The amendment failed 66-34, one vote shy of the 67 needed to send it to the states for ratification.

UPDATE: Multiple ThinkProgress readers report that Gail Bulfin of the Sun-Sentinel admits the paper’s report was inaccurate and says a correction will be printed tomorrow.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported on Sunday that Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) had claimed that the United States is the greatest threat to peace in the world:

American presence in Iraq is more dangerous to world peace than nuclear threats from North Korea or Iran, U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said to a crowd of more than 200 in North Miami Saturday afternoon.

Though the Sun-Sentinel never provided a direct quote of Murtha, the story was featured on the Drudge Report and Murtha immediately came under attack from conservative pundits:

Bill O’Reilly, Fox News, 6/26:

Murtha has lost all perspective and did months ago, but his message is firmly entrenched in America’s far-left precincts. … [T]hat kind of extreme thinking, based on little evidence, by the way, is putting all Americans in danger.

Tucker Carlson, MSNBC, 6/26:

What is really going on here, and you know it as well as I, is that Jack Murtha has been intoxicated by the amount of publicity that he has gotten from his anti-war crusade, and he has become progressively more unreasonable, progressively more left-wing as the days go on, and he is in the thrall of people who, I think, have hostility towards the United States.

Newt Gingrich, Fox News, 6/26:

For an American congressman to say that is beyond any acceptable behavior, and I would hope the Congress would move to censure him.

One problem: Murtha apparently never said anything of the sort. What he did was cite a Pew poll released two weeks ago showing that people around the world, including in closely-allied countries like Great Britain, believe the U.S. is the greatest threat to peace.

A statement released by Murtha’s office today quotes an email from Melissa Sanchez of the Miami Herald, who also attended the speech, saying of the purported Murtha “quote”: “That was in reference to international polls. It was not so much his own conjecture, but a conclusion drawn from polls in various countries.” ThinkProgress confirmed with Murtha’s office that the email accurately reflects the views of reporters at the Miami Herald.

Email the Sun-Sentinel’s reader liason Gail Bulfin — gbulfin@sun-sentinel.com — and ask that the paper print a retraction. See update above.

Houston Chronicle, 6/22/06:

The House abruptly dropped plans Wednesday to vote on a renewal of the Voting Rights Act, a seminal law from the civil rights era, after criticism from Republican lawmakers from Texas. …

“I don’t think we have racial bias in Texas anymore,” said Rep. John Carter (R-TX).

“It would be dumb to discriminate,” said Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-TX). “That is the last thing anyone is trying to do.”

Report by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, 6/26/06:

Texas leads the nation in several categories of voting discrimination, including recent Section 5 violations and Section 2 challenges. … Section 5 of the VRA, the preclearance requirement, was extended to Texas in 1975 due to the State’s history of excluding Mexican Americans from the political process. … Texas is home to the second largest Latino population in the U.S.

Unfortunately, Texas isn’t the only state with continuing discrimination against voters — help renew the VRA.

from the nation’s top climate scientists.

During speeches about the economy, President Bush has said, “You cut taxes and the tax revenues increase.” Bush delivered a slight variation of this claim today:

One of the benefits of keeping taxes low and growing your economy is that you end up with more tax revenues in the federal treasury. I know that seems counterintuitive to some people.

Henry Paulson, Bush’s nominee to be Treasury Secretary, disagrees. Paulson told the Senate Finance Committee today, “As a general rule, I don’t believe that tax cuts pay for themselves.” (Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke also argued recently that “under normal conditions, tax cuts do not wholly pay for themselves.”)

Bush is getting better advice. Now all he needs is a better economic policy.

In 2000, conservative pollster Frank Luntz famously penned a memo that recommended ways for President Bush and his allies to discuss global warming in a manner that cast doubt on the science. Among his suggestions, Luntz recommended the following key point:

Nearly six years later, Bush is still adhering closely to Luntz’s talking points. But the author himself has since backed away from his advice, believing the scientific issues are now settled. In a documentary that first aired on BBC, and was broadcast last night on Canadian television, Luntz said he accepts that humans are affecting the climate, and he distanced himself from the administration’s repudiation of global warming science. Watch it.

More at Tree Hugger and the Sierra Club. You can watch the full documentary here.

Transcript below: Read more

54 percent of Americans oppose amending the U.S. Constitution to ban flag desecration, compared to 45 percent who support the amendment, according to a new Gallup poll. Steve Benen has more.