Sara Robinson for David Neiwert: There's Something About The Men

Thursday, October 19, 2006
by Sara Robinson

Excerpted from Wikipedia:

September 13, 2006, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; A 25-year-old man started firing at the entrance to Dawson College, and proceeded on a rampage to the college's cafeteria. One victim died at the scene. Another 19 were injured. The gunman later committed suicide by shooting himself in the head, after being shot in the arm by police.

September 14, 2006 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; A 22-year-old university law student fired a pellet gun at one of the buildings of the University of Ottawa in a drive-by shooting. He was quickly arrested at his home and was subsequently banned from the University. No one was injured.

[...]

Militia members, gun nuts, hate criminals, fundamentalists, Minutemen, high-social dominance authoritarian leaders, submissive authoritarian followers, guys like the one below, guys like the ones above. Over the years, we've had a lot of conversations here trying to figuring out what makes them tick, where they want to take us, how we can keep from going there -- and perhaps most plangently: why do we seem to have so many of them? Often, if we talk about it long enough, the conversation always seems to come back to one place. And there it stops, as if on the edge of something vast and terrifying that we simply cannot bring ourselves to grapple with.

Katha Pollitt: Show Him the Money

I wanted to admire The Trouble With Diversity, Walter Benn Michaels's much-discussed polemic against identity politics and economic inequality. Like him, I'm bothered by the extent to which symbolic politics has replaced class grievances on campus, and off it too: the obsessive cultivation of one's roots, the fetishizing of difference, the nitpicky moral one-upmanship over language. Call an argument "lame" on one academic-feminist list I'm on and you'll get--still!--an electronic earful about your insensitivity to the disabled.

Glenn Greenwald: What Fox viewers are told about the torture and detention bill

(updated below)

The so-called Military Commissions Act of 2006 (.pdf), signed into law yesterday by President Bush, is replete with radical provisions, but the most dangerous and disturbing is that it vests in the President the power to detain people forever by declaring them an "unlawful enemy combatant," and they then have no ability to contest the validity of their detention in any tribunal. The President now possesses a defining authoritarian power -- to detain and imprison people for life based solely on his say-so, while denying the detainee any opportunity to prove his innocence.

Glenn Greenwald: Is protection from threats the highest political value?

When President Bush signed the so-called Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law this week, he dismissed away objections to its Draconian and tyrannical provisions with one very simple and straightforward argument:

Over the past few months the debate over this bill has been heated, and the questions raised can seem complex. Yet, with the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat? Every member of Congress who voted for this bill has helped our nation rise to the task that history has given us.

Glenn Greenwald: John McCain unveils his Grand Plan for Victory in Iraq

When pro-war advocates talk about Iraq these days, what they say is not only misguided and false, but almost always incoherent. In explaining why we ought to stay, they are reduced to a form of babbling that sounds almost adolescent -- like a petulant teenager who wishes so badly for something that they just stomp their feet and insist that they are going to have it. Here is the very serious, responsible, straight-talking national security guardian John McCain, "explaining" his view of Iraq to Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about an area where we‘ve all been involved, you especially, in talking about Iraq and how we can win this war or deal with it. You‘ve called, just in the last couple of days, for 100,000 more troops on top of the 140,000 we have as a compliment there.

Barbara Ehrenreich: Pension or Penitentiary?

Talk about a cry for help: Timothy J. Bowers robbed a Columbus OH bank of $80, handed the money over to a security guard, and waited for the police to come and arrest him. In court on October 11, he pleaded guilty and told the judge that he would like a three-year sentence – just enough time to get him to the age of eligibility for Social Security benefits. The judge graciously obliged, demonstrating compassionate conservativism at its warm-hearted best.

Bowers, almost 63 years old, is no wacko. He passed a court-ordered psychological exam and explained that he had not been able to find a new job since his old one ended when his employer’s company closed in 2003. “At my age,” he said, “The jobs available to me are minimum wage jobs,” adding that “There is age discrimination out there.”

Digby: Family Values

This is an incredibly effective ad for Claire McCaskill in Missouri. I urge you to watch it.

Michael J. Fox was a member of the family for many years in this country. He still looks pretty much like he always did -- boyish and charming. But he's suffering from Parkinsons disease and it's clearly taking its toll. In this ad he asks the people of Missouri to support McCaskill because she is in favor of stem cell research and Jim Talent isn't. Essentially, he's asking people to value the promise of curing the horrible disease that has him in its clutches or value a clump of cells in a petrie dish.

Digby: Liberal Intolerance Of Intolerance

Pastordan defends himself quite well from a typically obtuse criticism from Amy Sullivan in The New Republic and I'll let him speak for himself. But I have to wonder where she gets the idea that liberals are so blinded by their belief that Bush and Rove have been building a theocracy that they can't see that Kuo's book presents an opportunity to drive a wedge between the evangelicals and the GOP? I never thought that Bush was a serious theologian, only that he was willing to do whatever he could get away with to keep the evangelicals happy. Nothing in Kuo's book undermines that theory. In fact, it validates it.

Digby: Primed For McCain

The latest GOP mantra on Iraq sounds incredibly pathetic and it's probably why they are losing. Here's Bay Buchanan on CNN yesterday:

BUCHANAN: There's no question in that people have a legitimate concern.

But I think the issue here is not to debate whether we should have gone or not, but that we have a serious situation. We are at war in Iraq. It is not going well . What do you do now?

We Answer to the Name of Liberals

From the November print issue: A response to Tony Judt, and a manifesto for liberals in the waning Bush era.

By Bruce Ackerman and Todd Gitlin
Web Exclusive: 10.18.06

As right-wing politicians and pundits call us stooges for Osama bin Laden, Tony Judt charges, in a widely discussed and heatedly debated essay in the London Review of Books, that American liberals -- without distinction -- have "acquiesced in President Bush's catastrophic foreign policy." Both claims are nonsense on stilts.

Clearly this is a moment for liberals to define ourselves. The important truth is that most liberals, including the undersigned, have stayed our course throughout these grim five years. We have consistently and publicly repudiated the ruinous policies of the Bush administration, and our diagnosis, alas, has been vindicated by events. The Bush debacle is a direct consequence of its repudiation of liberal principles. And if the country is to recover, we should begin by restating these principles.

Digby: Exceptionalism

Nearly a third of people worldwide back the use of torture in prisons in some circumstances, a BBC survey suggests.

Although 59% were opposed to torture, 29% thought it acceptable to use some degree of torture to combat terrorism.

While most polled in the US are against torture, opposition there is less robust than in Europe and elsewhere.

Digby: Shorthand

Word to the wise: if both Joe Klein and David Brooks give the same piece of advice to Democrats, do the exact opposite.

Barack Obama should run for president.

He should run first for the good of his party. It would demoralize the Democrats to go through a long primary season with the most exciting figure in the party looming off in the distance like some unapproachable dream. The next Democratic nominee should either be Barack Obama or should have the stature that would come from defeating Barack Obama.

Digby: Fooling Only Themselves

From the Carpetbagger Report:

This month, it's a new set of ads — running in more than two dozen congressional districts nationwide — sponsored by a political action committee called "America's Pac," which is a project of the very wealthy (and very white) Patrick Rooney. I honestly didn't think the right could be this disgusting.

Digby: Go Team God!

Now that's what I'm talking about ...

Weighing in on Connecticut's hotly contested congressional races, a group of religious activists have unveiled a giant billboard off busy Interstate 95 that accuses four candidates of voting to allow torture.

The billboard in Stratford names Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman and Republican Reps. Christopher Shays, Rob Simmons and Nancy Johnson as supporters of the Military

Billmon: Rumsfeld's Toads

I don't want to go all Godwin here, but these two really do sound like a couple of Hitler's military flunkies talking about their beloved Fuhrer:

The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God.

"He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Inside the Secret World of White Supremacy

By John F. Sugg
t r u t h o u t | Report

Wednesday 18 October 2006

A visit to Laurens, South Carolina.

John Sugg is group senior editor of Creative Loafing Newspapers.

The squirt-sized black kid, maybe 8 years old, pedaled his shiny orange Mongoose bike around downtown Laurens, S.C. He scooted down a side street with a cheery "hello, mister" to a passer-by, then waved at a passing police car.

A few hours later, early on a September Saturday evening, the boy was back, zipping past the old Echo Theatre on Laurens' courthouse square. Inside, a convention of the white-supremacist Aryan Nations had just boisterously concluded.

The theater, now dubbed the World Famous Redneck Shop, is crammed with racist memorabilia, everything a fashionable bigot would need, from cheap Confederate flag flip-flops and bikinis to T-shirts that announce, "Ain't Racist, Just Never Met a Nigger I Liked." The shop's operator, John Howard, boasts that he's been a "member of the Ku Klux Klan for 40-some years," many of them as a grand dragon in the Carolinas. And he proudly points to a decades-old studio photo of him in emerald Klan robes.

After Pat's Birthday

Posted on Oct 19, 2006

By Kevin Tillman

Editor’s note: Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat in 2002, and they served together in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Kevin, who was discharged in 2005, has written a powerful, must-read document.

It is Pat’s birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice… until we got out.

Much has happened since we handed over our voice:

Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can’t be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.

Blog: Six-alarm fire at Maryland building housing Army intel group

RAW STORY
Published: Friday October 20, 2006

A blogger is reporting that a six-alarm fire is burning at a Fort Meade, Md. compound that houses an Army counterintelligence group.

The blog, Mia Culpa, quoted the following information from an article at WJZ.com: "Officials say they do not know why the military building at 4554 Llewellyn Avenue caught fire."

Michael Kinsley: US politicians are vying for the moral high ground, but it's a struggle not to laugh out loud

Saturday October 21, 2006
The Guardian

Here in Washington, we're all competing to see who can be more po-faced about Mark Foley and the congressional pages. Who can deplore Foley's behaviour the most? Democrats, sensing a wounded Republican party, are going in for the kill. It's the final evidence of terminal corruption: a congressman was cyber-molesting teenage boys and his party leaders evidently didn't care. Republicans answer: Hey, we invented child molesting! As an issue, that is. We own family values and we're not about to let the party of Monica Lewinski and Heather Has Two Mommies outflank us on sexual morality. Then gay voices remind people that being gay and molesting children are two different things, which of course they are. But to make the point clear, gays want everyone to know that they defer to no one in their distaste for Foley's behaviour.

Paul Krugman: Incentives for the Dead

October 20, 2006

I don’t know about you, but I need a break from political scandals. So let’s talk about private-sector scandals instead — specifically, the growing scandal involving backdated stock options, which this week led to the resignation of William McGuire, the chief executive of UnitedHealth Group.

To understand the issue, we need to go back to the original ideological justification for giant executive paychecks.

In the 1960’s and 1970’s, C.E.O.’s of the largest firms were paid, on average, about 40 times as much as the average worker. But executives wanted more — and professors at business schools provided a theory that justified much higher pay.

Will real conservatives please stand up?

Gene Lyons

Posted on Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Almost from the first, President Bush has acted as if there would never be another election. That’s the main thing adepts of the cult of personality surrounding this arrogant, befuddled little man love about him. “As his supporters saw him,” Sidney Blumenthal writes in his bracing new book, “How Bush Rules,” “ his simplistic rhetoric was straight talk, his dogmatism fortitude, his swagger reassuring, his stubbornness... a bulwark against danger, and his rough edges proof that he was a man of the people. ” What most Americans have appeared reluctant to grasp, Blumenthal thinks, is the radical extremism behind the administration’s concept of the “unitary executive” —seizing upon the metaphorical war on terror to declare the commander-inchief above the strictures of the U. S. Constitution and unfettered by whatever limitations a timorous Congress might seek to impose. By and large, the rubber-stamp Republican House and Senate have imposed none. On critical issues, the so-called GOP moderates and mavericks have feigned resistance, then gone along for the ride. Last month’s shameless capitulation allowing Bush to strip “enemy combatants” —American citizens included—of the right to challenge their imprisonment in court was a dramatic example.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 10/20/06

With "stay the course" coming to the end of the road, and the alternatives "unpalatable," the temptations of a coup in Iraq are considered, and Thomas Ricks raises the prospect that Iraqis might find "a younger, tougher, more vicious person than Saddam Hussein, who unites the country under an anti-American banner."

Jonah Goldberg declares the Iraq war "a worthy mistake," while insisting that this is no vindication of the antiwar crowd and no reason to "bug out," and Robert Kagan produces 'Nothing New, in 3,800 Words.'

John Yoo celebrates of the passage of the Military Commissions Act as a victory over judicial oversight, and the New York Times is accused of wrongly suggesting that the law does not apply to Americans, but a BBC survey of worldwide attitudes toward torture is refashioned into 'The Sheer Damn Decency Index'

According to CBS's Dick Meyer, this is not another "Seinfeld election," but perhaps "a Survivor election," where "a bunch of people will get voted off the island," and if this happens, we may be headed for "a tumultuous couple of years" or even a "constitutional crisis" as "check and balance is introduced for the first time to Bush."

The New York Times highlights the "pre-criminations" of the conservative "blame game," and James Dobson is reported to be having difficulty motivating his followers for the elections," but the GOP still hopes to 'scare up big voter turnout.'

A number of prominent conservatives try using NAMBLA to tar Democrats, but an ad featured on the party's website provides evidence that that 'the GOP's last, best weapon' is fear.

The Bush administration's celebration of "an evolving economy" is countered by stories from "the new world of the middle class--haunted by debt, stalked by layoffs, pinched by vanishing pensions and health benefits, and forced into ever more contingent forms of work as 'real' jobs give way to benefit-free contract work."

As protests continue to grow over alleged ADL pressure to deny Tony Judt, a prominent critic of Israel, a platform to speak, a manifesto of liberalism calls Judt's critique of American liberal collaboration with Bush's foreign policy, "nonsense on stilts," but questions are raised about the manifesto's own priorities.

Who Is 'Any Person' in Tribunal Law?

By Robert Parry
October 19, 2006

The New York Times lead editorial gives false comfort to American citizens by assuring them that they will not be victims of George W. Bush’s new draconian system for prosecuting enemies of the U.S. government in military tribunals outside constitutional protections.

“This law does not apply to American citizens,” the Times editorial stated, “but it does apply to other legal United States residents. And it chips away at the foundations of the judicial system in ways that all Americans should find threatening.” [NYT, Oct. 19, 2006]

However, the Times analysis appears to be far too gentle. While it’s true that some parts of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 target non-citizens, other sections clearly apply to U.S. citizens as well, putting citizens inside the same tribunal system with resident aliens and foreigners.

EXCLUSIVE: Lewis Falsely Implies Mass Suspension Of Committee Investigators Was ‘Bipartisan’

Powerful House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) has abruptly suspended the contracts of “60 investigators who had worked for his committee rooting out fraud, waste and abuse, effective immediately.” The investigators were “brought on to handle the extraordinary level of fraud investigations facing the panel.”

Lewis is currently under federal investigation over corruption charges reportedly uncovered during the Duke Cunningham investigation. He has spent nearly $800,000 in legal fees since May.

Wash Post : Diebold Touchscreen Source Code Discovered Stolen In Maryland!

ALSO: State Report Finds Sensitive Voter Registration Database Vulnerable to 'Across-the-Board Access'

Diebold, State Election Director Lamone Continue State of Denial…

Guest Blogged by John Gideon (with additional snark provided by Brad Friedman)

The Washington Post is reporting in Friday editions that the FBI is investigating the "possible theft" of Diebold electronic touch-screen voting system source code in Maryland.

While the Maryland State Board of Elections admits that the disks contained "the software…used in Maryland in the 2004 elections," Diebold denies everything. Of course. They gave their catch-all apologia — the software is for "versions…that are no longer in use in Maryland" — although they were forced to acknowledge "the version of one program apparently stored on the disks is still in use in 'a limited number of jurisdictions.'"

CREW asks DOJ to investigate Weldon for e-mails outlining possible threats of retaliation against his opponent's contributors

Submitted by CREW on 20 October 2006 - 4:19pm.

E-mails received by CREW have prompted us to ask the Department of Justice to investigate whether Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) violated the law by intimidating government personnel "in the national security field" who support his opponent, Joe Sestak.

The first e-mail describes a "hit list" compiled of Weldon opponent's supporters. In addition, that e-mail notes the Weldon said something to the effect of "If they don't think there will be retribution before or after the election, they're kidding themselves." The second e-mail states that Weldon had his staff contact Navy personnel to get information on Sestak.

We've lost battle for Baghdad, US admits

· President concedes war may be at turning point
· Mounting death toll brings comparison with Vietnam

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Friday October 20, 2006
The Guardian

A day after George Bush conceded for the first time that America may have reached the equivalent of a Tet offensive in Iraq, the Pentagon yesterday admitted defeat in its strategy of securing Baghdad.

The admission from President Bush that the US may have arrived at a turning point in this war - the Tet offensive led to a massive loss of confidence in the American presence in Vietnam - comes during one of the deadliest months for US forces since the invasion.

Racists on the Ballot: Hard-Right Radicals Run in 2006

By Alexander Zaitchik, Intelligence Report. Posted October 20, 2006.

Across America, right-wing radicals are running for everything from national political office to a county mosquito control board.

In 1989, notorious white supremacist David Duke ran for a vacant seat in the Louisiana state legislature and won. Despite repeated efforts -- and winning more than 670, 000 votes, a majority of the state's white voters, in a 1991 gubernatorial bid -- Duke would fail to convert this electoral victory into higher office. But the former Klan leader remains convinced that the road to national power for those who share his views runs through local and state assemblies. At last year's European American Conference, a racist pow-wow Duke organizes annually, he implored audience members to enter politics -- and start small.

"State representative races can be won with modest budgets and small staffs, while affording the winner possible major media attention and the ability to file and promote legislation that can materially improve our people's plight," proclaimed Duke, citing personal experience.

Time to Go! Inside the Worst Congress Ever

By Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone

Tuesday 17 October 2006

The worst Congress ever: How our national legislature has become a stable of thieves and perverts - in five easy steps.

There is very little that sums up the record of the US Congress in the Bush years better than a half-mad boy-addict put in charge of a federal commission on child exploitation. After all, if a hairy-necked, raincoat-clad freak like Rep. Mark Foley can get himself named co-chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, one can only wonder: What the hell else is going on in the corridors of Capitol Hill these days?

These past six years were more than just the most shameful, corrupt and incompetent period in the history of the American legislative branch. These were the years when the US parliament became a historical punch line, a political obscenity on par with the court of Nero or Caligula - a stable of thieves and perverts who committed crimes rolling out of bed in the morning and did their very best to turn the mighty American empire into a debt-laden, despotic backwater, a Burkina Faso with cable.

Reflecting on Rumsfeld

By Stan Goff

Editor’s note: In this piece, author Stan Goff, a retired 26-year veteran of the U.S. Army Special Forces, describes how two main tenets of the so-called Rumsfeld Doctrine—the reduction of all things military into “metrics” and an obsession with perception management—have left America inured to the human cost of the Iraq war.

In August 2003, I was interviewed on CNN as “the father of a soldier.” Iraq had claimed only 270 American armed forces members’ lives. I called the conflict “a quagmire,” bringing hoots of virtual laughter from right-wing bloggers the following day. They were still holding out for the Parisian Rose Parade promised them by Ahmed Chalabi, and I was just some malcontented geriatric hippy still mired in the linguistics of the ’60s.

I don’t want any last laugh. It’s not funny. My son has been to Iraq four times now, and is straightaway headed to Afghanistan, where the Taliban now controls whole towns throughout the south. (Out of respect for my son’s privacy and security, I do not publicly discuss our conversations about this or his opinions on the war.)

Congresswoman on page board buried file on husband's child abuse allegation

Brian Beutler
Published: Thursday October 19, 2006

A file allegedly suppressed by Congresswoman Heather Wilson (R-NM) has been obtained by RAW STORY.

In 1995, just three days into her tenure as Secretary of the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department, Wilson removed a routine working file alleging that her husband had engaged in inappropriate contact with a minor. The file was then transferred to the department's attorney in her own Albuquerque office, where it soon went missing.

NASA and NOAA announce Antarctic ozone hole is a double record breaker

hNASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists report this year's ozone hole in the polar region of the Southern Hemisphere has broken records for area and depth.

The Last Days of the Dollar

by Robert Kiyosaki

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

In 1966, I was traveling the Pacific aboard a freighter. I was 19 years old at the time and attending the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, N.Y.

As part of my academy education, I spent a year as a student officer on freighters, passenger liners, oil tankers, and even tugboats. It was a great way to see and study the world.

An Instructive Exchange

One of the earliest lessons I learned at sea was about currency exchange rates. Even though currency valuation was not a subject taught at the Merchant Marine academy, my ship constantly traveled from one country to the next, so my education in what is today called FX -- or foreign exchange -- began.

Helen Thomas: A sad day for America

By Helen Thomas
© 2006 Hearst Newspapers

Article Last Updated:10/18/2006 06:12:03 PM MDT

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Tuesday signed the law that legalizes the administration's shameful treatment of detainees suspected of terrorism.

The same measure also empowers the president to define torture. It's a sad legacy for America and its already-tarnished world image.

The new law - the Military Commissions Act of 2006 - establishes a system for trying suspects in military tribunals. It was enacted after the Supreme Court ruled last June that the administration plan for trials by military commissions violated U.S. and international law.

In effect, President Bush got all he wanted from a submissive GOP-dominated Congress and a few spineless Democratic lawmakers. The president on Tuesday did not issue his customary signing statement interpreting implementation of the law. He didn't have to because lawmakers on Capitol Hill had handed him total victory.

Molly Ivins: Don’t Count the Republicans Out

By Molly Ivins

Stunning coincidence. The verdict in the long-running trial of Saddam Hussein in Iraq is now due two days before our congressional elections in November. Astounding. How ineffable.

Sometimes you know the Republicans have just lost the rag completely. This week, Dick Cheney said to Rush Limbaugh regarding the Iraqi government, “If you look at the general, overall situation, they’re doing remarkably well.” The vice president also acknowledged there’s some concern because the war wasn’t over “instantaneously.” We have now been in Iraq just one month shy of the entire time it took us to fight World War II. Seventy Americans dead so far in October. Electricity in Iraq this year hit its lowest levels since the war started.

AG: Voter warning linked to GOP campaign

SANTA ANA, Calif. - State investigators have linked a Republican campaign to letters sent to thousands of Orange County Hispanics warning them they could go to jail or be deported if they vote next month, a spokesman for the attorney general said.

"We have identified where we believe the mailing list was obtained," said Nathan Barankin, spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

Why we are such terrible judges of the relationship between price and quality

Past research has demonstrated that both experts and novices make notoriously poor judgments. A new study examines the mental processes behind our flawed assessments, a recurring issue in many areas of consumer research as well as in other areas of psychology and psychiatry. When it comes to the relationship between price and quality, Arul Mishra and Dhananjay Nayakankuppam (University of Iowa) argue that rather than an insensitivity to data -- poor calibration -- human judges are simply inconsistent.

Visual imagery technique boosts voting, study finds

Registered voters who used a simple visual imagery technique the evening before the 2004 election were significantly more likely to vote the next day, a new study found. It was all a matter of the visual perspective people took when they imagined themselves voting.

The mouth that roars

Reaching for the national spotlight, conservative radio talk show host Melanie Morgan zeroes in on Cindy Sheehan

She still believes that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. She thinks that global warming is a liberal scare tactic. She has suggested that the editor of the New York Times be tried for treason. Now, she's taking on Cindy Sheehan.

If in your meanderings through assorted media you haven't yet encountered Melanie Morgan, hang in there, because you will very soon. Morgan who plies her trade as co-host of the "Lee Rodgers and Melanie Morgan Program" broadcast out of the San Francisco studios of KSFO-AM (560 AM), is delivering the mother of all hit jobs on Cindy Sheehan in a new book called "American Mourning: The Intimate Story of Two Families Joined by War, Torn by Beliefs," co-authored by conservative columnist Catherine Moy.

Tom Tomorrow: What Liberals Say / What Conservatives Hear

Open the link to see the cartoon--Dictynna

Judge Revokes Lay's Conviction

Ruling Rankles Enron Workers, Investors

By Carrie Johnson

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 18, 2006; Page D01

A federal judge in Houston yesterday wiped away the fraud and conspiracy conviction of Kenneth L. Lay, the Enron Corp. founder who died of heart disease in July, bowing to decades of legal precedent but frustrating government attempts to seize nearly $44 million from his family.

The ruling worried employees and investors who lost billions of dollars when the Houston energy-trading company filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2001. It also came more than a week after Congress recessed for the November elections without acting on a last-ditch Justice Department proposal that would have changed the law to allow prosecutors to seize millions of dollars in investments and other assets that Lay controlled.

Iraq a helluva mess: Baker

FORMER US secretary of state James Baker was visibly shocked when he last visited Iraq, and said the country was in a "helluva mess", the BBC reported today.

Mr Baker is leading a review of the situation in Iraq by a bipartisan US committee of experts, and is expected to recommend a change in US strategy for rebuilding Iraq.

Citing a unnamed close friend and ally of Mr Baker's, himself a top politician, the BBC reported that Mr Baker said "there simply weren't any easy solutions".

Bush's Petro-Cartel Almost Has Iraq's Oil (Part Two)

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted October 17, 2006.

The Bush administration has co-opted the compassionate language of debt relief to ensure that Big Oil gets its way in Iraq.

Editor's note: This is the second part of a series on the struggle for control of Iraq's oil resources and self-determination. Go here to read the first installment.

With 140,000 U.S. troops on the ground, the largest U.S. embassy in the world sequestered in Baghdad's fortified "Green Zone" and an economy designed by a consulting firm in McLean, Va., post-invasion Iraq was well on its way to becoming a bonanza for foreign investors.

But Big Oil had its sights set on a specific arrangement -- the lucrative production sharing agreements that lock in multinationals' control for long terms and are virtually unheard of in countries as rich in easily accessible oil as Iraq.

Matt Taibbi: What the Dems Will Do If They Take Over

By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com. Posted October 17, 2006.

Will Democrats spend their first moments in the majority issuing a nasty payback for a decade of Republican punishment?

Late last week, toward the tail end of my research for the "Worst Congress Ever" story in the current Rolling Stone, New York congressman Charlie Rangel told me an interesting story.

Rangel recounted an incident in the House in which he went over to say hello to Florida Republican Clay Shaw, who had been ill. Although the two men had been longtime political antagonists, and had frequently ripped each other in public during hearings of the Ways and Means committee (Shaw is the committee's second-ranking Republican, while Rangel is the ranking minority member), they had always maintained a friendly personal relationship. So when Rangel saw that Shaw was back at work, he went over to pay his respects.

Digby: Go Team Jesus

Kevin highlights a post by Rebecca Sinderbrand on the Showdown '08 Blog in which she posits that evangelicals will look at the Kuo book like this:

...Kuo's story -- if it's believed at all -- wouldn't affect the way voters like my mom feel about the president. And the White House-based account definitely wouldn't have an impact on how they view the GOP-controlled Congress, which doesn't make much of an appearance in the book. So what sorts of questions does it raise in their minds? How about: Why did this come out three weeks before the election? Who's plugging this story? And: is there any reason to trust them?

Digby: Beautiful Minds

Following up on tristero's post below discussing this NY Times op-ed, I have to take exception to the vague implication that the Republicans failed to read books about mid-east regional issues, Muslim history or arab culture. They did.

They read books by the neocon nutball Laurie Mylroie:

Historians will be debating that question for years, but an important part of the reason has to do with someone you may well have never heard of: Laurie Mylroie. Mylroie has an impressive array of credentials that certify her as an expert on the Middle East, national security, and, above all, Iraq. She has held faculty positions at Harvard and the U.S. Naval War College and worked at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as well as serving as an advisor on Iraq to the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign. During the 1980s, Mylroie was an apologist for Saddam's regime, but reversed her position upon his invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and, with the zeal of the academic spurned, became rabidly anti-Saddam. In the run up to the first Gulf War, Mylroie with New York Times reporter Judith Miller wrote Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf, a well-reviewed bestseller translated into more than a dozen languages.

Digby: Are There No Real Men

...like Christopher Hitchens left?

He's very upset. It seems the British have always been a bunch of mincing cowards and now the US is following in its footsteps along with the rest of the chickenshit Europeans.

T. CARLSON: ... will there be any desire at all on the part of anybody in charge of anything in Great Britain to keep British troops in Iraq?

HITCHENS: No.

T. CARLSON: Won‘t the pull-out be immediate at that point?

HITCHENS: It will be, as you say, an abandoned position politically.

Digby: A Day Which Will Live In Infamy

Today President Bush took the constitution and tore it into little pieces.

President Bush signed legislation Tuesday authorizing tough interrogation of terror suspects and smoothing the way for trials before military commissions, calling it a "vital tool" in the war against terrorism.

Bush's plan for treatment of the terror suspects became law just six weeks after he acknowledged that the CIA had been secretly interrogating suspected terrorists overseas and pressed Congress to quickly give authority to try them in military commissions.

Billmon: A Royal Pain

The Dauphin stamps his little foot and says "non":

President George W. Bush said he would reject any recommendation to partition Iraq along ethnic and sectarian lines, and he reaffirmed his confidence in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's ability to unify the country.

Bush, in an interview on the Fox News Channel, said Maliki agrees that creating semi-autonomous states for Kurds and Shiite and Sunni Muslims would worsen divisions in Iraq, which has been suffering a surge of sectarian violence. The president also said the U.S. wouldn't impose any deadlines on Maliki.

His Majesty seems to be blissfully unaware that the Iraqi parliament, of which Mr. Maliki is the nominal head, just voted to do what he has expressly denied it permission to do -- with the full support of Maliki's Dawa Party.

Billmon: Empire of Ignorance

Reading this article, all I could think of was Dean Wormer's line from Animal House: "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."

Except I would make it: "fat, stupid and in power."

It's been almost 30 years since the Islamic revolution in Iran, 23 years since the Beruit bombings, 11 years since the Kobhar Towers bombing, three and a half years since the start of the Iraq War. And this is what the FBI's number one point man on national security knows about the difference between Sunni and Shi'a Islam:

A few weeks ago, I took the F.B.I.’s temperature again. At the end of a long interview, I asked Willie Hulon, chief of the bureau’s new national security branch, whether he thought that it was important for a man in his position to know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites. "Yes, sure, it’s right to know the difference," he said. "It’s important to know who your targets are."That was a big advance over 2005. So next I asked him if he could tell me the difference. He was flummoxed.

Arthur Silber: The Dynamics of Rising American Fascism

I respectfully doff my hat to Stan Goff, and offer him my thanks. In a fascinating article that I urge you to read, "Sowing the Seeds of Fascism in America," Goff pulls together a number of underlying elements and demonstrates how they add up to a sum that ought to cause grave concern for all those who experience great anxiety when contemplating our country's future. As he also shows, our most influential elites, across the political spectrum, all reinforce different parts of this particularly American version of incipient fascism.

One of the specific developments that grounds Goff's analysis was reported by the New York Times this past July:

A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization.

But as Goff shows, this particular story hardly occurred in a vacuum, and it feeds into immensely destructive wider political-economic factors.

Against An Imperial Internet

Bill Moyers and Scott Fogdall

October 16, 2006

Bill Moyers is host of “The Net At Risk,” a documentary special airing Wednesday, October 18 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Scott Fogdall is with Films Media Group. Visit www.pbs.org/moyers.

It was said that all roads led to Rome. However exaggerated, the image is imprinted in our imagination, reminding us of the relentless ingenuity of the ancient Romans and their will to control an empire.

For centuries Roman highways linked far-flung provinces with a centralized web of power. The might of the imperial legions was for naught without the means to transport them. The flow of trade—the bloodstream of the empire’s wealth—also depended on the integrity of the roadways. And because Roman citizens could pass everywhere, more or less unfettered on their travels, ideas and cultural elements circulated with the same fluidity as commerce.

Alaska's $223 Mln `Bridge to Nowhere' Envied in U.S. Northwest

By Peter Robison

Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Alaska's Gravina Island is home to 50 people and more than 350 Sitka black-tailed deer. Under the U.S. highway bill passed last month, this group will get a $223 million bridge taller than the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.

The funding is among $1.04 billion that Alaska lawmakers secured for transportation projects, making the state the envy of its neighbors in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. The states of Washington and Oregon, with a combined population 15 times that of Alaska's 650,000, each received about $500 million sought by lawmakers for transportation projects in their home states under the bill signed by President George W. Bush on Aug. 10.

Are Evangelicals Over?

By Alan Wolfe, Comment Is Free. Posted October 17, 2006.

With the recent revelations that Bush aides mocked members of their Christian base, it has become increasingly clear to many evangelicals that their alliance with the Republicans is not paying off.

American elections in which no president is chosen are usually hum-drum affairs interesting only to policy wonks. Not 2006. Though not on any ballot, the question voters will be answering is: Has the religious right peaked?

Barring some miracle, it has. I am just back from a two-day visit to Regent University, founded by the evangelist Pat Robertson, a key figure in the religious right. "What you need to understand," a Robertson supporter told me, "is that Pat opposed the war in Iraq from the start." I responded that according to the Lancet, some 600,000 Iraqis have died since the war began. If Robertson had publicly opposed the war, I told them, his influential voice might have spared those lives. "But," one of them answered back, "Pat is a Republican who would not openly oppose the president."

Political Scientists' Models Predict Democratic Takeover of House of Representatives

APSA Press Release

For Immediate Release
Contact: Bahram Rajaee
202-483-2512

Political Scientists' Models Predict Democratic Takeover of House of Representatives In forecasts made as long as six months ago, scholars predict likely Democratic gain of 22-29 seats in the House, and 2-3 seats in the Senate.

Washington, DC--Election forecasting models completed by political scientists months before recent events predict significant Democratic gains in the 2006 midterm elections, including a likely 22 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and 2-3 seats in the U.S. Senate.

The predictions appear in two articles coauthored by Carl Klarner and Stan Buchanan (both of Indiana State University) and a third article authored by Alan Abramowitz (Emory University). The articles appear in the October 2006 issue of PS: Political Science and Politics, a journal of the American Political Science Association (APSA), and are available online at: /section_223.cfm.

Klarner and Buchanan employ the same framework to forecast the House and Senate elections. Traditionally, election forecasting models rely primarily either on district- and state-level analyses or aggregate methods measuring national trends. The authors develop a new predictive model that combines both approaches and uses the strengths of each while minimizing their analytical weaknesses. As a result, "both national and district conditions, as well as how those conditions combine to influence election outcomes, may be examined" observe the authors.

Digby: Giving Them A Zero

Reason #678 why a modern democracy should have a secular government. Here's an excerpt from David Kuo's book:

While the conferences were being birthed, we were also figuring out what to do with the Compassion Capital Fund. Promised originally at $200 million per year then cut in early 2001 to $100 million, and then again to $30 million, it was only faith-based money we had to distribute [even though $8 billion of new money had originally been promised].

Digby: Di-Vaaahning The Will Of The Fixer

Can we get one thing straight? The "leaking" of James Baker's secret plan to end the war --- which Baker himself is appearing all over television *not* talking about, is a political ploy to get wobbly Republicans to believe --- again --- that the "grown-ups" are riding to the rescue. Jesus, how obvious can they be?

Digby: Taking Out The Trash

DemFromCT has an interesting post up this morning over at Daily Kos discussing the rise of hyper-partisanship. He quotes an interview with the authors of The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track,Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann:

Is the current Congress demonstrably more partisan than those in the past? Why does it matter?

MANN: Partisanship particularly increased after the 1994 elections and then the appearance of the first unified Republican government since the 1950s. Now it is tribal warfare. The consequences are deadly serious. Party and ideology routinely trump institutional interests and responsibilities. Regular order -- the set of rules, norms and traditions designed to ensure a fair and transparent process -- was the first casualty. The results: No serious deliberation. No meaningful oversight of the executive. A culture of corruption. And grievously flawed policy formulation and implementation.

It really can't be overstated how Newt's bare knuckle style of politics changed the way things worked in Washington.

Digby: Spying On The Enemy

Here we have a smoking gun that should convince everyone that we must continue to honor the constitution and require the government to get warrants before spying on Americans. It's not because we want to help the terrorists and it's not even because we are paranoid. It's because we already know they have been spying on people who oppose the Iraq war:

Internal military documents released Thursday provided new details about the Defense Department’s collection of information on demonstrations nationwide last year by students, Quakers and others opposed to the Iraq war.

Digby: Willful Injustice

This is just awful:

Abdul Rahim Al Ginco thought he was saved when the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and overthrew the Taliban regime.

Mr. Ginco, a college student living in the United Arab Emirates, had gone to Afghanistan in 2000 after running away from his strict Muslim father. He was soon imprisoned by the Taliban, and tortured by operatives of Al Qaeda until, he said, he falsely confessed to being a spy for Israel and the United States.

Bush in a Snit

By Dan Froomkin

Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, October 16, 2006; 12:52 PM

The notion that President Bush is not just in denial -- but is petulantly in denial -- is taking on greater credence thanks to two recent Washington Post stories.

One describes Bush's seemingly inexplicable confidence that Republicans will maintain control of both houses of Congress in the upcoming elections. He doesn't even seem to have a backup plan.

Political Cortex: Escape to Paraguay? Rumors of Bush Land Deal

By truthista
10/16/2006 07:23:42 AM EST

At least two sources, including Upsidedownworld and Prensa Latina, report rumors of a Bush family purchase of land in northern Paraguay.

Upsidedownworld writes, on October 11:

The Governor of Alto Paraguay, Erasmo Rodríguez Acosta has admitted to hearing that George Bush Sr. owns land in the Chaco region of Paraguay, in Paso de Patria. Acosta says that rumor has it that Bush owns near to 70 thousand hectares (173,000 acres) as part of an ecological reserve and/or ranch. However, the governor said he had no documents to prove the rumor.

Prensa Latina, writing on October 13, gives a similar story but names George W. Bush rather than his father:

An Argentine official regarded the intention of the George W. Bush family to settle on the Acuifero Guarani (Paraguay) as surprising, besides being a bad signal for the governments of the region...Luis D Elia, undersecretary for the Social Habitat in the Argentine Federal Planning Ministry, issued a memo partially reproduced by digital INFOBAE.com, in which he spoke of the purchase by Bush of a 98,842-acre farm in northern Paraguay, between Brazil and Bolivia.

Was he? Had he?

London Review of Books explores freedom, security, and how right-wingers use government to control society in times of fear--BUZZFLASH

Corey Robin

The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government by David Johnson · Chicago, 277 pp, £13.00

Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security by David Cole and James Dempsey · New Press, 320 pp, £10.99

General Ashcroft: Attorney at War by Nancy Baker · Kansas, 320 pp, £26.50

State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration by James Risen · Free Press, 240 pp, £18.99

Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush by Eric Boehlert · Free Press, 352 pp, $25.00

According to John Cheever, 1948 was ‘the year everybody in the United States was worried about homosexuality’. And nobody was more worried than the federal government, which was rumoured to be teeming with gays and lesbians. One might think that Washington’s attentions would have been focused elsewhere – on the Soviet Union, for example, or on Communist spies – but in 1950, President Truman’s advisers warned him that ‘the country is more concerned about the charges of homosexuals in the government than about Communists.’ The executive branch responded immediately. That year, the State Department fired ‘perverts’ at the rate of one a day, more than twice the figure for suspected Communists. Charges of homosexuality ultimately accounted for a quarter to a half of all dismissals in the State and Commerce Departments, and in the CIA. Only 25 per cent of Joseph McCarthy’s fan letters complained of ‘red infiltration’; the rest fretted about ‘sex depravity’.

The scare lasted from 1947 to the 1970s, and in The Lavender Scare David Johnson estimates that thousands lost their jobs. The men and women charged with rinsing the pink from the Potomac were astonishingly ignorant about their quarry. Senator Clyde Hoey, head of the first congressional inquiry into the threat, had to ask an aide: ‘Can you please tell me, what can two women possibly do?’ Senator Margaret Chase Smith asked one Hoey Committee witness whether there wasn’t a ‘quick test like an X-ray that discloses these things’.

What it means to be a liberal

By Geoffrey R. Stone. Geoffrey R. Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago, is the author of "Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime."
Published October 10, 2006

For most of the past four decades, liberals have been in retreat. Since the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, Republicans have controlled the White House 70 percent of the time and Republican presidents have made 86 percent of the U.S. Supreme Court appointments. In many quarters, the word "liberal" has become a pejorative. Part of the problem is that liberals have failed to define themselves and to state clearly what they believe. As a liberal, I find that appalling.

In that light, I thought it might be interesting to try to articulate 10 propositions that seem to me to define "liberal" today. Undoubtedly, not all liberals embrace all of these propositions, and many conservatives embrace at least some of them.

Parties shift funds as contests tighten

GOP abandons races deemed unwinnable

Sunday, October 15, 2006

By Dan Balz and Jim VandeHei, The Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- Faced with a deteriorating political climate, Republican Party officials are hoping to keep control of the House and Senate with a strategy aimed at shoring up enough endangered incumbents to preserve their majorities, while scaling back planned spending on races that now appear unwinnable.

In recent days, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) has given back television time it had reserved in Democratic-held districts in West Virginia, South Carolina and Ohio -- apparently concluding that those races are beyond reach unless something dramatic changes the national political environment in the 25 days before the Nov. 7 election.

Paul Krugman: One Letter Politics

In a recent interview with The Hartford Courant, Senator Joseph Lieberman said something that wasn’t credible. When the newspaper asked him whether America would be better off if the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives next month, he replied, “Uh, I haven’t thought about that enough to give an answer.”

Why wasn’t this a credible answer? Because anyone with the slightest interest in American politics — a group that obviously includes Mr. Lieberman — is waiting with bated breath to see how this election goes, and thinking a lot about the implications. If the Democrats gain control of either house, no matter how narrowly, the American political landscape will be transformed. If they fail, no matter how narrowly, it will be seen, correctly, as a great victory for the hard right.

A War of the Words Against George Bush

By Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com. Posted October 16, 2006.

Apt quotes from some of the most eloquent Bush critics in our era -- from Howard Zinn to Barbara Ehrenreich.

For Homer, those epithets attached to his heroes and gods were undoubtedly mnemonic devices -- the fleet-footed Achilles, Poseidon, the Earth-shaker, the wily Odysseus, the ox-eyed Hera. But isn't it strange how many similar, if somewhat less heroic, catch words and phrases have adhered to key officials of the Bush administration these last years. Here's my own partial list:

President George ("Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job") Bush, Vice President Dick ("last throes") Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald ("stuff happens") Rumsfeld, then-National Security Advisor, now-Secretary of State Condoleezza ("mushroom cloud") Rice, CIA Director George ("slam dunk") Tenet, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul ("[Iraq] floats on a sea of oil") Wolfowitz, Centcom Commander Gen. Tommy ("We don't do body counts") Franks, then-White House Counsel, now-Attorney General Alberto ("quaint") Gonzales, withdrawn Supreme Court nominee and White House Counsel Harriet ("You are the best governor ever") Miers, and most recently Dennis ("The buck stops here") Hastert.

Bush's Petro-Cartel Almost Has Iraq's Oil

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted October 16, 2006.

Even as Iraq is on the verge of splintering into a sectarian civil war, four big oil companies are on the verge of locking up its massive, profitable reserves, known to everyone in the petroleum industry as "the prize."

Editor's note: this is the first of a two-part series.

Iraq is sitting on a mother lode of some of the lightest, sweetest, most profitable crude oil on earth, and the rules that will determine who will control it and on what terms are about to be set.

The Iraqi government faces a December deadline, imposed by the world's wealthiest countries, to complete its final Oil Law. Industry analysts expect that the result will be a radical departure from the laws governing the country's oil-rich neighbors, giving foreign multinationals a much higher rate of return than with other major oil producers, and locking in their control over what George Bush called Iraq's "patrimony" for decades, regardless of what kind of policies future elected governments might want to pursue.

First direct evidence that human activity is linked to Antarctic Ice Shelf collapse

The first direct evidence linking human activity to the collapse of Antarctic ice shelves is published this week in the Journal of Climate. Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, University College London, and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, (Belgium) reveal that stronger westerly winds in the northern Antarctic Peninsula, driven principally by human-induced climate change, are responsible for the marked regional summer warming that led to the retreat and collapse of the northern Larsen Ice Shelf.

Daily Kos: Jack Abramoff's Tentacles Reach Ken Mehlman And The White House

by DemFromCT
Sun Oct 15, 2006 at 07:01:06 AM PDT

On the eve of the midterms, more ethical woes for the GOP. From the LA Times:

For five years, Allen Stayman wondered who ordered his removal from a State Department job negotiating agreements with tiny Pacific island nations -- even when his own bosses wanted him to stay.

Now he knows.

Newly disclosed e-mails suggest that the ax fell after intervention by one of the highest officials at the White House: Ken Mehlman, on behalf of one of the most influential lobbyists in town, Jack Abramoff.

The e-mails show that Abramoff, whose client list included the Northern Mariana Islands, had long opposed Stayman's work advocating labor changes in that U.S. commonwealth, and considered what his lobbying team called the "Stayman project" a high priority.

"Mehlman said he would get him fired," an Abramoff associate wrote after meeting with Mehlman, who was then White House political director.

A currently recommended diary by smintheus gives plenty of detail. Ken Mehlman was WH political director at the time, and the reason this scandal is a little different than that of the disgraced (but still serving) Bob Ney and other corrupt congressmen. While Connecticut R voters, for example, can cluck their tongues at the rogue Republicans in Ohio, Mehlman and David Safavian mean that this is a national pay-for-play scandal and an order of magnitude more important.

How the Media Lies About China

"Try harder," American worker -- and Thomas Friedman thinks everything will be fine

MATT TAIBBI

This, too, sounds like good advice for taking on a country that pays its workers pennies an hour, pollutes indiscriminately and arrests any labor leaders who dare to stick their heads above ground -- think positive! You can do it, America! Just put yer nose to the ol' grindstone, and things will work out. Didn't you all see Rudy?

The impetus for the Times editorial was an effort by New York Senator Chuck Schumer and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham to impose tariffs on China for its alleged manipulation of the yuan, which the two legislators claim gives China an "unfair trade advantage." The effort by the Senators was apparently headed off following a meeting with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. and pressure from companies such as Caterpillar, General Electric and Citibank (the latter two, incidentally, have been heavy contributors to Schumer in particular).

It’s Official: To Be Married Means to Be Outnumbered

By SAM ROBERTS

Published: October 15, 2006

Married couples, whose numbers have been declining for decades as a proportion of American households, have finally slipped into a minority, according to an analysis of new census figures by The New York Times.

The American Community Survey, released this month by the Census Bureau, found that 49.7 percent, or 55.2 million, of the nation’s 111.1 million households in 2005 were made up of married couples — with and without children — just shy of a majority and down from more than 52 percent five years earlier.

Climate change is expensive. Does that help?

An influential report out this month concludes that it will be cheaper to act on global warming now than to wait, but campaigners doubt whether the government will respond

Heather Stewart
Sunday October 15, 2006
The Observer

Weaning the world off fossil fuels sounds like an expensive fantasy, but a major government-backed report will reveal later this month that slashing greenhouse gas emissions will be far cheaper than dealing with the devastation if global warming continues unchecked.

Nick Stern, a former chief economist at the World Bank and the Treasury, has spent more than a year combing through the science and economics of climate change and his final report is keenly awaited by campaigners.

Radioactive air sample adds to blast mystery; Material may be from North Korean nuclear test

(10-14) 04:00 PDT Washington -- With the United Nations preparing to vote on whether to impose harsh sanctions on North Korea, U.S. intelligence officials said Friday evening they had found new evidence that the country detonated a nuclear bomb deep inside a mountain in its desolate northern territory.

An analysis of air samples taken in the region on Wednesday found radioactive material that is "consistent with a North Korean nuclear test," according to a document sent to lawmakers on Capitol Hill Friday by the office of John Negroponte, director of national intelligence.

But a senior intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the results are still preliminary and that final analysis of the data will not be completed for several days.

Frank Rich: The Gay Old Party Comes Out

Paging Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council: Here’s a gay Republican story you probably did not hear last week. On Tuesday a card-carrying homosexual, Mark Dybul, was sworn into office at the State Department with his partner holding the Bible. Dr. Dybul, the administration’s new global AIDS coordinator, was flanked by Laura Bush and Condi Rice. In her official remarks, the secretary of state referred to the mother of Dr. Dybul’s partner as his “mother-in-law.”

Could wedding bells be far behind? It was all on display, photo included, on www.state.gov. And while you’re cruising the Internet, a little creative Googling will yield a long list of who else is gay, openly and not, in the highest ranks of both the Bush administration and the Republican hierarchy. The openly gay range from Steve Herbits, the prescient right-hand consultant to Donald Rumsfeld who foresees disaster in Iraq in Bob Woodward’s book “State of Denial,” to Israel Hernandez, the former Bush personal aide and current Commerce Department official whom the president nicknamed “Altoid boy.” (Let’s not go there.)

Discovery Phase

The CIA leak case isn't over by a long shot -- and Cheney is still at the center of the story.

By Jeff Lomonaco
Web Exclusive: 10.13.06

Behind closed doors at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia this week, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton is considering what classified information I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff and national security adviser, will be able to use to defend himself against charges of obstruction of justice, false statements, and perjury. To bring Libby to trial, the special prosecutor in the case, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has to avoid the risk of graymail -- the defense strategy of forcing the prosecution to drop the case because of classified information the defense would reveal at trial. Jury selection in Libby’s trial is scheduled to begin January 16.

Nonetheless, in the wake of the recent disclosure that Richard Armitage, Colin Powell’s deputy in the State Department, was syndicated columnist Robert Novak's initial source for his July 2003 column identifying Valerie Plame Wilson as an undercover CIA officer, the conventional wisdom -- typified by The Washington Post’s editorial page -- is that the case is effectively over, and that it amounts to very little. “One of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Plame's identity to ruin her career and punish Wilson -- is untrue," according to The Washington Post.

Murtha accuses administration of 'name-calling' in Iraq debate

Rep. John Murtha, a decorated Marine veteran who favors withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, wrote an essay for Sunday's Washington Post blasting Republicans for referring to him and other Iraq war opponents as "Defeatocrats."

In his opinion piece, first published on the Post's Web site Saturday night, Murtha, D-Pa., said Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others in the White House have called Iraq war opponents appeasers and pessimists and labeled Democrats the "cut and run" party.

"It's all baseless name-calling, and it's all wrong," Murtha wrote. "Unless, of course, being a Defeatocrat means taking a good hard look at the administration's Iraq policy and determining that it's a failure.