Hunter S. Thompson's 70th birthday is today. His wife Anita shares her thoughts.

There's a birthday party tonight at Owl Farm for Hunter,which I'm missing because I have court here in Denver tomorrow. Owl Farm parties are always a great time and Hunter's spirit is right at hand.

(Update: Looks like the party didn't happen, but I'm told a small group assembled to toast Hunter and they did shoot a cannon or two.)

Saturday, the Aspen Daily News will run a commemorative issue for Hunter, with Anita as the paper's guest editor. Ralph Steadman will grace the cover and Walter Isaacson and others will be contributors. Anita writes:

I’ll be including a cut-out card to put in your wallet with the things to do and not do while talking to the police.

The timing of the special edition is not just for Hunter's birthday, but for the Aspen Institute Symposium on Hunter's writings, Politics, Truth and Justice, to be held Saturday night. Hunter's son Juan has done a great job of putting it together.

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Todd Beeton discusses John Edwards and Barack Obama's speeches on poverty:

John Edwards concludes his Road To One America poverty tour today with a major speech in Kentucky, the site where Robert F Kennedy ended a similar trek in 1968. . . [L]last night on Hardball, Chris Matthews asked a more meta question that hit on the larger ramifications of Edwards' focus on poverty:

MATTHEWS: . . . How do you get back to being the party of regular folk? EDWARDS: My party and the Democratic party that I believe in stands up for ordinary people, stands up for the little guy, stands up for people who don't have health insurance, who live in poverty and who don't go to fundraisers. That's what the heart and soul of the Democratic Party is and we can never lose that because if we lose it we lose our soul. And it's gonna require us to have a little backbone and stand up for what we believe is right regardless of who's affected by it.

Barack Obama gave a speech about poverty invoking Bobby Kennedy today as well. . . [N]o matter how you read Obama's timing, it's telling that his speech doesn't contain the word "Democrat" once.

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The Sentencing Project has released its latest report on racial disparties in prison sentences. Among the findings:

Blacks in the United States are imprisoned at more than five times the rate of whites, and Hispanics are locked up at nearly double the white rate, according to a study released Wednesday by a criminal justice policy group.

The worst of the states:

In five states - Iowa, Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Wisconsin - African Americans are incarcerated at more than ten times the rate of whites.

You can read the report here (pdf.)

Among the recommended fixes:

Headlines, NYTimes:

Democrats Fail to Force Vote on Iraq Pullout . . . The measure, which called for troops to begin departing within 120 days, was defeated in a procedural vote on what is known as a cloture motion. It received 52 “yes” votes, to 47 “no” votes, but Senate rules require 60 yes votes to pass the motion, which would have overcome a Republican filibuster of the measure.

How about this headline? "Dems Fail To Overcome GOP Filibuster on Iraq"? Same number of words and actually accurate.

Impeachment X KagroX writes a relatively balanced piece on defunding:

Defunding presents a more muddied picture. Savage notes:

Prompted in part by Cheney, the Bush administration has championed an aggressive view of executive power under which Congress cannot restrict the commander in chief's options, short of cutting off funds for the troops. This constitutional interpretation, which is disputed by many legal scholars, has surfaced repeatedly in recent months.

I think this presents an accurate picture of what's been said on the record -- that is, that even lunatics like Cheney, Addington and Yoo say in public that defunding the war ends it. . . .

Interestingly, Kagro is skeptical:

It's taking it with a large grain of salt. Like I said, I make no objection to your preferred method, and would vote (or not) with you when the time comes.

Funny how Kagro has no salt available when it comes to the possibility of removing Bush and Cheney even though that requires 17 Republican Senators voting for removal. More.

A new report by the Justice Policy Institute confirms that anti-gang legislation that advocates locking up gang members, charging them with status crimes and charging more juveniles as adults doesn't work. In fact, it adds to the gang problem.

Mass arrests, stiff prison sentences often served with other gang members and other strategies that focus on law enforcement rather than intervention actually strengthen gang ties and further marginalize angry young men, according to the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank that advocates alternatives to incarceration.

"We're talking about 12-, 13-, 14-, 15-year-olds whose involvement in gangs is likely to be ephemeral unless they are pulled off the street and put in prison, where they will come out with much stronger gang allegiances," said Judith Greene, co-author of "Gang Wars: The Failure of Enforcement Tactics and the Need for Effective Public Safety Strategies."

The full report is available here.

As to the current and past versions of Sen. Diane Feinstein's anti-gang bill, which I have addressed and opposed numerous times on TalkLeft, the report finds:

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So what should Democrats do now? Let me be frank -the events of the last days on the Levin-Reed Amendment was about pressuring Godot Republicans to break with Bush's Iraq Debacle. After the talk of how Sens. Warner, Lugar, Voinovich, etc. were breaking with Bush's Iraq Debacle it was of course proven to be an absolute crock. These Republicans will never break with Bush's Iraq Debacle.

Some believe that September will be the moment, after General Petraeus speaks. This is delusion. What do folks think Petraeus is going to say? Petraeus will STIFFEN Republican resolve, not weaken it.

So what to do? If you accept, as I do, that the Godot Republicans will never break with Bush, then it seems to me that the only plausible approaches to ending the Iraq Debacle require reliance on solely Democratic votes. And that means, yes, exercising the NOT spending power after a date certain. More.

The Senate is voting on cloture (to end debate) on the Levin/Reed Amendment to the defense authorization funding bill.

You can watch on C-Span.

The vote is on whether to advance the Amendment, which requires reduction of U.S. troops in Iraq beginning in 120 days.

No surprise, Lieberman voted with the Republicans.

Yeas 52, Nays 47. Motion is not agreed to.( Sens. Collins, Smith, Hagel and Snowe voted with Democrats.)

Sen. Harry Reed is making a motion now to reconsider the vote (with a speech.)

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If Republican Senators approve of the Bush Administration Iraq policy, then their continuing filibuster of all attempts by the Democrats in the Senate to change course in Iraq is legititmate.

Legitimate does not mean right. Indeed, it is spectacularly wrong. And Republicans need to defend their support of Bush's Iraq Debacle.

What is NOT legitimate is to talk as if you do not approve of Bush's Iraq policy and then block all attempts to actually change that policy. Harold Meyerson calls out the Republican "eminences" and hacks who are doing precisely that:

Anyone searching for the highest forms of invertebrate life need look no further than the floor of the U.S. Senate last week and this. These spineless specimens go by various names -- Republican moderates; respected senior Republicans; Dick Lugar, John Warner, Pete Domenici, George Voinovich. [I would add Susan Collins, Norm Coleman and a score of others.] They have seen the folly of our course in Iraq. The mission, they understand, cannot be accomplished. The Iraqi government, they discern, is hopelessly sectarian. In wisdom, they are paragons. In action, they are nullities.

They are worse than nullities. They are frauds. Say what you will about Joe Lieberman, he is defending his votes with his words. More.

Just doing my part to help keep the Senators awake tonight during their all nighter.

The MC5, Kick Out the Jams, Unedited version, probably recorded between 1968 and 1970.

Update: Think Progress is live-blogging. Sen. Durbin says to call your Senators through the night. Huffington Post is having a live chat Wednesday on how to end the war in Iraq.

Sen. Chris Dodd weighs in. And here's a short video of Phil Ochs singing "I ain't marching anymore." (he sounds like he's on helium but it's the best one I could find.)

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today, through Rep. Henry Waxman says:

At the request of Sara Taylor, the former White House Director of Political Affairs, John Walters, the nation’s drug czar, and his deputies traveled to 20 events with vulnerable Republican members of Congress in the months prior to the 2006 elections. The trips were paid for by federal taxpayers and several were combined with the announcement of federal grants or actions that benefited the districts of the Republican members.

Students for a Sensible Drug Policy is calling for Walters' resignation and has a letter for you to sign. The group points out:

It is not only offensive that someone charged with crafting sensible policies to address the serious harms of drug abuse and drug prohibition would waste government resources and time on partisan politics, it is a blatant violation of the federal Hatch Act.

Drug Policy Alliance has issued this press release. [Hat tip to Think Outside the Cage.]

Oprah Winfrey is opening up her Santa Barbara estate to throw an exclusive, ultra high end fundraiser for Barack Obama.

A ticket in the door starts at $2,300, the most allowable under federal campaign laws. If you want to stick around for a VIP reception — mingling with a list of yet-to-be announced celebs — better be prepared to raise at least $25,000 from friends, family and a few high-class strangers. For $50,000, you can stay for dinner (and wander through the house while searching for a bathroom).

One invitee is positively giddy over the event.

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