. [AP]

KARL ROVE IN CONTEMPT: “A U.S. congressional panel voted on Wednesday to find former presidential adviser Karl Rove in contempt for defying a subpoena to testify in its probe into suspected political meddling at the Justice Department.” [REUTERS]

YOU DON’T SAY: “The inspector general’s investigation found that Ms. Goodling and a handful of other senior aides to Mr. Gonzales developed a system of using in-person interviews and Internet searches to screen out candidates who might be too liberal and to identify candidates seen as pro-Republican and supportive of President Bush.” [New York Times]

The Department of Justice announced today that it is charging evil Chinese spies — one of whom is American, like Jesus — with giving secrets to the evil Red China mainland. Being a Bush administration Department, however, they manage to find the silver lining in this press conference: it’s because our economy is so Free! See, the liberals would red-tape the secret-swapping market to death, and that’s why you should vote for Alan Keyes. [AP/Google]

* The reason we torture innocent people is because Canada made a mistake and should say that it’s sorry. [The Hill]
* There’s this whole book based on something Jerry Ford said that he shouldn’t of, and then shook the shit out of a reporter until it agreed it wouldn’t be published until the Great Man’s death. [Poltiical Wire]
* It seems that the purpose of spying is like, you know, to spy. [TPMmuckraker]
* More and more of the Justice Dept. is under investigation, which is good because it’s important for law enforcement officials to stay on their toes. [Think Progress]
* OMG Jeff Gannon is like soo important. [Jeff Gannon]
* Andrew Sullivan’s opinions are always very well informed, and that’s why he’s right about so many things. [Andrew Sullivan]
* Wait, so you’re saying that Hillary just needs to get laid? [Fresh Intelligence]

Remember the assistant U.S. attorney from Florida caught trying to fuck a five-year-old girl? You know, the one who said he’d “done it plenty”? He just hanged himself in his jail cell. [Detroit Free Press]

We don’t really have any comment on the Federal Prosecutor guy charged with actually trying to fuck a five-year-old girl. Said the assistant U.S. attorney from Florida: “I’ve done it plenty.” [Above The Law]

Guess who hates Bush’s compromise candidate for the vacant Attorney General job? Right-wing conservatives, that’s who! Let’s learn all the reasons Judge Michael Mukasey hates America: MORE »

Meet our new Attorney General, Michael Mukasey — he is qualified because he presided over “The Case of The Blind Sheik,” which sounds totally awesome. It’s like an Arthur Conan Doyle story! Anyway he’s a 9/11 hero and hey, the Democrats will confirm him, so Bush is on tv right now looking totally pissy because he didn’t get to nominate Ted Olson like he wanted to. So Bush has now given up talking about Mukasey and is just talking about how much he loves Alberto Gonzales, “dear friend and trusted adviser.” He’s gonna miss Al. Quick little intro there! To recap: MORE »