The New York Times has an article on Steve Gilliard's passing.

May he rest in peace.

It's Sunday and site traffic will be down today, so I'm going to go off-topic and self-indulgent.

With Steve Gillard's untimely passing and the 40 year anniversary of the release of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper, I've been contemplating today how fast life goes. And how much we change physically over time, but in many other respects, stay the same .

As my eye doctor would say when he's testing my vision, "Better now? Better then?" And just like I usually tell him, I can't tell.

I'd be curious to see how other bloggers and commenters have evolved over time. Here's me:

• 1967
• 1981
• 2002
• 2007

Now I'm off to see my mother (who at 84, has really changed over time) and will be back in time for the New Hampshire Democrats Debate and the Sopranos.

The blogger and good friend to many of us, Steve Gilliard, has passed away.

Steve was an inspiration to many of us; one of the clearest thinking, biggesthearted, straight talking persons you could possibly run across.

Speaking personally, I often took my cues from how Steve did it. Telling the truth was what Steve was about. Always.

May he rest in peace. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.

Update (TL): Jane has a very moving tribute to Steve. I only got to meet him once, at the 2004 Republican convention in New York when we were all live-blogging at The Tank. We only chatted for a few minutes. My loss.

One of my favorite Steve Gilliard posts: Rudy and Judi Forever.

I'll be out the rest of the afternoon and we haven't had an open thread yet this week. So here you go.

Jason Leopold interviews fired New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias. You can read and watch here.

He fingers Harriet Miers and Karl Rove or others in the West Wing of the White House as being responsible for the firing list.

He advocates James Comey or someone like him to replace Alberto Gonzales.

He explains his role in the Office of Special Counsel investigation. They have subpoena power. He did not approach them, they approached him.

They were mostly interested in Hatch Act issues. He says Pat Rogers pressured him to file "bogus" voter fraud cases.

There's no smoking gun but he believes one exists:

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Huffington Post gets a blog-lift (y.i.c.t.p., as Skippy would say). And it's a good one.

And to organize it all we've created five new sections: Media, Business, Entertainment, a culture and lifestyle section called Living Now, and a Politics section that will feature our political editor Tom Edsall and a shared-content partnership with Josh Marshall and Talking Points Memo. Plus, we've improved the design, navigation, and search function to help you find what you want more easily.

The front page will continue to feature our signature group blog and breaking news stories, but it was clearly no longer big enough to contain all the great stories, blog posts, and features we wanted to share with you. So each new section will have its own "front page" with fresh editorial talent and a constantly growing list of bloggers.

I think it's a great progression, and I would have expected nothing less from Arianna and her crew. And yes, when I have something to say, I'll still be a guest poster there.

My all time favorite blogger is Digby. So it saddens me greatly to see these words come from Digby:

Glenn Greenwald's post from Saturday critiquing Jonathan Alter's piece in the latest Newsweek about the Iraq war vote. Glenn is correct that this false dichotomy of "support the troops" vs "support your constituents" is a GOP talking point that has become conventional wisdom largely because the Democrats conceded it. I can't answer for why they tend to do this, but it's one of the biggest problems we have --- and it isn't just the Democrats who do it, it's the netroots too. Every time we reinforce GOP memes about Democratic "cowardice" we help them make their case. Language is important and it's a big failure among the left that we fail to understand how our own words work against us. I'm guilty of it too.

It's too nice to stay inside today and blog. But, maybe it's raining where you are or maybe you're at work or otherwise logged on.

Here's a place for your thoughts.

Update: 7:19 pm by TL: The Senate has also passed the bill, by a vote of 80 to 14. Hillary and Obama both voted against it.

Update [2007-5-24 19:0:28 by Big Tent Democrat]: The Iraq Supplemental passes 280-142. Link to the roll call vote. I think all the nays were Dems. So the Dems split 142-89 I believe.

The Debate on the Capitulation Bill, as Kos coined it, starts now on C-Span.

Obey looks beaten down.

Basically Obey's argument is we don't have a veto-proof majority. And how that changes for the next appropriation process? It doesn't.

What Obey admits is that the entire House Supplemental process was a joke form the beginning. I agree with him on that. Time to adopt the NOT funding option Rep. Obey.

Update [2007-5-24 17:31:7 by Big Tent Democrat]: The Floor Manager Obey will vote against the Capitulation Bill, joining the Speaker of the House in opposing the bill that Rahm emanuel argued was a great victory. That said, good for Obey.

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Action Alert just received by e-mail from the Anti-Arab Discrimination Committee:

Cornyn Amendment Would Allow Use of Secret Evidence

Thursday, May 24, 2007…Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) has introduced an amendment (#1148) to the on-going immigration debate that would deny lawful permanent residents the opportunity to become U.S. citizens based on secret evidence.

....Senators are voting on this amendment as early as 12:15 EST. As this late breaking amendment has just been added and will be voted on very shortly, we are asking everyone to call rather than email their senate offices. The US Capitol operator is (202) 224-3121.

The details:

• Cornyn’s Amendment denies lawful permanent residents the opportunity to become U.S. citizens based on secret evidence:

• This amendment gives the Attorney General unreviewable discretion to use secret evidence to determine if an alien is ‘described in’ the national security exclusions within immigration law.

• A person applying for naturalization could have her application denied and she would never know the reason for the denial.

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Since J, Chris and LNILR seem otherwise engaged, and I have only Iraq on the brain, I thought I'd give an Open Thread with some links to other topics:

NYTImes and WaPo thunder against Goodling and Bush Justice Dep't.

Kevin Drum on bush and Iran.

FDL reviews ACLU President Anthony Romero's book "In Defense of Our America."

Avedon Carol has a nice roundup, featuring especially some sharp words for Gonzo and his "innocent discussions" with Monica Goodling.

Don't forget the diaries listed in the right hand column. Good stuff from John Horse, Scribe, as always, peaches and many others.

If we can text message to pick the American Idol, and 74 million did, why can't we text message to end the war? I have no idea, but I wish someone would set it up.

Back to American Idol, for once I agree with the voters. With Melinda Doolittle gone, Jordin Sparks was clearly the winner over Blake Lewis. The voters agreed.

I watched the entire two hour finale. I didn't know most of those singing, since I only started watching a few weeks ago. I tried to watch at the end of last year, but Taylor Hicks, who ended up winning, was so white-bread mayonnaise I kept changing the channel.

The higlights tonight, in my opinion.

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