Hysterical and improbable, it may be, but John Villasenor, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, is convinced that the oncoming proliferation of drone use in the United States will mean Americans have to fear terrorists might use drones. How should we evaluate such claims?

The Ryan budget has appeared as a chairman’s mark. It’s a long document written in Congress-ese, but I’ve already gone over some of the main points. Here are a couple other tidbits, including why the revenue and spending caps are implausible and the automatic mechanism that requires the President to “fix” to Social Security.

A former FBI informant, who was tasked with secretly infiltrating southern California mosques, admits in many cases civil rights groups are correct in their concern that Muslims are being unfairly targeted. He told The Guardian “the way the FBI conducts their operations it is all about the entrapment.”

Attorney General Eric Holder helpfully explained when the government can kill you without a trial, in a speech last night at Northwestern University. He didn’t take questions, because he was so crystal clear about it.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the “underwear bomber” who attempted to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane on Christmas Eve 2009, will receive a life sentence in Detroit, the conclusion of a trial that ended abruptly with a guilty plea.

Tonight we have a special double feature. Co-directors Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman will discuss their Academy Award nominated film If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front for the first two-thirds of Movie Night before Sam leaves us, and in the final half hour we’ll delve into Racing Dreams, a look at three ‘tween NASCAR hopefuls during a season of the World Karting Association races, which Marshall directed.

Is the national focus on terrorism justified? Kevin Drum has this chart showing that indictments for homegrown support for terrorist attacks have declined significantly. In addition, violent attacks carried out by Muslim-Americans in 2011 were almost non-existent. And a Department of Defense official now suggests we over-estimated the al Qaeda threat.

A new poll shows that the lack of forceful opposition to Administration counter-terrorism policies, especially from Congressional Democrats, has led to them becoming broadly popular. This is true even for controversial policies like the continued presence of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, or drone strikes abroad.

The ACLU filed suit in federal court yesterday seeking to force the White House to turn over records related to the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, the US citizen assassinated in a drone attack in Yemen last year.

It’s a sad commentary on our media that the President had to answer questions yesterday about drones for the first time, and the questions didn’t come at a White House press briefing or major print interview, but in a virtual YouTube town hall with members of the public. FDL’s Kevin Gosztola covered this at The Dissenter last night, but there’s more to say about the disconnect between the concerns of the media and the concerns of ordinary Americans in that.