The CIA confirmation hearings for General Michael are underway and the Bush administration is pulling out all the stops for their man. Yesterday, the White House flip-flopped and provided briefings on its illegal NSA domestic surveillance programs to the full Senate and House intelligence committees. And today, General Hayden showed he did his homework and […]

With the confirmation hearings for his CIA director nomination set to begin on Thursday, General Michael Hayden will no doubt be grilled on the broadening scope and dubious legality of the domestic surveillance programs during his tenure at the NSA. As we learned last week, Hayden's NSA not only conducted warrantless electronic eavesdropping on Americans, […]

The Avenging Angel, smiter of conservative evil doers, has had a very busy week. From the White House to the Kentucky State House, from Langley to K Street, the latest batch of Banana Republicans was exposed, indicted or jailed. Let's start with Robert Ray, Kenneth Starr's successor as Bill Clinton Grand Inquisitor, who got his […]

A new poll from the Washington Post suggests that the President Bush may be winning a double victory with his illegal NSA domestic surveillance programs. Americans seem willing to buy the White House's "tough on terrorism" hype at the expense of the law and their own civil liberties. And as an added ironic bonus, the […]

On this Saturday before Easter, one resurrection that looks increasingly unlikely is that of Katherine Harris. In a new poll from Ramsussen, the Florida Congresswoman and doyenne of electoral deceit finds herself trailing incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson by a staggering 30% in their Senate race. Harris' ill-fated Senate run was stillborn almost from conception. As […]

In 1994, the GOP rode the Contract with America and its call for term limits to an overwhelming victory in the midterm elections. Newt Gingrich, the architect of the '94 Republican Revolution, saw the term limits pledge as an essential ingredient to retaking the House. But in 1991, Gingrich called terms limits "a terrible idea." […]

That President Bush authorized Scooter Libby to selectively leak portions of the highly classified October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate as part of a coordinated assault on Joseph Wilson and other debunkers of pre-war Iraq WMD claims should come as a surprise to no one. What is surprising is that at least one Republican has the […]

Jerome Armstrong (founder of MyDD) and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (of DailyKos fame) are bringing their "Crashing the Gate" book tour to my home town of Portland. Their PDX itinerary on April 9th and 10th concludes with an event Monday evening to help Rob Brading unseat Oregon House Speaker Karen Minnis. Earlier this week, I had […]

The Galveston County Daily News is reporting that Tom Delay will resign his seat this spring or summer. Coming just days after the guilty plea of his former aide Tony Rudy in the Abramoff affair, Delay has apparently decided not only to drop out of his reelection race, but to resign altogether. Delay cited troubling […]

Tom Delay has never been shy about comparing himself to Jesus Christ. In 2001, Delay defended his none-too-subtle campaign to bring his fundamentalism to the United States Congress, "People hate the messenger. That's why they killed Christ." At last weekend's "War on Christians" conference, Delay's American Taliban allies elevated his Christ complex to the level […]