As this post points out, the Constitution prohibits any religious test for public office. Somebody needs to give a copy of the Constitution to Rep. Virgil Goode (R-of course he is-VA). Goode warned his constituents that the election of a Muslim to Congress (Rep. Keith Ellison) should be seen as a “wake up” call because there are “likely to be many more Muslims elected to office” if we don’t “adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America.”

Goode’s remarks are offensive beyond measure. Only citizens can hold office, and Muslim citizens have as much right to hold office as citizens of any other religion. Isn’t the Constitution, including its prohibition of religious tests, a part of our “traditional values”? Does Goode remember that he’s sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution?

Goode’s comments also reflect an appalling degree of ignorance. Our country’s first Muslim Congressman isn’t an immigrant; he was born in the USA and he traces his American ancestry to 1742. Do Goode’s own roots extend that far into the American past? Why does Goode think he’s more an American than Ellison?

[Update: Thanks to our good friend Skippy for the great photo. Check out his post on the blizzard, and Cookie Jill found this site of Colorado webcams.]

Wow. I really feel for all those people stuck in the aiport for two days or more. The Denver Airport just announced it won't reopen until noon on Friday.

My blizzard pictures are here. I'm just about to venture out -- on foot. Forget about driving anywhere.

There are lots of people and their dogs in the street, it's still snowing, and I can't open my balcony door so I'm getting a little bit of cabin fever. (Check the difference from when the blizzard was only hours old.)

See you later. I hope to have more pictures upon my return.

Update: I'm back and have updated the pictures with street scenes. I was way overdressed, it's not cold out. The main streets (all the one way streets near downtown, in Uptown and Capitol Hill) are plowed. Lots of people are driving.

The biggest action was at...the liquor store!

The original Eschaton has been restored. No need to go to the temporary site anymore.

Typical Rudy. He thinks he can reinvent himself.

On Rudy Giuliani's new exploratory committee website you can find a bio of the former Mayor and current frontrunner for the GOP Presidential nomination. The bio describes his current marriage as follows: "In May of 2003, Rudy married Judith S. Nathan. Mrs. Giuliani is a registered nurse with an extensive medical and scientific background." Yet intriguingly, Rudy's bio makes no mention of the two children he had from his second marriage to Donna Hanover, who similarly goes unmentioned.

Why isn't the mainstream media all over this? Editor and Publisher has the details on the increase of troop suicides in Iraq.

Twenty-two U.S. soldiers in Iraq took their lives in 2005, a rate of 19.9 per 100,000 soldiers, just over the rate in 2003 (the year of the U.S. invasion). In 2004, the rate had slid to 10.5 per 100,000, which the military said was due to efforts at prevention.

....A survey of the morale and mental health of U.S. soldiers in Iraq in late 2005 found 13.6 percent of the soldiers reporting symptoms of acute stress and another 16.5 percent describing a combination of depression, anxiety and acute stress. These numbers, about 30% total, were also up from 2004.

The continuing faux-negotiations of our Lefty wonks with Libertarians is an interesting exercise but it does suffer from a fatal flaw in my view - our Lefty wonks are attributing ideological rigidity to liberal policy prescriptions that simply does not and has never existed. To be a liberal DOES NOT mean being for big government programs, state intervention and single payer healthcare as a matter of ideology. Rather to be a liberal is to to have a set of values and objectives for which good policies to achieve those values and objectives are sought. The policies need not involve state intervention - they need only work. Here is an example of what I believe is this flawed thinking. Ezra writes:

Ryan Sager writes:

Democrats gained with libertarian voters in 2006, without alienating other major voting blocs. This at least puts a dent in the idea that no one can offer anything to libertarians without sending the rest of the electorate screaming from the room like a call girl from Milton Berle.

This seems...wrong. Did Democrats actually offer anything in 2006? I mean, sure, a minimum wage increase and governmental power to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies, but is that really the sort of concessions Sager is hoping for? Or did 2006 prove that offering an end, or at least a check, to a buffoonish war attracts voters of all stripes?

Actually Democrats DID offer a different set of values and priorities to the country. They did contrast what values and objectives are important to them as compared to the values and objectives of the Republicans. Some called it Populism. Some called it the Common Good. But it was an important message sent and really, while wonks and the Beltway Elite like to act as if specific policy proposals are the basis of voter choices (this is especially true during Presidential primaries, when the Media and wonks pore over in great detail competing tax plans and the like as if these can ever mean more than a statement of a candidate's values and priorities). Indeed, it is a flaw seen in much Democratic political thinking.

Our Lefty wonks have turned an interesting political exercise into yet another battle of the plans. To me the politics, not the policies, remains the more interesting part of this discussion. More on the flip.

President Bush seems determined to send more troops to Iraq. He's even warning us to expect more losses.

Deaths of U.S. troops in Iraq now have reached 2,950. When will this man stop? Or a better question, who can finally stop him?

Digby is having and end of year fundraiser and as usual, eloquently explains why bloggers need contributions to keep on trucking.

Digby is an absolutely essential daily read for progressives. Please keep it going.

As I wrote two weeks ago, bloggers need Christmas heart too.

Let it snow! We're locked in by a fierce blizzard. Denver is shut down. Even the federal government has closed -- the Colorado Federal Executive Board has ordered all Federal departments and agencies to close. Hundreds of flights have been canceled. Boulder just announced it will be shut down through Thursday.

It's a winter wonderland.

From Media Matters:

A December 19 report on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight featured the graphic "Do-Nothing Dems?" But, as the report noted, Democrats will not actually assume control of Congress for a little over two weeks. . . . But rather than showing a clip of a Democrat presumably affirming Sylvester's lead-in, CNN cut to Rep. Tom Price (R-GA).

CNN also demonstrated their conservative bias, at least if you believe this "academic" I discussed, since they only cited the conservative "think" tank the Heritage Foundation.

The stupidity of the Media seems boundless.

Dem Senate leader Harry Reid on Bush and Iraq:

It's been two weeks since the Iraq Study Group released its plan to change the course and bring our troops home. Since then, the President has been on a fact finding tour of his own administration -- apparently ignoring the facts presented by those in the military who know best. The President needs to put forth a plan as soon as possible, one that reflects the reality on the ground in Iraq and that withdraws our troops from the middle of this deadly civil war.