Hillary spokesman: "We do expect Senator Obama to significantly outraise us this quarter."

The Obama fundraising juggernaut continues. Read More......

The GOP Senate Obstructionists

Republican Senators have been on a filibuster frenzy this year. This video captures them in action:
Read More......

Democratic Presidential Forum Open Thread

Tonight's "All American Presidential Forum" is being televised on PBS and webcast here. It's taking place at Howard University here in DC. Tonight's debate is inspired by The Covenant with Black America.

In addition, Pam Spaulding is live blogging from the event. She's got a post up about the preliminary events.

Great line from Richardson "Sometimes when I talk about education and this is the first time we have talked about it in any debate, the first thing you hear is 'how are you going to pay for it?' Nobody asks how we're going to pay for the war."

It's harder to blog the Democratic debates. By and large, I agree with all of them. They're talking about solving real problems. And, this debate is about substance. A discussion about education -- imagine that.

Gravel is being Gravel, of course.

Pam Spaulding is doing a great job of providing snapshots of the answers. I keep checking her post because she's on the scene in real time -- and I'm behind. Also, can't wait to see how the Republicans will answer the AIDS questions since they are the party of no condoms and abstinence only. Read More......

Meet 40 Democratic gay-bashers

The gay-bashers won the vote on the Goode amendment by only 6 votes (find entire vote count here). There is no way the Democrats couldn't have picked up some of these votes, had they wanted to. Russ Carnahan voted with the gay-bashers? And Obey and Spratt? Those two are in leadership. Several new members who were helped by the progressive blogs also voted to gay-bash: Boyda; Space; Carney; Ellsworth; and Donnelly.

Here's the entire list of Democratic gay-bashers. Feel free to write and call their offices and let them have it (find their contact info here). This is not why we voted for a Democratic congress.

Barrow
Berry
Bordallo
Boren
Boucher
Boyda (KS)
Carnahan
Carney
Costello
Cramer
Cuellar
Davis (AL)
Davis, Lincoln
Donnelly
Ellsworth
Etheridge
Faleomavaega
Gordon
Herseth Sandlin
Lampson
Lipinski
Mahoney (FL)
Marshall
Matheson
McIntyre
Melancon
Norton
Obey
Peterson (MN)
Rahall
Ross
Ruppersberger
Salazar
Scott (GA)
Shuler
Skelton
Space
Spratt
Tanner
Taylor Read More......

US House passes gay bashing amendment

By a vote of 224 - 200, the U.S. House just adopted the Samuel David Cheney gay-bashing amendment today. The Bush/Cheney administration announced that it would veto the DC appropriations bill if it did not include an amendment banning the use of federal funds for D.C.'s partner registry law (something that has never happened anyway). Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA, where else?), who is famous for challenging newly-elected Muslim-American Rep. Keith Ellison's use of the Koran at his swearing in, took up the cause for Bush and the rightwingers. 40 Democrats voted with the gay-bashing GOP majority. 12 Republicans voted the right way. So while a number of Democrats helped the gay-bashers, it was still the Republicans who promoted this hate and who got it passed. The GOP tried to make this a debate about gay marriage, which it wasn't. It was about more mundane and human things like letting partners make hospital visits when one is having a baby, as the vice president's lesbian daughter Mary Cheney recently did. Then again, if we follow the GOP logic, that this was a vote on gay marriage, then the pro-marriage-equality forces got 200 votes today, including a number of Republicans. And that's more than any federal gay-marriage vote to date.

We look forward to Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid killing this amendment in conference. Read More......

Justice Breyer dissects Roberts and Alito

Read More......

Maine GOP Senator Susan Collins says Iraq isn't her top concern

Yeah, she has so many other things to worry about, like not getting re-elected next year because she's so conservative, such a Bush apologist, and so out of touch. Read More......

Bush tells Iraqis to act more like Israel

So our secret plan for democratizing Arab countries is to remake them in the image of their mortal enemy, Israel? That's gonna go over well. Read More......

House to vote on Samuel David Cheney gay-bashing amendment today

Republican Congressman Virgil Goode is going to be offering an amendment in the US House today bashing Vice President Cheney's lesbian daughter, Mary Cheney, her lesbian partner, Heather Poe, their newborn child, Samuel David Cheney, and all gay families who visit the District of Columbia (Mary and Heather had their baby in a DC hospital a few weeks ago). You see, the Republicans don't think Samuel David should be allowed to have Mary and Heather both visit him if he ever ends up in the hospital. George Bush, who in 2004 had no problem with Samuel David's parents having the right to see him in the hospital, now thinks that it's such an egregious crime, he's going to veto any DC Appropriations bill that doesn't take a swipe at Samuel David and his two mommies.

Will Dick Cheney and Lynne Cheney speak up and defend their flesh and blood, or will they leave their own grandchild behind?

Read More......

Watch Ann Coulter lose it

Click To Play

"I've never seen people avoid ideas as much in such an obvious way," says the woman who wears the same slinky black dress to every interview and every speech, presumably to show off her legs and her cleavage (though it's possible she's simply doing an extended walk of shame from a decade-long one-night stand), and who every interview makes some outrageous comment, like wishing that John Edwards were assassinated or mocking the death of his teenage son in a car crash, in order to get attention. Yes, Ann Coulter never tries to avoid ideas.

She is a walking caricature of herself. But what's most telling is how thin-skinned she is (which is a lesson that everyone should take to heart - responding to Coulter doesn't help her cause, it drives her crazy AND she is a walking embarrassment to the GOP and the conservative cause). Listen to the tape. She's on the verge of losing it, even though she's hardly being challenged at all. She walks around calling people "fags," mocking their dead children, wishing that they were murdered, then when people respond by saying "uh, you're kind of mean," Ann flips out over the level of venom that's directed against her.

The lady is a tramp.

UPDATE: Greg Sargent notes that the article that Ann cites as "one of the greatest columns ever written" is the one in which she mocks the death of John Edwards' son. Real class act. Read More......

Bush immigration bill dies in Senate

Oh well, the Republicans couldn't muster enough votes for George Bush's bill. Now they know how it feels when the GOP filibusters everything - they even filibuster themselves. Read More......

Bush-appointed judge who authored Starr Report accused of lying to Congress

You may recall Brett Kavanaugh. As an aide to Ken Starr, he was the principal author of the Starr report, which led the GOP Congress to impeach President Clinton for allegedly lying about sex in a civil deposition in a lawsuit that was dismissed for lack of merit. Kavanaugh went on to serve as a lawyer for Bush in the White House. Bush nominated him for a lifetime appointment to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit - the most important and influential court in America after the US Supreme Court - and the Senate confirmed him. In the confirmation hearing, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) asked Kavanaugh if he'd played any role in the legal analysis and debate over enemy combatants. Kavanaugh categorically denied it. Now there are reports that Kavanaugh played a key role. Durbin is writing him to ask him to clear it up.

"By testifying under oath that you were not involved in this issue, it appears that you misled me, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the nation," Durbin wrote Kavanaugh, who was confirmed by the Senate last year on a vote of 57-36 for a seat on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

But Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) ought to initiate impeachment. Steven Griles was sentenced to 10 months in prison yesterday for lying to Congress - it's a crime. Brett Kavanaugh should be his cellmate, not a judge on the 2nd most powerful court in America. Read More......

NBC's David Gregory thinks we just need to "strip away" Ann Coulter's inflammatory rhetoric to listen to her points

Not kidding. According to NBC's David Gregory we're all missing the very important points that Ann Coulter makes because we get caught up in her hate speech. He just said to Elizabeth Edwards "if you strip away some of the inflammatory rhetoric against your husband and other Democrats, the point she's trying to make about your husband, Senator Edwards, running for the White House is in effect that he's disingenuous..."

Okay, so much wrong with the way Gregory defends Coulter. Her hateful, inflammatory rhetoric can't be stripped away -- and let's be honest, that's why NBC and ABC put her on their t.v. shows. In typical fashion, he also tries to paint everyone with the same kind of hate speech. So, instead of putting Coulter on, NBC now has one of their top reporters defending her approach. Because, you know, if you strip away the fact that Coulter advocated the assassination of a leading presidential candidate, and mocked his dead son, there's really such an important message buried inside.

Huh? Says so much.

Elizabeth Edwards handled it well, pretty much laughing at him -- and made the key point -- this is not about stripping away hateful rhetoric. The hate speech is the issue:

Click To Play

The traditional media has created Ann Coulter. They feed the beast. They enable her and her hate speech. And, we're just all really stupid because we think the hate rhetoric matters. Read More......

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Late start...Lots going on. What do we need to know? Read More......

House Democrats moving on improving gas mileage

Whether the GOP, Cheney, Bush, Inhofe or John Dingell like it or not, this is going to happen. Americans are more interested in what's in the best interest of the country and the future of our world and not just what Detroit and Big Oil wants. Read More......

US global image continues to stay low

Maybe if Bush speaks sloooooowwwweeeeerrrr and loooouuuuddddeeeerrrr, they might understand, no? Don't be surprised if that's what the right actually thinks about their message. No surprises here.

The US comes in for sharp criticism. "Global distrust of American leadership is reflected in increasing disapproval of the cornerstones of US foreign policy," the survey says. "Not only is there worldwide support for a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq but there is also considerable opposition to US and Nato operations in Afghanistan ... The US image remains abysmal in most Muslim countries in the Middle East and Asia and continues to decline among the publics of America's oldest allies."

Nine per cent of Turks, 13% of Palestinians and 15% of Pakistanis take a favourable view of the US. In Germany, the figure is 30%, in France 39% and in Britain 51% - all down on previous surveys. Only in Israel, Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya do majorities believe US forces should stay in Iraq.

The good news in this otherwise predictable but still sad study is that there is a world leader who even even less trusted, so at least Bush has that going for him. Break out the Champagne, errr, the non-alcoholic beer, Putin is worse!

Rising powers such as China and Russia get mixed reviews. Russia's Vladimir Putin scores worse than George Bush in terms of confidence that he will "do the right thing" in world affairs - 30% believe he will, against 45% for Mr Bush.

Read More......

Brazil puts science ahead of religion

While Congress shies away from a battle with Bush to provide $1 billion for religious theory to fight AIDS, Brazil builds a pharmaceutical factory in one of the harder hit countries of Africa so they can provide the necessary medicine locally. While the GOP continues their efforts to restrict choice in America, Brazil announces a plan to provide morning after pills for the poor, in addition to the existing program to distribute condoms for almost nothing.

It's an interesting sign of the times to see a developing nation be so much more progressive than the so-called world superpower. In no way am I knocking Brazil which is a great country with so many qualities, but in another time it would have been the US would have been out in front with combating serious issues like this. Our leaders kowtow to the religious right, fearing their wrath and leaders in Brazil decide to be leaders themselves, as it should be in a modern democracy. Read More......