The US House passed a bill yesterday opening the door a crack for the FDA to get involved in regulating cigarettes. At issue are additives in cigarettes that are designed to make smoking more appealing to young people. Binker pulls out this amazing section of the bill, and does us the favor of translating it, too.

The Congressman from NC's 6th District was questioning Scott McClellan during a committee meeting this morning. It won't come as any shock to most of you, but Coble made a few statements that really call into question his information gathering abilities. From the dailykos live blog of the meeting:

Cut and paste from the NC-06 Democrats website. Visit the site directly at http://www.nc6democrats.us.

The Coble Record Coble Voting Record Jan-Feb 2008 More On This No to the Economic Stimulus Package. No to housing assistance. No to renewable energy. Coble Voting Recor May-June 2008 More On This No to helping states buy foreclosed properties. Coble Voting Record March-April 2008 More On This No to cancelling debt of certain poor countries. No to providing international assistance for AIDS/HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. Coble Votes Against Economic Stimulus Package More On This President Bush urged Congress to move quickly to help ease the pain of recession. Democratic and Republican leaders joined the President in hammering out a stimulus package. Congress passed it 385-35. Congressman Howard Coble voted NO. Coble Voting Record Nov-Dec 2007 More On This No to Employment Non-Discrimination. No to Homeowners. No on protecting taxpayers from the Alternative Minimum Tax. No to mortgage reform. Coble Voting Record September-October 2007 More On This No to college students. No, again, to college students. No to small businesses. No to children who need health insurance. No to expanding flood insurance. No to affordable housing. No to dam repair. Yes to his patent-conscious PAC contributors. Coble Voting Record July-August 2007 More On This No, once again, to redeploying American troops in Iraq. No, once again, to implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. No to housing assistance and Appalachian regional development. No to improving children's health insurance. No to minimum rest periods between troop deployments. And on the all important last day before summer research, Coble goes AWOL: not voting on renewable energy, energy independence, Defense Department appropriations, and amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Coble Voting Record May-June 2007 More On This No to Head Start. No to Hate Crimes. No to Homeland Security. No to US Intelligence. No to North Carolina's Carl Sandburg.

Applied Rationality asks, why are Republicans taking a stand against Mother's Day?

What does Rep. Howard Coble have against mothers and Mother's Day. On Wednesday, the House considered H.Res. 1113, "celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day?"

The editors of The Pilot in Southern Pines has made, in my opinion, the right choice in recommending that Democratic and Unaffiliated voters that vote in the Democratic Primary in NC-06 choose Jay Ovittore as their candidate to face Howard Coble in November, who they believe it will be "hard to dislodge".

Veritas.

This Latin word for Truth is dead, but is its meaning? It very definition implies an honesty we rarely see in our own lives let alone in politics.

I don't know if I moderated or liberalized the debate in Asheboro tonight, but at least I can say I didn't 'conserve' it.

I've been worrying about controlling the chaos as moderator of the 6th District debate tomorrow night, so here are some groundrules I'm proposing after a night's research.

They're based on the usual "Presidential Debate" procedures established in 1988 when the League of Women Voters revived national political debating. No debate this year has really followed any standard format, mainly because they started out with large numbers of candidates which diminished through the process, so the time for responses has grown proportionately.

Any one is welcome to give me feed back here- these Ground Rules aren't carved in stone, and I haven't emailed them to the candidates or journalists yet (read it here first!)

At least one thing I saw from last night's Blue NC Democratic gubernatorial candidate 'debate' is that these innertube-type debates are really self-generating and self-replicating. It happens in real time, in black and white (or whatever the electronic equivalent is), and then traditional media types (tip o' the hat to Laura Leslie and Ryan Beckwith) come out of the lurkosphere to participate, elaborate and pontificate. Does that have a bigger impact than a "live" debate, even one where the questioners are newspaper reporters, but their employers don't deem the event sufficiently newsworthy for next-day coverage?

and it's in Asheboro, in our new headquarters building at 125 South Church Street, across the street from the new Farmer's Market.