A new U.S. News and World Report poll asked respondents, “President Bush is about to get the Oliver Stone treatment in the new movie W. Of recent movies, which title best sums up your view of the Bush administration?” The results: 35 percent chose “Get Smart,” 25 percent — “X Files: I Want to Believe,” 19 percent — “Hellboy II: The Golden Army,” 14 percent — “Batman: The Dark Knight,” and 7 percent — “Enchanted.”

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Recently, Tyson Foods said it would drop Labor Day as a paid vacation day and substitute the Muslim holiday Eid as part of a new five-year contract, in order to accommodate Muslim workers. In response, right-wing bloggers were enraged. Mark Krikorian of the National Review, for example, called it a “war on Labor Day.” Today, the company backtracked:

[M]any anti-immigrant groups and right-wing bloggers called for a boycott of Tyson, saying the contract betrayed an important American holiday and was an improper concession to Islam.

In a news release on Friday, Tyson said it had asked the union to revise the plant’s contract and restore Labor Day as a paid holiday because some Shelbyville employees had expressed concern about the contract’s provisions.

The revised contract again makes Labor Day a paid holiday but also keeps Id al-Fitr (pronounced eed-al-FIT-tr) — which marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting — as a paid holiday for those who want it.

Malkin took credit for the change in policy on her blog today.

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House Republicans are incensed that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) refuses to cave to their political grandstanding and call Congress back into session. The GOP has promised to continue pushing for oil drilling until the Democratic convention in late August.

There’s no question that the conservative rhetoric surrounding their political stunt has been hyperbolic. Earlier this week, Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) called it the “2008 version of the Boston Tea Party.” Rep. Don Manzullo (R-IL) called it “America’s greatest hour.” But House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) today went a step further, ratcheting up violent rhetoric to rail against Pelosi. The Crypt reports:

Responding to questions over whether Pelosi could call a special session – which Democrats insist won’t happen – and vote on other issues that Republicans may not want to face, such as an expansion of childrens’ health insurance programs, which President Bush and GOP congressional leaders have opposed.

“She’s gonna bring us back and not deal with it? The American people are gonna hang her,” Boehner said. When pressed further, Boehner said it would “be fine, as long as we get a vote on our bill.”

Conservatives have also taken to calling Pelosi “Marie Antoinette,” the French queen who is portrayed in history as having ignored the suffering masses. She was eventually beheaded. TechRepublican has referred to the debacle as a “revolution.”

Boehner did not include Bush, who has also refused to call an emergency session of Congress, in his hanging statement. Ironically, Boehner has also been absent for this “revolution,” spending time at home golfing while his colleagues have been in the Capitol.

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Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) has been under investigation since May 2006 for his ties to contractors in the Duke Cunningham corruption scandal. Formerly the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Lewis “earmarked hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts” for clients of his longtime friend, former congressman Bill Lowery.

Lewis has a been staunch defender of lobbyists and earmarks. “There is a misunderstanding, particularly in the media, that earmarks are ‘out of control,’” he said in 2006, adding that it is completely proper for lawmakers to “massage” that part of the budget. In fact, despite his ethical problems, Lewis is now turning to lobbyists to fund his congressional portrait, which will hang in the committee’s hearing room. CongressDaily (sub. req’d) reports:

Lobbyist disclosure forms, filed last week under last year’s ethics reform legislation, indicate that Lewis, long known for fundraising prowess, has tapped lobbyists for funds to help cover the cost of his portrait, which will hang in the committee’s Rayburn House Office Building hearing room with those of past chairmen. On June 30, the lobbying firm Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates and the Wine Institute, which represents California’s wine industry, each gave $1,000 to the U.S. Capitol Historical Society on behalf of the Jerry Lewis Portrait Committee. The International Dairy Foods Association on the same day gave the society $5,000 on behalf of Lewis.

Such portraits typically cost $25,000, which also covers the unveiling ceremony. Lewis’s spokesman told CongressDaily that the congressman has “got no big extravagant plans or anything.” Lewis is just one of two lawmakers who received lobbyist donations for his portrait fund — the other was Rep. Dan Manzulla (R-IL), former House Small Business Administration chairman.

In an interview with Wired this week, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the DHS’s new policy of searching laptops is based on whether there is “some suspicion that the inspector has about the person.” Yesterday, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) said Chertoff’s claim is the exact opposite of DHS’s policy:

But the actual policy that DHS published says the exact opposite. It does not even mention secondary screening, let alone limit laptop searches to those cases, and it expressly states that Americans’ laptops may be searched “absent individualized suspicion.”

Secretary Chertoff’s blatant mischaracterization of the DHS policy contradicts his claim to be engaging in greater “openness and transparency” on this important issue.

Check out the online campaigns of “Hands Off My Laptop” and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

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Earlier today, Russia sent troops into a breakaway region of Georgia “after Georgian troops sought to enter the capital of the pro-Russian enclave.” As Matt Duss noted at the Wonk Room, the invasion “raises some questions about how a McCain administration might deal with a crisis like this,” particularly because his top foreign policy adviser — Randy Scheunemann — has spent a number of years lobbying on behalf of Georgia and has publicly taken strong pro-Georgia, anti-Russia positions.

Last May, USA Today reported that Scheunemann’s lobbying firm, Orion Strategies, represented Georgia between 2003 and March 2008 and that Scheunemann himself lobbied McCain’s Senate staff on behalf of Georgia while working for McCain’s presidential campaign.

Also, freelance journalist Lindsay Beyerstein reported last month that Scheunemann serves as Worldwide Strategic Energy’s (WSE) point man on Georgia, helping the energy firm score deals with the Georgian government to assist in the development of its “hydrocarbon industry.” From a WSE internal document obtained by Beyerstein:

Randy Scheunemann is a registered representative of the Government of Georgia in the United States. Accordingly, Mr. Scheunemann has developed a very close relationship with President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili and many senior Georgian officials. The WSE team has also begun negotiating possible deals with the Georgian state-run oil company, National Oil Company of Georgia, to assist in the development of Georgia’s hydrocarbon industry.

So what then does Scheunemann do on Georgia’s behalf? He tries to get U.S. politicians on-board with Georgia’s full membership into NATO. In fact, he has had success with at least one Member of Congress, Sen. John McCain:

In 2005, Mr. Scheunemann asked Sen. McCain to introduce a Senate resolution expressing support for peace in the Russia-influenced region of South Ossetia that wants to break away from Georgia, the records show. [...] The Senate approved Sen. McCain’s resolution in December 2005.

Sen. McCain has endorsed Georgia’s goal of entering NATO, a matter for which the country hired Mr. Scheunemann to lobby. In 2006, Sen. McCain gave a speech at the Munich Conference on Security in Germany in which he said Georgia should enter NATO.

According to Beyerstein, WSE’s internal document “was circulated to prospective investors in 2007,” and as USA Today noted, Scheunemann did not stop lobbying on behalf of Georgia until March 2008, but “he remains a principal at his lobbying firm, which still has Georgia as a client.” In fact, Scheunemann “had a phone conversation in November [2007] about Georgia with Richard Fontaine, an aide in McCain’s Senate office.”

Helping a U.S. energy firm secure lucrative contracts with the Georgian government while lobbying American politicians for the former Soviet Republic’s NATO membership? As Duss noted, trying to play an honest broker in the growing Russia-Georgia crisis would prove to be more complicated than meets the eye for a McCain administration.

Indeed, Politico notes today that McCain took a harder line on Russia on its invasion of Georgia than the Bush administration did.

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In June, a coalition of conservative groups and lawmakers — led by the right-wing Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) — sued New York Gov. David Paterson (D) for ordering state agencies to recognize gay marriages legally performed in other states. In a potential civil rights victory, a New York Supreme Court judge yesterday indicated that she would be siding with Paterson:

[ADF lawyer Brian] Raum argued that, if Mr. Paterson’s interpretation of New York law were to stand, “then marriage would mean nothing. It would mean whatever any foreign jurisdiction says.”

“Yes, it does mean that in New York,” Judge Billings replied. She said that there could be an exception if a certain marriage were deemed “abhorrent” but did not say gay marriages fit that definition.

Judge Billings also implied that she would rule against the Alliance Defense Fund, forcing them to appeal their case. “The petitioners, I’m sure, are headed to a higher court,” she said.

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