Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show. F.B.I. officials said Monday that their investigators had no interest in monitoring political or social activities and that any investigations that touched on advocacy groups were driven by evidence of criminal or violent activity at public protests and in other settings.

The tax gap is the gap between personal income and adjusted gross income (AGI), and it is currently the highest it has been in 46 years worth of data analyzed by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Sen. Sam Brownback, doing a miraculous job of reiterating Bush administration talking points, is currently making a statement on the floor of the Senate criticizing government program results as witnessed through the corrupt lense of the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) and other Bush administration management initiatives.

The U.S. Senate is supposed to be spending 10 hours today debating the budget cuts reconciliation bill. But a substantial portion of the debate has been spent sparring over the reauthorization of the U.S. Patriot Act and the inclusion of ANWR in the Defense Appropriations bill. While these are certainly very important debates to be had, it's hard to understand why the debate is not about the budget cuts. Do Senators not have anything to say about the cuts? Do they think the changes they will vote for shortly are unimportant? Are Senators ashamed of what they are proposing in this bill?