• Feingold wants to know why Gonzales misled the the Senate on domestic spying without a warrant.

  In a letter to the attorney general yesterday, Feingold demanded to know why Gonzales dismissed the senator's question about warrantless eavesdropping as a "hypothetical situation" during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in January 2005. At the hearing, Feingold asked Gonzales where the president's authority ends and whether Gonzales believed the president could, for example, act in contravention of existing criminal laws and spy on U.S. citizens without a warrant.

• Bush will be talking about alternative energy, not ANWR.

  "What's interesting about this discussion is that he isn't talking about oil exploration at home," said one senior official with knowledge of the drafts of the speech. "Nobody wants to get bogged down in those arguments again," he said, a reference to the debate in Washington over drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and projects that involve federal lands in the West.

• The Supreme Court continues to grow more, not less, biased.

  don't you think that if the Supreme Court were 7 women and 1 man, and another woman was nominated and confirmed, it would spark some serious mainstream discussion about a dangerous misrepresentation of the American citizenry's experiences with, and expectations of, the law? But if we mention the same fact when there are 8 men and one woman, (male) eyes roll: such a thought is too "politically correct" or too focused on "identity politics."

• White House photogs slam Bush's staged photos

  A review of Associated Press archives found that during the entire eight years of the Clinton administration, only 100 handout photos of events were released to the press. During the first five years of Bush's presidency, more than 500 have been distributed. The key is that each of these events was closed to news photographers.

• Current numbers show Nick Lampson would beat Tom Delay in November

  A recent poll by the Houston Chronicle gives him a woeful 28% approval rating in his own district. If the election were held today, just 22% of registered voters would cast their ballot for the Hammer against 30% for Mr Lampson, according to the poll.

  
  

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