Was out at the Solis event today, so a bit of a backlog. Will have more tomorrow, but you knew that.

• As the first inquiry into the intelligence surrounding the Iraq War gets started in Britain, we’ve already learned that Bush Administration officials talked openly about regime change in Iraq within one month of taking office. We can’t have such investigations here, because, you know, looking forward not backward.

• The Commerce Department scaled back their estimate of third-quarter growth in the US to 2.8%. This means that cash for clunkers accounted for an even greater share of overall growth in the quarter. All the more reason to add job creation programs like it.

• A blockbuster report from Brave New Films, with former detainees in Afghanistan speaking out about the torture they experienced while in custody. The stories from Bagram are well worth watching.

• Turns out the US Conference of Catholic Bishops have no Senate sponsor for an amendment to the Senate health bill similar to the Stupak amendment. Orrin Hatch’s name had previously come up as a possibility.

• Amazingly enough, California Democrats may be frittering away a chance at a 2/3 majority in the State Senate. They really don’t deserve to have an unfettered chance to govern at this point.

• Ryan Grim reports on yet another difficult needle-threading job that the House and Senate will have to reconcile in their health care bills – whether to revoke the insurance industry’s anti-trust exemption.

• If J.D. Hayworth isn’t considering a primary run against John McCain, as Jon Kyl said today, he certainly is doing a good job fooling everyone be pretending to be a legitimate candidate.

• Yes, Mark Halperin should be fired, both for his terrible link-trolling masquerading as reporting and for this classless Photoshop of Mary Landrieu.

• This purity test for Republican candidates bespeaks of an unusual small-tent strategy of returning to majority status for the GOP. We saw how that worked with Dede Scozzafava in NY-23.

• Speaking of which, Doug Hoffman has officially conceded again in NY-23. I expect another concession speech sometime in mid-January.

• GM is still having trouble getting anyone to buy the remnants of their business.

• Nuclear power is making a comeback, even in environmental circles, as a fallback compromise option to get a climate bill going as well as a carbon-free energy resource. My issue with nuclear, besides the radioactive waste, is the enormous expense that goes along with building a power plant, which would require a far bigger commitment of funds from the federal government than similar renewable strategies.

• The recession is taking a terrible toll on people’s Thanksgiving dinner plans.

• Finally, this video of interviews with Sarah Palin fans in the parking lot of one of her book-signings is far more fascinating that Palin herself, though not in a good way.