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.)

More...

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.

More...

Today's stupid question comes from Sen. Tom Coburn, who asks:

"Why is it wrong to shoot the [drug trafficker] after he's been told to stop?"

At least two answers come readily to mind. First, the fleeing suspect is only a suspect, having not been tried or convicted. Second, even if the suspected trafficker is guilty, death isn't the appropriate penalty for smuggling marijuana. We don't leave it up to the police (or Sen. Coburn) to assume the role of jury and executioner.

Here's a third answer:

Johnny Sutton, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, said the Supreme Court has ruled that using deadly force in that way is illegal.

A little technicality like the law doesn't trouble Coburn, who remains confounded by the thought that Border Patrol agents were convicted for shooting an unarmed man and then covering up their misconduct. In the strange world of the GOP, as we learned in the Scooter Libby case, cover-ups deserve no punishment. Neither, apparently, does shooting at unarmed Mexicans.

Matt Yglesias points to this snotty review of the Harry Potter craze:

Along with changing diapers and supervising geometry homework, reading "Harry Potter" was one of those chores of parenthood that I was happy to do -- and then happy to stop. But all around me, I see adults reading J.K. Rowling's books to themselves: perfectly intelligent, mature people, poring over "Harry Potter" with nary a child in sight. . . . Rowling's U.K. publisher has even been releasing "adult editions." That has an alarmingly illicit sound to it, but don't worry. They're the same books dressed up with more sophisticated dust jackets -- Cap'n Crunch in a Gucci bag. I'd like to think that this is a romantic return to youth, but it looks like a bad case of cultural infantilism. And when we're not horning in on our kids' favorite books, most of us aren't reading anything at all. More than half the adults in this country won't pick up a novel this year . . .

My infantile response is to say 'write better novels.' But I think Matt's response is better:

It's a jail day for me which means an open thread day for you.

• Christy's got the latest on the impending Habeas vote.

• Markos of Daily Kos, on his way back from Greece, responds to Bill O'Reilly's attack on Yearly Kos.

• The 9th Circuit has limited the use of the sentencing guidelines firearm enhancement. Sentencing Law and Policy reports:

More...

Salon has a long interview with Elizabeth Edwards today. She says John Edwards is a better candidate for women than Hillary.

Look, I'm sympathetic, because when I worked as a lawyer, I was the only woman in these rooms, too, and you want to reassure them you're as good as a man. And sometimes you feel you have to behave as a man and not talk about women's issues. I'm sympathetic -- she wants to be commander in chief. But she's just not as vocal a women's advocate as I want to see. John is.

And then she says, or maybe her supporters say, "Support me because I'm a woman," and I want to say to her, "Well, then support me because I'm a woman." The question is not so much how she campaigns -- that's theater. The question is, what does her campaign tell you about how she'll govern? And I'm not convinced she'd be as good an advocate for women.

I think they are both good advocates for women. But I'm more interested in them being strong advocates for all Democratic issues than on issues solely affecting women. I don't see how we could go wrong with either Hillary or John Edwards.

Update: Ana Marie Cox weighs in and notes Drudge's false headline on this.

So O'Reilly is upset again, but the why he is upset proves yet again that O'Reilly is really quite the buffoon. This is the comment apparently that set him off:

Yes, the Pope is a Primate
As the cover of Free Inquiry magazine said a few years ago, "Catholic Primate Accepts Evolution."

Also amusing is that O'Reilly compares Daily Kos to Nazis for the comment from one of thousands of users considering the Pope was a member of the Hitler Youth. And no, I am not calling the Pope a Nazi. Just noting the irony.

Another life lesson from the GOP:

[Rep. Richard] Baker took aim at critics who labeled [Sen. David] Vitter a hypocrite for promoting conservative views, talking about family values and advocating sexual abstinence at a time when he was in a touch with an alleged call girl service.

"If a man has values and standards, but does not live up to them, it does nothing to discredit the validity or those values and standards, and he is far preferable to those timid souls who, without values and standards, cannot fall short of them nor ever run the risk of being charged with hypocrisy," Baker said.

So it's more important to trumpet values that one's actions dishonor than it is to lead an honest life that doesn't hinge on "family values" rhetoric? Thanks for setting us straight, Rep. Baker.

(New York Times photo of Plame House )

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, the Yearly Kos Scooter Libby Live-Blogging Panel will soon be in session.

If you are attending Yearly Kos in Chicago, it's time to mark your calendars for opening day, August 2, at 9:30 a.m. You won't want to miss Firedoglake's esteemed co-hostess Christy Hardin-Smith and indispensable FDL contributor Marcy Wheeler of The Next Hurrah provide their behind-the-scenes look at live-blogging the perjury and obstruction of justice trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Also on the panel is Sheldon Snook, the Administrative Assistant to the Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Sheldon (who goes by his nickname Shelly) was the court official in charge of news media at the Libby trial.

I'll be there as well, moderating the panel.

I'm sure I don't need to remind anyone, but I will anyway, that Firedoglake provided ground-breaking coverage of the trial. As the New York Times wrote:

More...