Swift Boat Veterans for (your Republican cause here): Look for more Swift Boat-style mudslinging orchestrated by the Republicans and aimed at... the AARP? Republican lobbying group USA Next will be purchasing upwards of $10 million in TV commercials assailing the AARP, the largest group opposing Bush's efforts to privatize--er, create private investment accounts--Social Security. As the New York Times reports, USA Next is hiring the brains behind the recently disbanded anti-Kerry Swift Boat vets group to be the "dynamite to remove" the AARP from obstructing Bush's plans to rework the federal retirement insurance program:

The group has hired Chris LaCivita, an enthusiastic former marine who advised Swift Vets and P.O.W.'s for Truth, formerly known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, on its media campaign and helped write its potent commercials. He earned more than $30,000 for his work, campaign finance filings show.

Officials said the group is also seeking to hire Rick Reed, a partner at Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm, a firm that was hired by Swift Vets and was paid more than $276,000 to do media production, records show.

For public relations, USA Next has turned to Creative Response Concepts, a Virginia firm that represented both Swift Vets - the company was paid more than $165,000 - and Regnery Publishing, the publisher of "Unfit for Command," a book about Senator John Kerry's military service whose co-author was John E. O'Neill, one of the primary leaders of Swift Vets.

More at Talking Points Memo.

"Poor people stuff": Last week's quote-of-the-week form Sojourners:

"From tax cuts to Medicare, the White House gets what the White House really wants. It never really wanted the 'poor people stuff.'"

--David Kuo, former deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives