For years now, the right-wing media have claimed left-wing journalists are colluding with each other on a secret email listserv. And they were half-right! As it turns out, a secretive, strategy-plotting online cabal of political journalists and party activists does exist. It's just that it's made up of conservatives.

Michele Bachmann is packing up her trolling operation and marching it out of the House of Representatives: After eight years of faithful service (and now facing an FBI probe) the congresswoman/presidential candidate/Christian/beard has said she won't run for re-election next year.

Attorney General Eric Holder, who is currently embroiled in the Justice Department's AP phone records controversy, was having none of it today when Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) got a little acerbic during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

Who hates manatees? Sea cows, mermaids, whatever you want to call them—these massive, slow, people-loving warm-water swimmers are naturally adorable and devoid of natural enemies. But hundreds have died already this year, and deregulating Florida lawmakers could doom the rest today.

Just in time for its wingnut-filled annual meeting tomorrow, the National Rifle Association is set to install a new president: an Alabama lawyer who laments "the war of Northern Aggression," calls Barack Obama "this fake president," and fantasizes about "whipping" opponents of the gun lobby's agenda.

Barry West, a commissioner for Coffee County, Tennessee, apparently thinks there's only one appropriate way to wink at a Muslim, and it involves a double-barreled shotgun. He posted the above image to his Facebook timeline...where Muslim activists found it. And West's home phone number.

It's time someone addressed the real victims of America's decline in traditional family values. I speak of our national shame: unwanted firearms. If Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer could, she'd adopt them all, no matter how broken. But she's doing the next best thing: finding loving homes for orphaned hand-cannons.

The US Army is kind of over the M-1 Abrams tank. At more than $7 million a pop, there's not much call for the heavy gas-guzzlers on modern battlefields. But some of the most conservative self-styled deficit hawks on Capitol Hill refuse to do away with their treaded gravy train.

Duncan Hunter is a Republican California congressman. He's a congressman because his daddy was a congressman. Raymond Odierno is the highest-ranking general in the Army. He is an Army general because he's proven good at killing people. Sometimes those people are the enemy. Last Thursday, on CSPAN, Duncan Hunter…

"Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." What a crock of shit.

Everything old is new again. Congressional Republicans issued a report on the 2012 Benghazi consulate attacks yesterday that basically blames then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for everything—and calls her a liar to boot.

Florida is more scared of Islamic theocracy than anything else in the world, except maybe your Aunt Ethel in Boynton Beach. Fortunately, Florida has figured out how to neutralize both threats with a single proposed law.

My fellow Americans, it is time. Time for a life-altering journey of self-discovery and introspection with George W. Bush.

Texas Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert, the patron saint of marginally literate Nacogdoches bigots, has taken time from his busy schedule of indulging big oil to advise America on how it can prevent future Bostons: Build a huge wall and keep an eye on those Mexican fundamentalists.

On the heels of Connecticut's post-Newtown push to restrict assault weapons, a Texas tea party congressman has plans to send form letters to Yankee gunmakers, goading them to move their operations to the Lone Star State.

How freaked out was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) about a possible election challenge from movie star Ashley Judd? So freaked that in February he assembled a secret meeting of advisors on how to use a "wealth of material" from the actress' mental health history to paint her as an egomaniacal "mentally…

Now that former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown isn't railroading negotiations on financial reform, or even in elective office at all, he's got some time on his hands.

Conservatives thought they were going to win the 2012 Presidential Election. Instead, they were trounced by Barack Obama for the second time, sending the party off to search if not for its soul, then at least for a way to win a major election. The GOP has long been hostile to anyone that isn't rich, white and male,…