Mr. Barron currently is a member of the City Council, where his despicable rhetoric, we are happy to note, has had no visible impact on public policy and civic life. Yes, he embarrassed the city a decade ago when he escorted Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe, a serial violator of human rights, into the Council chambers and proclaimed him to be a “bold African man willing to stand up to the world for his people.” But that episode did no permanent damage to the city’s reputation—indeed, it gave New Yorkers a wonderful opportunity to show their contempt for Mr. Mugabe. Mr. Barron, on the other hand, was exposed as a vicious hatemonger.

Mr. Barron’s time in the Council is drawing to a close, thanks to term limits. But he may not be done. Mr. Barron is running for Congress in the Brooklyn district currently represented by Edolphus Towns, who is retiring. With less than a week before the Democratic primary, Mr. Barron is thought to be in a close battle with Hakeem S. Jeffries, who is seeking promotion from the state Assembly.

To their ever-lasting disgrace, Mr. Towns and the city’s largest public-employee union, District Council 37, have endorsed Mr. Barron. That’s why many observers fear that Mr. Barron might well capture the nomination, which is tantamount to victory in heavily Democratic Brooklyn, next Tuesday.

One person could stand in the way of Mr. Barron’s ambitions. President Obama can and should intervene on behalf of Mr. Jeffries. The president doesn’t have to say a word about Mr. Barron, a fellow Democrat, although it would be nice if he called out the councilman for his horrendous rhetoric. A presidential endorsement of Mr. Jeffries certainly would be a blow for the haters, racial arsonists, and refugees from the 1960s who support Mr. Barron’s candidacy.

The district’s registered Democrats will, of course, have the final say. But the party’s leaders at the local and the federal level ought to make it clear that Mr. Barron will be a pariah if he is dispatched to Washington—if a portion of the district’s voters are looking to send some kind of message to the establishment, well, they’ve rallied behind a flawed messenger.

If Mr. Barron wins, he will have a national forum for his hate-filled rants. To be sure, he will be incapable of turning his views into legislation, but still—he will have greater access to the media and a bigger audience for his insulting rhetoric. And here’s the worst part: He’ll be identified as a Democrat from New York.

Is that what Democrats want? Is that what New York deserves?

Those are questions Mr. Obama should ponder in the next few days.

But Mr. Grimm’s clean-cut persona has taken a hit in recent weeks amid reports of fund-raising irregularities that should attract the attention of his onetime colleagues in law enforcement. The allegations, it should be noted, concern not just his campaign’s actions, but Mr. Grimm’s personal contacts, fund-raising methods and slippery business practices.

Mr. Grimm’s top fund-raiser two years ago, Ofer Biton, is under federal investigation. Donors told The New York Times that Mr. Grimm and Mr. Biton told them that they would accept unlawful donations during the 2010 campaign. Mr. Grimm’s business partner and onetime FBI colleague, Carlos Luquis, served 18 months in prison on charges that he and five accomplices stole $2 million from electricity customers in Texas. And two workers in an East Side restaurant in which Mr. Grimm had an interest, Healthalicious, are suing the congressman and others, charging that they did not pay minimum wages and overtime.

Not a pretty picture. In response to these and other troubling issues, Mr. Grimm has chosen to remain silent, save to insist that these allegations are politically motivated. He told his hometown newspaper that those who have raised these questions “are picking on the wrong Marine.”

Nice try, congressman, but it’s time to go beyond flag-waving. The Times stories suggest a very troubling pattern involving Mr. Grimm’s political fund-raising and private business dealings. The congressman had been emerging as a second-tier surrogate for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, but last week the campaign announced that Mr. Grimm would no longer make appearances on the candidate’s behalf.

Democrats in Mr. Grimm’s district, which includes all of Staten Island and portions of Brooklyn, have a chance to recapture a seat they won in 2008 after three decades of a Republican monopoly, only to see it slip away in 2010. Mr. Grimm has a lot of explaining to do, but unless he faces a vigorous challenge, he will be content to attack his critics and hide behind the flag. That would be a disservice to the district and to the city as a whole.

The recent Internet-led protest movement against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act clearly has had a profound effect on support for these chilling pieces of legislation. What’s astonishing is that the protests appear to have caught Washington by surprise. According to a report in PC World, neither supporters nor opponents of the bills “anticipated the response by Internet users.” Likewise, the rallying effect of protests led by Wikipedia, Google and other companies stunned the nation’s lawmakers.

Sadly, it is clear that Washington remains firmly entrenched in the 20^th century, with very little sense of how these two pieces of legislation could have a chilling effect on free speech, stifle creativity and innovation and expand government intervention in the free marketplace.

The legislation’s supporters further publicized their absolute cluelessness by assuming that they could railroad SOPA (the House bill) and PIPA (the Senate version) through Capitol Hill using the lobbying equivalent of Rust Belt technology. They rented big-shot lobbyists and depended on the clout of well-connected spokesmen like former Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, who has moved from the Hill to be chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America.

That’s how most legislation gets passed. But SOPA and PIPA aren’t run-of-the-mill pieces of legislation. With their broad implications for free speech, they have incited a virtual rebellion among citizens who clearly know more about the Internet than the men and women who grace the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Thirteen million Internet users took part in the recent on-line protest against SOPA and PIPA. Three million emails poured into the inboxes of members of Congress in a single day.

If you didn’t count on this kind of response—and Congress clearly didn’t—it follows that you simply don’t understand the brave new world of the web. And if that’s the case, you should not be regulating it.

But even if Washington were better-informed, the legislation is what it is—an assault on free speech and unfettered access to information. These bills deserve a quick burial.

Gabrielle Giffords (Getty Images)

Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who was gravely wounded in an assassination attempt that took 6 lives and injured 12 others, has decided to step down from the House. While Giffords's recovery from her injuries was remarkable, there have been questions all along as to whether she would be able to return to her position. In an affecting video posted Sunday on Youtube, Giffords gave a brief statement thanking her constituents and explaining her decision:


Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Steps Down from Congress - YouTube.

A transcript of Giffords's statement was posted along with the video:

Arizona is my home, always will be. A lot has happened over the past year. We cannot change that. But I know on the issues we fought for we can change things for the better. Jobs, border security, veterans. We can do so much more by working together. I don't remember much from that horrible day, but I will never forget the trust you placed in me to be your voice. Thank you for your prayers and for giving me time to recover. I have more work to do on my recovery so to do what is best for Arizona I will step down this week. I'm getting better. Every day, my spirit is high. I will return and we will work together for Arizona and this great country. Thank you very much.

(Photo: The Onion)

In a "breaking news" story in The Onion this morning, the satirical newspaper reported Congress took a group of touring school kids hostage in the Capitol rotunda, demanding $12 trillion by 6 p.m. or they'll shoot a kid every hour. For once, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) are cooperating to reduce the deficit. 

The Onion is also live-tweeting the "hostage situation", the lastest update being:

"Police helicopter just ordered to pull back after Rep. Trent Franks tried to take it down with a shotgun #CongressHostage"

In the next 24 hours, we predict someone on cable news will demand that The Onion apologize to the nation of Norway.

Boehner and Obama.

It would almost seem that the stars had finally aligned. After weeks of stalled talks and contentious meetings between House Republicans and Democrats that escalated into a public spat between Speaker John Boehner and President Obama, a bill finally made it through the House and into the Senate, where it was speedily approved Tuesday morning thanks to backing from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Leader Harry Reid, just in time for the Cinderella-esque stroke-of-midnight deadline. The anthropomorphic bill from Schoolhouse Rock! had nothing on this drama.

So, the good news is that the country isn’t going to default on its debt obligations, which puts us at least one step ahead of Teresa Giudice from the Real Housewives of New Jersey. The bad news is that just as everyone was making nice and learning to compromise, Vice President Joe Biden made an offhand comment that Congress’s Tea Party Republicans “acted like terrorists” during negotiations, an ill-timed gaffe that not even the heartwarming sight of Gabrielle Giffords casting her first vote on the House floor after nearly getting assassinated in January could correct. Oh, Joe. To paraphrase The Princess Bride, you fell victim to one of the classic blunders—of which the most famous one is “Never get involved in a land war in Asia,” and an only slightly less well-known one is: Never go in against the Tea Party when debt is on the line.

But at least the Dems aren’t buying Twitter followers, which is more than we can say for beleaguered 2012 hopeful Newt Gingrich. After bragging to the Marietta Daily Journal that, despite abysmal poll numbers, he has “six times as many Twitter followers as all the other candidates combined,” a former staffer submitted an anonymous tip to Gawker claiming that 80% of Mr. Gingrich’s 1.3 million followers are either inactive or dummy accounts (this figure was later amended by networking firm PeekYou to a whopping 92%). File this under #YouKnowYouWon’tWinTheNominationWhen …

Also stepping in it this week: Bronx principal Frank Borzellieri, a white supremacist who, despite having published racist essays, somehow worked at a largely black and Latino Catholic school for two years before anyone noticed; Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, who did not do a very good job of apologizing to the vacation rental company’s disgruntled clients whose apartments were trashed (it’s O.K., now you can rent swaths of Lower East Side grass for $50/hour, courtesy of N.Y.C.’s own Timeshare Backyard!); British comedian Johnnie Marbles, who got sentenced to six weeks in jail for memorably pie-ing Rupert Murdoch during July’s News Corp. hearing in Parliament; and the M.T.A., which is responsible for screwing up repairs and slowing service, according to a joint report released last weekend by state and city comptrollers Thomas DiNapoli and John Liu. (And here we thought we were just getting a complimentary sauna with our subway fare.)

So perhaps we were too hasty about the whole “stellar alignment” thing. Turns out mercury is in retrograde, and not to get all Dionne Warwick on you, but something has seemed … off the past few days. First, in the midst of an oppressive heat wave, baseball-size hail rained down on Queens (adding insult to injury for the hapless Mets). Then, a peacock escaped from the Central Park zoo and began terrorizing (read: sitting calmly on) a Fifth Avenue window ledge. Not one but two adult men made the news for wearing inappropriate full-body animal costumes (but on the upside, only one, David Wu, was a member of Congress). Mark Zuckerberg added a creepy pregnancy feature to Facebook. And just as the debt ceiling legislation went through, assuaging Wall Street’s fears about market stability, the Dow dropped 265 points. Maybe it’s just our bad fortune.

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

Hall was defeated by Nan Hayworth in 2010. This Sunday's show marks his first live performance since leaving Congress.

"It's good therapy for me," Hall said in a brief phone interview. "Hopefully it will also be a good way to put food back on the table."

Hall said that this weekend's solo show will kick off a number of related musical acts, including some concerts with Orleans over the summer and others with Gulf Stream Night, his post-Orleans act.

When Hall was exploring a run for Congress in 2006, he was advised by his campaign team to play down his musical career, but later he ended up leaning on his friends from his years on the road, including Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne to help raise money.

He said that a return to music did not mean that he was giving up politics. Democrats in the area have been asking him to challenge Hayworth in 2012. Hall said that no decision has been made.

"I haven't made up my mind. Nobody even knows what the district is going to look like," he said. "I am going to think long and hard about it. I have spent ten years of my life as an elected official. Ten years of anybody's life is a long time." 

"Considering the primaries Randy Altschuler faced in the run up to his challenge with [Bishop], I think he earned our endorsement and ended up running a strong race," Suffolk County Conservative Party Chairman Ed Walsh said.  "Altschuler was clearly the most qualified and conservative candidate in the primary and the voters verified that by a large margin last September.  My hope is that Randy does decide to run against Tim Bishop again.  The Conservative Party would be proud to stand next to Randy and have him carry our banner."

The Conservative Party's backing doesn't come as all  that much of a surprise, since Altschuler received the party's endorsement in the 2010 race and is so far the only candidate who has publicly shown an interest in taking on Bishop. However, the party's early nod could help clear the field. In 2010, Altschuler won a divisive, three-way primary, only to emerge weakened in his race against Bishop. Republican chairman John Jay LaValle has already signalled that he would like to avoid a divisive primary this time around.

This morning we received a fundraising solicitation from Bishop with the subject line "Deja Vu All Over Again," which uses the prospect of an Altschuler redux to rally the troops. The email makes note of Altschuler's seemingly endless resources and attempts to tie him to some of the austerity measures  that the House G.O.P. is proposing.

Writes the Bishop campaign:

Today, we learned from the newspaper Roll Call that my 2010 opponent, Randy Altschuler, will be visiting Washington, DC this week in preparation to run against me in 2012.  While it is very difficult to go head-to-head with an outsourcing millionaire with bottomless pockets, I know that I can count on supporters like you.  CLICK HERE TO SHOW YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT 

Your support right now is particularly critical because we are approximately one week from the important March 31 FEC deadline.  This will be the first time for Randy and his friends in Washington to assess how aggressive a campaign we intend to wage in 2012.  

Meanwhile, if we needed further proof that these two teams are already in war-room mode, Altschuler campaign aide Chris Maloney sends along the following statement, knocking Bishop for coming out swinging so early:

"As if one failed stimulus wasn't enough, it's shocking that Tim Bishop's latest prescription for job creation in Suffolk County is urging taxpayers to donate to his endangered political campaign.  It's the height of hypocrisy for Tim to bill himself as being concerned about job loss, while in the same breath he attacks Randy Altschuler, a proven American job creator who has employed hundreds of New Yorkers. 

"Voters didn't send Tim Bishop to Washington to be a complaining campaigner for the next two years; they elected a congressman to save their jobs.  If the past three months and this fundraising ploy are any indication, it is increasingly clear that the only job Tim Bishop cares about saving is his own."

This should be fun. Full Bishop solicitation below:

 

From: Rep. Tim Bishop <mbishop@bishopforcongress.com>
Date: Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 10:37 AM
Subject: Deja Vu All Over Again

Tim Bishop for Congress  ______________________________________

Dear Friend,   As Yogi Berra would say, "It's deja vu all over again."  Today, we learned from the newspaper Roll Call that my 2010 opponent, Randy Altschuler, will be visiting Washington, DC this week in preparation to run against me in 2012.  While it is very difficult to go head-to-head with an outsourcing millionaire with bottomless pockets, I know that I can count on supporters like you.  CLICK HERE TO SHOW YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT    Your support right now is particularly critical because we are approximately one week from the important March 31 FEC deadline.  This will be the first time for Randy and his friends in Washington to assess how aggressive a campaign we intend to wage in 2012.  We need to put up a very strong number to make it perfectly clear to them, that once again, Suffolk County is not for sale. I believe the choice will be clearer than ever in 2012.  Throughout much of the campaign, Randy would talk vaguely about "reducing spending" but refused to say exactly how he would do so.  At a Meet the Candidates night in Hampton Bays, he responded to one question about specific cuts by saying, "That's a loaded question, as we call it," before launching into a diatribe about earmarks, which, by the way, we no longer have.  When I pressed him on the issue, he responded, "I think we all know that the Congressman has no real deep interest in hearing what spending cuts I propose.  What Congressman Bishop will do with that is put it into his campaign, as he's done on everything.   Now that we have seen the actions of the House Republican majority which Randy aspires to be a member of, it is clear why he refused to answer the question.  The House Republican budget hurts Suffolk County families in almost more ways than I can count. The budget eliminates approximately 1,000 jobs at Brookhaven National Laboratory and undermine America's scientific leadership; slashes Pell Grants by $5.6 billion which will reduce grants by at least 15 percent for over 9 million students; eliminates family planning and attacks the right to choose; eliminates funding to help homeless veterans; blocks EPA enforcement of clean air and clean water laws; and so much more. By the way, Randy's right.  I will absolutely talk in my next campaign about the fact that House Republicans want to put 1,000 Brookhaven National Lab employees out of work.  In fact, I'm writing you today to help give me the resources to do so.  CLICK HERE TO SEND YOUR DONATION TODAY As always, thank you for your continued friendship and support and I look forward to seeing you out on the road as I continue to talk in communities throughout our district about the need to make responsible choices.    Best,   Tim Bishop Member of Congress      VISIT WWW.BISHOPFORCONGRESS.COM TO CONTRIBUTE