Namely it will not allow coverage to families who make more than 3 times the federal poverty line, it would phase out coverage to young childless couples over a one year period (some states offer this, not all), and require stricter checking of applicant’s social security numbers.

“This is a clarification of the legislation” stated Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi denied requests from moderate Republicans for more time before the vote, which is scheduled for today, in order to try and get more supporters from their conservative partners.

The bill will almost certainly pass a majority vote before going on to get vetoed by our obstinate president. The changes made to the bill address his concerns except that the money is still coming from a cigarette tax which he opposes. Let’s hope that this time our Representatives will be able to override the veto and get the protection in place that our children deserve.

Mike Viqueira, NBC News’ reporter, has seen a lot of anger in the House Republicans who feel that these changes might just cause enough Republicans to deflect and actually support America’s children. The changes are specifically targeted to 38 Republicans who supported the veto and then wrote a letter detailing their concerns. The bill’s supporters are certain that these concerns are addressed now in the new legislation.

This just may mean success, now that their “legitimate” concerns have been addressed it will be harder for them to refuse to listen to a majority of American citizens, their constituents, without seriously damaging their opportunity for reelection. My fingers are crossed.

Now, we’ve all seen overused catch phrases in politics, rhetoric that means nothing, but this time the issue at hand was “for the children”. As we have written about on this blog, SCHIP is a good program. The expansion would ensure coverage for 10 million US children. It’s supported by 81% of America with 71% of America saying they would support it even if it raised their taxes.

How can Right Wing spinmeisters take something that is overwhelmingly approved by the citizens and turn it into something dirty and evil? By repeating lies upon lies upon lies; by attacking the spokespeople for this bill; by calling Nancy Pelosi “pathetic” for attempting to get our Representatives to think of the children that this bill is designed for before they voted.

Nancy Pelosi in addressing the House before the vote stated, “We’ve had a much higher goal. This is what is achievable for the children. It should have been signed by the president. There is no reason that he has given that is consistent with the facts.”

If you’ve really looked into this story you know that she was right. Every reason that the president gave for vetoing this legislation was faulty or an outright lie. For more on this please see our story here.

I am surmising that because Rush knows that he cannot counter her logic with any evidence, facts, or truth he must immediately rail against her and get all of his cowardly followers up in arms. He does by stating, “That is embarrassing. That, folks, is literally pathetic. It is embarrassing!”

Exactly what was embarrassing or pathetic about telling the truth and imploring the House to do the right thing and think of the right people when they voted? NOTHING! That doesn’t matter; however, when you’re dealing with the radical right. Because they cannot defend their own ignorant positions they counter with baseless attacks the democrats, even when they are working on a bi-partisan piece of legislation that is approved by an overwhelming majority of America, and is FOR THE CHILDREN.

That is why Rush Limbaugh is this week’s SINNER!

The US ships supplies through Turkey from a large air base in Incirlik. If Turkey stopped allowing this the US would have to shift battle plans. All of this comes at the same time the US was working to persuade Turkey to use diplomatic means to deal with Kurdish insurgents along the Northern Iraqi border. Turkey was threatening military use and the Bush administration was doing their damnedest to try and dissuade them.

The Kurdish controlled section of Northern Iraq is relatively stable, the possibility of enlarging the war has been something the US has worked hard to prevent.

Now CBSNews.com is breaking the story that Turkey has fired at least 250 rounds and 11 missiles across the border into the mountains of Northern Iraq. The Turkish government had issued a statement last week that any military force used would be only against the insurgents whom they say have participated in armed attacks across the border.

The Kurds are now calling for American troops to intervene and stop the “crisis” that is evolving. With US troops already stretched thin, having to reinforce a formerly fairly secure area, will be a blow that will potentially cause a setback to the “progress” we’re hearing from Iraq.

Turkey was angered enough that the House Foreign Relations Committee even had a vote on the Armenian genocide issue that they pulled their ambassador out of the US. They had warned that such a vote would strain relations between them and the US and any further activity would further strain relations. The administration has publicly stated that the vote was misguided and that because there are national security interests at stake it should not go forth. Nancy Pelosi declared that the resolution will be heard on the House floor.

This puts the US in a strange place with an ally. We may be needed to militarily defend Northern Iraq from the Turkish assault at the same time we are pissing them off with our political condemnation of the 1915 genocide. One has to wonder if this is what members of the House had in mind when voting on and passing this measure on to the House floor.

The president has not listened to Congress’ input in the way the war is going, we are on the same failed path with thousands of dead soldiers and close to a million dead Iraqi’s, and there aren’t enough votes to override even a veto on children’s health insurance. Perhaps the next step is to make it very difficult to continue major combat operations in Iraq.

This is completely my own inference here and I am in no way claiming to know what is going on in the minds of those in Congress, but it does seem to make sense. With an already unpopular war as far as the rest of the world is concerned, perhaps the way out is to make our remaining allies pull their support.

I do not personally think this is a wise course and I hope that I am wrong. There are certainly other things that can be done to stop the war. The first being to stop funding it; stop believing the fear mongering White House and being bullied into passing spending bills that Congress and the American people don’t agree with.