Dave Weigel isn’t a journalist, he’s a smear-monger that makes things up and projects his own fantasies onto his stories. . . . I’m not “working” with the tea partiers on health care. But Weigel doesn’t care about the truth — any reporter would’ve contacted me first before printing something like that. He’s just a fantasist printing propaganda, and the Washington Independent has no higher standards than to print it.

Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin holds down a tough seat for pro-choice Democrats. She’s in an R+9 district, and that’s a tough thing to do for a pro-choice woman.

But the Democratic establishment are now out to torpedo any woman who sticks up for choice.

If Obama wants to run a campaign within the Democratic party against a woman’s right to choose, let’s do it in public. Let’s know where everyone stands.

Contact Colorado media and tell them to ask DeGette to release the letter.

Sign the petition, and donate to run online ads in DeGette’s district – stand up for a woman’s right to choose as part of the Democratic party platform. If this bill goes through without a fight from the pro-choice community, that’s it. Turn out the lights. It’s all over.

FDL continues its team coverage of Perry v. Schwarzenegger–including more legal analysis, court documents, videos, and liveblogging direct from the federal court in San Francisco. You can find it all on our dedicated Prop 8 page.

The leadership says they have the votes, but projecting an aura of confidence has been a key to their pressure strategy. Bart Stupak says Democrats are 16 votes short, but pessimism has been, well, part of his strategy. So, I prefer to actually, you know, count the votes.

In what will probably become a major point of contention in the campaign, Lincoln claims that she voted against “giving more money to Wall Street,” which is technically true but not the entire story. Lincoln voted for the TARP bailout but voted No in early 2009 to deliver the second tranche of TARP money – $350 billion – to the Treasury Department for their use. That resolution of disapproval failed, and the money went to Treasury anyway. Also, interestingly all the numbers of her votes to “keep jobs in Arkansas” come from 2004 and 2005. Clearly, there’s been no need for job creation measures in the last 5 years. They come to your home to give you jobs these days.

Dick Armey, the former Congressman from Texas and current teabagger, actually grew up in North Dakota — but he certainly sounds like he was educated by the Texas School Board.

After avoiding direct questions for months, Donna Edwards signed the July 31 letter saying she would vote against any health care bill that didn’t have a public option. I caught up with her at Netroots Nation and she asked me to have a fundraiser for all the members of Congress who signed the letter.

“Carrots, not sticks,” she said.

Ahhh, the power of the Democrats! To all of you who said that Dems couldn’t get anything done, to all of you that said Congressional Democrats couldn’t find the President’s desk with a map, a flashlight, and guided tour from Desirée Rogers, to all of you that said this White House did not know how to play political hardball, I say: Behold!

Please thank Dennis Kucinich by donating to his campaign. Because lord knows, PhRMA won’t.

Bloomberg is reporting that Office of Management and Budget head Peter Orszag has told the intelligence committees Obama will veto the intelligence authorization because–among other reasons–it calls for re-examining the FBI’s conspiracy theory-as-investigation summary finding that Bruce Ivins acted alone.