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If you didn't think the new George W. Bush library and its "Decision Theater" was bad enough already for the history revisionism on the invasion of Iraq, as MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry explained this Thursday evening when filling in for Rachel Maddow, wait until you get a load of how Bush's disastrous handling of Hurricane Katrina is treated.

HARRIS-PERRY: What are you doing this weekend? Got any big plans?

If for some reason you happen to find yourself in or around Dallas, Texas, there is a brand spanking-new attraction that just popped up in your own backyard. Introducing the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

Yesterday was the grand opening for the general public and this weekend marks the library`s long-anticipated inaugural weekend.

And if you`re going to be in Dallas over the next few delays, I`m telling you, you just must check it out, if only for the shock value.

Last night on this show, Rachel discussed the main attraction inside the new Bush Library, which is an exhibit called Decision Point Theater. It`s basically an interactive game where you can reenact the biggest
decisions that George W. Bush had to make as president. Decisions like should we invade Iraq.

The problem, as Rachel pointed out last night, when you try to say no, we should not invade! Please let`s do anything but invade Iraq -- President Bush pops up on the screen and starts making the case of all the
overwhelming evidence against Saddam Hussein, evidence that has since been thoroughly discredited 10 years later in what`s supposed to be a library is being taught as fact that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat who must be dealt with unilaterally if necessary?

So there is a certain shock value to the new Bush Library. But if the Iraq war isn`t exactly your thing, if you want to relive the glory of another Bush decision, the George W. Bush Library gives you the opportunity
to do that. [...]

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The Senate is broken so badly due to GOP obstruction that, as Ezra Klein pointed out in the segment above, they're less popular than the idea of the United States becoming a communist country, so hey, why fix anything? Right? It seems Grandpa McGrumpy is getting some help from a Democrat in the Senate to undermine Jeff Merkley's attempt at filibuster reform.

Dueling Filibuster Proposals Leave Reformers Scrambling:

The two leading champions of weakening the Senate filibuster on Friday criticized a bipartisan proposal that was unveiled in the afternoon with scaled-back reforms, and they pushed for their own package to make more sweeping changes to the rules.

Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Tom Udall (D-NM) promptly said the alternate proposal put forth by Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Carl Levin (D-MI) is too weak and does nothing to prevent senators from filibustering quietly and escaping public accountability for their obstruction — the centerpiece of the Merkley-Udall “talking filibuster” plan.

The McCain-Levin proposal, unveiled Friday after bipartisan negotiations, would make it easier for the majority leader to bypass motions to proceed and guarantee the minority two amendments on legislation regardless of relevancy, Steven S. Smith, an expert on Congress at Washington University in St. Louis, told TPM. It would also remove obstacles on motions to go to conference and approve minor presidential nominations.

Levin told reporters in the Capitol that the plan “will hopefully overcome the gridlock that has so permeated the U.S. Senate.” He added: “It is a bipartisan proposal.”

The Merkley-Udall proposal, by contrast, essentially eliminates the ability of senators to block debate on legislation and forces senators who want to prevent a vote on a bill to speak ceaselessly on the Senate floor until one side gives in. [...]

The pro-reform Fix The Senate Now Coalition also called on Reid to say “thanks, but no thanks” to the McCain-Levin plan.

“Instead of a serious reform effort, today’s offering is little more than a status quo, business as usual, recipe for continued Senate gridlock,” the organization said in a written statement. “[W]e hope the Senate Democratic caucus rejects today’s salvo outright.”

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Ezra Klein was filling in for Rachel Maddow this Tuesday night and after running down a list of recent stories on water main breaks across the country and the fact that our country's infrastructure is rated at a D or lower right now, Klein spoke to Sen. Bernie Sanders about the Republicans' continued obstruction on passing the transportation bill and their reason for it. And he's absolutely right with his conclusion. If something is going to make President Obama look good, they're not going to pass it.

Here's the latest from The Hill on the transportation bill: Reid 'not ready' yet to give up on passing a long-term transportation bill

How pathetic is it that you've got Barbara Boxer and James Inhofe managing to come to an agreement and John Boehner won't bring this thing up for a vote in the House? Their behavior ought to be criminal because it's going to continue to cost lives when you literally allow our roads and our sewers to crumble because you'd rather play politics than do what's right for the economy and for the country.

And as Klein and Sanders pointed out, these short term extensions are just as destructive as passing nothing at all because contractors have to be able to budget and plan for these projects, which you make impossible to do when you refuse to pass any long term funding. And as Sanders pointed out, in states like his, you've got weather considerations as well and if you're messing around like they are this far into the year, you're making sure projects are stalled and might not be completed in a timely or efficient manner, because by the time they plan them, the weather is too cold for all of the work to be done.

Republicans keep carping about "uncertainty" being the cause of businesses not spending and fear of new regulations causing them not to hire. Here's your uncertainty for you. Right here, and it's intentional. These Republicans literally would rather see our nation crumble than allow President Obama to be reelected. I've watched a lot of cynical things with these politicians in my lifetime, but this has to be right up there with some of the worst.

Anyone who is as sick of this stuff as I am can go find your elected Representative in the House here if you'd like to let them know how you feel as well: Find Your Representative. You can contact Speaker Boehner here. Or you can leave him a note on Twitter here: @johnboehner.

Rachel Maddow's staff has got a list of links to the recent news articles Ezra Klein went through before Sen. Sanders joined him on the air. You can check them out below the fold.

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The Nation's Jeremy Scahill sat down with his colleague Chris Hayes who was filling in for Rachel Maddow to discuss the latest farce concerning our occupation in Afghanistan and the lack of intelligence on the ground there.

Scahill recently spent a great deal of time actually doing some reporting on the ground in Afghanistan and you can read more about that here -- Taliban Leader Mullah Omar: The US and NATO Are Being Defeated in Afghanistan :

In a communiqué marking the beginning of the Muslim holiday Eid-al-Adha, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Mohammed Omar, claimed his forces were making gains against US and NATO forces in Afghanistan and announced a new plan to increase attacks aimed at delivering a "crushing and decisive blow" against the presence of foreign forces. "The aim is to entangle the enemy in an exhausting war of attrition and wear it away like the former Soviet Union," declared Omar in his address on the "Festival of Sacrifice." Omar wrote that his forces had developed new short- and long-term strategies, saying that, overall, "our strategy is to increase our operations step by step and spread them to all parts of the country to compel the enemy to come out from their hideouts and then crush them through tactical raids." [...]

Current Taliban commanders and former senior officials of Omar's Taliban government recently told The Nation that while the US Special Operations Forces' targeted killing campaign against Taliban commanders has been successful, the strikes were actually producing a more radical generation of fighters and commanders. In his communication, Omar did not address the issue of the targeted killing campaign, but he did claim that morale among the Taliban remained high. "Our Mujahid people will never feel exhausted in the sacred path of Jihad, because it is a divine obligation," he wrote. "Fatigue can have no way into it."

Go read the rest and Scahill summed up some of his reporting during his interview here with Hayes.

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Jeff Sessions is terribly concerned about Elena Kagan's "liberal leanings", claims that "she has the least experience of any nominee, at least in the last fifty years" and says that "if things come out that indicate she’s so far outside the mainstream--it’s conceivable a filibuster might occur."

Here he is with CBS's Bob Schieffer:

SCHIEFFER: Well, how far are you going to go with this? I mean, could a filibuster-- the option of-- of Republicans filibustering this nomination. Is that still on the table? Is that still possible?

SESSIONS: I think the first thing we need to decide is, is she committed to the rule of law even if she may not like the law? Will she as a judge subordinate herself to the constitution and keep her political views at bay? And then, secondly, if things come out that indicate she’s so far outside the mainstream--it’s conceivable a filibuster might occur. The Senate rule that our Democrats led us to establish was that you shouldn’t filibuster except in extraordinary circumstances. I think that’s a legitimate rule and that will be what I would judge as to whether a filibuster is necessary.

Of course there's no one I'd rather hear from about someone's qualifications to be nominated to any court than Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III who Rachel Maddow laid bare in this segment for his racist past. From Sessions' Wiki page:

In 1986, Reagan nominated Sessions to be a judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. Sessions was actively backed by Alabama Senator Jeremiah Denton, a Republican. The nomination of Sessions was first sent to the Senate for confirmation on October 23, 1985, and was resubmitted on January 29, 1986. A substantial majority of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, which rates nominees to the federal bench, rated Sessions "qualified," with a minority voting that Sessions was "not qualified." [5]

At Sessions' confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, four Department of Justice lawyers who had worked with Sessions testified that he had made several racist statements. One of those lawyers, J. Gerald Hebert, testified that Sessions had referred to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as "un-American" and "Communist-inspired" because they "forced civil rights down the throats of people."[6] Hebert said that Sessions had a tendency to "pop off" on such topics frequently and had once called a white civil rights lawyer who dealt with voting rights suits a "disgrace to his race."[7]

Thomas Figures, a black Assistant U.S. Attorney, testified that Sessions said he thought the Klan was "OK until I found out they smoked pot."[8] Figures also testified that on one occasion, when the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division sent the office instructions to investigate a case that Sessions had tried to close, Figures and Sessions "had a very spirited discussion regarding how the Hodge case should then be handled; in the course of that argument, Mr. Sessions threw the file on a table, and remarked, 'I wish I could decline on all of them,'" by which Figures said Sessions meant civil rights cases generally. After becoming Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee, Sessions was asked in an interview about his civil rights record as a U.S Attorney. He denied that he had not sufficiently pursued civil rights cases, saying that "when I was [a U.S. Attorney], I signed 10 pleadings attacking segregation or the remnants of segregation, where we as part of the Department of Justice, we sought desegregation remedies."[9]

Figures also said that Sessions had called him "boy." He also testified that "Mr. Sessions admonished me to 'be careful what you say to white folks.'"[10]

Sessions responded to the testimony by denying the allegations, saying his remarks were taken out of context or meant in jest, and also stating that groups could be considered un-American when "they involve themselves in un-American positions" in foreign policy. Sessions said during testimony that he considered the Klan to be "a force for hatred and bigotry." In regards to the marijuana quote, Sessions said the comment was a joke but apologized.[11]

The Republicans must be so proud to have this guy as their point man on judicial nominations. In the world of the Jeff Sessions out there, having even an inkling of liberal leanings is a mortal sin to maybe bring this extremely right wing court back to the center. Apparently for the GOP, putting out someone with Sessions background to question her qualifications isn't a problem, but her lack of experience as a judge is.

Quite frankly I'll take someone with Kagan's experience rather than the likes of a Jeff Sessions to be nominated to a high court any day of the week even though I'd prefer someone way to the left of Kagan. Anyone I'd be really happy with would probably never make it past a Republican filibuster.

It's too bad our media doesn't remind the public of what this man's background is when they bring him on for commentary such as this. If that were the case maybe Republicans would think twice before allowing racist hacks like Sessions to be nominated as their ranking member on the Judiciary Committee in the Senate.

Transcript via CBS below the fold.

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Rachel Maddow was the featured speaker at the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock on March 22. From the distinguished speaker series introduction:

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, host of “The Rachel Maddow Show,” discusses health care reform, politics and other topics as part of the Clinton School Speaker Series. Other topics discussed included her upbringing in suburban California, her academic studies in Oxford and her transition from radio to becoming America’s first openly gay cable news host. "The Rachel Maddow Show" features her take on the biggest stories of the day – political and otherwise – including lively debate and interviews with guests from all sides of the issues.

The complete 60 min video can now be seen at the link:

http://www.clintonschoolspeakers.com/lecture/view/rachel-maddow/

Her take on the recent actions of Senator Blanche Lincoln and the audience reaction to her in Little Rock was quite amusing.

Here are some pictures from the event and a few more recent pictures of Rachel Maddow from the show's flickr page.

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Boy, this is some hard-hitting journalism by George Stephanopoulos here isn't it? Anyone think Tom Coburn would have gotten this type of softball from Rachel Maddow?

Shorter George Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: So Senator, is there anything else we should know about you arranging a bribe for your C-Street buddy that you can tell us in ten seconds or less?

COBURN: Nope.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay, nothing to see here. Move along. Thanks for coming in everybody.

Let's hope his network's interview with Doug Hampton yields just a tad more information than Georgie-boy decided to try to elicit from Coburn on This Week. Really pathetic George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I'm going to have to -- I'm going to have to stop this right now. And, Senator, before you go -- and I know this is your least favorite subject -- but Doug Hampton, Senator Ensign's chief of staff, has given an interview to "Nightline" which is going to air tomorrow night, where he says that you were an intermediary between him and Senator Ensign, and I want to show that for a second.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAMPTON: Tom Coburn said, "What I would do, Doug, if I was you is I would have them buy your home, give you $1 million bucks so you could get started over, and that's what I'm willing to help you negotiate."

(UNKNOWN): And what happened?

HAMPTON: John said, "No can do. Not going to happen."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is he telling the truth?

COBURN: No.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Flat no?

COBURN: No.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You did not serve as an intermediary?

COBURN: Oh, I did. No, there's no question. Look, my whole goal in this thing was to bring two families to a closure of a very painful episode. And there's no question that Doug called me and said, "Will you talk to John about solving a problem?" And so I called John Ensign and said, "Do you want me to talk to him?" He said, "Yes."

But, you know, the -- the question that's worrisome is, what is the motivation now for -- for this? Doug obviously asked to have some remuneration for the injury that he had. And on private sector, that happens all the time. But there -- there was no negotiation. There was, "I'll pass it along," or, "Yes, I won't."

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator, thanks very much.

Thank you all very much.

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Rachel reports on more astroturf groups, this time from the petroleum industry, and their efforts to affect health care and energy policy.

From The Houston Chronicle-- Energy workers rally against climate plan:

Local energy workers jammed a downtown Houston theater today to protest climate change legislation that the U.S. Senate will take up in the coming weeks.

The Energy Citizens rally, promoted by some major energy companies and business organizations as well as the Greater Houston Partnership, is the first of several such events planned in 19 states in the coming weeks.

About 3,500 people, or 1,500 more than expected, filed into the facility, many donning yellow T-shirts that were being handed out that read "I'm an energy citizen." Houston Astros owner Drayton McLane Jr. was the keynote speaker.

And TPM has more: "Sensitive" Oil Industry Memo Lays Out Plan For Astroturf Rallies Against Climate Change Bill:

A leaked memo sent by an oil industry group reveals a plan to create astroturf rallies at which industry employees posing as "citizens" will urge Congress to oppose climate change legislation.

The memo -- sent by the American Petroleum Institute and obtained by Greenpeace, which sent it to reporters -- urges oil companies to recruit their employees for events that will "put a human face on the impacts of unsound energy policy," and will urge senators to "avoid the mistakes embodied in the House climate bill."

API tells TPMmuckraker that the campaign is being funded by a coalition of corporate and conservative groups that includes the anti-health-care-reform group 60 Plus, FreedomWorks, and Grover Norquist's Americans For Tax Reform.

The memo, signed by API president Jack Gerard, asks recipients to give API "the name of one central coordinator for your company's involvement in the rallies."

And it warns: "Please treat this information as sensitive ... we don't want critics to know our game plan."

Aside from the astroturf nature of the planned events, which appear aimed at passing off industry employees as independent citizens, the memo also raises questions about the positions of several major oil companies on the issue of climate change. BP and Shell both are members of API, and also of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of groups that supports Waxman-Markey, the very climate change legislation the memo criticizes.

API has spent over $3 million lobbying against that bill this year.

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Rep. Zach Wamp's office contacted The Rachel Maddow Show to complain about the C-Street coverage on her program last Friday.

Maddow: Well on Friday's show I quoted an account from the Knoxville News Centinal in which a member of congress who lives at C-Street described one of the most worrying aspects of this shadowy, powerful organization, its secrecy. The Congressman in question is Zach Wamp of Tennessee. He has lived at C-Street for a dozen years and here's what I said about him on Friday.

Zack Wamp of Tennessee is a Republican member of Congress who says he has lived in the C Street house for 12 years. Today, he told “The Knoxville News Sentinel” that the members of Congress who live there are sworn to secrecy.

Quoting from the “News Sentinel,” “The C Street residents have all agreed they won‘t talk about their private living arrangements, Wamp said and he intends to honor that pact. ‘I hate it that John Ensign lives in the house and this happened because it opens up all of these kinds of questions,‘ Wamp said. But, he said, ‘I'm not going to be the guy who goes out and talks.‘”

Maddow went on to say that although Wamp's office claimed he was misquoted on her show, but they have not asked the Knoxville News Sentinal to correct their article and until they do, she's standing by her reporting. Good for her.

I don't think Wamp's doing the GOP any favors by complaining and giving Rachal Maddow another reason to keep this C-Street story alive, not that Ensign and Sanford aren't doing a good enough job without his help.

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June 15, 2009 Rachel Maddow Show

Maddow: But first, it‘s time for a couple of holy mackerel stories in today‘s news. First up, the richest vein of news for the week is often late in the day on Friday. And late in the day this past Friday a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that John Yoo, the most notorious of all the Bush administration torture memo authors, is going to have his day in court.

Mr. Yoo is being sued by a U.S. citizen who was once declared an enemy combatant by the Bush administration. That man, Jose Padilla says that Mr. Yoo effectively created the torture program in which Mr. Padilla was severely physically abused while in custody as an enemy combatant.

Mr. Padilla is only speaking $1.00 in damages from Mr. Yoo. What he really wants is a court order declaring that his treatment was illegal and unconstitutional. John Yoo had asked that the case him be dismissed on the grounds that he was acting as a government official when he wrote the torture memo and he should be therefore be immune from getting sued.

But the judge in the case, incidentally, a judge appointed by George W. Bush disagreed with Mr. Yoo, ruling that, quote, “Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct.”

The judge also ruled that Mr. Padilla had, quote, “alleged sufficient facts to satisfy requirements that Mr. Yoo set in motion a series of events that resulted in the deprivation of Mr. Padilla‘s constitutional rights.”

So the lawsuit against torture memo guy John Yoo proceeds. Do you want to know who is defending John Yoo in this lawsuit? You, not “Yoo” as in John Yoo, but “you” as in you and me. We‘re defending him.

The Justice Department of the United States is providing John Yoo‘s defense. We‘re paying to defend the torture guy with our tax dollars. I wonder if we can vote on that.

Finally, if you pay any attention to the tapes that are released periodically by al-Qaeda, by the As-Sahab, which is the al-Qaeda AV club, you might have noticed that in the last couple of years, As-Sahab was taken over by the American kid in al-Qaeda, known variously as Azam al-Amriki, a.k.a. Azam the American, a.k.a. Adam Gadahn. He‘s the chunky former Death Metal-loving dork from a California goat farm who renounced the United States and famously ripped up his U.S. passport on an al-Qaeda video. Ooh, like, we‘ll miss you.

In a surprise development concerning Mr. Gadahn, in a recording released over the weekend, Mr. Gadahn, Mr. al-Amriki, Mr. Azam, the American, came out as Jewish. Yes.

In a new As-Sahab tape, he admits that his grandfather was Jewish, that his grandfather gave him a copy of a very bad book once by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And he says his grandfather encouraged young Adam to get Israeli citizenship. This admission, of course, will probably make things really awkward at the next al-Qaeda mixer. I‘m just guessing.