Lady Bird Johnson quotes her husband about Vietnam

AP

"I can't get out. And I can't finish it with what I have got. And I don't know what the hell to do."

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The San Diego Pad-gays

Okay, that was bad. Good story, though.

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Larry Flynt says he has 20 investigations of hypocritical members of Congress' sex lives

Wish list time: Who do you want to see on Flynt's list, and why? More from Raw Story. Read the rest of this post...

Bush's religious right friends say Hinduism is not the kind of religion the Founding Fathers had in mind for America

The group publishing this slur on Hindus is none other than the American Family Association, one of the biggest religious right groups and a big supporter of the Republicans. The AFA is made up of equal opportunity bigots: they slur gays, Catholics, Hindus and just about everyone else who isn't a conservative Christian fundamentalist. Their vision of America is a country made up of Southern Baptists, or at least a nation in which everyone has to live under laws that conform to Southern Baptist preachings.

So now they're upset that a Hindu chaplain may join the myriad of other faiths that have been permitted to open the Senate with a prayer. And why not? If we're going to ban religions we disagree with then I'd like to start with anyone claiming to represent Christian fundamentalist Republicans. Their bigotry and hatred doesn't represent my God - for example, Christian fundamentalists call Catholicism a "Satanic counterfeit," do you really think that represents the Founders' thinking? So if we're starting a list of religions we're going to ban from the Senate because we don't like them, let's start with America's own Taliban, the people who have raised banning non-Southern-Baptist religions to an art form.

I am not going to link to these bigots, but here is their action alert, asking folks to contact the Senate in order to get the Hindu chaplain banned.

Hindu to open Senate with prayer

Send an email to your senator now, expressing your disappointment in the Senate decision to invite a Hindu to open the session with prayer.

On Thursday, a Hindu chaplain from Reno, Nevada, by the name of Rajan Zed is scheduled to deliver the opening prayer in the U.S. Senate. Zed tells the Las Vegas Sun that in his prayer he will likely include references to ancient Hindu scriptures, including Rig Veda, Upanishards, and Bhagavard-Gita. Historians believe it will be the first Hindu prayer ever read at the Senate since it was formed in 1789.

WallBuilders president David Barton is questioning why the U.S. government is seeking the invocation of a non-monotheistic god. Barton points out that since Hindus worship multiple gods, the prayer will be completely outside the American paradigm, flying in the face of the American motto "One Nation Under God."

TAKE ACTION – Call your Senators at xxxxxxx

"In Hindu, you have not one God, but many, many, many, many, many gods," the Christian historian explains. "And certainly that was never in the minds of those who did the Constitution, did the Declaration [of Independence] when they talked about Creator -- that's not one that fits here because we don't know which creator we're talking about within the Hindu religion."

TAKE ACTION – Click here to send your E-mail today!

Barton says given the fact that Hindus are a tiny constituency of the American public, he questions the motivation of Senate leaders. "This is not a religion that has produced great things in the world," he observes. "You look at India, you look at Nepal -- there's persecution going in both of those countries that is gendered by the religious belief that is present there, and Hindu dominates in both of those countries."

And while Barton acknowledges there is not constitutional problem with a Hindu prayer in the Senate, he wonders about the political side of it. "One definitely wonders about the pragmatic side of it," he says. "What is the message, and why is the message needed? And will it actually communicate anything other than engender with folks like me a lot of questions?"

Barton says he knows of at least seven cases where Christians have lost their bid to express their own faith in a public prayer.

Zed is reportedly the first Hindu to deliver opening prayers in an American state legislature, having done so in both the Nevada State Assembly and Nevada State Senate earlier this year. He has stated that Thursday's prayer will be "universal in approach," despite being drawn from Hindu religious texts.

Yeah, it's been so hard for Christians to promote their religion in America, especially with opening prayers before the US Senate. Bigots and liars. But more importantly, these are the people who control the Republican party. And people wonder why the Republicans are dropping in the polls like flies? Read the rest of this post...

Bush orders Harriet Miers not to appear at hearing tomorrow

Looks like Harriet Miers won't get her hearing tomorrow after all. George Bush told her not to show up at the House Judiciary Committee tomorrow. Yeah, not to even show up:

President Bush has told his former White House counsel, Harriet E. Miers, not to even appear on Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee investigating the firings of United States attorneys, the committee chairman said today.

Representative John D. Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who heads the panel, said he was told in a letter dated Tuesday from Ms. Miers’s lawyer that she would not appear. Mr. Conyers said the lawyer was reacting to a letter from Fred F. Fielding, the current White House counsel, asserting that “Ms. Miers has absolute immunity from compelled Congressional testimony as to matters occurring while she was a senior adviser to the president.”

Mr. Conyers said he was “extremely disappointed” at the White House’s stance, and he hoped that Ms. Miers might appear despite Mr. Bush’s assertion of executive privilege to keep her away from the hearing. It had been expected that Ms. Miers would appear and would decline to answer certain questions.

The White House’s defiance of a subpoena from Mr. Conyers’s panel intensified a showdown between the executive and legislative branches and could portend a court battle, unless a political compromise can be reached.

Can't Conyers send the Capitol Hill police to get her? Read the rest of this post...

ABC: Al Qaeda's Strength 'Undiminished' in Iraq; Despite U.S. Assertions, Terrorists Thriving in Iraq, Senior Military Official Says

So Bush and Petraeus and Lieberman and McCain have been lying to us. Show of hands: Surprised? More from ABC. Read the rest of this post...

Senate brings up amendment to add gender, disability and sexual orientation to federal hate crimes laws

Regardless of your views on hate crimes laws, they already exist at the federal level and already cover the religious right. If they're going to exist at all, shouldn't they cover everyone, and not just the staff of the Family Research Council, American Family Association, and the men at the Concerned Women for America?

From HRC:

Today, Sens. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Gordon Smith, R-Ore., filed the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act(S. 1105) as an amendment for consideration to the Department of Defense reauthorization currently being debated before the U.S. Senate. The bill, commonly referred to as the “hate crimes bill,” could receive a Senate vote as early as today. The virtually identical House version of the bill passed overwhelmingly on May 3, 2007, with a bipartisan vote of 237 to 180 — with more than 20 Republicans voting in support of the bill.....

TheMatthew Shepard Act is supported by more than 290 law enforcement, civil rights, civic and religious organizations. Some of those supporting organizations include the National Sheriffs Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, 26 state attorneys general, the National District Attorneys Association, the NAACP, the Episcopal Church, the League of Women Voters, the YWCA of the USA and the United Methodist Church....

This legislation would help combat hate crimes across America by doing two important things: updating the federal hate crimes laws to include all Americans, and providing new resources and tools to assist local law enforcement in prosecuting these vicious crimes.

In addition to this year’s overwhelming, bipartisan vote in the House to support this legislation, both the Senate and House have voted in favor of legislation to combat bias-motivated violence in prior Congresses. Most recently, in the 109th Congress, the House of Representative approved its hate crimes bill as an amendment on a bipartisan vote of 223 to 199. House and Senate votes were held in the 106th and 108th Congress as well. In the 108th Congress, the Senate passed the measure by an overwhelming vote of 65 to 33, with 18 Senate Republicans voting yes, and the House approved it on a bipartisan vote of 213 to 186, with 31 Republicans voting yes.

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Surgeon General's orders: Don't talk about sex or science. Do talk about Bush three times on every page.

This is classic:

Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional panel Tuesday that top Bush administration officials repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.

The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues. Top officials delayed for years and tried to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand smoke, he said. Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm.

Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.

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GOP Senators defeat by filibuster Webb's amendment to support the troops

Wow. The GOP Senators really, really are obstructionists. And, the GOP Senators do not support the troops. The Senate Republicans just successfully filibustered Senator Webb's amendment to support the troops and insure troop readiness by a 41 - 56 margin. Because the GOP opted to filibuster Webb's bill, it needed 60 votes to proceed. Here's the link to a fact sheet explaining the legislation.

Why the GOP chooses to be on the wrong side of this one is bizarre. But, they do what George Bush wants every single time.

UPDATE: Here's the roll call vote. Read the rest of this post...

Republicans are filibustering Webb's bill that actually supports the troops

Republicans DO NOT support the troops. If you need more proof, read Jim Webb's statement about today's Republican filibuster of his troop readiness bill. The vote will occur today at around 11:30 a.m. We're posting Senator Webb's full statement because people need to understand that the GOP Senators -- and Lieberman -- are FILIBUSTERING a bill that actually does support the troops:

“Today the Republicans decided to filibuster an amendment that goes straight to the well-being of our troops. I deeply regret this move, which makes it necessary for the amendment to be passed with a minimum of 60 votes instead of 51.

“I would remind my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle that the American people are watching us closely today. They expect us to finally take the sort of positive action that might stabilize the operational environment in which our troops are being sent again and again.

“Americans are tired of the posturing that is giving Congress such a bad reputation. They are tired of the procedural strategies designed to protect politicians from accountability, and to protect this Administration from judgment. They are looking for concrete actions that will protect the well-being of our men and women in uniform.

“The question on this amendment is not whether you support this war or whether you do not. It is not whether you want to wait until July or September to see where one particular set of benchmarks or summaries might be taking us. The question is this: more than four years into ground operations in Iraq, we owe stability, and a reasonable cycle of deployment, to the men and women who are carrying our nation’s burden. That is the question. And that is the purpose of this amendment.”

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Dear AP, do you actually read the legislation you write about?

The Associated Press bought Sen. Salazar's fake "Iraq Study Group" bill hook, line and sinker. Here's how AP describes the bill, then read what the bill actually says:

Also expected to come to a vote in the next two weeks is a plan to place into law recommendations from last winter's report from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. The group called for removing all combat brigades not needed for training, force protection and counterterrorism by March 31, 2008.

No, the bill is "sense of Congress" legislation. It doesn't detail anything that HAS to happen, it simply expresses Congress' wish that things be done in a certain way. And if they aren't done that way, oh well. This legislation has no more impact than National Ice Cream Day, and for AP to suggest that this somehow implements the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group is absurd. AP could have read just page 3 of the bill, the one where it says that the Iraq Study Group did NOT set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. That directly contradicts AP's own assertion that the Group did in fact call for such a withdrawal by next March. The legislation not only has no teeth, it doesn't even correspond to the Iraq Study Group's own recommendations.

Come on, AP, don't just repeat what people tell you. Everyone lies. Read the rest of this post...

GOP Senate leader McConnell says he will filibuster any and all amendments about Iraq. Media spins story for GOP.

The true colors of the Republican party come through. Nothing can be done about Iraq - NOTHING - or they will filibuster it. We're staying in Iraq forever, all thanks to the Republicans. From Roll Call (subscription only):

Reid's tack on Tuesday appeared to be a dual attempt to press Republicans on the political question of Iraq and to challenge the need for 60 votes for passage of any measure — one of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) chief tactical tools this year.

In fact, Reid and McConnell traded barbs on the floor over the process for debating the bill, with Reid saying McConnell's insistence on pre-setting 60-vote thresholds for all Iraq-related amendments amounted to a defacto filibuster. Sixty votes are required to cut off a filibuster.

McConnell argued "every Iraq amendment we've voted on this year ... as most things in the Senate that are remotely controversial, has required 60 votes." McConnell added that his suggestion to only adopt amendments that receive 60 or more votes was "the rational response to the nature of the Senate in this era."

Reid fired back that "rationality is in the eye of the beholder. That's just some recent rule that's come up in the minds of the minority."

It's Reid's claim that this is a filibuster? It IS a filibsuter. The only thing you need 60 votes to break is a filibuster, period. Once again we have the media playing these cute games of repeating Republican talking points rather than simply reporting the truth. Roll Call knows how the Hill works, they know that the 60 votes are needed to stop a filibuster, yet they insist on reporting this he-said-she-said, making it sound like Harry Reid is calling this a filibuster but you know he's just saying that. No, Roll Call shouldn't need a quote from Harry Reid at all. Anyone who has spent any time on the Hill knows what 60 votes are about - it's to invoke cloture in order to stop a filibuster.

Oh, but Roll Call isnt' alone in following GOP talking points. Check out the front page of today's Washington Post:

But the GOP leadership's use of a parliamentary tactic requiring at least 60 votes to pass any war legislation only encouraged the growing number of Republican dissenters to rally and seek new ways to force President Bush's hand.

That obscure parliamentary tactic that requires 60 votes to move forward is called a freaking "filibuster." What is it with these people? If it's not a filibuster unless you're sitting on the Senate floor reading a phone book into the congressional record, then we haven't had a filibuster in years, if not decades. So why did the media dutifully report the Republicans' previous accusations that Dems were filibustering too much when all the Dems were doing is the same thing the Repubs are doing now - requiring 60 votes on some nominations? So it's a filibuster when we're accused of doing it (and we only did it a few times), and it's not a filibuster when they actually do it to EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF LEGISLATION. I get it.

Also, note what McConnell is now saying. Anything and everything that is even vaguely controversial will meet a Republican filibuster. Short of National Ice Cream Day, that means everything the Senate does. Since when has that been standard practice? Read the rest of this post...

No longer safe for US Members of Congress to spend night in Iraq

Things are improving in Iraq so much that it's no longer safe for US Members of Congress to stay there overnight. Forget about visiting John McCain's little street market, they can't even visit the US Embassy safely.

The delegation's visit was harrowing at times. While visiting with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker at the U.S. Embassy inside Baghdad's walled, high-security Green Zone on Friday, mortar blasts landed inside the American-controlled territory.

"This recorded message played four times while we were there, asking us to move away from any windows, to get on the ground and move to the center of the building," Bachmann said. "(Crocker) stayed in his seat and kept talking with us the whole time. He never moved."....

Security conditions in Iraq prevented Bachmann from meeting any Iraqis, leaving the Green Zone or staying in Iraq overnight. She and other congressional members were required to wear full body armor, including Kevlar helmets, during the entire trip, she said.

They couldn't even spend the night. This is a new low, in terms of how dangerous Iraq is getting, even inside the Green Zone. Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Well the Iraq debate has really, really heated up. Bush is looking more and more like he is completely cut off from reality every day. Republicans are trying to send a message to him that it's time to wrap up his war. They are his "friends" and are trying to help. But, Bush doesn't care. He's exhibiting really bizarre behavior. It's like we're watching another intervention (the first was the Iraq Study Group) -- this one isn't working either. Bush can't admit he has a problem.

Also, note to Democratic candidates (and right now that means Barack Obama who was just on the Today Show): Please stop saying "this President" and "this administration." That may be appropriate inside-the-Senate speak, but not on the campaign trail. Bush's approval rating is in the 20s....use his name as often as possible.

Okay, thread please. Read the rest of this post...

The Moore vs Gupta health care debate

Just in case everyone was hoping to skim over the health care debate and "Sicko" Michael Moore was in rare form earlier this week on CNN debating the criticisms of the movie with Wolf Blitzer and Dr Gupta. I haven't seen the movie, but having used both the US model as well as the French model, there's no doubt in my mind which is better and it's not even close. The French health care system - ranked #1 by the WHO, as Moore notes - is much easier and even with taxes is much cheaper.

Many people in France use a hybrid system that involves both national health insurance as well as a supplemental health insurance program. The government system sets costs (for reimbursement) and percentages that they pay based on those costs and the private insurance pays much if not all of the difference between the two leaving very little out of pocket costs for patients. For example, my normal GP is above the government standard for a doctor visit so I pay the difference for visits but that extra amount is completely covered by my insurance plan. Though not perfect, I find the processing by the insurance companies in France to be amazingly quick and efficient unlike my own experiences in the US.

I often hear anti-health care types in the US talk about delays but that's always been a non-issue for me as well because in my own personal experience it's no more or no less than what I experienced in the US. What I do notice is that people here do not live with the same level of fear that sickness will bankrupt them. The costs are contained and covered so nobody is afraid of using the system.

Whether you agree with Michael Moore, Dr Gupta, both or neither, it's about time the US put aside the silly "it's socialism" talk and had a serious discussion and debate about health care. Outside of Big Health, Big Pharma and their helpers, most everyone else would like change and a modern system that works for the bulk of Americans and not just the lucky few who don't have any concerns about runaway costs. Changing the system does not have to cost more, it just requires seriousness and consensus instead of a wish list for the health care industry, which we have today. Read the rest of this post...

Deadly attack inside Green Zone

This is progress? Three people killed in the Tuesday attack on the fortress inside Baghdad.

Attacks against the Green Zone have increased in recent months, adding to the concern over the safety of key Iraqi and international officials who live and work in the 3.5-square-mile district along the Tigris River in the center of Baghdad. The zone includes the U.S. and British embassies as well as Iraq's parliament and the offices of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

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