Today, with Vice President Cheney presiding over the Senate chamber, Bill Frist delivered his farewell address, urging his colleagues not to be influenced by “destructive partisanship.” Watch it:

An odd statement coming from Frist, who in his four years as Majority Leader allowed one polarizing issue after another to divide the Senate and the nation. ThinkProgress recounts some of Frist’s partisan ploys:

Frist Pushed Gay Marriage Ban. “Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday he plans a vote in early June on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, a move likely to fail but sure to spark a fiery election-year debate.”

Frist Pushed Flag Burning Amendment. “Amending the Constitution to prohibit flag burning may be considered political posturing in the nation’s capital, says Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, but it’s not pandering to the GOP’s conservative base to pursue such protection. ‘It’s important to the heart and soul of the American people,’ said Frist.”

Frist Lumped Minimum Wage Hike With Estate Tax Cut. “The only opportunity this year to increase the minimum wage and renew popular tax breaks will be linked to a reduction in the estate tax, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Tuesday. … ‘It’s now or never,’ Frist said.”

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Iraq Study Group member Lawrence Eagleburger “said after the event that when the group met with Bush, ‘I don’t recall, seriously, that he asked any questions.‘”

Among scientists, there is no doubt humans are responsible for climate change. One of the few remaining doubters is Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK).

In his last week as chair of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, Inhofe said goodbye “with a final hearing aimed at spanking the press for its coverage of climate change.” A few lowlights from Inhofe’s hearing:

- Inhofe: “Poorly conceived policy decisions may result from the media’s over-hyped reporting. Much of the mainstream media has subverted its role as an objective source of information on climate change into the role of an advocate. … Rather than focus on the hard science of global warming, the media has instead become advocates for hyping scientifically unfounded climate alarmism.”

- Dan Gainor, Director, Business & Media Institute: “We’re here to discuss the media coverage of the climate change debate. But there’s only one problem, there is almost none of that debate actually in the media. … This goes against the basic tenets of journalism to be skeptical of all sides of an issue.

- Dr. David Deming, University of Oklahoma: “There is an overwhelming bias today in the media regarding the issue of global warming. In the past two years, this bias has bloomed into an irrational hysteria. … As a result, the public has become vastly misinformed on this and other environmental issues.”

The media does deserve to be criticized for its climate change coverage; for years, reporters have tried to show “journalistic balance” by injecting more doubt than can be supported by scientific evidence. The media watchdog FAIR explains why the concept of “fairness” applies differently to scientific issues than it does to political issues:

The professional canon of journalistic fairness requires reporters who write about a controversy to present competing points of view. When the issue is of a political or social nature, fairness – presenting the most compelling arguments of both sides with equal weight – is a fundamental check on biased reporting. But this canon causes problems when it is applied to issues of science. It seems to demand that journalists present competing points of view on a scientific question as though they had equal scientific weight, when actually they do not.

Journalists have long inserted doubt into their reporting on climate change. A FAIR study found that between 1988 and 2002, “53 percent of articles in the mainstream media” cast doubt on global warming science.

The Bush administration has consistently bashed the media for ignoring all the “good news” in Iraq. In Oct. 2003, President Bush said, “And, listen, we’re making good progress in Iraq. Sometimes it’s hard to tell it when you listen to the filter. We’re making good progress.”

But according to the Iraq Study Group (ISG) report released yesterday, the Bush administration has actually been filtering out the bad news in Iraq by underreporting violence “in order to suit the Bush administration’s policy goals.” From pp. 94-5:

In addition, there is significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq. The standard for recording attacks acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases. A murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack. If we cannot determine the source of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the database. A roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn’t hurt U.S. personnel doesn’t count. For example, on one day in July 2006 there were 93 attacks or significant acts of violence reported. Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence. Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals.

In addition to manipulating statistics, the administration has spent $20 million “for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq.”

Our sister site Campus Progress has launched a new ad campaign, Debt Hits Hard, to draw attention to the fact that four in ten U.S. college graduates — including more than half of African-American and Hispanic borrowers — are burdened with an “unmanageable level of debt.” Watch the ad, and get more details HERE.

“In 2000, carbon dioxide emissions were rising less than 1% annually. Today they are rising more than 2.5% annually.” More on Climate Progress.

in the world and could “soon overtake the refugee crisis in Darfur,” according to a new report by Refugees International. “Last month, the UN estimated that 100,000 people were fleeing the country each month, with the number of Iraqis now living in other Arab countries standing at 1.8 million.”