An impressive new group has formed to back Jonathan's Senate bid: Women for Tasini. Check it out.

There's a new phrase going around the blogosphere to describe what veteran CIA analyst Ray McGovern did to Donald Rumsfeld at a public forum yesterday. He "Colberted" him. McGovern stood up during a Q&A; session after Rumsfeld's speech and asked him why he had claimed to know the location of WMD in Iraq prior to the war.

"You said you knew where they were," McGovern said.

McGovern then read from statements the Defense secretary had made that weapons were located near Tikrit, Iraq, and Baghdad, which led Rumsfeld to briefly stammer. - link

Oh yeah, he Colberted him! He Colberted him good.

So where is your Senator? While most Congressional Democrats are calling for Rumsfeld's resignation, Senator Clinton will not. According to The Hill, Clinton and Tom Vilsack "stand out among the bevy of 2008 Democratic hopefuls for refraining from calling for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation in recent weeks."

The NY Times contained an article today that featured quotations from various politicians questioning the effectiveness of the May 1 rallies in changing votes in Congress on immigration legislation. While the rallies and marches across the country may not have changed votes immediately, the increased visibility makes it difficult for Congressional leaders to ignore the question of immigration reform.

For context, it is interesting to think back to the history of May 1, celebrated internationally as labor day. Although it is no longer recongized here as labor day, May 1 was initiated in this country when immigrant workers, organizing for the 8-hour workday, called for a general strike in 1886. We continue to benefit from the efforts of these earlier generations of immigrant workers who fought for and established many of the labor rights and working standards we enjoy today. Without comprehensive immigration reform that legalizes the status of immigrant workers in our country, defending the corrosion of these standards is more challenging. While the actions of May 1 may not have won votes immediately, they added momentum for reformed immigration policies.

Speaking truth to power takes courage. It also takes grace and eloquence and wit. Stephen Colbert showed he possesses all three when he slammed Bush to his face at the White House Correspondents Dinner this week. Using his slyly satirical right wing pundit persona, he called Bush out on the war, the lying, the spying and his dive in the polls. Bush, seated on the dais next to the podium, looked game then uncomfortable then glum. It's not often he emerges from his bubble to hear opinions other than his own, and he was not amused.

Speaking in character, as a Bill O'Reilly type Bush sycophant, Colbert denounced the regime. As described in Salon:

Then he turned to the president of the United States, who sat tight-lipped just a few feet away. "I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world."

He also roasted the press, informing them that their job was to "type," and that when they were finished they could go home and write their novels about the brave journalist who takes on a corrupt administration. "You know, fiction."

One of the central tenets of our platform is that, in the richest nation in the world, there is no reason that anyone should go without health coverage. In his op-ed in today's New York Times, Paul Krugman offers further support for our call.

The article cites a study just released by the Commonwealth Fund, which found that of non-elderly Americans making between $20,000-$40,000 a year, 41% did not have health coverage for all or part of 2005. Further, the survey found that many of the uninsured were faced with the choice of cutting corners and not getting the care they needed (lack of insurance leads to 18,000 unnecessary American deaths each year), or going without basic necessities.