McCain has a real dilemma: He needs the religious right but every time he gets one of those preachers to appear on stage and say nice things about him, he'll spend the next week having to disassociate himself from their kookier comments.

Even the venerated old Billy Graham has a bit of a "Jew problem."

Why the hell didn't Congress, or at least the security-cleared Intelligence Committees, immediately go into a closed-door session to quiz Comey on just exactly what had spooked all those Bush appointees into threatening a mass resignation?

That nobody in Congress at this late date still has a clue, or even seems to have an interest in the subject, defies belief.

John Hagee as McCain's vice-presidential running mate -- well, rhetorically at least.

Making McCain defend Hagee's kooky statements for the next six months would be highly entertaining.

Yes, we baby boomers must, for the good of our country and the world, suck it up and do our democratic duty -- even though it will mean (gasp!) the president will be younger than we are -- making our status as Old Farts official.

The demise of CNN can be traced back to the moment when Ted Turner relinquished conrol to the corporate "suits" at Time Warner. Before then, CNN was indeed "the most trusted name in news."

Now, of course, CNN management is frantically trying to dumb-down "the news" in a futile attempt to capture the Fox News demographics.

I mean, Glenn Beck? C'mon! Truly pathetic.

If there was no money to be made from the business of religion, it would be a much more rational world.

Their point -- and it's true -- is that the Government can't just start eavesdropping with no warrants any time they feel like it under FISA. Even for the emergency provisions, some procedural requirements must be met -- specifically, the AG or a designee must certify that it's likely that the FISA court would find probable cause for the eavesdropping. So some process is required even for FISA's emergency, no-warrant 72-hour eavesdropping provision.

Is that as simple as filing a form with the court or a full-blown hearing? In any event, it just wouldn't seem like such a crushing, insurmountable burden when balanced against the obvious potential for abuse.

From McConnell/Mukasey:

Specifically, you assert that the National Security Agency (NSA) or Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) "may begin surveillance immediately" in an emergency situation. FISA requires far more, and it would be illegal to proceed as you suggest].

Question: Just what exactly was "illegal" about proceeding as Reyes suggested? It's my understanding that FISA allows warrants to be requested retroactively in an emergency, so no loss of surveillance occurs while awaiting court approval.

Perhaps it would have been "illegal" because the wiretapping targets were far outside the statutory scope of FISA, and no judge would ever have granted a warrant.

CNN has been bending over backwards to avoid any mention of St. McCain's possible carnal activities -- as if any favors done were simply inexplicable, and therefore, unbelieveable. Despite the Republicans' sudden prudery and squeamishness about sullying reputations, the sex angle has to be referenced in order for McCain's actions to make any sense.

Also, McCain himself obviously lied, and apparently counted on the ignorance of his audience, when he claimed he had never, ever, done anything to dishonor his office, as if the Keating affair never happened.

Yes, we have a serious "whore" problem, and it ain't with comely female lobbyists.

Our campaign-finance system guarantees that our politicians whore themselves out to special interests just to raise money for TV ad dollars. It's fundamental to our system. The Supreme Court's ridiculous ruling equating free speech with money made it the law of the land.

The sad thing is that all those idiotic political ads are absolutely useless -- even counterproductive -- for advancing our political discourse.

The only party benefitting from the semi-annual blitz of mindless TV advertising are the media giants, who make out like bandits from the ad revenues, and thus will never educate the public about the utterly corrupt state of our government --except when there is a salacious sex scandal that will pump-up ratings. It's a perfect storm of overt self-interest at the expense of good government that makes the old Roman Senate seem positively idealistic by comparison.

Only a constitutional amendment mandating public financing of elections and national standards for balloting -- and with free TV time for qualified candidates -- will end this disgraceful pornocracy.

"On Capitol Hill, House Republicans stormed out of the House chamber to boycott a vote to hold two presidential confidants in contempt for failing to cooperate with an inquiry into whether federal prosecutors were ousted for political reasons."

So the walkout shown in the ad was actually in protest of a different vote altogether.

Yes, House Republicans were avoiding the contempt vote on Bolton and Meiers and pandering on the FISA/PAA issue, the shameless, despicable bastards.

Bush (and the Republicans) need to keep Al Qaeda around as a boogeyman. That's why they conveniently allowed Bin Laden to escape at Tora Bora.

When Obama suggested attacking Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan if we received "actionable" intelligence, Bush and the GOP howled as if Obama was going to attack a valuable US asset -- which in essence, he was. Al Qaeda is a political asset for the Republicans that continues to be both protected and exploited to this day.

Nazis? Wimps. Commies? Wussies. Total war with highly industrialized militaristic societies? No problem.

Twenty guys with boxcutters and an audacious plan? PANIC! Kill and maim tens of thousands of innocents, shred our Constitution, bankrupt our economy and ruin our international credibility (and wet our collective diaper).

Thank goodness we have the fightin' 82nd chAirborne to save us all. May their steely resolve and steadfast courage never falter (until they run out of Chee-tos or the draft is re-instated).