Texans voted to amend their state constitution yesterday to ban gay marriage. The amendment passed overwhelmingly. Texas follows 18 other states that have done the same.

Like every other state except Massachusetts, Texas didn't permit same-sex marriages previously, but the constitutional amendment was touted as an extra guard against future court rulings.

That's what this is all about. Decreasing the power of the judiciary. We are supposed to have three equal branches of Government. By abusing the constitutional amendment process, we are weakening our independent judiciary.

This is the radical right at work. They herd people like sheep into believing their evangelical brand of bigotry.

The papers may be full of election news tomorrow, but hopefully they will also cover the arrival of Ahmed Chalabi. If they don't, you can catch what you're missing over at Huffington Post, where Arianna is staying on the story.

• Rub Elbows With Judy Miller, Just $375!
• Ahmad Does D.C.: An Alternative Chalabi Itinerary
• Dick Durbin Tees Off

Durbin's speech today to the Senate on Chalabi is a must-read:

by TChris

The teaching of science in Kansas is no longer dictated by science. Responding to demands that science classes reflect religious belief in addition to conclusions drawn from scientific evidence, the Kansas Board of Education voted to require science teachers to tell high school students "that aspects of widely accepted evolutionary theory are controversial." That the controversy was created by religious groups, not from any debate raging within the scientific community, doesn't seem to matter. The first fact that teachers impart to students in compliance with the directive should be this: the "controvery" is grounded in politics, not science.

Some Board members were realistic about the image the Board created of Kansas:

by TChris

An Italian news channel today aired a documentary that "accused the United States of using chemical weapons against the civilian population during a November 2004 bombardment of Fallujah."

RAI says the use of white phosphorus in built-up areas amounts to the illegal use of chemical weapons, although the BBC notes that such bombs are considered incendiary devices. The US military admits to using the weapon to illuminate battlefields in Iraq, and says it did so in Fallujah, but insists it did not use it in civilian areas.

The military denies that video in the documentary shows the indiscriminate use of white phosphorus "on both insurgents and the civilian population," as the documentary alleges. The description of photographs posted by the news service is gruesome:

by TChris

Golden rule days:

President George W. Bush's chief of staff Andrew Card and other top White House officials started attending classes on ethics and the handling of classified information on Tuesday in response to the indictment of a top aide in the CIA leak investigation.

Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, was expected to attend one of the classes scheduled for Wednesday.

Cheney's new chief of staff, David Addington, was also scheduled to attend, the White House said.

Bush and Cheney seem to be cutting class.

The CIA has referred the leak of secret prison locations that appeared in the Washington Post to the Justice Department for investigation. This is the same way means by which the criminal investigation began into PlameGate.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue deals with classified information, said the referral was made shortly after the Nov. 2 story. The leak investigation into the disclosure of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity came about through the same referral procedure. The Justice Department will decide whether to initiate a criminal investigation.

The polls should be closing soon. I haven't followed the elections around the country today, so here's a place to discuss them. Corzine in NJ and Bloomberg in NY appear to be winners. Who else, and what if anything do today's results portend for 2006?

Check out what local progressive political bloggers are saying about the elections:

• Virginia
• New Jersey
• California
• Ohio

More local blogs are on Blogpac. Just click inside the map for the state you are interested in.

Wow. A new Pew Research poll shows that 79% of Americans believe the indictment of Cheney's Chief of Staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby is important to the country. Pew's summary of findings are here.

And Bush's base is weakening:

Will PlameGate and other Administration missteps affect today's elections around the country? Another question: Will today's voting be an indicator for the 2006 elections?

Too funny. This morning, Sen. Frist and Rep. Hastert sent a letter complaining about leaks of the locations of secret prisons that found their way into the Washington Post. The New York Times reported on the letter here.

But, it has backfired.

But today, in an off-camera meeting with reporters, Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) revealed that the leak likely came from a Senator or Senate staffer who attended a GOP-only meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney last week, where the detention centers were discussed.

Crooks and Liars has the video from CNN's Situation Room today. Raw Story has the letter which Frist at first said he didn't sign and then it turned out that he did sign it.

Judge Alito is making the rounds of Senators on the Judiciary Committee. Today, several senators expressed contentment with his answers about Roe v. Wade. They say he believes it is very strong precedent. Of course, that is no guarantee of how he would vote on the issue.

"He basically said ... that Roe was precedent on which people, a lot of people, relied, and had been precedent now for decades and therefore deserved great respect," [Joseph]Lieberman told reporters.

When will the Senators move on to ask questions about other issues? Half the cases before the Supreme Court are criminal cases. Why aren't the Senators asking him to demonstrate that he would be fair in deciding these cases despite having spent his entire career before becoming a judge as a prosecutor or attorney for the Government?

James Carroll does an excellent job of eviscerating Dick Cheney in today's Boston Globe.

At world-shaping moments across a generation, Cheney reacted with an instinctive, This is war! He helped turn the War on Poverty into a war on the poor. He helped keep the Cold War going longer than it had to, and when it ended (because of initiatives taken by the other side), Cheney refused to believe it. To keep the US war machine up and running, he found a new justification just in time. With Gulf War I, Cheney ignited Osama bin Laden's burning purpose. Responding to 9/11, Cheney fulfilled bin Laden's purpose by joining him in the war-of-civilizations. Iraq, therefore (including the prewar deceit for which Scooter Libby takes the fall), is simply the last link in the chain of disaster which is the public career of Richard Cheney.

[Via Atrios, who also points us to this excellent Digby post.]

Update: Big thanks to Matt, Mike Ditto and Big Tex and Ron. I have it now.

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There's a picture here(number ten in the series) that I can't figure out how to copy because it's in a macromedia flash series. Does anyone know how to copy it? You'll understand when you see it. If you figure it out, I'd really like to have a copy.