The Avenging Angel, punisher of the rascals of the right, had yet another busy week delivering payback.

Out in Big Sky country, GOP Montana Senator Conrad Burns found himself in hot water this week for insulting firefighters who had been battling blazes in his state. In the midst of a tough reelection bid against Democrat and rancher John Tester, Burns heaped scorn on the visiting Augusta Hotshots from Virginia, telling them they had "done a poor job" and "should have listened to the ranchers." Perhaps, the Angel hopes, Abramoff ally Burns will see his campaign go up in flames.

Meanwhile in Washington, President Bush's wildly unpopular choice at the UN showed once again why he's the man people love to hate. During confirmation hearings, John Bolton explained that he skipped a UN summit on Darfur due to a "personal commitment in the United Kingdom." Speaking to a right-wing think tank in London apparently was more important than genocide in Sudan. Whether or not Bolton keeps his seat in the UN, the Angel muses, he is guaranteed a warm seat in hell.

And in neighboring Maryland, arch-conservative Senate candidate Michael Steele tried to have it all ways this week with the state's moderate and African-American voters. In anonymous comments to the press, Steele trashed his own Republican Party and dissed President Bush's handling of Katrina. After blaming the press for taking comments out of context, Steele came clean and called Dubya his "homeboy." Just another case, the Angel notes, of the GOP keepin' it real with black voters.

Of course, this isn't the first time President Bush chose to fiddle while Rome burned. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina last summer, the President opted to leave the dead, the dying and the stranded of an inundated New Orleans on their own. Instead, Bush continued his August vacation, strumming the guitar with country singer Mark Wills in sunny California.

In Washington today, President Bush signed a bill extending by 25 years the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In so doing, Bush once again succeeded in having it both ways. While publicly proclaiming his support for the Voting Rights in public, the Bush Justice Department has blocked its enforcement at every turn.

The President's rhetoric, of course, is designed to establish Bush's civil rights credentials and aid the Republican Party's outreach to moderate and African-American voters. On Martin Luther King's birthday in January, President Bush solemnly intoned, "We all must recognize we have more to do. And Congress must renew the Voting Rights Act of 1965." (Attorney General Alberto Gonzales followed suit, proclaiming, "The right to vote is fundamental to the American dream, and so we will push for re-authorization of the Voting Rights Act.") In his one and only address to the NAACP last week, Bush declared to applause, "President Johnson called the right to vote the lifeblood of our democracy. That was true then, and it remains true today." And in signing the Voting Rights Act Reauthorization of 2006, the President once again offered lofty phrases of support, proclaiming, "Congress has reaffirmed its belief that all men are created equal." The Voting Rights Act of 1965, Bush said, "broke the segregationist lock on the voting box."

As it turns out, not so much.

For most watchers of the CIA, the return of Steven Kappes to Langley as the agency's number 2 man is a welcome development. Fluent in Farsi and Russian, the 23-year veteran of the clandestine service can bring a renewed focus on the CIA's core intelligence-gathering mission. Unfortunately, Kappes' return almost certainly signals the resumption of Republican Congressman Peter Hoekstra's partisan war on the CIA.

Hoekstra (R-MI), the House Intelligence Committee Chairman, was a strong supporter of Porter Goss, his former House colleague who resigned from the CIA in disgrace back in May. Hoekstra backed Goss' partisan purge during his brief tenure at the agency, which targeted leading officials who had second-guessed the Bush administration's uses - and misuses - of pre-Iraq war intelligence. Kappes was part of an exodus of senior CIA leadership fed up with Goss.

As it turns out, Hoekstra has had Kappes in his cross hairs for some time. Lost in the uproar over his May l8 letter to President Bush expressing concerns over oversight of the NSA domestic surveillance program was Hoekstra's vicious assault on Kappes. No fan of Bush's Air Force General Michael Hayden as Goss' successor, Hoekstra went on the war path against the proposed return of Kappes as Hayden's #2. Hoekstra told Bush:

"The choice for Deputy Director, Steven Kappes, is more troubling on both a substantive and personal level...Regrettably, the appointment of Mr. Kappes sends a clear signal that the days of collaborative reform between the White House and this committee may be over."

By "collaborative reform," Hoekstra of course means the politicization of the CIA and the agency's conversion into a partisan arm of the Bush White House and Republican leadership in Congress. That meaning is made clear by Hoekstra's vitriolic attack on the supposed partisanship of Kappes and his allies within the agency:

"I am heartened by the professional qualities he [Kappes] would bring to the job, but am concerned by what could be the political problems he could bring back to the agency. There has been much public and private speculation about the politicization of the Agency. I am convinced that this politicization was well underway before Porter Goss became the Director. In fact, I have long been concerned that a strong and well-positioned group within the Agency intentionally undermined the administration and its policies. This argument is supported by the Ambassador Wilson/Plame event, as well as by the string of unauthorized disclosures from an agency that prides itself with being able to keep secrets. I have to the belief that, despite his service to the DO, Kappes may have been part of this group. I must take note when my Democratic colleagues - those who so vehemently denounced and publicly attacked the strong choice of Porter Goss as Director - now publicly support Kappes' return."

Of course, most Democrats and many Republicans support Kappes' return due to his invaluable experience and unimpeachable integrity. As the Washington Post reported on May 9th, the President Bush advocated for Kappes not just to placate foes of NSA domestic spying architect Hayden as CIA chief or to allay the fears of those like Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) concerned about two military men heading the agency. More importantly, the White House saw Kappes as critical to the restoring the morale of the CIA after the devastating political purges of Porter Goss.

Despite Pete Hoekstra's protestations, Kappes has returned to the team at the CIA. But this surely isn't the last we'll be hearing from Hoekstra in his war on the CIA.

In a bizarre Washington Post op-ed ("Surveillance We Can Live With") pitching his ill-conceived NSA eavesdropping compromise, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) shows all of the hallmarks of a man in the throes of severe cognitive dissonance. While essentially pronouncing the illegality of George Bush's illegal domestic surveillance program, he cannot bring himself to harm his President or his party.

As we've come to expect, the battle between Specter's inner demons yields only frustration and cowardice. Specter gets off to a rousing start:

"President Bush's electronic surveillance program has been a festering sore on our body politic since it was publicly disclosed last December. Civil libertarians, myself included, have insisted that the program must be subject to judicial review to ensure compliance with the Fourth Amendment...On its face, the program seems contrary to the plain text of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which regulates domestic national security wiretapping."

But Specter quickly goes off the rails, as he backs away from the precipice of presidential confrontation:

In the latest sign that Republican class warfare is alive and well in Washington, the IRS is planning draconian cuts to its team of estate tax lawyers handling the audits of the wealthiest Americans. In the next 70 days, the IRS will shed almost half of the 345 lawyers assigned to monitor the gift and estate taxes paid - or not paid - by those with some of the largest fortunes in the United States.

This latest effort to gut the IRS is simply class warfare by other means. Unable to permanently repeal the estate tax, the Bush administration plans to cripple enforcement. As the New York Times reports:

Six I.R.S. estate tax lawyers whose jobs are likely to be eliminated said in interviews that the cuts were just the latest moves behind the scenes at the I.R.S. to shield people with political connections and complex tax-avoidance devices from thorough audits.

Sharyn Phillips, a veteran I.R.S. estate tax lawyer in Manhattan, called the cuts a "back-door way for the Bush administration to achieve what it cannot get from Congress, which is repeal of the estate tax."

According to the Times, deputy IRS commissioner Kevin Brown confirmed the cuts, but claimed that "because far fewer people were obliged to pay estate taxes under President Bush's legislation." Brown also rejected as "preposterous" the notion that IRS looked the other way when it came to rich tax cheaters.

Sadly for Brown, the data suggests otherwise. Six years ago, the I.R.S. reported that 85 percent of large taxable gifts it audited shortchanged the government. And as the Times details:

Over the last five years, officials at both the I.R.S. and the Treasury have told Congress that cheating among the highest-income Americans is a major and growing problem.

Which is exactly the way Congressional Republicans want it. As David Cay Johnston describes in his book Perfectly Legal, the GOP during the Clinton administration waged an all-out war on the IRS, turning the priorities for auditing Americans upside-down. As Senator William Roth's Finance Committee held hearings in 1997 and 1998, Mississippi's Trent Lott and Alaska's Frank Murkowski decried the IRS' "Gestapo-like tactics." Don Nickles of Oklahoma raged, "The IRS is out of control!" Congress went on to pass and Bill Clinton signed the IRS Reform and Restructuring Act in 1998.

Those reforms in essence gave wealthier Americans carte blanche to cheat and fundamentally undermined tax fairness in the United States. Within one year, property seizures for unpaid taxes dropped by 98%. Liens were sliced by three quarters and levies on bank accounts by two-thirds. Johnston describes (p. 134) the overnight shift of tax policing onto poorer Americans:

In 1999, for the first time, the poor were more likely than the rich to have their tax returns audited. The overall rate for people making less than $25,000 a year was 1.36%, compared with 1.15% of returns by those making $100,000 or more...Over the previous 11 years audit rates for the poor had increased by a third, while falling 90 percent for the top tier of Americans.

The IRS' free ride for the wealthy was accompanied by a crackdown on Americans who qualified for the Earned Income Tax Credit. Targeting lower-income Americans "who work hard and play by the rules", the popular and often bipartisan EITC has long been in the cross hairs of the GOP class warriors like Nickles, who called it "a welfare program." The result, as Johnston details (p. 132):

The IRS audited 397,000 of the working poor who applied for the credit in 2001, eight times as many audits as it conducted of people making $100,000 or more. That works out to one of every 47 returns seeking the credit, compared to about one in every 366 taxpayers who did not apply for it.

Fast forward to 2006. The Bush administration, by hook or by crook, remains determined to kill the estate tax. Since 2001, President Bush and the Republican leadership have pushing to eliminate the so-called "death tax," a levy paid by only 1% of American families. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimates abolition of the estate tax would burn a $1 trillion hole in the U.S. budget over 10 years. A supposed compromise version passed by the House GOP in June, that would raise the eligible estate size while cutting the rate from 45% to the capital gains rate of 15%, would be nearly as destructive. CBPP forecasts that the House bill would cost American taxpayers $750 billion in lost revenue and increased interest payments on the national debt.

As with most initiatives of the Bush administrations, the motivation and intent of the IRS cuts is quite transparent. As John Hruska, an IRS estate tax lawyer in New York put it, "This is not a game the poor will win, but the rich will." The result, as Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union summed it up, "a lot of taxes that should be paid will go uncollected, and that impacts every taxpayer who is paying their fair share."

Bush Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt headlines another week of wrongdoing by the miscreants of the right.

The HHS chief earned the wrath of the Avenging Angel this week for proving that charity does indeed begin at home. Bush's go-to man on blocking the morning after pill used a non-profit foundation to enrich himself and family members. With Senators clamoring for the IRS to close the "Leavitt loophole," the HHS head may have to turn to Plan B.

Meanwhile in New York, former Wall Street Journal editor and reliable GOP mouthpiece John Fund finds himself at the center of an embarrassing lawsuit. Fund is being sued by a former girlfriend who claims she was battered by the paragon of conservative values. The truth of the charges may be in doubt, but Fund's smarminess is not.

On a darker note, the Avenging Angel takes no pleasure in latest news regarding Jim West, the disgraced former mayor of Spokane. West, yet another hypocritical Republican values merchant, was recalled by voters after revelations that he offered city jobs and other favors to young men in exchange for sex. West passed away this week after complications from colon cancer surgery.

Back in May, Perrspectives described how inquiries by both the FCC and the DOJ into illegal domestic surveillance by the Bush NSA had been blocked. With Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' testimony today before the Senate Judiciary Committee, we have a much clearer picture as to why. In a nutshell, President Bush personally insisted that the probes be stonewalled.

The following exchange between Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Gonzales shows President Bush's iron hand at work in blocking the needed security clearances for the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR):

SPECTER: It was highly classified, very important and many other lawyers had access. Why not OPR?

GONZALES: The president of the United States makes the decision.

In a separate letter to the Committee, the Attorney General claimed:

"The president decided that protecting the secrecy and security of the program requires that a strict limit be placed on the number of persons granted access to information about the program for non-operational reasons. Every additional security clearance that is granted for the TSP increases the risk that national security might be compromised."

But OPR head H. Marshall Jarrett in a series of memos to Gonzales also released today destroyed that fallacious argument from the Attorney General. OPR's requests had been shut down, while "a large team of attorneys and agents" pursuing a criminal inquiry into the NSA revelations had no such difficulty:

"In contrast, our repeated requests for access to classified information about the NSA program have not been granted. As a result, this Office, which is charged with monitoring the integrity of the Department's attorneys and with ensuring that the highest standards of professional ethics are maintained, has been precluded from performing its duties."

News of President Bush's Nixonesque stonewalling should allay any lingering doubts regarding the folly of Senator Specter's so-called compromise bill over illegal NSA domestic spying. But instead of waging a constitutional battle to halt the illegality by the Bush White House, Specter seeks to codify it.

For the latest NSA scandal news, statutes and other key documents, visit the Perrspectives NSA Domestic Spying Scandal Resource Center.

This week's G8 Summit in St. Petersburg marked the end of the five-year romance between George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin. With festering disagreements over Iran, Russia's entry into the WTO, the North Korean crisis, and Moscow's descent into autocracy, tensions between Bush and Putin were on public display. Ironically, the exchange of barbs took the form of lectures on democracy, a subject about which the two leaders share limited knowledge.

During a press conference on Saturday, President Putin lambasted Bush's pontifications on the need for democratization in Russia. "We certainly would not want to have same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq." Days earlier, Putin similarly rejected Dick Cheney's harsh comments in May on the dismal state of Russian democracy, jokingly calling the Vice President's speech an "unsuccessful hunting shot."

What a far cry from Bush's coquettish flirtation with Putin back in 2001. Their warm personal relationship was apparently forged in late 2001, when President Bush said of his first meeting with Putin, "I looked the man in the eye. I was able to get a sense of his soul. I knew that President Putin was a man with whom I could work." But four and a half years later, President Bush declared:

"I have worked very hard to convince Vladimir Putin that it's in his interest to adopt Western-style values and universal values -- rule of law, freedom of religion, the right to people to assemble, political parties, free press."

Unfortunately for the American and Russian people alike, neither George W. Bush nor Vladimir Putin qualifies as an expert in democracy promotion. As Bush himself put it on multiple occasions:

"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it." (President George W. Bush, July 26, 2001.)

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." (President-elect George W. Bush, December 18, 2000.)

"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier." (Texas Governor George W. Bush, July 1998.)

Bush, of course, was joking. But as I've noted previously, the humor of George W. Bush provides a rare window into the dark soul of a man who apparently views his fellow citizens - and the world - with disdain and contempt.

Sadly for Bush, this week Vladimir Putin chose to return the favor.

Former CIA agent Valerie Plame and her husband Ambassador Joseph Wilson publicly unveiled their lawsuit against Vice President Cheney, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby in a Washington press conference today. But while the Wilson's action offers the potential to bring President Bush's "Politics of Payback" under the microscope, its prospects for success seem remote.

That seems to be the early consensus, even among those sympathetic to the view that the Bush administration outed Plame as part of full-fledged war to discredit the claims in Joseph Wilson's now famous July 6, 2003 op-ed on bogus claims that Iraq sought uranium in Niger. CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin described the Wilsons' chances in court as an "extreme long shot." Appearing on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Lawrence O'Donnell was similarly pessimistic. O'Donnell argued both that the Wilsons' recent high profile public presence ran counter to their claims of lost privacy and that existing legal regimes surrounding whistleblower protections did not seem to apply to their civil action. Yale's Akhil Amar concurred with the view that past decisions involving whistle-blower protections and the executive branch simply may not apply. George Washington University's Jonathan Turley seconded that opinion, "The key is going to be whether they can overcome the threshold constitutional issues -- whether the Vice President is immune from this type of lawsuit." Even Christy Hardin Smith of the blog FireDogLake grudgingly acknowledged that the text of the Wilson complaint seemed "political."

Whatever its chances of success, the Wilson lawsuit reflects the moral imperative of demanding accountability of a Bush administration that in act of pure political vengence destroyed the careers of and sought to impugn the reputation of dedicated American civil servants. In her press conference today, Valerie Plame summed it up succinctly:

"I would much rather be continuing my career as a public servant than be a plaintiff in a lawsuit, but I feel strongly and justice demands that those who acted so harmfully against our national security must answer for the shameful conduct in court."

For more on the Wilsons' lawsuit and the latest news, legal documents, timelines and other essential materials, visit Perrspectives' PlameGate Scandal Resource Center.

As the Washington Post reports today, the already bitter Virginia Senate race between incumbent George Allen and Democrat Jim Webb is getting downright nasty. Watching his lead dwindle and his 2008 presidential hopes put in peril, the Vietnam-era freeloader Allen is attacking the patriotism of the Vietnam war hero Webb over the former Navy Secretary's refusal to join Allen in backing a constitutional amendment banning flag desecration. Ironically, it is the Confederate Flag George Allen seems most concerned about it.

As Perrspectives detailed back in June of 2005 ("Confederacy of Dunces"), George Allen has been a Confederate flag waving romantic with a deep fixation for the antebellum South throughout his public career:

Allen, who in 2005 co-sponsored a resolution apologizing for the Senate's past use of the filibuster against anti-lynching legislation in the 1920's, displayed a Confederate flag and a noose at his home. While governor of Virginia, Allen declared "Confederate Heritage Month" and branded the NAACP an "extremist group."

In April 2006, Ryan Lizza of the New Republic ("George Allen's Race Problem") provided a devastating portrait of Allen's love affair with Confederate symbols dating to his youth. Before Allen donned his cowboy boots as an "authentic" Virginia Senator, as a Southern California teenager he sported a Confederate flag lapel, "plastered the school with Confederate flags," and may well have painted racist graffiti. As Lizza details, Malibu George Allen became a Dixie lover by choice, suggesting some deep-seated need to express a rebellious identity at best or perhaps some much more profound social pathology at worst.

Unsurprisingly, Allen's lifelong passion for Confederate symbols of secession and treason hasn't stopped him from lambasting the patriotism of Jim Webb. Webb graduated first in his Marine officer class at Quantico and won two Purple Hearts, two Bronze Stars, a Navy Cross and the Silver Star Medal during his stints in Vietnam. Predictably, Allen's campaign manager Dick Wadhams used the flag amendment issue to give Webb the Max Cleland treatment:

"James H. Webb Jr. continues to demonstrate he is totally beholden to the liberal Washington senators who dragged him across the line in the Democratic primary. By announcing his opposition to the flag protection amendment, James H. Webb Jr. puts himself firmly on the side of John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and Charles Schumer."

The Webb campaign was quick to respond, blasting Allen as a Vietnam no-show while Webb was fighting it out in the jungles near Danang:

"Jim Webb served and fought for our flag and what it stands for, while George Felix Allen Jr. chose to cut and run. While Jim Webb and others of George Felix Allen Jr.'s generation were fighting for our freedoms and for our symbols of freedom in Vietnam, George Felix Allen Jr. was playing cowboy at a dude ranch in Nevada."

It's not even Labor Day and the venom and vitriol are already overflowing in the Virginia race. But while George Allen will claim he seeks to protect the American flag Jim Webb fought for, it will be the Confederate flag that remains close to Allen's heart.

The past week has seen another bumper of crop curious quotes and glorious gaffes from the renegades of the Right. From the Valerie Plame affair and NSA domestic spying to adminstration flip-flops on terrorist detainees and the do-nothing Republican Congress, the mouthpieces of the conservative ascendancy this week offered Americans fresh heapings of hypocrisy with the occasional dollup of honesty.

"The President is always right."
Steven Bradbury, head of the Justice Department's office of legal counsel, July 12, 2006.

"It's not really a reversal of policy."
Tony Snow, on Bush administration decision after the Hamdan decision to apply Geneva Conventions to terrorist detainees, July 11, 2006.

"Guantanamo ought to be closed immediately."
Colin Powell, July 7, 2006.

"Have confidence in the process."
Karl Rove, on the investigation into the Valerie Plame leak, July 9, 2006.

"Let's get this out."
President Bush to Vice President Cheney, regarding information to discredit Joseph Wilson, July 2003.

"The U.S. Congress simply should not have to play Twenty Questions to get the information that it deserves under our Constitution."
Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), letter to President Bush, May 18, 2006.

"It's [Cheney chief if staff David] Addington. He doesn't care about the Constitution."
Colin Powell, on the architect of the NSA domestic spying program, December 18, 2005.

"I'm not sure what this Congress has accomplished."
Dick Armey, former Republican House Majority Leader, July 10, 2006.

For more shocking quips, quotes and critiques from the Republicans and their conservative amen corner, see "Today's Mantra."

The Washington Post reported today former Bush Medicare and Medicaid administrator Thomas Scully agreed to pay back $10,000 for personal job-hunting trips he had charged to the government during his tenure. But while the Post piece provided a breezy overview of Scully's ethical indiscretions during his time at HHS, it completely omitted any mention of what should be his enduring legacy: threatening truth-telling subordinates with dismissal during the selling of President Bush's Medicare prescription plan.

To fully appreciate Scully's sinister role in the snookering of Congress over the Medicare drug plan, we need to jump back to late 2003. With his 2004 reelection looming, President Bush was desperate to pass a Medicare prescription plan, a benefit it had earlier opposed. Facing opposition from his own party over the staggering cost of the new entitlement, the President needed to reassure key Republicans in Congress that the package was affordable. Which is where Scully comes in.

Scully simply ensured that Congress would hear nothing of the mushrooming budgets forecasts for the Medicare drug plan. Congressional committees had been told that the 10-year tab would reach $400 billion. But two months before the December 2003 vote, Medicare and Medicaid chief actuary Richard Foster was already estimating the true price tag at $551 billion. The solution was simple: Scully threatened to fire Foster if he went to Congress with the real budget figures.

The rest, as they say, is history. The Medicare RX bill squeaked by in the House, helped in no small part by shenanigans from then House Majority Leader Tom Delay, who browbeat GOP holdouts during an unprecedented extension of voting on the floor. (This later became the focus of one of Delay's many reprimands by the House Ethics Committee.) After a cursory probe by Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, Scully got a clean bill of health.

Which brings us back to today's wrist slap. By 2004, Scully was out of HHS altogether, an exit made easier by travel for job interviews he charged to the government.

In an interview with the Denver Post editorial board, Karl Rove signaled that President Bush would use the first veto of his presidency to block Congressional stem cell legislation. For Democrats, that veto threat could be just what the doctor ordered.

In a nutshell, Bush's 2006 base-baiting, red meat strategy could well backfire when it comes to stem cell research. In May 2005, 50 Republicans joined a united Democratic block in passing the bi-partisan Castle-Degette bill by 238-194. (The House bill would undo President Bush's August 2001 ban on federal funding for research on new stem cell lines.) Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist, whose grandstanding during the Terri Schiavo affair left his own presidential ambitions on life support, has made it clear he will part company with President Bush by championing the Senate's bill. As ThinkProgress reported last week, Missouri Republican Senator Jim Talent faces a difficult reelection fight, in part due to his opposition to a state ballot initiative protecting stem cell research from state restrictions.

Unlike other aspects of the "fags, flags and fetuses" program contained in the Republicans' so called "American Values Agenda," stem cell research bans don't enjoy much support among either the conservative chattering classes or Americans overall. In 2005, George Will spoke of the "silliness" of "'social conservatives' purporting to speak for 'values voters' -- what voters do not intend their political choices to advance their values." Nancy Reagan, who has been an outspoken advocate of stem cell research in the wake of her husband's devastating experience with Alzheimer's Disease, pleaded in 2004, "Science has presented us with a hope called stem cell research...I just don't see how we can turn our backs on this."

Americans of all political stripes agree. By August 2004, Harris Interactive reported that Americans supported stem cell research by 73-11%, including a whopping 60-18% plurality among Republicans. Polls also show consistent support for federal funding of stem cell research, even among supporters of the GOP. Legislatures and voters in California, Massachusetts and New Jersey have all approved major state investments in stem cell research.

Democrats should call President Bush's bluff. Stem cell research offers the potential of life-giving therapies for Americans. But for President Bush and the radical right, blocking stem cell research could be a poison pill. "It is something," Karl Rove admitted, "we would, frankly, like to avoid."

The Perrspectives Resource Center has just been expanded with updated news, magazines, blogs, election information, data sources, polls, think tanks and other tools for Democrats and progressives of all stripes.

The Resource Center also features a document library including the latest news, reports, legal documents and other essential materials for a host of Bush administration and Republican scandals. NSA domestic spying, the Valerie Plame affair, Iraq WMD intelligence manipulation, Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay, it's all there.

Visit the Resource Center today!

Just one day after President Bush forcefully defended his insistence on multilateral negotiations with North Korea, the White House has apparently okayed direct talks with envoys from Pyongyang.

Speaking in Seoul on Saturday, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, Bush's point man on discussions with the North Koreans, signaled his willingness to meet directly with Kim Jong Il's emissaries once the stalled six-party talks resume:

"As many of you know, the Chinese have talked about putting together a six-party informal, and we both support that and we think that all countries are prepared to come to that informal meeting. Within the informal six-party talks, yes, I can [have direct discussions with North Korean envoys]. I just can't do it when they are boycotting the six-party talks."

That flexibility is a far cry from President Bush's stubborn statements Friday steadfastly affirming his commitment to his failing approach:

"What matters most of all is for Kim Jong-il to see the world speak with one voice...One thing I'm not going to let us do is get caught in the trap of sitting at the table alone with the North Korean, for example. In my judgment, if you want to solve a problem diplomatically, you need partners to do so."

The seeming flip-flip on talks with North Korea, which Perrspectives first reported was imminent in May, reflects the failure of the Bush approach in the wake of Pyongyang's missile launches this week. In March 2001, President Bush undermined the budding "Sunshine Policy" of South Korea by adamantly refusing to engage with the North. The new President stated "We look forward to at some point in the future having a dialogue with the North Koreans but ... any negotiation would require complete verification." But by June 2004, with reports of North Korean nuclear weapons surfacing, press secretary Scott McClellan signaled the Bush administration's willingness to deal with the North, "We will work to take steps to ease their political and economic isolation...what you would see would be some provisional or temporary proposals that would only lead to lasting benefit after North Korea dismantles its nuclear programs."

During the Friday press conference, CNN White House correspondent Suzanne Malvaux pressed Bush on the growing threat from North Korea's nuclear arsenal and missile tests. "Why shouldn't Americans see the U.S. policy regarding North Korea as a failed one?" Malvaux asked. Bush, angrily, refusing to acknowledge Malvaux's assertion, simply replied, "Because it takes time to get things done."

After five years of Bush's ineptitude towards the Korean peninsula, he doesn't have much time left.

In today's news of the weird comes word that conservative culture warrior and Utah Senator Orrin Hatch intervened to help secure the release of R&B producer Dallas Austin from a Dubai jail.

The Grammy winning Austin, who has also produced releases for Madonna, TLC and Pink, was sentenced to four years in prison in Dubai for possession of cocaine. Just hours after a call from Hatch, Dubai ruler Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum pardoned Austin and ordered his release.

Apparently, Hatch has never met Austin and is not familiar with his work. (This would seem to contradict rumors of Hatch's late 1980's flirtation with gangsta culture and bands such as NWA and Public Enemy.) Outside of his day job in the Capitol, Hatch fancies himself a singer and songwriter of inspirational music. But while Hatch may be one of many singing senators, the GOP is the only party he's going to get started.

As it turns out, the devout Mormon and the music mogul do share one common connection, though: Atlanta entertainment lawyer Joel A Katz.

On Friday, E.J. Dionne used Mexico's cliffhanger election ("It Couldn't Happen Here") to show the comparative electoral dysfunction of the United States. Not so tongue in cheek, Dionne asked of disputed voting results in a critical swing state, "How would it look if the governor of the state was your own brother?"

For today, though, the most glaring case of brotherly love distorting the political process isn't George and Jeb Bush in the United States, but instead can be found in Poland. As the AP reports, Poland's governing Law and Justice Party accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz and recommended Jaroslaw Kaczynski as his replacement. The party chairman, Kaczynski also just happens to be the Polish president's twin brother.

Unlike some brothers in the United States, the PM selection Jaroslaw at least acknowledged the dubious symbolism with heading up his brother Lech's government:

"For various reasons, we came to the conclusion that, at this time, putting forward a different candidate - of which we have many good ones - would be a worse way out than recommending me."

That's a lot more tact than George W. Bush offered regarding Governor Jeb, whose 2000 shenanigans in Florida helped make Dubya president. The current occupant of the White House encouraged his brother's own presidential aspirations, ""I would like to see Jeb run at some point in time." Jeb, George added, would make "a great president."

Democracies, of course, are not supposed to be dynastic systems. Poland's pickle at least can be explained away as a quirk of the parliamentary system. What's our excuse?

Back in June, we asked readers to say what three words the acronym "GOP" suggested to them. Three weeks and hundreds of entries later, the Republican party of Bush, Cheney, Rove, Frist, Delay and Abramoff is no longer the "Grand Old Party." Instead, Perrspectives readers offered new definitions for today's GOP, the party of the prudish and the partisan, the power-hungry and the privacy haters, the corrupt and the criminal, the fanatical and the fear-mongers, the faithful and the frauds.

The first prize of an iPod Shuffle goes to reader Mike, with his simple "George Orwell's Prediction." A $50 Amazon.com gift certificate goes to Lance for "Gag Our Press." And our contest featured four third-place finishers, including Kris ("Going Off to Prison"), William ("Gospel Of Privilege"), Steve ("Gay Obsessed Psychos") and L.G. ("Grotesque Orwellian Parody"). Each wins a Perrspectives "Conservative Threat Level" t-shirt.

Thanks to all for the excellent entries. For past Perrspectives contest results, be sure to check out last year's "Karl Rove Whack-a-Mole Contest" and the "Name That Bush Scandal Contest."

The New York Times reported Tuesday that the CIA has shut down its Bin Laden unit late last year. The unit, called "Alec Station," had been in place for over a decade to hunt down Osama Bin Laden and his leading Al Qaeda lieutenants.

As I wrote in January, President Bush's on-again, off-again emphasis on catching Bin Laden is tied to the shfting political winds at home. 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 in January 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 languished in the 30's. It might be time to worry about Bin Laden again.

On Thursday, George W. Bush will celebrate his 60th birthday. This President's birthday may well be historically unprecedented, with his age, his disapproval ratings and seemingly even his IQ all converging at 60.

As the AP reports, President Bush is responding to his aging process by applying his unusual brand of humor to his looming birthday at every opportunity. (That is, when he's not already making fun of the blind and disabled.) During a White House press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bush giggled, "Say that again, Steve. I'm getting a little old. I'm getting old. I'm having trouble hearing." No doubt wistful for his youthful, pre-40 days of boilermakers, jello shots and Jagermeister, the President told a Minnesota audience, "I like to plug in music on my iPod when I'm riding along to hopefully help me forget how old I am."

All of which raises the question, what would you give President Bush for his 60th birthday? What present is fitting for a man to whom so much was given, so little expected and even less offered in return. What would you give to a man who, as Jim Hightower put it, was born on third base and tells everyone he hit a triple?

Republican Congressman Bob Ney of Ohio's 18th district may be among the most vulnerable GOP incumbents in this fall's mid-term elections. Already facing a stiff challenge from Democrat Zack Space, Ney's deep involvement with imprisoned Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff has put his reelection to a 7th term very much at risk.

And the bad news only got worse for Ney this week. Matthew Parker, the director of Ney's congressional district office, was subpoenaed as part of the Justice Department's probe into influence peddling in Congress. Back in Washington, three Ney aides announced their resignations.

These blows are just the latest for Ney, identified as "Representative #1" in court papers and under investigation for taking campaign donations, gifts and trip from Abramoff and his clients. In January, Ney resigned his chairmanship of the House Appropriations Committee. In early May 2006, Abramoff partner and former Ney staffer Neal Volz pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges for lavishing gifts and junkets on Ney, whom he referred to a "champion." Just weeks later, photos emerged of Ney with Abramoff, Ralph Reed and others heading off on the infamous golfing journey in Scotland. Then in June, yet more pictures came to light showing Ney with leaders of the Tigua tribe during an August 2002 meeting of Abramoff clients the Congressman claimed he didn't remember.

Despite Ney's mounting legal and ethical troubles, Ohio Republicans are standing behind him - for now. As Republican state representative Clyde Evans summed it up, "Unless he's indicted, I think he'll do very well." That's quite a vote of confidence.

For more on the ethical quagmires engulfing Ney and a laundry list of other GOP figures across the nation, see "The Republican Rap Sheet."

Back in March, I documented the amazing transformation of John McCain from GOP maverick to Republican prostitute. As I wrote then, the Arizona Senator in his quest for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination exchanged his seething hatred of George W. Bush for a high profile bootlicking of the Bush political machine.

"He calls me Johnny Mac."

That kind of back-slapping male bonding, of course, is a far cry from the sheer rage McCain felt towards Bush during their 2000 competition. Back then, Mr. Straight Talk angrily rejected Bush's feigned post-GOP primary attempt to bury the hatchet:

"Don't give me that shit. And get your hands off me."

For the sad story of how and why John McCain sold his soul to George W. Bush, see "The Prostitution of John McCain."