“Paul Ryan Gets a Boost from Catholic Bishops” said the headline in Politico yesterday, describing a letter from USCCB President Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York. But reading the article makes me wonder if the reporter read the earlier letter from Ryan to Dolan, or an earlier letter from two prominent Catholic bishops to members of Congress last month.

Ryan’s letter is very, very misleading, and misrepresents the papal encyclical he quotes. Given that he’s writing to a bishop about Catholic teachings, he probably ought not to be telling lies. Dolan’s apparent endorsement of Ryan’s letter, then, becomes quite troubling indeed. Either Dolan is aware of Ryan’s misleading approach and is endorsing it to give Ryan political cover with Catholics, or Dolan has been snookered by the guy Paul Krugman labeled “The Flimflam Man.”

Neither is terribly flattering to Archbishop Dolan.

Bill Moyers easily ranks as one of America’s greatest journalists. For decades, he has covered vital stories most others ignored, fearlessly defying orthodoxies and amplifying viewpoints that were excluded in most establishment venues. His coverage of the 2008 financial crisis provided the earliest look at how reckless and criminal was Wall Street’s conduct and how steadfast was the resolve of the subservient political class to shield it from accountability. His commentary on how the media suppresses dissenting views that fall outside of the bipartisan consensus — as exemplified by this recent interview with Tavis Smiley — makes him one of the most astute media critics in the nation. And his 2007 examination of the media’s role in selling the Iraq War — “Buying the War” — was the first and still-best examination of that largely ignored topic.

It’s going to be quite the day today on FDL. Marcy is live in the Ustream widget above calling members to thank them for joining the membership program and hear what they have to say about what they think we should be doing. We’re committed to calling everyone who joins the membership program and speak to them personally.

The President sent a letter to Congress today asking for a resolution of support of US military action in Libya. The letter came on the sixtieth day after the launch of the mission. The War Powers Act allows a President to engage in military action for 60 days without the express authorization of Congress, but only if the enemy represents an imminent threat to the United States, which Libya does not. The White House has used the War Powers Act as a basis for their actions in Libya.

I’m asking you to become a member of FDL, so we can keep the lights on. So this place can keep doing what it does best, push back against the lies and organize activism. What we do here matters, won’t you become a member?

Recently, I’ve begun to worry that our politics have degraded in to the world’s most depressing chutzpah contest, with each politician competing to outdo the last by whining about a self-created problem in the most outrageous, fractionally baseless and/or entirely cynical manner possible. It looks like Republican Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has decided to prove my concerns correct with his campaign’s absurd attempt to label him as a Washington “outsider.”

While Jane Mayer’s profile on NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake has generated a lot of attention for the way Obama’s DOJ is senselessly prosecuting him, there has been less focus on the key revelation that Drake and others went on the record to reveal in Mayer’s story: that the NSA chose not to integrate the privacy protections from a program called ThinThread into its illegal domestic surveillance program.

Hi. I’m a pastor, and I’m asking for your money.

Seriously.

I’m no televangelist, though, just a humble blogger with a religious bent and political awareness, who recognizes that there are costs to running a blog that must be met.

Jane is trying to move FDL from a hand-to-mouth existence to a more stable platform, but she can’t do that herself. Only you can do that, and it starts right here with your commitment to become a regular financial supporter of FDL. If you prefer to speak directly with one of us about the membership program instead of clicking a link, call us anytime at 202-709-7498.

Maybe you can’t today, and that’s OK. But . . . if you can afford to support FDL, if you think what we do is worthwhile, and if you’d like to see it strengthened and improved, now’s the time to step up.

We are now engaged in an illegal war against Libya. Yesterday, the official 60-day window for the War Powers Act expired, and there was no action to approve military use by Congress, yet we continue to be involved in direct military action in Libya. With this, a new precedent has been firmly established. The President of the United States can now unilaterally and freely wage war on any country or attempt to kill anyone anywhere on earth, for as long as the President wants. It is truly frightening god-like power solely vested in a single individual.

Because we could all use a bit of good news:

– The local Chambers of Commerce agree with Minnesota’s most powerful functioning adult, Governor Mark Dayton, and a majority of Minnesotans that revenue increases, particularly tax increases, must be part of any state budget compromise. This puts them squarely at odds with the hyperactive frat-boy Republicans running the Minnesota state legislature. Can the state Republicans live solely off the support of out-of-state far-right Koch front groups like ALEC? I wouldn’t bet on it, especially with the next news item:

– The IRS is telling big donors to political campaigns that their donations could be subject to gift taxes, something that might put a cramp in the notoriously tax-averse Koch brothers’ style.