Faced with negative polls and a pessimistic American nation, President Bush's just completed 2006 State of the Union Address naturally focused on the theme of "the Hopeful Society." But like the stillborn "Ownership Society" vision before it, Bush's 2006 SOTU will be remembered not for its policy program, but for its partisan political purposes.

The top 10 highlights:

1. Demonize the Democrats
The President continued Karl Rove's 2006 electoral strategy to once again run on national security and brand the Democrats supposed "pre-9/11 mindset." There can be no mistaking the intent of his words in what will no doubt be one the most frequently quoted sections of the address:

Yet there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy.

2. Bait the Base
While the President's speech may have been light on policy, it offered several large helpings of red meat to his conservative base. For starters, a smug Bush proudly introduced his new Supreme Court justices, including the newly minted Samuel Alito. Proclaiming "human life is a gift from our creator, and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale," President Bush replayed his "culture of life" mantra of no abortion, no cloning and no embryonic stem cell research. "A hopeful society," Bush intoned, "has institutions of science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners and that recognize the matchless value of every life."

3. Cognitive Dissonance and the Bush Doctrine
As Perrspectives has argued before, in the wake of the quagmire in Iraq the supposed "Bush Doctrine" has come to embody three principles in the war against Al Qaeda: no safe havens, preemption and democracy promotion:

We seek the end of tyranny in our world. Some dismiss that goal as misguided idealism. In reality, the future security of America depends on it...Dictatorships shelter terrorists, and feed resentment and radicalism, and seek weapons of mass destruction. Democracies replace resentment with hope, respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors, and join the fight against terror.

Sadly, no one seems to have told Hamas, which only days ago swept to victory in the Palestinian elections. Even worse, no one seems to have informed the President, who offered the reworked, post-facto justification for the invasion of Iraq. While Bush supporters such as Charles Krauthammer "support undemocratic measures undertaken to avert a far more anti-democratic outcome" as a means of addressing the "one man, one vote, one time" conundrum in the Middle East, the President himself seemed happily unaware.

4. Delicious Irony, Tehran Edition
Turning to Iran, President Bush described "a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite." In the United States, that "small clerical elite" is also known as his base.

5. Bitch Slapped on Social Security
The highlight of the evening for Democrats was Bush's implosion over Social Security. As a determined Bush began, "Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security," Democrats jumped to their feet and exploded in cheers, leaving an angry and embarrassed President Bush struggling to regain control, and his composure.

6. What Health Care Plan?
Leading up to the speech, analysts, commentators and pundits alike focused on health care reform as the centerpiece of Bush's domestic agenda, the Social Security privatization plan of 2006. Despite extensive coverage in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and other media outlets, the Bush speech contained little new about new tax incentives for health savings accounts and other measures designed to move risk and costs from employers to employees, young to old, healthy to sick, and rich to poor.

Bush's reticence may be linked to reports showing that consumer-driven health care schemes such as HSAs don't lower costs, but limit access to health care. Or it could be the disastrous start to his Medicare prescription drug plan or the devastating cuts to Medicaid now working their way through Congress.

The President, however, was cheered by his Republican colleagues with his call for malpractice reform:

And because lawsuits are driving many good doctors out of practice -- leaving women in nearly 1,500 American counties without a single OB/GYN -- I ask the Congress to pass medical liability reform this year.

On this point at least, Bush was consistent, echoing his words during campaign 2004:

Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country.

7. Energy Crisis?
Facing an American public unhappy with rising energy prices, oil man George W. Bush played the role of visionary on the topic of American dependence on foreign energy sources. Without irony, Bush declared "America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world." The President also set a laudable goal "to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025."

Sadly, his proposals including the rehashed (hydrogen fuel cells), the expected (coal) and the bizarre ("wood chips and stalks or switch grass"). Higher fuel efficiency standards, of course, would have been a nice touch.

8. Pandering to African-Americans
Apparently, no Bush State of the Union address is complete without the requisite pandering to African-Americans. In his 2005 SOTU address, Bush sought to boost the GOP's dismal performance among black voters with initiatives on HIV/AIDS, DNA evidence and gangs. In 2006, Bush offered an encore:

More than a million Americans live with HIV, and half of all AIDS cases occur among African-Americans...We will also lead a nationwide effort, working closely with African-American churches and faith-based groups.

The President might instead want to start with GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman, who told the NAACP last year that hate crime murder victim James Byrd "was a racist killer in east Texas, who the president brought to justice." Another suggestion for the President? Truly honor Coretta Scott King by blocking the new poll tax pushed by Republicans in Georgia to suppress black voter participation.

9. Gang Banger Laura Bush?
Another staple of the Dubya State of the Union is the assignment of one or more ill-defined family-focused initiatives to his wife Laura. This year, Laura is the point person for the "Helping America's Youth Initiative," which encourages "caring adults to get involved in the life of a child." Last year, the First Lady's task was to broker a peace deal between the Bloods and the Cripps. That, apparently, is still on her to do list.

10. Katrina and the Waves
Facing growing acrimony over revelations of his administration's bungling - and subsequent cover-up - of its response to Hurricane Katrina, President Bush reached out to the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

A hopeful society comes to the aid of fellow citizens in times of suffering and emergency and stays at it until they're back on their feet...Yet, as we meet these immediate needs, we must also address deeper challenges that existed before the storm arrived. In New Orleans and in other places, many of our fellow citizens have felt excluded from the promise of our country.

For the Bush strategy behind this, see #8, "Pandering to African-Americans", above.

For the text of this and all previous Bush State of the Union addresses, visit the Perrspectives Document Library.

There are days when the convergence of events can't help but deliver a larger message, to augur change or signal the passing of one era and the start of another. With the coincident confirmation of Justice Samuel Alito and the death of Coretta Scott King, today is one of those days of historical - and symbolic - significance.

In Washington, the U.S. Senate confirmed Alito by 58 to 42, possibly changing the the direction of the Supreme Court for a generation. Alito brings to the Roberts Court a proven hostility to women's reproductive rights, extreme deference to presidential and police powers, and a narrow view of federal authority under the commerce clause. What Justice Brandeis referred to as Americans' "right to be left alone" is now very much in jeopardy.

Meanwhile, civil rights icon Coretta Scott King passed away after months of failing health. After her husband's assassination, Mrs. King continued the struggle of civil rights for all Americans. In her last days, Mrs. King witnessed the indignity of a 21st century poll tax being passed by the Republican legislature of her own state of Georgia. That assault on minority voting rights led Representative and close King associate John L. Lewis to boycott the 2006 Martin Luther King Day tribute of the Georgia House.

The death of Mrs. King and the elevation of Justice Alito is only a preamble to tonight's State of the Union Address. In that speech, President Bush will proudly proclaim the government's abdication of any role in ensuring the health of its citizens. Bush will then trumpet his illegal domestic spying on American citizens and the abrogation of their rights and liberties, all under the rubric of a "terrorist surveillance program."

That's just too much symbolism for one day.

With President Bush only two days away from delivering his 2006 State of the Union (SOTU) address, the Democrats and their progressive allies have mobilized to offer both critiques of and alternatives to the latest installment of this failed presidency.

The Center for American Progress has organized its ThinkProgress State of the Union Extravaganza to provide analysis and reaction to the President before, during and after the address. A pre-SOTU webcast in conjunction with Air America's Majority Report begins at 8:00 EST on Tuesday, with live blogging beginning at 9:00. The Center's John Podesta will be joined by bloggers Atrios (Duncan Black) and Kos (Markos Zuniga) Tuesday evening.

At a Tuesday morning press conference to be held at DNC headquarters, the Congressional Progressive Caucus is teaming up with The Nation magazine and the Institute for Policy Studies to unveil its "Alternative State of the Union." Members of the CPC, led by Representatives Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey, will be joined by The Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel and IPS's John Cavanaugh. A set of Democratic proposals on issues from health care and Iraq to budget policy and intelligence reform is also featured in this issue of The Nation. (Note that with a Democratic take-over of the House in November, Caucus members would take over 10 committee chairmanships.)

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is offering alternatives of its own. In the "misery loves company department," the DNC is organizing Bush SOTU Watch Parties all over the country. And during the address, Democratic members of Congress will be providing live reactions at the DCCC's Stakeholder blog.

To prepare for Tuesday's onslaught, here are President Bush's past State of the Union speeches.

This past week has been among the most instructive in the annals of the Pentagon's inexcusable "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Among the lessons learned: while the American military has no place for soldiers who pose on gay web sites, the Bush White House press corps is another matter altogether.

On Wednesday, the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military released Pentagon figures estimating that 10,000 gay servicemen and women were discharged from the U.S. armed forces since 1994 under the don't ask, don't tell policy. Among them were some of the most highly trained and educated soldiers in the military, including 137 officers and 244 medical and health professionals. Even more incomprehensible, the "post-9/11" military continues to dismiss gay linguists skilled in essential languages such as Arabic, Farsi and Urdu, among others.

Just two days later, the Army announced it was investigating reports that members of the elite 82nd Airborne Division had posed for photographs on a gay pornography web site. Pentagon spokesperson Martha Rudd said that accused soldiers might be removed from their units for violating policy guidelines that state "homosexual orientation alone is not a bar to service, but homosexual conduct is incompatible with military service." Defense Department spokesman Todd Vician helpfully noted "we define homosexual conduct as homosexual acts or verbal or nonverbal communication that a member is homosexual."

Conduct unbecoming to American soldiers, however, is just fine with Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan. As you'll recall, Jeff Gannon, the former male escort turned conservative mouthpiece for the right-wing Talon News, was a regular for two years at Bush White House press briefings. Gannon/Guckert left the press gallery only after he was exposed as a faux journalist; the Bush White House apparently had no issue with nude photos of Gannon that appeared on gay, military-themed web sites.

With the help of his conservative friends, Jeff Gannon is still able to make a living. The posers of the 82nd Airborne may not be so lucky.

UPDATE: Pam's House Blend has more details on the story of the 82nd Airborne, including the web site in question.

In the four years plus since the 9/11 attacks, the simplest way to gauge President Bush's changing political fortunes has been his changing attitude towards Osama Bin Laden. In the Bush playbook, the threat posed by Bin Laden is directly proportional to the threat to the President's political standing.

Trying to fight back the growing public outcry over his illegal domestic wiretapping program, President Bush used the Bin Laden bogeyman once again during his remarks Wednesday at the National Security Agency. Bush lashed out at his critics:

All I would ask them to do is listen to the words of Osama bin Laden and take him seriously. When he says he's going to hurt the American people again, or try to, he means it. I take it seriously, and the people of NSA take it seriously.

Bush, of course, did not take Bin Laden seriously in three years ago. Questioned about his silence regarding Bin Laden in the months following the American failure to capture the Al Qaeda chieftain in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, a nonchalant Bush on March 13, 2002 downplayed his significance:

So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you...I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.

Bush may have been embarrassed by his failure to capture Bin Laden in 2002, but by the fall of 2004, he faced the prospect of American voters who seemed to recall the murder of 3,000 of their countrymen. In the third presidential debate with John Kerry, a childlike Bush on October 13, 2004 tried for a "do over" of his statement two and a half years earlier:

Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations. Of course we're worried about Osama bin Laden.

Which brings us full circle. In the aftermath of 9/11, President Bush used the specter of Osama Bin Laden to rally what had been a faltering presidency. In a show of frontier bravado, Bush talked tough about Bin Laden just days after the 9/11 attacks:

There's an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, "Wanted: Dead or Alive."

Now, President Bush is worried about his approval ratings, which have dipped back into the 30's. It must be time to worry about Bin Laden again.

Signs of China's rapid growth into an economic superpower are everywhere. The latest indicator comes in a report from the China National Bureau of Statistics announcing a staggering 9.9% rise in Chinese GDP in 2005. With its $2.26 trillion economy, China has leap-frogged the UK, France and Italy to become the fourth largest in the world.

As Perrspectives has written before, China's explosive economic growth, aggressive military upgrading and diplomatic muscle-flexing pose a myriad of challenges for the United States.

From a national security standpoint, the United States may have to dramatically expand and alter it force structure to contain a resurgent China. With the Pentagon Quadrennial Defense Review due to Congress next month, the implications for American strategies, tactics and force levels are profound. Not least among these will be the unwritten security guarantee for Taiwan.

The Chinese challenge to American economic leadership and standards of living is even greater. With two consecutive years of GDP growth nearing 10%, China's massive trade surplus with the United States, $120 billion in all of 2003, reached $20 billion in the month of October alone. Increasingly, China is also America's banker, financing U.S. deficits through loans and purchases of American securities. China's dynamic economic growth has also driven explosive growth in its demand for energy, forcing prices upward as the United States and China (and to a lesser degree, India) compete to line up sources of oil.

With all eyes in the U.S. trained on Iraq and the war against Al Qaeda, managing China's coming superpower status seems to have fallen off the Bush administration's radar. It can't stay that way for long.

As part of its all-out campaign to defend its indefensible illegal domestic wiretapping program, the Bush administration is turning to one of its tried and true marketing techniques - branding. The product? The "Terrorist Surveillance Program."

In speeches this week, President Bush, former NSA program manager Air Force General Michael Hayden and other White House surrogates will toe the party line and refer to the "terrorist surveillance program." To support the new GOP talking points, the White House web site unveiled on Sunday a new section called "Setting the Record Straight: Democrats Continue to Attack Terrorist Surveillance Program."

The implication of this Rovian formulation is clear. If you are against the Bush domestic spying program, you are against "surveillance of terrorists."

As I have written previously, this classic Republican branding approach - the "unopposable utterance" - enables the White House to dominate policy debates using terms that are, on their face, virtually unopposable. As a result of conservatives' ironclad message discipline, the label is inevitably and widely adopted by the mainstream media. The result is Republican control of the debate. Who could be for the "Death Tax" (ending estate taxes), the "Marriage Penalty" or "Partial Birth Abortion?" On the flip side, who could be against "School Choice" (school vouchers), "No Child Left Behind" or, in this case, the "Terrorist Surveillance."

Recent polls show that a majority of Americans oppose President Bush's illegal and unprecedented warrantless wiretapping scheme. Bush's lawlessness is even opposed by many of his Republican allies in the Senate, including Senators McCain, Specter, Brownback and Graham.

But that was last week, before it was called a "Terrorist Surveillance Program."

The Washington Post today offered a devastating look at the Bush administration's systematic attempt to undermine voting rights in the United States.

The Post looks in-depth at cases in Georgia, Texas and Mississippi in which Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other Bush political appointees overruled career staff in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. In each, the DOJ granted "pre-clearance" to new state rules designed to suppress minority voter participation to the benefit of the GOP.

As I pointed out last week in "Republican Plantation Politics" (posted again below), the Bush administration continues to pay lip service to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 while abrogating its enforcement in reality.

The American manufacturing sector took another body blow today as Ford announced massive layoffs beginning in 2007. As many as 30,000 employees at 14 Ford plants in North America, up to 21% of the company's hourly workforce of 82,000, could be impacted by 2012.

The announcement by the #2 American automaker comes within weeks of similar devastating cuts at General Motors. As at GM, the United Auto Workers agreed to dramatic reductions in health care benefits at Ford, shifting expenses to employees in a move designed to slash Ford's $3.5 billion health care bill. That agreement, inked only six weeks ago, did little to save UAW members from the axe that fell at Ford today.

While UAW foes such as Rich Lowry of the National Review blame bloated unions and overpaid workers for the decline of Ford and GM, the data tells another story. Health care and pension costs may indeed contribute up to $1500 per vehicle, but it is rejection by customers in the market place and not union compensation that has left Ford staggering and vulnerable. Ford auto sales have contracted each of the last six years, a drop over 1 million vehicles since 1999. Worldwide, Ford market share has shrunk to 18%, down from 25% a decade ago. While Ford's Mark Fields spouts a new mantra he calls "red, white and bold", the company's reputation for stodgy design and failure to anticipate the market shift away from its core SUV business has left it on the skids.

For today, at least, the market warmly received the proclamation today by Fields that his company would, "change or die." Chairman and CEO Bill Ford echoed that comment, saying, "we must reduce capacity in North America."

As workers at Ford and GM are now painfully aware, we all know what that means.

On the same day that Republicans howled over Hillary Clinton's use of "plantation", a GOP term of art, President Bush was practicing some plantation politics of his own.

In Washington on Monday, the President honored the life of Martin Luther King Jr. by calling for the renewal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. "We all must recognize we have more to do," Bush intoned, "And Congress must renew the Voting Rights Act of 1965."

Too bad his Justice Department and the Republican Party have been undermining it back in Georgia.

In March, the GOP-controlled Georgia legislature passed a voter identification law. Nominally aimed at countering voter fraud, the transparent aim of this virtual poll tax is to suppress the African-American vote - and Democratic prospects - in the state, especially in Atlanta. The bill's sponsor, Augusta Republican Sue Burmeister explained that when black voters in her black precincts "are not paid to vote, they don't go to the polls."

Under the law, Georgia voters would have to present one of six officially recognized forms of identification. Those without driver's licenses would have to pay $20 a new digital ID card, available at motor vehicle offices in only 59 of Georgia's 159 counties.

The impact of the law would be dramatic. The ACLU estimated that as many as 153,000 Georgians would be impacted (based on 2004 numbers); across the state, 231,000 households have no access to a car and 147,000 have no phone service. Largely as a PR stunt, Republican Governor Sonny Perdue dispatched the GLOW ("Georgia Licensing on Wheels") bus to serve indigent and rural voters.

Unfortunately for the Republican Party, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 not only banned poll taxes, but mandated that Georgia and eight other southern states must submit proposed voting rules changes to the Justice Department for review of their impact on minority voters. This "pre-clearance" process allows DOJ to block laws and rule changes in the suspect states that would dilute minority voting.

Which is where the Bush Justice Department comes in. As the Washington Post reported in November, Bush political appointees overruled the overwhelming recommendation of DOJ career staff that the Georgia ID program be halted. In a 51-page memo on August 25, 2005, the Civil Rights Division review team voted 4-1 to block the Georgia law. The next day, however, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his aides granted pre-clearance.

Today, the Georgia ID program is in limbo, thanks to the action of the federal courts. In October, a U.S. District Court blocked the plan, comparing it to a Jim Crow-era poll tax. The injunction was upheld on appeal by a three-judge panel with two Republican members. Last Friday, the Georgia House approved a new version of the law, one that seeks to obtain federal judicial blessing by expanding the ID card distribution centers to all 159 counties. Passage in the Georgia Senate and Governor Sonny Perdue's signature are expected.

In Washington, Alberto Gonzales, like President Bush on Martin Luther King Day, claims he wanted to renew the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But in practice, Bush and his Attorney General want to effectively gut the law.

Meanwhile, back in Georgia, King aide and U.S. Representative John Lewis boycotted a ceremony at the State House honoring the civil rights leader on Friday. As he put it, "I believe it was too great a contradiction to celebrate the legacy of Dr. King in one hour and pass the Georgia photo ID bill in the next."

President Bush was right about one thing on Martin Luther King's birthday. We do indeed have more work to do.

Fox News has nothing if not, as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright might say, "cojones." Perhaps never more so than on Sunday, when its Big Story Primetime show featured Republican lobbyist and strategist Ralph Reed offering analysis on the Jack Abramoff scandal:

1:00am Big Story Primetime Abramoff Ripple Effect? Republican strategist Ralph Reed speaks out on the wide-spread impact of the disgraced lobbyist's scandal.

Who better that Reed to provide insight and context into the exploding Republican scandals on Capitol Hill? As Perrspectives reported back in September, Reed is quite familiar with the ethical quicksand that is consuming Tom Delay, Bob Ney, Jack Abramoff and his minions such as David Safavian:

The Safavian web also entangles Ralph Reed, formerly of the Christian Coalition and Bush's southeastern campaign chairman. Reed was on those golf outings with Safavian and Abramoff. Like Abramoff, Reed also feasted on native Americans to the tune of $1 million in fees for casino lobbying. Interestingly, Reed also worked for Bill Gates in 2000, lobbying then candidate and Reed ally George W. Bush regarding the Department of Justice against Microsoft.

As the Washington Post reports today, the taint of the Abramoff scandal may yet swallow Reed, the one-time Christian Coalition wunderkind and current GOP candidate for lieutenant governor of Georgia. As a recent event held by the Dawson County Republican Committee, Reed was asked, "Did you accept any gifts, commissions or other payments of any kind from Mr. Abramoff, and are you likely to be a party in the unfolding investigation?" Reed, of course, responded "No, no to all of these."

Reed's one-time fellow Christian soldiers aren't so sure. A flood of emails have demonstrated the Reed-Abramoff link, including the revelation that Reed in 2004 received $4.2 million to mobilize Christian voters to fight new casinos opposed by Abramoff's tribal clients. As Phil Dacosta, a Georgia Christian Coalition member and now former Reed backer put it:

"After reading the e-mail, it became pretty obvious he was putting money before God. We are righteously casting him out."

The truth, of course, is matter for Ralph Reed and his God, and perhaps a federal prosecutor. But sins and felonies are no barrier to a promising career as a Fox New analyst.

Just ask Oliver North.

The Perrspectives Supreme Court Resource Center has assembled a host of resources providing the background and proceedings of the confirmation hearings for Samuel Alito.

In addition to links to the daily hearing transcripts, the Resource Center includes Alito libraries from the New York Times, Washington Post, FindLaw and others. Essential documents are also provided, including Alito's responses to the confirmation questionnaire, released papers from the Reagan-era, and his infamous 1985 memo laying out a strategy to overturn Roe v. Wade. In addition to a career overview, you'll find an interactive chart of his past rulings.

The Resource Center also features links to some of the most important - and notorious - Alito rulings. This includes his lone appellate dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, where Alito endorsed unprecedented spousal notification requirements in abortion cases. Both his judicial activism and shockingly narrow view of the Commerce Clause are on display in United States v. Rybar, where he opined in that a U.S. law banning private citizens from owning submachine guns was outside the authority of Congress.

To kick-off his 2006 campaign for permanent - and dangerously irresponsible - tax cuts, President Bush crowed on Friday about his economic stewardship. "The American economy," Bush boasted, "heads into 2006 with a full head of steam."

New economic data released on the same day, however, suggests that the American economic locomotive may be experiencing some engine trouble. After a stellar November, December produced only new 100,000 jobs, roughly half of the gains anticipated by analysts.

Paradoxically, the .1% drop in the unemployment rate to 4.9% reflects weakness in the American economy as well. A happy statistic on its face, the decline in unemployment is a product of the contraction of the total U.S. labor force, which as the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, shrank by 30,000 workers in December. The Bush recession and stagnant wage growth have depressed labor force participation; many Americans have simply stopped looking for work. As Clinton economic advisor Gene Sperling points out:

In January 2001, 67.2% of Americans were working or looking for work. If that number had held, there would be an additional 2.7 million people looking for work and the unemployment rate would be 6.6%-1.7% above its official mark.

President Bush concluded his sales pitch on Friday with the exhortation, "We've got to still be the greatest hope for mankind on the face of this Earth." He might want to start with the working men and women of America.

Tom Delay, the former exterminator and ethically-challenged Texas representative, has bowed to the inevitable and finally stepped down from his House Majority Leader role.

Facing a revolt from his own GOP colleagues in the wake of the Abramoff plea and new revelations of corruption, the Hammer in a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert grudgingly gave up on his pyrrhic quest to hold on to his leadership post.

Still, an unrepentant Delay vowed to fight for reelection even in the face of his Texas indictment, saying, "I have always acted in an ethical manner." What else would you expect from a man who compared himself to Jesus?

For the latest news on the mushrooming corruption scandals engulfing the Banana Republicans, be sure to visit the Perrspectives Abramoff/Delay Scandal Center.

With today?s guilty plea by Republican uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the Congressional GOP and its K Street poject may be in for a world of hurt. As many as 20 people in the House, Senate and other Republican circles in DC may be implicated.

For all the latest news, documents, legal filings and timelines on the growing Abramoff and Delay imbroglios, be sure to visit the Perrspectives Abramoff/Delay Scandal Center.

In the mean time, here?s an updated Most Wanted poster of the Banana Republicans:

The Perrspectives Resource Center has just been expanded to include a new document library for the exploding Bush-NSA Spying Scandal.

The NSA Scandal Document Library includes the latest Bush spying scandal news, essential Department of Justice memos and key laws such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the War Powers Resolution, the 2001 Authorization of Military Force (AUMF) and more. Key Supreme Court decisions involving presidential war powers, such as the 1952 Youngstown v. Sawyer and 2004's Hamdi v. Rumsfeld are also included. And if you, like the Bush administration, have forgotten about the United States Constitution, the relevant provisions are highlighted as well.

Be sure to visit the NSA Scandal Document Library today!