LulzSec (“Laughing at your security since 2011!”) is an offshoot of Anonymous that has gained increasing notoriety after its members successfully hacked websites belonging to major corporations (like Sony), networks, such as PBS, and government agencies.

The group is taking credit for taking CIA.gov offline yesterday afternoon, although the agency has yet to issue confirmation of a hack. In addition, it appears that the official website of the U.S. Senate may have been hacked by the group this week for a second time.

When a fellow senator “meowed” at Australian Labor Party member Senator Penny Wong during a meeting of the senate economics legislation committee, she wasn’t content to simply ignore his rudeness and let it go.

Without skipping a beat, Wong called her colleague, Liberal senator David Bushby, out on his juvenile behavior.

After a Memorial Day respite that likely only served to give everyone involved time to catch up on “weinergate,” the Rod Blagojevich corruption trial has resumed. Blagojevich, still on the stand but now being forced to answer to his incriminating conversations with staffers has found a new roadblock in his testimony, however, and it has nothing to do with the facts of the crime: the prosecution is “making faces” at him.

The Senate may have recently, and unanimously, passed a resolution honoring those involved in the successful raid on Osama bin Laden‘s Abbottabad compound (including President Barack Obama and former president George W. Bush), but the House apparently has no plans to follow suit. The move stems from a resolution, passed in January, that sought to put an end to passing the type of congratulatory measures some in the GOP felt “clogged up the House floor.”

Congressional publication Roll Call is reporting that Sen. John Ensign is planning on resigning tomorrow. Sen. Ensign is an embattled Nevada Republican best known for carrying on an affair with the wife of his former top aide, an affair which indirectly resulted in Sen. Ensign’s parents paying said wife a sum of money.

While the media is reveling in Donald Trump‘s newfound status as Republican presidential candidate, not everyone on the right seems to understand why Trump has chosen President Barack Obama‘s nationality as a battlefront. One voice opposed to spotlighting the “birther” issue is Sen. Marco Rubio, who wondered aloud this week how President Obama’s birthplace has become a legitimate campaign issue.

While last night’s anticlimactic government non-shutdown peeved more than a few in Congress and around Capitol Hill, Sen. Charles Schumer may have come up with the most comically derogatory metaphor for the other side: House Republicans, he griped yesterday, are a “flea, wagging a tail, wagging a dog.”

Lawrence O’Donnell thinks the staff of Republican Senator Rand Paul is not to be trusted. Paul believed the debate over whether America intervened in Libya should have happened before the air strikes took place and not after. Yet O’Donnell argues Paul and his staff conveniently forget that Paul did vote in support of an earlier bill permitting the UN to take action and that included a strong interventionist statement.

Cenk Uygur has not yet had a chance as MSNBC host to distinguish himself for keeping his side of the aisle honest, mostly interviewing ideological brethren and cruising through chats. Today was an exception, as he welcomed self-avowed “socialist” Senator Bernie Sanders to discuss the looming budget battle in Congress and pushed the Senator to answer why the Democrats were compromising on the issue: “What’s stopping you guys?”

The budget battle currently ongoing in Congress has the parties in a gridlock and sometimes presented the threat of a full government shutdown. Yet the debt as an issue exists, and no one is trying to get America back to a surplus as radically as Sen. Rand Paul. Reminding Fox Business host Judge Andrew Napolitano on Freedom Watch of his campaign promises last night, Sen. Paul explained a budget proposal that would reduce spending by $4 trillion.

After a tumultuous lame duck session, Congress is getting ready to get back in gear, and the Senate in particular appears ready to tackle some practical business: the use of the filibuster, which Democrats appear poised to reform. Given that, for one day, a simple majority at the beginning of a session may change floor rules, the death of the filibuster appears, if not imminent, at least possible.

This morning, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that he will oppose the START Treaty, which has been one of President Obama’s top foreign policy priorities. In an interview with CNN’s Candy Crowley on State of the Union, he told Crowley: “I’ve decided that I cannot support the treaty. I think the verification provisions are inadequate and I do worry about the missile defense implications of it.”

Bill O’Reilly proudly declared on last night’s Factor, “you want action? You’ve come to the right place.” O’Reilly was referring to the fact that on his Thursday night show he encouraged viewers to contact their elected officials and express discontent with the pork-filled omnibus spending bill. When combined with his railing against the huge amounts of proposed congressional spending throughout the week, O’Reilly congratulated his viewers for effectively putting enough pressure on their elected officials to drop their support of the bill.

With this repeal, the process is set in motion to, for the first time in U.S. history, allow gays to serve openly in the military without having to hide their sexual orientation. Under President Bill Clinton‘s “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, men and women in service were required to stay silent about their sexuality, and [...]

It seems like not many in Washington are embracing the holiday spirits, though in the most disturbing ways. To wit: the effort to paint Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as the Grinch who will steal Christmas did not sit well with Reid, and earlier today he hurled a few verbal lumps of coal in the direction of his Republican colleagues.

In a speech on the Senate floor on Saturday, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham admitted that Republicans could have won more Senate seats in last month’s elections, but didn’t because “we made some pretty poor choices when it came to candidates,” he said of the GOP. Presumably, he was referring to some of the larger Republican losses last November, such as Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, Sharron Angle in Nevada, and Ken Buck in Colorado.

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley was having none of his colleague Sen. Chuck Schumer‘s attitude on the Senate floor today. Asked if he would yield to a question after speaking against the elimination of the Bush-era tax cuts, Grassley acceded, but not before chastising Schumer for being one of those “New Yorkers” who “think you can make us Midwesterners look bad.”

In the game of neighborhood kickball that is the American government, Republican Senators have just stuck their tongues out, taken the ball home, and effectively ended the game. In a letter signed by all 42 Republicans currently in office, they’ve pledged to block every piece of legislation that comes through in this session until the Bush-era tax cuts are extended. Gosh, can’t these kids get along? This is worse than the argument they had on whether or not to use a ghost runner on third.

This weekend, the University of Nevada won a big upset against Boise State. It was an exciting upset and a great game between conference rivals. Why am I discussing this here and not over at SportsGrid? Well, because Harry Reid decided to spend five minutes telling the story today to kick off the last session of 2010. That’s one way to spend a lame duck session.

While discussing the START Treaty on Fox News Sunday this morning, Senator Claire McCaskill issued a challenge to Republicans in the Senate who are holding up the treaty: stop “hiding behind the skirts” of Senator John Kyl.

Today on Meet The Press, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie repeatedly said he does not intend to run in 2012, and emphasized that he is focused foremost on whether to run for re-election for governor in 2013.

It was a tougher competition than during most election cycles, but one would be hard-pressed to take away the title of Most Bizarre Midterm Election Candidate from South Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Alvin Greene. Incumbent Senator Jim DeMint may have won reelection handily, but Greene still had a good time last night, picking at finger food and showing off his new comic book.

Alaska network KTVA, which came under fire when two employees were caught on an inadvertently recorded phone conversation conspiring to find negative stories on Alaska Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller, has released a press statement defending their coverage and announcing the dismissal of the two reporters on the phone call from their duties with the channel.

In order to be a successful politician, a person has to exhibit several specific qualities: charisma, poise, a certain degree of shamelessness. Since a politician won’t be elected unless she knows how to sell herself, it also helps to have a healthy amount of self-esteem. But some politicians take self-regard to a whole new level—and now, writer Darren Garnick has conducted a semi-scientific study that reveals which elected officials can rightfully be named the vainest of them all.

Who: Alec Baldwin, Jeffrey Toobin, Judy Gold, moderated by Andy Borowitz
What: “The Borowitz Report: Midterm Madness!”
Where: 92nd St. Y
When: October 20, 2010
Thumbs: Up