Congressmen were furious this week over what they call unfair treatment at the hands of law enforcement authorities.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, who this week helmed a congressional inquiry into the search of a congressman's office pursuant to a warrant, voiced his outrage. "We want to be searched without warrants like everybody else," said Sensenbrenner. "We're tired of being treated like second class citizens."

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert agreed, and added that the recent search was dangerous. "I think it has been well established that getting warrants poses a threat to the security of the nation," he said.

Politiicians' indignation stemmed from the search of Congressman William Jefferson's office, which was searched by the FBI after agents found $90,000 in a freezer in his home.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi agreed with Republicans that the search was "inappropriate." "I don't mind that this may have been a fishing expedition, " she said. "But the process was just so disgustingly open and transparent."

The White House has tried this week to make amends and set politicians' minds at ease. During a pause in questioning witnesses at the House inquiry, Sensenbrenner quietly muttered to himself that he was "so damn thirsty." Minutes later, NSA agents brought him a glass of water.

"Now," Sensenbrenner said, "that's more like it."

National Guard officials said Tuesday that they were confident that they could handle the complexity of sending thousands of soldiers to the border with Mexico in the fight against illegal immigration. State officials, who will be in control of the troops, said they were awaiting more details from the federal government, which acknowledged Tuesday that it was still working out how to handle such a major domestic deployment.

The National Guard, hard-pressed to keep up with its many duties at Iraq and at home, has decided to guard the U.S.-Mexico border with illegal immigrants it enlists as they come across the border. "We see it as a very special guest worker program," explained Guard Commander Sergeant Leon Rocknard.

Rocknard conceived the plan when he learned that President Bush wanted the Guard not to perform any law enforcement operations while "guarding" the border.

"Once I learned that we'd be mostly cooking and cleaning, the idea came naturally," he said. He added that another upside of the program was that the workers could be paid "almost nothing." He further justified his decision by insisting that guarding the border was "one of those jobs Americans want done but don't want to do themselves."

Herminio Vasquez, an illegal immigrant who became part of the program after swimming the Rio Grande at 4:00 a.m. last night, praised the plan. "This is the just the opportunity I came to the U.S. for," he said.

Vasquez hoped that the program would be expanded to other borders. "I like America," he said,"but I'm really hoping for a chance to go to Canada."

I'm pleased to be able to offer a link to the stream of Neil Young's protest album, Living With War, right here at Opinions You Should Have.

Any album with a feel-good, uptempo party-beat anthem with the lyric "Let's Impeach the President!" has got to be pretty fine.

Click on the album cover above (and then click again) and a media player will pop up and start playing the album, which Young expects to release on CD next week.

1) I believe I've answered that question ten times already. Let's move on.

2) I can't comment on a matter in which there is an ongoing criminal investigation.

3) I can assure you that nobody would like to know the answer to that question more than the President.

4) I don't know how you found out that I'm the new Press Secretary, but whoever leaked it to you has vitally damaged our national security and is an unwitting agent of al Qaeda.

5) That's a statement. Do you have a question?

6) Can you hold on to that? It's such a nice day today I'd like to move the briefing outside.

7) I've never really thought about it before, but that's a really interesting question.

8) You'd have to ask him that.

9) I don't know what he knew or didn't know or when he knew or didn't know it.

10) I am absolutely not thinking about stepping down. I assure you that there is no basis to the rumor that I may be leaving. I have personal assurances from the President that I will not be asked to leave. Having said that, I'm going to decline to answer your question in deference to my immediate successor.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Capitol was evacuated shortly after noon Monday after the building briefly lost power. . . . Mary-Beth Hutchinson, a spokeswoman for Potomac Electric Power Co., said the electricity shut off automatically after there was ''a momentary drop in voltage due to customer operations up the lines'' away from the Capitol.

A loss of electrical power in the Capitol Building panicked Republican congressmen when Capitol police unthinkingly told them that they had "completely lost all power" without explaining that the loss was electrical.

Majority Leader John Boehner, who assumed that authorities had cut the electricity in order to effect a mass arrest of corrupt politicians, tried to throw himself from the visitors gallery. Because of the darkness, however, he ended up throwing himself into the lap of a lobbyist for a powerful oil consortium, he later claimed.

As he saw "the blackness closing in," Tom Delay resigned and attempted to surrender himself to the Capitol Police, telling them that he had lost "the great game" and that "the money" had been invested in rare coins.

Democrats took the power loss calmly, saying that it was just "business as usual." Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi knitted a sweater for a constituent throughout the ordeal.

Rumsfeld to Stay On

President Bush today admitted that he would be making major changes to White House staff in an attempt to address flagging poll numbers and "fatigue." Bush focused on Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, who Americans have indicated are at the heart of some of the deepest and worst missteps the administration has taken, among them the faltering response to Hurricane Katrina and the shooting of people in the face.

Rove and Cheney are to step down by week's end, after which they will be reappointed to their current positions. "I am not afraid to make tough calls, admit mistakes, and correct them," said Bush. "This is a White House which is committed to growth and change."

Bush pooh-poohed suggestions that the shakeup was purely cosmetic, and more of a public relations gambit than a substantive makeover. "This Dick Cheney is not the same Dick Cheney who took office with me in 2001. For one thing, I understand he's had some implants."

He also suggested that Karl Rove had been chastened and reborn in the wake of criticism and by the stigma of having to give up his office, if only for two days. Rove himself said, "I'm an idiot one day and a genius the next." Bush said that Rove had been "half-right," but would not elaborate other than to say that "this time out," the White House would employ him every other day.

Bush refused to replace Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, either with Rumsfeld or another person, despite calls for his resignation in the face of his poor handling of the Iraq war and the Abu Ghraib scandal. "I don't think anyone could have foreseen that the Iraq war would have cost this much money or caused any loss of life."

In celebration of the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, President Bush and Vice President Cheney dropped an enormous three-tiered anniversary cake on central Iraq, accidentally crushing the only working power plant in the area.

"Everything's just great in Iraq," said Cheney, who was so thrilled with the progress of the country that he was "planning to winter there someday."

"Things are so good now," said President Bush, "just imagine how fantastic it will be when they have a McDonald's on every corner."

Mohammed dar al Salim, a former baker whose shop had been destroyed by looters a year ago, agreed. "The future is certainly bright," he told reporters. "It's the present that worries me."

Fifty people who were killed yesterday as a result of the civil war could not be reached for comment.

Yes, I've been nominated for Most Humorous Blog -- and I'm begging you to go there, scroll down to the bottom, and leave a comment voting for me -- but there's a new kid on the block who will certainly be nominated next year that you should check out. Don Davis, who wrote the wonderful collection of satirical poems, One State, Two State, Red State, Blue State, has started a blog. the Satirical Political Report and it's well worth reading if you need a laugh.

Also, in honor of March Madness, Liberal-Bias hosts its own March Madness competition -- with a bracket that has notorious conservatives and media folk pitted against each other for the championship. This is one tough competition -- but I'm betting Dick Cheney will just shoot anyone who stands between him and the crown.

The Senate will vote next week to pass a bill that will retroactively declare the Watergate break-in to be legal.

"If President Nixon felt that spying on the Democratic National Committee headquarters was necessary, that's good enough for me," said Sen. Pat Roberts (R.-Kan.), who elaborated, "It's time for us to stop second-guessing our leaders."

The bill is the first of a number of laws that aims to ensure that the President can do no wrong. Other laws contemplated by the Senate specifically authorize the trading of arms for hostages, manipulating intelligence to make the case for war, misleading the American people, and the use of the word "strategery."

Democrats moved swiftly with an amendment making the truthfulness of grand jury testimony dependent on what the meaning of "is" is.

Republicans also plan to give the White House three "Free Passes" and two get-out-jail-free cards in case White House officials commit crimes before Congress has the opportunity to decriminalize them.

"I am satisfied that these bills increase Congressional oversight of the Executive Branch," said Sen. Olympia Snowe. "After all, we can't insulate the President from the consequences of his wrongdoing unless the President tells us what he is doing wrong."

Opinions You Should Have has been nominated for two Koufax awards (awards for lefty blogs -- Koufax, get it?): Most Humorous Blog, and Most Deserving of Wider Recognition.

The Koufax Awards are great -- for one thing, the nominated blogs (nice, long lists of blogs in every category) are wonderful to go through to find great new blogs that one hasn't known about, and to rediscover good blogs that one has lost touch with.

I, of course, ask readers to go vote for me, either by leaving a comment over there or sending in an email to the good folks at Wampum who spend countless hours running the thing. (If you're a big reader of blogs or a big blogger, consider tipping those guys -- it's expensive to run the awards.)

Note: While it says several places at Wampum that "voting is not yet open" -- those are old notices!

Bush wants a line-item veto. It makes sense, since general vetos are only good for getting rid of bills that increase the security of the United States.