Wonkette

After an exciting day of voting, the Senate has voted in favor of the new FISA surveillance bill, 69-28, and George Bush will now sign it into law in his secret masturbatorium. MORE »

OH GOD: “Republican John McCain’s campaign has begun holding regular conference calls with leftwing bloggers and blogs that focus on single issues such as healthcare and the environment.” Hey, do we get a call, or have all the references to Cindy McCain being a pill-popper and John McCain being the Antichrist kind of nixed that? Give us a call, WALLLLLLNUTS! [Newsmax]

It’s been a while since we last checked in on White House press secretary Dana Perino, America’s greatest asset. Do you think she’s learned what the Cuban Missile Crisis was since then? Probably not, since she is not smart. Yesterday’s press briefing took on the FISA surveillance extension — the one that those House Democrats refuse to make exactly into what George W. Bush wants, the traitors. Someone asked Dana if the Republicans were maybe going overboard by saying the Democrats’ stubbornness puts America at grave risk, since intelligence agencies can still “spy” and then get retroactive warrants. Dana responds that she knows nothing about the law. MORE »

The government likes being able to listen in on our phone calls. It helps them help us feel safer, see? But to do so, sometimes they need a little help from your friendly local telephone monopoly, which is kind of a problem for some people. Those people sued the phone companies for helping the government make sure that you’re not a vicious terrorist, like you have the right to privacy or something. And, then, the lobbyists got involved.

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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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In testimony before the Senate yesterday, former deputy Attorney General James B. Comey did the unthinkable: he made us sympathetic to John Ashcroft. Wholda thunk? MORE »

ABC News investigative star Brian Ross has finally gone too far with his “I’m talking on this pretend cell phone” picture: Now the Feds are trying to record all the calls made on the fake mobile. MORE »

* Bush admin: J/K everyone, FISA can totally have jurisdiction over the illegal secret wiretapping program. Please don’t yell at Alberto Gonzales too much today, Senate Judiciary Committee. [NYT, WP]
* The Bush legacy would’ve probably been something about creeping executive power, but lately he’s been conceding it to everyone. [NYT, WP]
* A “bipartisan” (read: involving Chuck Hagel) group of Senators prepared a useless symbolic resolution opposing THE SURGE in Iraq. Clinton wants to get tougher, withhold funds, give John Edwards a wedgie. [WP, WP]
* NYT prints dumbest lede this week: “The climate here has definitely changed.” [NYT]
* Condi Rice is in Berlin chatting about Israel and Palestine with German chancellor Angela Merkel. What Rice learned out there: people be sick of getting blown up. [CNN]
* Barack Obama will need to be careful about staying fresh, beloved over these next two years. [NYT]
* Everyone’s got an “exploratory committee.” Except Clinton, who might see her fundraising ability sonned by the early adapters. [WP]
* Ethics reform legislation stalls in Senate. Pig to have to find alternate source of lipstick. [NYT]

• Congressional Republicans all about the wire-tapping, but still hassling over details. [WP]

• Bush speech yesterday focused on terrorism and the continuing threat to America, plus Hitler. [WP]
• Former Highway Administration official Mary Peters nominated for Transportation Secretary. She wants Americans out of traffic and into “quality time with their families.” [NYT, WP]
• Criticizing Rumsfeld now a favorite campaign sport of both parties. [NYT]
• Army to release new “types of torture you’re not allowed to use” manual today. [LAT]
• She won! Katherine Harris won! Just a primary, but still, congratulations Katy! [WP, NYT]

• Tehran is ready to negotiate with the UN on a range of issues not named “uranium enrichment.” [WP, NYT, BBC]

• Poll shows most Americans are still plenty scared of Bin Laden. [CNN]
• Marines to begin recalling reserves to active duty, as recruitment goals fall short. [LAT]
• Aid money flowing to Lebanon having a hard time finding relief agencies other than Hezbollah. [NYT]
• Israel halts withdraw from West Bank settlements as Lebanon becomes focus of government apparently incapable of multitasking. [WP]
• Senator Hillary Clinton is dithering on a AIDS funding bill — either to get more cash for New York or to make herself look good in the south. [WP]
• Americans tired of Iraq, want to go home. [NYT]
• Richard Armitage, number two at the State Department, met with Bob Woodward around the time Bob Woodward says he learned Valerie Plame’s identity and top secret job. [NYT]
• Anna Taylor Diggs, the federal judge who ruled against Bush and his NSA warrantless wiretapping, is a card-carrying member of the ACLU. [NYT]
• More states adding online “meth registries” to help connect redneck speed freaks. [USAT]

First subject: Senator Conrad “Knee-Walking Drunk” Burns (R-MT), seen above struggling valiantly against the sandman. Burns, famous for his hatred of firefighters and himself, should frankly be lauded for just falling asleep during this (frankly boring-sounding) hearing and not, say, unleashing a string of expletives or insulting a veteran.

After the jump, a man who makes our worst hangovers look like an ice cream headache. And who’s also in charge of the largest military in the world.

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• A federal judge invalidates the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, saying it “blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights.” Oh, burn! [NYT, WP]
• Elsewhere in the federal judiciary, smoking causes cancer (and cigarette companies knew it). So long, “low tar” cigs. [WP, WSJ]
• Internal investigations suggest the Marine Corps withheld and destroyed information regarding the November killing of 24 Iraqis at Haditha. [NYT]
• Civilian contractor convicted in the beating death of an Iraqi prisoner. [LAT]
• The veracity of John Karr’s confession in the JonBenet Ramsey case is being questioned. Hey, 12 hours in a Thai prison and you’d confess to her murder, too. [ABC News] MORE »

Terrorist Surveillance Program ruled to be in violation of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
Osama bin Laden, reached by phone, calls news “thrilling.”
NSA officials forced to put giant glass to walls of telecommunications companies, lean in close. MORE »

• Israel will continue to bomb Lebanon for another week or two; then the US will send in Condoleezza Rice. Meanwhile, as a debate continues over Israel’s use of possibly “disproportionate” force, hundreds of Americans were evacuated from Beirut. [NYT, NYT, WP]

• Bush’s seeming inability or unwillingness to handle North Korea and Iran with the same swagger that met foreign threats of his first term has angered conservative intellectuals and pundits. [WP]
• The USDA somehow ended up in a crooked powdered-milk racket. [WP]
• Stem cell research has slowed over the last few years, and the bill passed by the Senate yesterday would help reverse that trend — if not for Bush’s expected veto, which congress is not expected to overturn. [NYT, WP]
• In what some critics call “a politically motivated interference in Justice Department affairs,” President Bush blocked the DoJ’s own internal affairs office from investigating the NSA wiretapping program. [WP]
• The Senate unanimously passed a resolution endorsing Israel’s bombing campaign against Lebanon yesterday. [WP]
• President Bush will address the NAACP at its national convention. [WP]
• A House hearing on immigration reform devolved into sniping at the Senate and the president. [NYT]