When the New York Times in December 2005 revealed President Bush's program of illegal domestic surveillance by the NSA, reaction from the White House and its Republican allies was swift - and furious. "These politically motivated leaks," Pete Hoekstra declared, "must stop." But now desperate to defend at any cost Bush's regime of detainee torture, […]

During his appearance Monday at the National Press Club, former Vice President Dick Cheney again stated his support for same-sex marriage. Understandably supporting the rights of his own daughter Mary, Cheney proclaimed, "Freedom means freedom for everyone," adding, "I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish." Which […]

As I've noted before, the distance between the incendiary rhetoric of the Republican Party and anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-government and above all anti-abortion extremism is a growing ever shorter. With Sunday's murder of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller, that disturbing dynamic deserves deeper examination. After all, while even arch-conservative Attorney General John Ashcroft once deemed such […]

Back in 1995, Newt Gingrich famously concluded menstruation rendered women unfit for combat roles in the military. Now just two days after Gingrich branded Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor "racist," convicted Watergate felon and right-wing radio host G. Gordon Liddy agreed that both of Newt's arguments disqualify Sotomayor. Period. After echoing Tom Tancredo's slander that […]

You know things are bad for the conservative movement when John Cornyn comes to the defense of Sonia Sotomayor. On Thursday, the Texas Senator called rejected as "terrible" charges from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich that Sotomayor is a "racist." Coming from a man who casually condoned threats against American judges, Cornyn's […]

48 hours after announcing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor "appears to be racist," Republican Tom Tancredo today blasted her association with the National Council of La Raza, deeming the organization "a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses." As it turns out, of course, the GOP itself has a long tradition of reaching out […]

Yesterday, I detailed the legion of leading Republicans and their acolytes in the right-wing echo who less than two years ago insisted that the CIA was an "anti-Bush cabal" seeking to "undermine" the President. Leading the calls for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to step down over her claim the CIA "misled" Congress is her disgraced predecessor, […]

That House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has badly bungled the imbroglio over what she knew and when about the Bush administration's regime of detainee torture is hard to dispute. Seemingly snatching PR defeat from the jaws of victory, Pelosi should have instead simply called the Republicans' bluff and insisted on investigations of torture architects, perpetrators and […]

On Wednesday, former beauty pageant contestant Sarah Palin rushed to the defense of another, proclaiming of Carrie Prejean, "I can relate as a liberal target myself." But by insisting "those who disagree with her deny her protection under the nation's First Amendment Rights," Governor Palin once again revealed her ignorance of the United States Constitution. […]

If nothing else, Alabama Senator and ranking Judiciary Committee Republican Jeff Sessions can be counted on to faithfully regurgitate his party's talking points. In February 2006, Sessions joined John Cornyn (R-TX) and Pat Roberts (R-KS) in propagating the "give me death" defense of President Bush's regime of illegal domestic surveillance, proclaiming, "Over 3,000 Americans have […]