This morning, President Bush signed into law the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) heralded the “landmark legislation,” which “makes the largest investment in student financial aid since passage of the GI Bill in 1944″ and will expand college opportunities for many students. The House Democratic leaderhsip posted this comedic spoof of the E-Harmony television ads to help publicize the new law and encourage families to take advantage of the new benefits. Watch it:

UPDATE: Campus Progress has more HERE.

On his radio show yesterday, Rush Limbaugh declared that soldiers who support American withdrawal from Iraq are “phony soldiers.” While discussing and disparaging war critics, a caller to Limbaugh’s show, who claimed to be an active-duty soldier, said that anti-war activists “never talk to real soldiers” to support their position, to which Limbaugh responded “phony soldiers“:

CALLER 2: No, it’s not, and what’s really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.

LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.

CALLER 2: The phony soldiers. If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve. They want to be over in Iraq. They understand their sacrifice, and they’re willing to sacrifice for their country.

Listen to it:

UPDATE: At the Huffington Post, Jon Soltz, the Chairman of VoteVets.org, responds to Limbaugh’s “phony soldiers” comment.

Tonight, at 9 PM ET, talk show host Tavis Smiley will moderate a Republican presidential forum at Morgan Sate University in Maryland, where candidates will for the first time answer questions from “a panel exclusively comprised of journalists of color.” Controversy is surrounding the event, however, as the four Republican frontrunners — Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, and Sen. John McCain — have all opted to ditch the debate. Empty lecterns will stand on the stage in their place.

Smiley has been blunt in his opinion of the candidate no-shows, telling USA Today that “no one should be elected president of this country in 2008 if they think that along the way they can ignore people of color.” On CNN’s Out In The Open last night, Smiley re-iterated that point, adding that the snub was part of an apparent pattern of disregarding minority groups and issues:

When you say no to every black request you recieve, to black organizations, to black media. When you say no to every hispanic invitation you recieve, to organizations and to Univision, and to other hispanic media. When you say no to every black and brown request you receive, is that a scheduling problem or is that a pattern? They’re trying to go, these frontrunners, these Republican frontrunners, trying to go through this entire primary process and never have to address voters of color and never queried journalists of color. And I think in the most multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-ethnic America ever, that quite frankly, is unacceptable.

Watch it:

This is now the third minority-focused debate in which the Republican front runners have refused to participate. They also did not attend a debate on gay issues hosted by the Human Rights Campaign and the Logo network as well as a Spanish-language debate hosted by Univision.

The snubbing of minority forums by top GOP candidates has been met with condemnation from voices across the political spectrum.

On the right, the Washington Times editorialized “that some run-of-the mill fund-raiser” should not be “more important” for candidates “than building up their relationships with black and Hispanic voters.” Former Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele, one of the most prominent African-Americans in the GOP, called the PBS debate “an important opportunity for” candidates “to put up or shut up, when it to comes to minority communities in the country.”

As Smiley says, the refusal of the Republican frontrunners to appear at the All-American Presidential Forum is “serving up some disrespect to black and brown Americans,” whether they be Republicans, Democrats or Independents.

Defying a veto threat from President Bush, the Senate just defeated a cloture motion on the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), by a vote of 69-30. The Roll call vote is here. Passage of the bill will occur shortly. During the debate, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), one of the 18 Republican senators to vote for the compromise legislation, excoriated the White House for holding the bill “hostage.” Roberts noted that Bush has nothing to offer himself:

I have yet to see a plan from the administration that can actually pass the Congress. In fact, I have yet to see an actual plan from the administration. I have yet to see bullet points from the administration. I have yet to see any plan that can be articulated in some fashion to sell to the American public, or to the members of this body. We don’t even have an acronym!

UPDATE: The National Review blog complains Roberts is “making matters much worse for conservatives right now” by “excoriating President Bush.”