Way back in 2006, everybody wondered why newly appointed Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn’t let Jane Harman run the House Intelligence Committee, since Harman had been its ranking Democrat through the long Republican Reign of Terror. People assumed it was just ladies hatin’ on other ladies, as is their wont, being so hormonal. But maybe it actually had something to do with this juicy bit of news: that Harman was caught on an NSA wiretap having a very crooked-sounding conversation with a suspected Israeli agent about how to get espionage charges against two AIPAC officials reduced. In other words: catfight. Probably went something like this. [CQ Politics]

Wonkette Bitter operative “Carl” brings us a very important EMERGENCY WONK’D today, in which he spots Barack Obama at Eliot Spitzer’s hooker hotel in Washington D.C. Barry, of course, is in town today to vote in favor of the illegal FISA overhaul. But mostly he is just talking on his cell phone and riding in a foreign terrorism-supporting S.U.V. and ignoring “Carl” and his Bitter friends. Read the account, after the jump. MORE »

• OBAMA’S A LOSER: Uh oh, someone wants to look like a Tuff Guy by supporting illegal spying legislation that he previously… didn’t. And now every single comment board on the Internet will flood with great anti-Obama wits, writing “OOH WHOS YR DEM MESIAH NOW??” [Washington Post/The Trail]

Homeland Security Secretary-demon Michael Chertoff is announcing a new spy program while an enlarged demon THAT IS ALSO MICHAEL CHERTOFF is spying on him. Which demon version of Michael Chertoff is spying on you?? [Washington Post]

An emotionally fragile Attorney General Michael Mukasey addressed audiences at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco yesterday and nearly wept at the thought of the American government having its precious spying freedoms taken away. He also observed that Muslims, and not followers of a strict Protestant religious sect, deserve the government’s hairy eyeball. MORE »

Not just anyone gets to lobby the CIA, but you might be surprised to hear that one of them is eBay! “A spokesman for CIA did not respond to a request for comment.” LOL! I hate it when people don’t leave feedback! [Washington Post]

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The NSA, the domestic intelligence agency that really wishes you still hadn’t heard of it, was frustrated by their growing inability to keep their close-kept secrets out of the newspapers. So between 2002 and 2004 they held some off-the-record “media seminars” where they explained to reporters that they really shouldn’t report anything they know about the NSA and its many probably unconstitutional programs. And then, a couple years later, the New York Sun is reporting the details of those seminars. Meta! MORE »

Have you heard about the iPhone? It’s a wonderful new invention that lets the NSA illegally record all your phone calls, copy all your contacts, keep records of all your Web and IM activity, watch you through the camera, listen in on your household through the mic, and probably put you in a terrorist no-fly database for listening to Cynthia McKinney singing that stupid Pink song.

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Hey guess who might be resigning in about 90 minutes?

A source from the WH tells me Gonzo will be out. MORE »