Did the Abramoff scandal extend into the highest reaches of the Justice Department?
John Ashcroft’s chief of staff at DOJ may plead the fifth in the trial of Kevin Ring, the Team Abramoff operative accused of bribing lawmakers and public officials, according to court documents.
A motion filed this week by Ring’s lawyers states:
Counsel for Mr. Ayres and counsel for Ms. Ayres [Ayres's wife] have indicated that each would invoke their Fifth Amendment privilege if subpoeaned.

Why would they do that? According to another part …

Award-winning journalist, Max Blumenthal, in the first extended interview about his debut book, “Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party.” The book traces the rise of the radical right in the U.S. and how it used the concept of personal crisis to grow as a movement and eventually capture control of the GOP to transform it from the party of Dwight Eisenhower to the party of Sarah Palin.

Fifty years ago, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower issued a warning against the rise of …

While Republicans are busy gnashing their teeth over President Obama’s imminent indoctrination of the nation’s schoolchildren, there’s an education story bubbling up in Texas that could have considerably more far-reaching consequences.
The GOP-controlled State Board of Education is working on a new set of statewide textbook standards for, among other subjects, U.S. History Studies Since Reconstruction. And it turns out what the board decides may end up having implications far beyond the Lone Star State.
The first draft of the standards, released at the end of …