Call them whatever scares you most -- Christian Reconstructionists, Dominionists, or Christian Nationalists -- but if you haven't heard of these guys yet, you need to. They are out there corrupting your religion (if you're a Christian), your government (if you're a citizen of the USA) and your species (if you're human).

Also, I just feel the need to point out that what these people worship is not God. God is already God. You don't need to overthrow the secular government of the United States (their ultimate goal, no kidding) on his behalf. What these people worship is themselves -- they believe themselves, and their interpretations of scripture and history, to be inerrant. Then they have the audacity to call it God. Which I'm pretty sure is some species of blasphemy, or something.

Republicans. The party for closeted gay sex predators and their enablers. Although apparently Bill O'Reilly thought he could pretend Foley is actually a Democrat. I suppose he figured he could get away with it on Fox News, where the typical viewer is assumed to be fully invested in Republican Reality, as opposed to the reality the rest of us inhabit, where Mark Foley, sexual predator, is now and always has been a Republican. Because Republicans are just like that. (Yeah? Well, prove me wrong.)

How does Congress suck today?

The U.S. Senate, in all its splendor and majesty, decided that an "enemy combatant" is any non-citizen whom the president says is an enemy combatant, including your Korean greengrocer or your Swedish grandmother or your Czech au pair, and can be arrested and held for as long as authorities wish without any right of appeal to a court of law to examine the matter.

And, let's see, how else does Congress suck today?

With little public attention or even notice, the House of Representatives has passed a bill that undermines enforcement of the First Amendment's separation of church and state. The Public Expression of Religion Act - H.R. 2679 - provides that attorneys who successfully challenge government actions as violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment shall not be entitled to recover attorneys fees. The bill has only one purpose: to prevent suits challenging unconstitutional government actions advancing religion.

Can you say,cynical pandering? I knew you could.

Black Republican groups emerged from the political margins yesterday, launching a campaign to persuade African American voters to support Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele's bid for the U.S. Senate.

The push was evident in a Baltimore radio advertisement targeting African American listeners that was sponsored by the Washington-based National Black Republican Association. The ad identifies Martin Luther King Jr. as a Republican and pins the founding of the Ku Klux Klan on Democrats.

One woman says: "Democrats passed those black codes and Jim Crow laws. Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan."

Well, the last part is technically true. But sooooooo misleading.

Apparently loyalty to His Majesty the God-Emperor, I mean President Bush, was the most important job qualification for those rebuilding Iraq after the invasion. And the astonishing thing is that this MSNBC article actually dares to suggest that that might have been a bad idea.

The new, stricter laws on flights to England. Protecting you from the next Harry Potter novel and those dastardly cellists.

So, Bush just might be losing some support among southern chicks.

I never did understand why we went into Iraq and didn't instead clean up the mess inAfghanistan first," Knight (Barbara Knight, a self-described Republican since birth) said.

Which is exactly what I said in 2002 when Bush started harping on Iraq. I said, "Hey, even if I thought Iraq was a good idea, which I don't, I still think we need to finish the job in Afghanistan first!"

But nobody cared when I said it, because I already thought that Bush was probably the worst president in American history, and because I am Libby McLiberal from Liberal-land.

At a watermelon festival in Chickamauga, in the mountains of northwest Georgia, substitute teacher Clydeen Tomanio said she remains committed to the party she's called home for 43 years.

"There are some people, and I'm one of them, that believe George Bush was placed where he is by the Lord*," Tomanio said. "I don't care how he governs, I will support him. I'm a Republican through and through."

"I don't care how he governs"? So even his staunchest supporters are nowadmitting he is a sucky president they just support him anyway?

That's messed up, dude. Seriously.

*It wasn't God. It was the Supreme Court of the United States.**

**And then, in 2004, it might have been widespread pro-Republican corruption, at least, as argued by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,

Any election, of course, will have anomalies... but what is most anomalous about the irregularities in 2004 was their decidedly partisan bent: Almost without exception they hurt John Kerry and benefited George Bush.

George Allen. Yes, he is a racist. Does anybody other than his campaign managers seriously claim otherwise?