Although Texas Board of Education's Don McLeroy, theocrat and Reaganophile, was recently defeated by a more moderate Republican candidate for the top spot on the Board of Ed, he still has 10 months left on his term. Vowing to "put their mark on the guidelines for social studies texts", he and seven other conservative board members (R - Wingnutistan) seek to, among many other things, require publishers...

"to include a section on "the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly[!], the Contract with America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association." NY Times

If you can stomach it, see how else they'd like to revise the history of the United States (below the fold).

No doubt everyone remembers last Friday when news of this first appeared:

Late Thursday night and again Friday morning, Bunning single-handedly blocked a 30-day extension of unemployment benefits and health insurance payments for more than 1 million jobless Americans over concerns about the federal deficit.

When the 221,052 unemployed people of my adopted home state read about this, I sincerely hope that they'll remember precisely what it was that Senator Bunning said to them late last week:

                                                        TOUGH SHIT

Breaking, sad news:

NEW YORK -- Getty
"Catcher in the Rye" author J.D. Salinger has died at age 91 in New Hampshire.

The author's son, in a statement from the author's literary representative, says Salinger died of natural causes at his home. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H.

There's an extensive and pretty good tribute up on the NY Times. They mentioned in the article that although he'd broken his hip last spring, he'd been in excellent health until a sudden decline after the new year. Importantly, Salinger's agent noted that:

...He was not in any pain before or at the time of his death."

Yesterday in a fit of exasperation and anger I wrote the following comment:

How can a man with such eloquence send so many mixed f'ing messages? I'm so fed up right now, I could scream.

I was referring to an interview that President Obama had just given to George Stephanopoulos. During the interview, he said this about the fate of HCR:

I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on. We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people. We know that we have to have some form of cost containment because if we don’t, then our budgets are going to blow up and we know that small businesses are going to need help so that they can provide health insurance to their families. Those are the core, some of the core elements of, to this bill. Now I think there’s some things in there that people don’t like and legitimately don’t like.

It's now old news that Senator Jim DeMint (R - SC) has had a hold on Obama's nomination of Errol Stouthers as Head of the TSA. Apparently, the hold was placed because of DeMint's almost pathological fear/hatred of unions:

If organized labor got involved, DeMint said, union bosses would have the power "to veto or delay future security improvements at our airports."

It's extraordinarily insightful that the good Senator used these words in his statement because one could argue that Jim DeMint also has the power "to veto or delay future security improvements at our airports". Not surprsingly, he attempted to exercise that power only 2 1/2 years ago.

Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, has 160 deputies and jail officers specially trained to make federal immigration arrests and speed up deportations. Arpaio has made it his life's mission to deport any and all illegal immigrants in his jurisdiction...regardless of whether or not they are actually illegal. Telemundo 52 (in Spanish) via Latina.com describes the horror that Alma Minerva Chacon had to endure at the hands of Sheriff Arpaio's department:

The most recent atrocity committed by the self-proclaimed "America's Toughest Sheriff" involves a woman who was detained while 9-months pregnant. Alma Minerva Chacon's case has been receiving media attention due to the brutality with which she was treated. The very same night of her arrest, Chacon went into labor and found herself afraid and alone, being rushed to a local hospital with her hands and legs chained in shackles.

More below the fold.

Apparently, the Republican National Committee thinks that the ever increasingly used verb, Scozzafavaed, is a good thing. From the NY Times:

Republican leaders are circulating a resolution listing 10 positions Republican candidates should support to demonstrate that they "espouse conservative principles and public policies" that are in opposition to "Obama’s socialist agenda." According to the resolution, any Republican candidate who broke with the party on three or more of these issues– in votes cast, public statements made or answering a questionnaire – would be penalized by being denied party funds or the party endorsement.

More below...

At 72 years of age, John McCain is at the age when politicians start to think about calling it quits. While it’s true that some will serve well into their 80s - and in some cases even their 90s - 72 isn’t a number for spring chickens. When he comes up for reelection again, he’ll be 74 years old. When that term expires, he’ll be 80.
EyesonObama

If McCain does decide to run, he's got a very hard fight ahead of him. In a just released Rasmussen (I know, I know) poll, McCain leads by only 2% points against an, as yet, unannounced conservative talk radio show host, JD Hayworth.

Arizona Senate GOP Primary

John McCain 45%
J.D. Hayworth 43%
Chris Simcox 4%
Some other candidate 2%
Not sure 7%

Yeah, yeah - tell me something I don't already know, right? I'm sorry but I have to get this off my chest because this man - more than Giuliani, Beck, Limbaugh and Liasson (that's right Mara, I went there) combined - is really, really starting to piss me off.

Last evening, Melissa Block had Lieberman on to talk about his bogus Homeland Security committee hearings on Nidal Hasan and the Fort Hood shootings, which - you'll recall - Lieberman is quite convinced was a terrorist act. After suffering through that, Block asked Lieberman about HCR - specifically, his prior statements about voting against cloture. This is what he said (below the fold, please):

WaPo has breaking news of a just-released USDA report stating:

The number of Americans who lack dependable access to adequate food shot up last year to 49 million, the largest number since the government has been keeping track...

Here's the full USDA report: PDF

More below:

Via Think Progress:

A 22-year-old woman from Oxford, Ohio, died from swine flu on Wednesday. Kimberly Young graduated from Miami University in December and continued to live in Oxford, Ohio, within Minority Leader John Boehner’s congressional distrct.

Sadly, if caught early enough, H1N1, or swine flu, is usually easily treatable with anti-virals such as Tamilu or Ralenza. As we all know though, people without insurance often put off treatment for illnesses because they worry about the expense of going to the doctor. Kimberly Young didn't have insurance.

From Think Progress comes this tale out of Matt Latimer's new book, Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor.

Latimer describes a speech by former Doofus-in-Chief, George W. Bush, at a 2008 GOP fundraiser where he outlined his personal struggles with alcoholism and his visit to a prison ministry program.

"Certainly we would encourage people in other countries to have small families. Otherwise they’ll all be coming here, because there’s no room at the Vatican...Many [immigrants] hate America, hate everything the United States stands for. Talk to some of these Central Americans."Source(PDF)

These are the words of one Dan Stein, President and Executive Director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR - ha!). Mr. Stein and FAIR are organizing and sponsoring the "Hold Their Feet to the Fire 2009" radio-thon this week in Washington DC.

On September 15 and 16, 47 talk radio hosts from across the country, including Lou Dobbs, will broadcast continuously live both days from the Phoenix Park Hotel on Capitol Hill as part of Hold Their Feet to the Fire 2009 Radio-thon.

In other words, did the woman who once said this

I know that John McCain will do that and I, as his vice president, families we are blessed with that vote of the American people and are elected to serve and are sworn in on January 20, that will be our top priority is to defend the American people.

actually write this...(below the fold, if you please)

Via The Plum Line, Americans United for Change has a new ad up describing who really runs the "death panels".

The spot, which will run on national cable in a five-figure buy, dovetails with the new White House effort to train public anger on the insurance companies in the reform push.

Yesterday, the NY Times reported that a group of conservative leaders is calling on Senate Republicans to filibuster Obama's supreme court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. Excerpts from the letter:

"We request that you will lead 40 or more senators to participate in a great debate that highlights all the issues that come to the fore with a Supreme Court nomination," says the letter, addressed to Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader from Kentucky.

Full Text of the letter is here (Warning: PDF)

Everyone reading this is by now well versed in the hypocrisy being shown by these same conservative "leaders" who not so long ago decried using the filibuster for judicial nominations as unconstitutional. This story is about more than hypocrisy though...

Breaking on WaPo right now:

Former top White House official Karl Rove will be interviewed tomorrow as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the firing of U.S. attorneys during the Bush administration, according to two sources familiar with the appointment.

Connecticut prosecutor Nora R. Dannehy was named last year to investigate whether Justice or WH officials lied or obstructed justice in the 2006 US attorney firings. More below:

Secretary of Defense Gates has asked for the resignation of Gen. David McKiernan and plans to appoint Lieutenant General Stanley A. McChrystal to the post.

From WaPo:

Gates refused to detail why he asked for McKiernan's resignation. Instead he said that the Afghanistan mission "requires new thinking and new approaches from our military leaders. Today we have a new policy set by our new president. We have a new strategy, a new mission and a new ambassador. I believe that new military leadership also is needed."

For more information on the man Gates believes is best for the job at hand, follow me over the fold.