The Senate voted 44-52 today to kill legislation that would have created a special committee to “investigate the awarding and carrying out of contracts” in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even conservative “straight shooters” like John McCain and Chuck Hagel voted against oversight. The Nation has details.

Our guest blogger, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), is the ranking Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in the Senate.

Yesterday, I offered an amendment on the Senate floor to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour in three steps over the next two years. This increase will help almost 15 million Americans rise out of poverty. This vote is critically important, and I need your help to win this fight.

As many of you know, the federal minimum wage hasn’t been raised in nine years. A minimum wage worker, who works full-time, 52 weeks a year, makes $5.15 an hour””$10,700 a year. That’s not even enough to keep a single parent with one child above the poverty line!

Despite our efforts, Congress year after year has refused to give working men and women the raise they deserve. Yet Congress keeps giving itself annual pay raises“”it’s the height of hypocrisy.

But now, we have a real opportunity. We’ve had significant minimum wage victories in red states and blue states alike, and an increase received strong bipartisan support in the House Appropriations Committee last week. The momentum is growing, and the time for action is now!

Make calls, send emails – tell Senators to support the Kennedy Amendment to raise the minimum wage. Ask your friends and neighbors to take a stand for a fair minimum wage too.

Thank you for your help. Together, we can see that minimum wage workers finally get the raise they deserve!

– Ted Kennedy

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group released an analysis of government data today showing that 28 states more than doubled their carbon dioxide emissions between 1960 and 2001.

One major culprit of the spike in emissions: Increased combustion of oil to fuel our cars and trucks, which accounted for 40% of the total rise. “Oil emissions from the transportation sector soared over the period due to a dramatic rise in vehicle travel and the stagnating fuel efficiency of vehicles, while oil emissions from every other sector peaked in the 1970s”:

Read the full report HERE. Also today, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) released the Safe Climate Act, which sets strict targets to significantly reduce global warming pollution.

The U.S. PIRG report underscores the need for immediate action to avoid a global climate crisis. As James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said last December: “The Earth’s climate is nearing, but has not passed, a tipping point, beyond which it will be impossible to avoid climate change with far ranging undesirable consequences.” These consequences, he said, would “constitute practically a different planet” and include sea level rise, heat waves, drought, more intense hurricanes, decreased crop yields, and water scarcity.

my nephew has paid for it with his life,” said the uncle of Kristian Menchaca, one of the missing U.S. soldiers found dead in Iraq today. On Power Line, John Hinderaker is already shamelessly attacking Menchaca’s uncle.

The so-called “Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights” (TABOR) isn’t yet on the ballot in Montana, but right-wing activists are trying all the dirty tricks they can find to get it there. TABOR arbitrarily caps “increases in state spending based on…population growth and the consumer price index,” restricting a state’s ability to set priorities, respond to crises, and offer public services.

Many Montanans have called the Montana Commission of Political Practices about “being tricked or coerced into signing ballot initiative petitions they didn’t intend to sign.” One of those petitions was CI-97, the state’s TABOR (or “SOS”) measure.

ThinkProgress spoke to Gordy Higgins, the Montana Commissioner of Political Parties. Higgins confirmed that his office has received numerous informal complaints about the petitions’ signature gatherers and expects a formal complaint to be filed with his office sometime this week. Some of the most common schemes he has heard about:

1. The Carbon-Copy Scheme: Signature gatherers would lay out three petitions on a clipboard. The gatherer would discuss one of the petitions — usually the one on eminent domain. If the person signed it, the gatherer would then say, “We can’t have photocopies or carbon copies, so would you mind signing these two other petitions?” Thinking that he or she was signing copies of the first petition, the person would sign the second two. In fact, the second two petitions were on judicial recall and TABOR.

2. The Forgery Scheme: Signature gatherers would have a person sign one petition, then say, “We understand you’re busy – if you write your name on the first one, we’ll sign your name on the other two, so you can get on your way.” The signature gatherers would then forge the person’s signature on the other two petitions.

3. The Fake Petitions Scheme: Signature gatherers would tell people about totally fake petitions, such as a “one-strike sex-offender initiative.” In reality they were signing petitions supporting eminent domain, judicial recall, and TABOR.

Higgins also told ThinkProgress that the “itinerant circulators” seem to have left Montana and gone on to other states and other ballot initiatives. It’s likely that we haven’t seen the end of their dirty tactics.

For more on efforts to fight TABOR in Montana, visit Not In Montana.

Speaking to a crowd of political supporters last night, President Bush twice stressed the importance of keeping Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) as Majority Leader after the November elections:

If you want your taxes low, keep Denny Hastert and Bill Frist as leaders of the House and the Senate. …

I want to thank you for helping make sure that Denny Hastert and Bill Frist remain in their positions in the Senate and the House, and I assure you this, we will continue to lead this country with an optimistic, hopeful, positive vision that says to every American, opportunity belongs to you as much as your neighbor.

There’s only one problem: Bill Frist is retiring.