Today is Jon Tester's Birthday, and not just any birthday, but the big 5-0!!!  Let's show him some love!

I haven't seen a diary on this yet, but I (like many of you, I assume) just received an email from Dean to drum up contributions to the DNC's 50 State Strategy.  The subject of the email is "More controversial than you think," which is a reference to the criticism Dean's receiving (cough cough, Chuck Schumer/Rahm Emanuel, cough) about financing state Democratice parties all over the country, rather than concentrating only on 'winnable' states and 'key' 2006 races.  

More on the flip.

Someone just forwarded me the following link, which is an article by an expert on housing (I haven't verified this, but that's not the point).  The point is that he has come up with a very reasonable solution to the crisis of how to find homes (rather than cots) for the evacuees.  Basically, he argues that we need to expand the HUD's section 8 housing vouchers program to those displaced by the hurricane.  The program allows people to occupy privately owned housing units by means of the vouchers.  He also argues that there are historically high vacancy rates in the South Central region of the US.  Please read his article here:

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/09/housing_the_poo.html

This seems like a very feasible solution to a terrible problem, and I think we need to start calling our reps. and senators to ask them to consider this solution.

Thanks for reading.

I just wanted to draw everyone's attention to something.  For the past two days or so, almost all of the attention has been focused on horrible conditions in the Superdome and the Convention Center.  I've been wondering to myself why nobody is talking about the countless number of people still stuck on their roofs.  Please read more below the fold...

I haven't seen this info. in any of the diaries on the filibuster, so here it is - enjoy!

I was so excited when I read this, and I know there's a lot of vote counting on dkos right now regarding which R's might escape the dark side and joins with the Dems to keep the filibuster.

On CNN's Late Edition on Sunday, Senator Lugar of Indiana said the following, as quoted in an LA Times article:

"On the fundamental issue [of the nuclear option], I believe we are skating over very thin ice here with regard to the continuity of life in the Senate as we've known it."

"I'm opposed to trying to eliminate filibusters simply because I think they protect minority rights, whether they're Republicans, Democrats or other people," he said.

Link to article in LA Times is here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-judges16may16,1,3582780.story?coll=la-headlines-politics

I was so thrilled to read this, what a great surprise!

On our side:
McCain
Chafee
Snowe
Lugar

We only need two more!!! (Collins, Hagel, Spector, Warner, you know this list...)

This is my first diary on Dkos, so I apologize in advance for poor formatting skills, and I also apologize for not including very much commentary on the issue - it's late, and my eyelids are getting very heavy, but I just read something very disturbing and confusing in the NYTimes, and I wanted to get it up and hopefully start a dkos conversation on this issue - so here it goes.  An article just appeared in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/19/national/19pill.html
The article is about different states' reactions and policies regarding the new religious conservative attack on reproductive choice, more specifically, about whether or not pharamcists have a right to abstain from giving women the morning after pill on moral grounds.  To put it simply, I was shocked to discover that our most recent presidential nominee, John Kerry, has co-sponsored a bill with SANTORUM that would allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense certain drugs!!!
More below.