H.R. 1981 would require the linkage of all our online activities to our names and other personal information. This, in turn, would enable government intelligence agents to search through its massive databases of online activities, collected under the FISA Amendments Act, by citizen name, address or telephone number.

The House of Representatives rejected protections that might have saved the lives of the workers on the Deepwater Horizon and prevented the tremendous oil spill that resulted from its explosion.

Yesterday’s markup was an opportunity for reform of the abusive law, with amendments that could have brought the Patriot Act closer to compliance with the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment guarantee of protection from unreasonable search and seizure. Yet, every single reform that was offer was rejected by the House Judiciary Committee.

H. Res. 211, if passed, would give congressional endorsement to the designation of the first weekend in May as a national celebration of an ancient Judaic equivalent of Islam’s sharia. That old religious law includes the command to refrain from creating most kinds of artwork.

The new Republican leaders of the U.S. House should remember that, though the habit of mythological metaphors from the religious sphere persists, the strength of the USA comes from the separation of government from religious affairs.

Unlike other U.S. Representatives from his part of Virginia, Randy Forbes refuses to meet in a debate with his challenger in this year’s election.

4th congressional district Democrats in Virginia have Wynne LeGrow, a strong candidate who isn’t afraid to acknowledge the extraordinary environmental challenges our nation faces.

The same inconsistency is there when it comes to the relative power between federal and local governments. Right wing activists say that local governments should have power above the federal government’s power, when local governments want to deny people rights. When local governments seek to protect constitutional rights, however, the same right wing activists show no respect for local decisions.

It is in this spirit that yesterday, the following 39 Republican members of Congress signed their name to a legal brief urging a court to block D.C.’s legalization of same-sex marriage.

the Republicans in Congress are always complaining about how Democrats engage in too much wasteful government spending. Yet, here is Republican Representative Forbes asking for $200,000 to build a display in a visitor center.

Texas Representative (and repeated presidential candidate) Ron Paul asserts his principled approach to politics on a regular basis. When Congressman Paul declines to vote for a congressional medal of honor for Rosa Parks, he says it has nothing to do with disrespecting the civil rights movement. No, no, says Ron Paul, he opposes spending even [...]