It is my great pleasure to announce four new writers here at The Agonist.

First, Bob Geiger, known for his excellent coverage of the Senate and his wonderful Saturday comics collection will be our new Senate correspondent. Bob will cover all manner of issues regarding the Senate, from parliamentary chicanery to specific bills and Senate elections. Bob took a long hiatus from blogging and we are very happy to have him here.

Second, Cliff Schecter, known for his acerbic wit on MSNBC and other mainstream television channels and his excellent and often hilarious work at Brave New Films will blog once or twice a week here and we'll hope to be hosting his blog here at Agonist central soon as well, as we're working out a few kinks as I type. Cliff will cover all manner of issues, many of the media oriented.

Third, Alex Thurston of The Seminal will write a twice weekly foreign affairs column--Alex is currently a student in the Master's Program of Arab Studies at Georgetown University. He graduated from Northwestern University in 2005 with a BA in Religion and spent the winter of 05-06 working at various jobs around Chicago. In 2006-2007, he lived in Senegal as part of the Fulbright exchange program and studied Muslim youth movements in the capital city, Dakar. His interests (other than politics and religion) include hip hop and literature.

Finally, Hannes Artens, whom many of you already know, will be writing a weekly column from across the pond on the current view of America and the world abroad.

Please give all of them a very warm Agonist welcome. I am very excited to have their participation, thoughts and ideas here at The Agonist.