In a release Zed noted that schools across Colorado have “introduced yoga themed recesses and brain breaks.” He urged “all elementary-middle-high schools of the nation to incorporate yoga in the lives of the students.”

Zed apparently was spurred to make his statement by the six-year-old nonprofit Boulder-based Wellness Initiative, which last year provided yoga instruction to roughly 2,000 students in 25 Colorado schools. Initiative teachers use breathing exercises, stretching routines and creative visualization practice to improve student focus and have created partnerships with populous districts such as those in Boulder, Denver, Arapahoe and Jefferson counties.

The bare bones release says little new about the Wellness Initiative program or about yoga. It also says little about Zed, who nevertheless keeps popping up in the news.

In 2007, Nevada U.S. Senator Harry Reid asked him to deliver the chamber’s opening prayer. It was the first time a representative of the Hindu faith was asked to do so and Zed drew hecklers.

Members of the Christian-right group Operation Save America shouted down from gallery seats that the prayer was a wicked abomination that “”placed the false god of Hinduism on a level playing field with the One True God, Jesus Christ.” The group claimed responsibility for the incident in a release that leaned on the increasingly popular talk-radio theme about the U.S. being a Christian nation. The group said Zed’s invocation “would never have been allowed by our Founding Fathers.”

In 2008, Zed traveled to Washington state to deliver the opening prayer of the Senate there. “Parliamentarian prattle and stilted deliberations” gave way to “ancient Sanskrit mantras,” wrote John Iwasaki at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer website.

“Wearing saffron-colored clothes and displaying the tilak, a traditional religious mark, on his forehead, Zed spoke in Sanskrit and English and uttered “om,” regarded by Hindus as “the mystical syllable containing the universe.”

Joseph Thomas, an Indian-American musician and blogger, noted in 2008 at his “Just Jo” blog that Zed seemed to be launching a “self-promotional spree,” setting up himself as a semi-official spokesman for Hindu interests in the United States.

“[I]t looks like, there is a self-proclaimed pope-in-the-making for Hindus in America. Watch out for more publicity stunts from Mr. Rajan Zed in the coming days.”

In his release Monday, Zed said yoga was about learning to control the complicated nature of humanity.

“According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical.

[ Image: Rajan Zed via FreeVisuals4U. ]

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The latest web video offering from the 2012 campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney seeks not only to link Texas’ in-state tuition program for immigrations to Democrats, but to show that it was touted by Mexican officials.

In the video a narrator asks, “Who supports Governor Perry’s decision to give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants?” Photos of President Barack Obama, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid enter the frame before the video centers on footage of Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico, praising the decision by Gov. Rick Perry and Texas lawmakers. The praise was offered by the Mexican official during a 2003 luncheon in Texas.

Perry’s controversial debate statement that those who do not agree with the state’s decision to offer tuition breaks to undocumented migrants to attend universities aren’t sympathetic enough also makes an appearance. “If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart,” Perry said.

The final frames of the video provide Romney’s debate statement that the undocumented in Texas are being lifted above U.S. citizens because they are offered a better discount on an education in the state than those in other states.

A copy of the video is embedded below.

Colorado’s Democratic leadership today was cautiously optimistic and somewhat supportive of weekend efforts to hammer out a debt-ceiling compromise – a deal that’s gaining momentum and could be voted on as soon as today in the U.S. Senate.

“The news of a potential framework for a solution to our debt ceiling crisis is a promising development,” Colorado Democratic Party Chairman Rick Palacio’s said in a release. “President Obama’s commitment to a serious and sensible agreement gives us renewed hope that by working together, we can responsibly address our nation’s challenges on this issue, and any other that our country faces.”

Some progressive members of the Democratic Party, however, have blasted the compromise, which exchanges higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans and deeper spending cuts for an extension on treasury borrowing until after the 2012 election. That means the administration won’t have to revisit the spending issue until President Barack Obama stands for re-election.

“This deal trades people’s livelihoods for the votes of a few unappeasable right-wing radicals, and I will not support it,” Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, chairman of the House Progressive Caucus, told the Associated Press. “The very wealthy will continue to receive taxpayer handouts, and corporations will keep their expensive federal giveaways. Meanwhile, millions of families unfairly lose more in this deal than they have already lost. I will not be a part of it.”

However, it’s increasingly looking like the Senate, which over the weekend rejected a plan by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will pass the compromise deal.

Still, the New York Times blasted the compromise in an editorial today:

“There is little to like about the tentative agreement between Congressional leaders and the White House except that it happened at all. The deal would avert a catastrophic government default, immediately and probably through the end of 2012. The rest of it is a nearly complete capitulation to the hostage-taking demands of Republican extremists. It will hurt programs for the middle class and poor, and hinder an economic recovery.”

Predictably, Tea Party Republicans from Colorado were touting an historic victory:

“The House has played a constructive role in the debt negotiations, pushing for spending cuts that never would have been imagined just 6 months ago,” Colorado Republican freshman Cory Gardner wrote in his weekly newsletter. “Our progress with regard to cutting spending is nothing less than historic. We are successfully changing Washington’s spending culture by shrinking the size of the federal government, which has done nothing but grow for the past 40 years.”

It’s estimated the compromise will trim up to $2.4 trillion in spending over the next decade.

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver, Colorado’s senior member of Congress, blasted House Republicans over the weekend for symbolically rejecting Reid’s plan.

“I am deeply disappointed that with so little time left before our nation defaults on its obligations the Republican leaders have chosen to waste precious time with this political stunt,” DeGette said. “Once again they are showing the American people they will continue to place their ‘my way or the highway’ intransigence above the good of the country. Our nation cannot continue to bear this irresponsibility.”

Menendez’s office said in press release that the bill is “aimed at addressing the broken immigration system with tough, smart, and fair measures.”

The Immigration Policy Center explains that Menendez’s proposal includes the creation of Lawful Prospective Immigration (LPI) status. Applicants for LPI status would be required to submit biometric data, go through security checks and pay a fine. After six to eight years of LPI status, undocumented immigrants could transition to Legal Permanent Resident status only after they pay taxes and additional fines, learn English and U.S. civics, and undergo additional background checks. And even then, LPIs would have to wait behind those already in line for LPR status.

The Policy Center also says the bill includes improvements to regulate the future flow of legal immigrants by creating a standing commission that would study labor market and economic conditions to determine the number of employment-based visas needed. The bill also supports programs that better facilitate immigrant integration, such as enhanced policies to help immigrants learn English and grants for states that successfully integrate newcomers.

The release issued by Menendez adds that the

Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2011 includes both a mandatory employment verification system and a program to require undocumented immigrants in the U.S. as of June 1, 2011 to register with the government, learn English, and pay fines and taxes on their way to becoming Americans.

The bill promotes effective and accountable enforcement within the U.S. through measures such as: additional resources for the Border Patrol; expanded penalties for passport and document fraud; new requirements for the Department of Homeland Security to track entries and exits at the border; common-sense rules governing detention to ensure U.S. citizens are not unlawfully detained; and new criminal penalties for fraud and misuse of Social Security numbers.

Colorado Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Udall has long urged his colleagues to reform three of the most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act, saying the provisions are ripe for abuse. This week Congress decided against reform and extended the act as it stands for four more years. In voting with the slim minority that opposed extension, Udall made clear that, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee privy to executive branch information, he felt the provisions were now being abused, that the government was unnecessarily trampling rights and also blocking oversight.

“Americans would be alarmed if they knew how this law is being carried out,” Udall said during the debate that preceded the vote.

On Tuesday, Udall introduced three amendments to the act but the Senate, taking cues from Majority Leader Harry Reid, voted not to consider any amendments.

Udall, who supports the act generally and has voted for previous short-term extensions, said he could not vote to extend the act again as it stands. He told reporters that leadership has time and again put off calls for reform by suggesting that concerns would be addressed later, when the bill came up for longer-term extension.

Udall said that given the act passed a decade ago and in light of the fact that this week’s vote would extend the most controversial provisions for years, now was the time for real debate and reform. The three provisions targeted for reform by Udall and others were set to expire Friday.

Udall was joined in his arguments by Ron Wyden from Oregon, also a member of the Intelligence Committee. In making his point, Wyden threw more light on why he and Udall and others were mounting such a strong case for reform now.

Wyden said that the executive branch had developed a legal theory unknown to the public that outlined what kind of information it could collect under at least one of the provisions the lawmakers were opposing. He said that the executive branch reading amounted to “secret law” that didn’t jibe with a straightforward reading of the text of the legislation.

“I want to deliver a warning this afternoon,” Wyden said. “When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry.”

Just as he did in talking with reporters and on the Senate floor Tuesday, Wyden referenced the illegal warrant-less domestic spying undertaken by the Bush administration that eventually came to light and shocked the public.

Members of the Senate like members of the House were unmoved. The Senate voted to extend the Patriot Act 72 votes to 23; the House voted 250 to 153. Colorado Senator Michael Bennet voted with the majority to extend the act. In the House, Colorado Third District Republican Rep. Scott Tipton voted with Colorado Democratic Reps Diana DeGette, Ed Perlmutter and Jared Polis against extending the act without reform. Republican Reps Mike Coffman, Cory Gardner and Doug Lamborn voted for extension.

“I resent this rush to rubber-stamp laws that endanger liberties we hold so dear,” Udall told reporters Tuesday. “They have always pressed for short-term extensions without debate. Now we were notified just a few days ago that we would be asked to pass a four-year extension. We are ensuring Americans will live with the status quo for four more years.

Congressional leaders opposed to amendment debate said the fact that the provisions were set to expire Friday presented a national security risk.

“They had this on the to-do list for months and months,” Udall said. He told reporters the provisions could have been extended short-term while reforms were being weighed.

Udall aimed not to strip the controversial provisions from the act but to revise them.

His Amendment 331 would have required the FBI to show a link to terrorism when seeking court permission to access business records. As is, the FBI may demand that businesses of all kinds, say your credit card company or your phone company, open access to your records without ever providing justification or informing Congress of the search.

Amendment 332 would have eliminated the ability of the government to conduct “roving wiretaps” without identifying the person or the phone to be wiretapped.

Amendment 330 would have required law enforcement to notify Congress before the government begins surveillance on any so-called lone wolf– or any individual not connected to a terrorist group or a foreign government. Such surveillance is now allowed without notice.

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Colorado U.S. Senator Mark Udall joined with a small bipartisan band of colleagues to slow the move on Capitol Hill to quickly reauthorize the Patriot Act and extend its most controversial provisions for another four years. That effort was derailed Tuesday when Majority Leader Harry Reid called for a vote to “table” or stop work on the act. He got his wish. The Senate voted to block debate 74 to 13 votes.

“I resent this rush to rubber-stamp laws that endanger liberties we hold so dear,” Udall said in a conference call with reporters earlier Tuesday, noting that he has sought and failed to win the opportunity to reform the act’s most controversial provisions for years. “They have always pressed for short-term extensions without debate. Now we were notified just a few days ago that we would be asked to pass a four-year extension. We are ensuring Americans will live with the status quo for four more years.

“Bottom line is that the Patriot Act has kept us safe for ten years but Coloradans have asked me to work to protect their liberties and freedoms and I won’t vote for it again,” he said.

A vote to extend all provisions of the act without amendments will likely come Thursday, according to Hill staffers.

In his remarks to reporters and later on the Senate floor, Udall wanted to be clear that, as a member of the Intelligence Committee, he supports the act generally but also believes that, after ten years, the time has come to more fully debate its strengths and weaknesses. He had proposed amendments to reform three provisions he believes unnecessarily threaten individual freedoms and mock constitutional transparency requirements.

Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden joined Udall on the press call. He said both men stand unwaveringly in support of the need to protect intelligence gathering sources and methods.

“That’s different,” he said. “As members of the Intelligence Committee, we know these are dangerous times. Given that, we want ironclad protections for intelligence gathering sources and methods. It’s the laws and how the government is interpreting the laws that have to be open. There can be no secret laws,” he said.

Wyden co-sponsored three Udall amendments and introduced his own amendment that would have required the executive branch to disclose how it was interpreting the Patriot Act. He said the American people were shocked to learn that the Bush Administration had secretly reinterpreted wiretapping laws and had been acting on the new interpretation for years.

Wyden said that members of the Intelligence Committee are allowed to attend briefings on how the administration is taking up the Patriot Act, but he said that many lawmakers don’t have staffers cleared to attend the briefings. As a result, lawmakers don’t know what privacies the government might be violating. Worse, even lawmakers who have knowledge about what the government is doing under the Patriot Act can’t share that knowledge on the record in the Senate.

“We can’t legally discuss the act on the floor. I don’t think Americans believe that’s how this should work,” said Wyden. “They understand there should be secret missions, but that’s very different than keeping these legal interpretations of the law secret.

“Secret law violates the trust Americans put in government and undermines trust in government institutions.”

Udall said the status quo is ripe for abuse. He said law enforcement has the power under the act to trammel the privacy rights of individuals but that also, as it is, the status quo prevents Congress from fulfilling its Constitutional duty to provide oversight.

Udall aimed to introduce three amendments:

Amendment 331 would require the FBI to show a nexus to terrorism when seeking a court order requesting access to business records. This is currently not a requirement, meaning the government may demand access to business records ranging from a cell phone company’s phone records to an individual’s library history.

Amendment 332 would eliminate the ability of the government to conduct “roving wiretaps” without identifying the person or the phone to be wiretapped. The amendment would also require government agents to ascertain the presence of the target of a roving wiretap before beginning surveillance of a particular phone or email, using the same standard that is already required for criminal roving taps. This would protect innocent Americans from unnecessary surveillance.

Amendment 330 would require Congress to be notified before the government begins surveillance of a so-called “lone wolf” – an individual who is not connected to a terrorist group or a foreign government. Currently, such surveillance is allowed without notice.

Udall and Wyden were joined in their efforts by a small bipartisan group that included Democrats Jeff Merkley of Oregon; Max Baucus and Jon Tester of Montana; Mark Begich of Alaska; Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent and Republicans Dean Heller of Nevada, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Ron Paul of Kentucky.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid twice this week opposed moves to consider amendments. With Colorado’s Michael Bennet presiding over the Senate chamber Tuesday night, Reid again moved to shut down debate. He said he understood the sincerity of calls to review the controversial provisions of the act. He told freshman Senator Paul that, with time, he would learn that it often takes a long while to get what you want done in the Senate.

Congressional leaders earlier this week sounded warnings about the threat to national security a prolonged debate over the bill could pose if provisions of the bill were allowed to expire.

Udall said the three provisions scheduled to expire could be extended short-term while they’re being debated.

He said this unacceptable turn of events was the usual manner in which the Patriot Act has been dealt with in DC, where a large bipartisan majority working at a frenzied pace stifles discussion and reform.

“We have had this on our to-do list for months,” he said.

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It’s tax time 2011, which means it’s the second anniversary of the Tea Party. It’s also nearly a week after the first great Washington budget battle of the Tea Party-era in what’s sure to be a series of similar battles pitting the Republican-controlled House against the Democratic-controlled Senate and President Obama. Indeed, as many of its critics have noted, the controversial GOP budget plan written by Wisconsin Tea Party-Rep. Paul Ryan for the next fiscal year would turbo-charge the trend in U.S. politics of attacking the poor, ignoring the middle class and rewarding the rich. Against that backdrop, Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength, a group of dozens of extremely wealthy Americans, is backing the Democrats and calling on lawmakers to end the Republican tax-cuts-for-millionaires experiment in federal government “fiscal discipline.”

The group members say that the relatively small amounts of money they would be asked to pay to the government in a system that established more equitable tax rates would be a boon to the country– a much greater and direct benefit than any supposed “trickle down” that comes of their keeping the tax money.

“These patriotic millionaires are willing to put duty to the country first. They hope the president and the leaders in the House and Senate will do the same thing,” said Erica Payne, founder of the Agenda Project, which is behind the millionaires campaign.

The group sent a letter this week to the President, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner.

We are writing to urge you to put our country ahead of politics.
For the fiscal health of our nation and the well-being of our fellow citizens, we ask that you increase taxes on incomes over $1,000,000.

We make this request as loyal citizens who now or in the past earned incomes of $1,000,000 per year or more.

Our country faces a choice – we can pay our debts and build for the future, or we can shirk our financial responsibilities and cripple our nation’s potential.

Our country has been good to us. It provided a foundation on which we could succeed. Now, we want to do our part to keep that foundation strong so that others can succeed as we have.

Please do the right thing for our country. Raise our taxes.

Members of the group include hedge funder Michael Steinhardt, high-profile trial lawyer Guy Saperstein, Ben & Jerry’s Ben Cohen, Bourne Identity Director Doug Liman, actress Edie Falco, the founder of Esprit, the founder of Ask.com, the founder of the Princeton Review, and more.

The group has gained attention in part (as millionaire novelist Stephen King did earlier this year) because it points to what many see as the class war that has been raging for decades in U.S. politics, where Wall Street has dominated Washington policy-making, where Depression-era “New Deal” anti-poverty programs have been devalued and where a post-war economic philosophy that centered on strengthening the middle class has given way to a free-market ideology that mainly benefits major corporations, creating the widest income disparities in modern U.S. history.

In a piece for Newsweek on the Tea Party movement and the Ryan budget plan, Senior Editor of the New Republic Jonathan Chait says Ryan’s plan represents a sort of culmination of the “war on the weak” in U.S. politics. Outside of the context of that war, it’s hard to make sense of the plan. Chait, like many other analysts, points out that the plan would expand not contract the deficit because the spending cuts proposed would come with even larger tax cuts for corporations and millionaires.

[T]he two streams—the furious Tea Party rebels and Ryan the earnest budget geek—both spring from the same source. And it is to that source that you must look if you want to understand what Ryan is really after, and what makes these activists so angry.

The Tea Party began early in 2009 after an improvised rant by Rick Santelli, a CNBC commentator who called for an uprising to protest the Obama administration’s subsidizing the “losers’ mortgages.” Video of his diatribe rocketed around the country, and protesters quickly adopted both his call for a tea party and his general abhorrence of government that took from the virtuous and the successful and gave to the poor, the uninsured, the bankrupt—in short, the losers. It sounded harsh, Santelli quickly conceded, but “at the end of the day I’m an Ayn Rander”…

Ryan’s plan does do two things in immediate and specific ways: hurt the poor and help the rich. After extending the Bush tax cuts, he would cut the top rate for individuals and corporations from 35 percent to 25 percent. Then Ryan slashes Medicaid, Pell Grants, food stamps, and low-income housing. These programs to help the poor, which constitute approximately 21 percent of the federal budget, absorb two thirds of Ryan’s cuts…

The class tinge of Ryan’s Path to Prosperity is striking. The poorest Americans would suffer immediate, explicit budget cuts. Middle-class Americans would face distant, uncertain reductions in benefits. And the richest Americans would enjoy an immediate windfall. Santelli, in his original rant, demanded that we “reward people [who can] carry the water instead of drink the water.” Ryan won’t say so, but that’s exactly what he’s doing.

Chait says the economic philosophy espoused by Tea Party icon Ayn Rand in her mid-century novels is an inverted Marxism: In her thinking, capitalists produce all of society’s wealth and workers are parasites.

President Obama has been labeled on the right as a socialist since he took office, even though he is no socialist and has never called himself one. Paul Ryan, though, is an unabashed “Randist,” and his “Path to Prosperity” might best be viewed as a Randist utopian tract, not as a workable U.S. budget.

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The Uranium Resources Stewardship Act introduced by U.S. Reps. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján would shift the regulation of uranium mining from the 1872 Mining Law to the Mineral Leasing Act and require royalty payments to federal and state governments similar to those paid by the coal, oil and gas industries.

Last year, Udall introduced SB 796, which would have studied “whether uranium should fall under the Mineral Leasing Act system and be subject to a federal royalty that is shared with the state.” But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has consistently blocked any significant reform of the 1872 Mining Law, which was passed by the Grant administration to encourage settlement of the West by miners in the late 19th century.

“It’s time to seriously consider whether uranium should still be classified as a ‘locatable mineral’ governed by the hard-rock mining laws,” Udall told the Colorado Independent last year. Critics of the U.S. uranium mining industry say it is dominated by foreign companies taking advantage of a lack of royalties on federal lands, and that too often toxic waste has been left for American taxpayers to clean up.

Udall is a proponent of reviving the U.S. nuclear power industry to combat climate change by reducing the amount of fossil fuels being consumed to produce electricity. But members of the Colorado conservation community say the state has for too long been on the hook for the “dirty front end” of the uranium mining industry.

“Taxpayers have been fleeced out of millions of dollars in royalties from uranium companies mining on public lands,” Earthworks Policy Director Lauren Pagel said in a release. “The Uranium Resources Stewardship Act charges a moderate 12.5-percent royalty on uranium, which will allow the industry to contribute to cleaning up old uranium mine sites that continue to pollute water and harm nearby communities.”

Uranium prices have dropped in recent weeks due to the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan, but they’re still up dramatically over the last decade, and Udall says the United States must continue to pursue new nuclear power facilities. He’s introduced a bill this session that would facilitate the construction of smaller, “modular” nuclear reactors.

As the federal government prepares for a disastrous shutdown pinned largely to a House Republican amendment that would defund Planned Parenthood, Colorado Republican Senators attempted to mimic the legislative strategy that has led to the Capitol Hill standoff. Weeks of tense negotiations in Denver produced a budget plan tentatively embraced on both sides of the aisle. Then on Friday in stepped social conservatives in the Senate who during floor debate inserted a hot-button “defund Planned Parenthood” amendment into the budget negotiation.

In Colorado, however, there were three brave Colorado Republican Senators– women– who refused to join in steering the state down the economy-tanking banana republic path being taken on Capitol Hill.

In Washington, Democrat and Republican Congressional leaders have roughly agreed to around $38 billion in spending cuts. That’s up from Thursday’s $33 billion. That’s a lot of cutting and much more than the Democrats had counted on, but it doesn’t look like it will make a difference. The two sides only have till midnight to come to some agreement.

“Republicans want to shut down our nation’s government because they want to make it harder for women to get the health services they need,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He added that he was “personally offended” by the Republican position. “This is indefensible and everyone should be outraged, men and women should be outraged.”

For the past 48 hours, Republican House Speaker John Boehner has been unconvincingly saying the impasse is not about the Planned Parenthood rider. Arizona GOP Senator John Kyl spelled out the Republican position more frankly.

“Planned Parenthood is not the only entity that can provide medical care in this country. It gets a subsidy of something like $300 million a year. To shut down the government over that would be absolutely unthinkable,” he said, arguing that Democrats were being irresponsible in not simply passing the rider for the good of the country.

“If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood… [Abortion is] well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does,” Kyl said.

That may be what many conservatives believe, given the slanted media campaign waged on the right against Planned Parenthood over the last weeks, but, as the women members of Colorado’s Senate can tell you, it’s just not true.

Senators Ellen Roberts, Nancy Spence and Jean White wouldn’t sign on to the GOP attack on Planned Parenthood. Spence reportedly said the organization was vital to supplying poor women with reproductive health services.

Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Moutnains President Vicki Cowart decried the negotiations in Washington as radical and based on propaganda.

“It’s an outrage to shut down the government over an extreme proposal that would deny millions of women Pap tests, breast cancer screenings and birth control,” she said in a release. “Attacking Planned Parenthood’s preventive health care hurts women, does not cut the deficit or fix the economy, and must be stopped.”

More than 93 percent of the health care Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains provides is preventive, she noted.

Planned Parenthood has 23 health centers in Colorado. Although Planned Parenthood in Colorado receives only limited federal funding, spokesperson Monica McCafferty said there are 62 clinics in Colorado that rely heavily on Title X funding for family planning services. She said these clinics provide health care to about 60,000 people and that the state would lose about $4 million in Title X funding if the federal bill became law.

Roughly one in five American women have visited a Planned Parenthood clinic to receive treatment.

The U.S. House Planned Parenthood amendment was added to the Continuing Resolution (H.R. 1) to fund the federal government through September.

If the resolution goes into law as is, the 95-year-old health care provider will lose federal funding that goes strictly to family planning and reproductive services under Title X– none of which goes to abortions.

The amendment will also eliminate the entire Title X program, which was founded in 1970 and is the only federal grant program dedicated solely to providing comprehensive family planning and preventive health services, particularly to low-income families, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Population Affairs. Preventive health services include breast and cervical cancer screenings, HIV prevention education, pregnancy diagnosis and counseling.

[ Top image: Sen. Kevin Lundberg, a leading senate social conservative. ]

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The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday sent a letter to both chambers of Congress, asking Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to schedule floor debates and then vote on whether President Obama can continue the use of military force in Libya, which he ordered on March 19 without approval from Congress.

In the letter, the group notes that the president has violated the U.S. Constitution (specifically Article 1, Section 8, which mandates congressional approval of military force).

From the letter:

The ACLU does not take a position on whether military force should be used in Libya. However, we have been steadfast in insisting, from Vietnam through both wars in Iraq, that decisions on whether to use military force require Congress’s specific, advance authorization. Absent a sudden attack on the United States that requires the President to take immediate action to repel the attack, the President does not have the power under the Constitution to decide to take the United States into war. Such power belongs to the Congress.

As Thomas Jefferson once wrote, this allocation of war power to Congress provides an “effectual check to the Dog of war” by “transferring the power of letting him loose from the Executive to the Legislative body . . . .” Letter from Jefferson to Madison (Sept. 6, 1789). Congress alone has the authority to say yes or no on whether the United States can use military force in Libya or anywhere else.

But it is now clear that President Obama has already used significant military force in Libya. On March 19, 2011, the President took the United States into an armed conflict in Libya that has, to date, included a significant commitment of American military force, with targets that have included Libyan air defenses, ground forces loyal to Muammar Qadhafi, and a building in a compound regularly used by Qadhafi. On the first day of combat alone, more than 100 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired into Libya from offshore naval vessels. Over the past several days, U.S. bombers and fighter aircraft have attacked air defenses and ground forces across Libya. Although there are no reports of U.S. service members killed in action, an Air Force fighter plane and its crew of two Air Force pilots went down over Libya on March 21. According to Marine Times, the rescue of the pilots required seven Marine aircraft and the dropping of two bombs near bystanders. Numerous media outlets report significant casualties among Libyans, including civilian casualties. Moreover, the scope of the commitment made by the United States is unclear, possibly ranging from the protection of civilians to the ouster of the Qadhafi regime.

[...]

The Executive Branch’s assertions of unilateral authority to enter the armed conflict in Libya cannot and should not go unchallenged by the Congress. The decision whether to go to war does not lie with the President, but with Congress. Congress’s power over decisions involving the use of military force derives from the Constitution. Article 1, Section 8 provides that only the Congress has the power “To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water,” among other war powers.

[...]

President Obama has already unleashed Jefferson’s “Dog of war” in Libya, without congressional authorization. That constitutional wrong has already happened. It is now up to the Congress, as representatives of the American citizenry, to exercise its exclusive authority under the Constitution to decide whether the President may continue to use military force there. This decision should be the first order of business for each house when the Congress reconvenes. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions regarding this matter.

Read the full letter here.