Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), who’s served eighteen terms, recently acknowledged that he is an atheist. Given that there are more atheists and agnostics in the US than there are Congregationalists, and given that 13% of US adults declare themselves as having no religion*, it was about time there was an atheist in Congress. Or, more accurately, it was about time that one actually admitted his views in public.

Meanwhile, for another religious group, persecution continues unabated in this country, as a high school student was denied the right to dress as his religion allows.

 
* Don’t believe me? Check out the census data.

Three things that were never, ever, ever meant to be together:

“Karl Rove”, “rap” and “dancing”

Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) grills General Services Administration Chief Lurita Doan in this fascinating video:

As TPMmuckraker put it:

In this clip, Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) grills her on a PowerPoint presentation given by Karl Rove’s deputy Scott Jennings to GSA personnel in January. The slides (13 pages) detailed which seats were “House Targets” and which “Senate Targets”, which states were “Republican Offense,” and which “Republican Defense.” After the presentation, Doan reportedly asked other employees how the agency could help “our candidates.” The GSA, remember, is the government’s procurement agency, in charge of almost $60 billion each year. All of this seems like a clear violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits using federal resources to aid political parties.

Loan doesn’t have a good answer for Braley’s questions, stuttering out “I don’t recall”s and something about how the meeting was a “brown bag lunch” for the purpose of “team building.” You should “ask Mr. Jennings,” she says.

John McCain has reversed a previous position, announcing today:

Today I announce that I have reversed my position and come out in full support of gay marriage…particularly marriage between two passionate females.

Mike Davidson of Newsvine has more.

Indexed nails it:

(Thanks to Maggie for the link.)

When a country invades another without provocation or cause, the United States stands firm. That’s why we expelled Iraq from Kuwait; we would not tolerate that kind of aggression.

For this reason, I look forward to our invasion of Switzerland. Those cheese-eating neutrality monkeys.

(thanks to Regis for the link.)