Three years after the New York Times first revealed the Bush administration's program of illegal domestic surveillance by the NSA, whistleblower Thomas Tamm has acknowledged his role in making public the President's lawbreaking. In its expose Sunday, Newsweek details how the former Justice Department official came to discover the White House's violations of the FISA […]

In the last throes of his failed presidency, George W. Bush has been nothing if not consistent with his flurry of midnight regulations. Whether the topic is mining on public lands, mountain-top removal, endangered species, clean water or power plant emissions, Bush will try to saddle Barack Obama with last-minute rule changes invariably favoring business […]

As the American auto industry teeters on the edge of total collapse thanks to the union-busting efforts of Senate Republicans, others on the right have adopted a different strategy for punishing the UAW. Two days after Fred Barnes nominated "nation of whiners" scold Phil Gramm for "car czar," former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is gaining […]

Within days of Barack Obama's victory, new polling showed that Mike Huckabee is the early leader among the Republican faithful for the GOP's nomination in 2012. No doubt, Huckabee's strong showing is due in part to his high-profile defense of California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state. At the very time that […]

Over the past eight years, perhaps no two words came to encapsulate the ethical failings and rampant lawlessness of President Bush than "ongoing investigation." From the Valerie Plame affair and the U.S. attorneys purge to countless other scandals, Bush administration officials deployed the "ongoing investigation" dodge as a shield against charges of criminality reaching the […]

News this morning that U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has indicted Democratic Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich predictably brought cheers from the conservative chattering classes. Blagojevich's arrest over the "pay for play" Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama and myriad other jaw-dropping corruption schemes Fitzgerald simply deemed "staggering" led the right-wing Hot Air blog among others to […]

While George W. Bush's ham-handed legacy project got off to a bumpy start last week, the lamest of lame duck presidents got some good news from Gallup. In an analysis published Wednesday, Gallup revealed that lame duck presidents usually see their approval ratings rise in the weeks between their successor's election and inauguration. Noting that […]

Over the past several days, a wave of stories has highlighted the deepening crisis in Afghanistan. One day after the New York Times detailed American plans to deploy thousands of new troops just to secure the capital Kabul came word that a U.S. resupply convoy in Pakistan was destroyed by Taliban insurgents. But largely overlooked […]

In the waning days of his failed presidency, George W. Bush has launched a quixotic reclamation project to salvage his irreparably tarnished reputation. Sadly, that effort stumbled out of the gate earlier this week when the President and Karl Rove couldn't get their stories straight as to whether Bush would have launched his war on […]

In one of the most condescending and baseless Supreme Court opinions in recent memory, Justice Anthony Kennedy in April 2007 upheld a federal late term abortion ban on the grounds that "some women come to regret their choice." Now 18 months later, an exhaustive study of 20 years of research concluded that there is no […]