Federal officials say the information implicating Hastert was developed from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government.

Part of the investigation involves a letter Hastert wrote three years ago, urging the Secretary of the Interior to block a casino on an Indian reservation that would have competed with other tribes.

Whoops. Is anyone going to be left in Washington when everything is over?

The Blotter

"In the interest of upholding the high ethical standard of the House Democratic Caucus, I am writing to request your immediate resignation from the Ways and Means Committee," wrote Pelosi.

Jefferson was defiant.

"With respect, I decline to do so," he wrote back to Pelosi. "I will not give up a committee assignment that is so vital to New Orleans at this crucial time for any uncertain, long-term political strategy."

Time for the Dems to step up and say goodbye to Mr. Jefferson. If they want to tar and feather the other side of the aisle with the corruption brush, they need to get rid of the guy with $90,000 in bribes from the FBI hidden in his freezer.

Further, "speech and debate" provision fully observed, the FBI raiding his office was done with the consent of the Judiciary. At that point, checks and balances are satisfied, and the "gentlemen from Louisiana" can pack up his bags, he's Duke Cunningham's new roomie.

House leaders demand FBI return papers - Yahoo! News

2004 was fixed. And the way it was done is that 3.6 million votes were cast and never counted in the United States. That's very important to know. This isn’t Greg Palast conspiracy nut stuff.

ummm.... wow.

Democracy Now! | Greg Palast on His New Book “Armed Madhouse : Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats, Bush Sinks, The Scheme to Steal '08…”

The total on June 30, 2005, was 56,428 more than at the same time in 2004, the government reported Sunday. That 2.6 percent increase from mid-2004 to mid-2005 translates into a weekly rise of 1,085 inmates.

Well if they're in jail, they're not being counted on the unemployment rolls...

1 in 136 U.S. Residents Behind Bars - Yahoo! News

"I don't know about you," he told his audience, referring to Bush's 2000 campaign comments on possible U.S. military involvement overseas, "but when George Bush said he did not believe in nation building, I did not know he was talking about this nation."

Poppy, please pick up your son. He's about to be expelled.

Obama Assails Bush

Hey, memo to the president and congressional leaders who signed up on this lousy program; We don‘t trust you anymore. We don‘t trust you with our phone bills. We don‘t trust you with our bank records. We don‘t trust you with our medical histories. From now on, if you want to look at Americans‘ private records, get a damn search warrant!

Wow. Even the wingnuts are signing up to rip this one. I would love to see Congress grow some balls and start taking these guys down.

The name of the game is "Violation of your oath of office." For every one of these people, it is to protect, preserve and defend the Constitution of the United States. It's time for the legislature and judiciary to clean out the executive.

'Scarborough Country' for May 11 - Scarborough Country - MSNBC.com

"We don't have enough ethanol in production today. It's coming on board, but if we were to temporarily reduce the tariff on ethanol coming into our country, I think that would ease the pressure that's out there, resulting in lower gasoline prices,"

I want to make sure I understand this. We don't have ethanol coming in to mix and we're... Not growing enough corn??? That's an incredibly stupid statement to start with, but let's continue. A couple of weeks ago, Bush relaxed the environmental rules for gasoline, among them, the amount of ethanol that needs to be mixed! We're taking out the ethanol because it's too expensive, but we're adding foreign ethanol because it's what? Cheap immigrant moonshine?

Will the GOP leadership please stop drinking the cheap immigrant moonshine, it's causing increasing brain shrinkage.

House leader calls for ethanol import tariff cut - Yahoo! News

In a sense, the votes had more to do with politics than policy. Mr. Frist knew going into the debate that the measures were likely to be blocked but wanted to put Democrats on record before the midterm elections in November. After the votes, he issued a news release headlined "Frist Denounces Democrat Obstruction of Medical Liability Reform."

Bad law is still bad law and screwing people over to protect the bank accounts of insurance companies is always going to be bad law.

Senate Rejects Award Limits in Malpractice - New York Times

Bush's fall is being fueled by erosion among support from conservatives and Republicans. In the poll, 52% of conservatives and 68% of Republicans approved of the job he is doing. Both are record lows among those groups.

Moderates gave him an approval rating of 28%, liberals of 7%

Us lefties didn't think much of him in the first place, now not even his own guys like him and he's on his way to Nixon territory. I'm just hoping no pardon. To regain any kind of trust in government or internationally, this guy needs to be held accountable.

Bush approval rating hits new low

Its study follows a February story in The Tennessean that Frist, along with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., ordered the vaccine liability language inserted in a defense spending bill in December without debate and in violation of usual Senate practice.

I love that line. Gee, inconvenient to get something you want? Just stick it into the draft in the middle of the night so no one notices.

And while we're on the subject of amazing lines, check out this one.

"The lack of any restriction on jury trial is problematic," the analysis said. "Where injured parties have no other avenue for relief, juries are likely to find ways to award damages."

In other words, "we've already taken away every other way people can come after us, we want this one taken away too so people have NO recourse at all when we do something negligent."

At this point it isn't stupidity or incompetence, this is willful harm.

Vaccine makers helped write Frist-backed shield law - Nashville, Tennessee - Monday, 05/08/06 - Tennessean.com