Senate to Atone for Lynching Ban Delays

"The Senate seldom says it's sorry, although it is now ready to officially express its remorse over the failure to outlaw lynching in the United States. A resolution that the chamber was likely to take up Monday voices regret for the Senate's unwillingness for years to pass a law stopping a crime that cost the lives of over 4,700 people, mostly blacks, between 1882 and 1968....read on"

I never realized that it was legal in the first place. How sick is that? The fact that it was then allowed to last until 1968 is unimaginable. Read this exchange if you want to have your stomach turned from History Matters In the following testimony to a House subcommittee, four Southern Congressmen discussed their reasons for opposing what they deemed federal interference in state judicial responsibilities and defend segregation and the “peaceful relations now existing between white man and Negro” in the South. Congressman Charles E. Bennett (Florida) also offered his historical explanation for lynching. read the full transcript.

Try to figure out what group of people are being targeted now. Also, some from the right will try to equate these types of filibusters to what is going on in the judiciary. I doubt they can see how contemptable that comparison is.

Kerry's Kids First Act Needs Your Support

via Yellow Dog Blog

John Kerry isn't a man who forgets about the issues he said were important while running for president.

The Senator is the author of the Kids First Act (S.114/H.R. 1668), which will ensure that the 11 million uninsured children in America have health coverage and a healthy childhood – and he needs our help.

Check out the television ad that Kerry's organization is running in key Republican states and districts. While no Republican ever got kicked out of their party for being heartless, it is Senator Kerry's hope that running a public relations campaign targeted at the constituents of Bill Frist and Tom DeLay will put pressure on them to at least feign compassion for children. (Though it is interesting to note that, of the legislation's eight cosponsors, none has an 'R' next to their name.)

Please take a look at the ad, give whatever money you can to help run it and sign Senator Kerry's web site to be a cosponsor of the act yourself.

As a parent fortunate enough to be able to provide care for my son, I can't imagine the heartbreak of having to watch a young child be sick and be unable to get them help.

This is important legislation. Please support it. It'll make you feel good.

incredible even for the repugs The End Of The World

Perhaps Sarah Palin made that ridiculous statement about "Obama Death Panels" because she knew this story was going to break -- it was happening in her own state, right under her nose:

State programs intended to help disabled and elderly Alaskans with daily life -- taking a bath, eating dinner, getting to the bathroom -- are so poorly managed, the state cannot assure the health and well-being of the people they are supposed to serve, a new federal review found.

The situation is so bad the federal government has forbidden the state to sign up new people until the state makes necessary improvements. No other state in the nation is under such a moratorium, according to a spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

In the meantime, frail and vulnerable Alaskans who desperately need the help are struggling. One elderly woman is stuck in a nursing home, for lack of care at home. Another woman, suffering from chronic pain and fatigue, said she's so weak, she often can't even pop dinner into the microwave.

This is the GOP's alternative to a public or universal option. Sarah wants to talk about evil socialist plans that will kill people, but I betcha she doesn't want to talk about the hundreds of Alaskans who died waiting for these services.

A particularly alarming finding concerns deaths of adults in the programs. In one 2 1/2 year stretch, 227 adults already getting services died while waiting for a nurse to reassess their needs. Another 27 died waiting for their initial assessment, to see if they qualified for help. Read on...

In honor of the people of Alaska who died on her watch, Sarah Palin needs to stop makin' stuff up about health care reform, and apologize for screwing things up and then running away when the going got tough.

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Barack Obama opens up to CBS's Harry Smith about why he's suspending his campaign at the most crucial time in order to go see his sick grandmother. This is some pretty powerful stuff.

Harry Smith: You've said in the past that you regretted - your own mother's illness - and her death came so quickly. You didn't have time to get back to see her.

Barack Obama: Yeah, got there too late. ... We knew - she wasn't doing well. But you know, the diagnosis was such that we thought we had a little more time, and we didn't. And so I want to make sure that I don't - I don't make - the same mistake twice.

Andrew Sullivan puts it perfectly:

If you have read Obama's memoir, you will immediately understand why he would suspend a national campaign for the most powerful job on earth to be with his grandmother right now. One gets the impression from Robert Gibbs and from this decision that this might indeed be one of the last chances he gets. "Toot" was a formative figure - she brought him up with her husband during some critical years. Her death would be the death of his last parent. Reading about her again tonight, you can see where Obama's personal social conservatism comes from. There's a lot more Kansas in Obama than most people on the right seem to think.

The Left Coaster: You can go to a soldier's funeral now, Mr. President

Politics in the Zeros: The unexpected return of class war

Where's the Outrage?: A doctor examines a sick patient.

MediaBloodhound: Leaked memo of McCain camp's future Hail Marys

The E&P Pub: John McCain vs the Des Moines Register

The Story of Stuff: A fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns, exposing the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues. (h/t swimgirl)

I am getting so sick and tired of watching Tim Russert on "MTP" throw softballs to the Condi Rice's of the Republican world, and then grill John Edwards using Republican talking points. I thought I could see the words: flip/flop tatooed on his head while he asks his questions!

David Kuo is in Uganda, and he's found that Evangelist Benny Hinn is there and actually asking poor Africans to finance his lavish lifestyle:

My only thought is that if Mr. Hinn takes so much a single Ugandan schilling from the desperately poor and sick people longing, begging, for a miracle it will make him a spiritual predator, a spiritual terrorist.

Think Progress:

In its Action Update today, the Family Research Council (FRC) partially cast blame for the tragic shooting at a megachurch in Colorado yesterday on “the secular media.” In the e-mail, which was sent under the name of FRC Action President Tony Perkins, the group says it’s “hard not to draw a line between” the shooting and “hostility” by “some in the secular media toward Christians”:

It is hard not to draw a line between the hostility that is being fomented in our culture from some in the secular media toward Christians and evangelicals in particular and the acts of violence that took place in Colorado yesterday. But I will say no more for now other than that our friends at New Life Church and YWAM are in our thoughts and prayers.

When Perkins can't explain why this sick young man turned against his church and why God spared some people, but allowed others to be slaughtered, he sloughs it off on "evil secularists." Tony, do you think that the fact this kid was kicked out of the missionary school he shot up had anything to do with it? Isn't it possible that this rejection may have driven him to seek revenge? The secular media didn't reject this young man, nor did it give him access to the gun. Mr. Perkins, you might want to look at the real root causes of this tragedy rather than blaming secularists.

What a wild story. The guy looks like a pretty sick individual:

A mentally unstable man wearing what appeared to be a bomb strapped to his chest was arrested hours after he walked into a Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign office Friday, took hostages and demanded to speak to the candidate in a standoff that dragged into the night, authorities said.

Eisenberg made local headlines in March when he held a news conference on the steps of Rochester City Hall to complain about a police policy of placing fliers in unlocked cars warning motorists to lock their doors. "This is nothing more than a gimmick to get around the Constitution and go around in the middle of the night upon unsuspecting citizens in their own yard and search their vehicles," Eisenberg said.

I'll have more later...