Scooter Libby gets back from summer vacation, releases Judy Miller

Link: Judith Miller finally out of the Pokey .

Her decision to testify was made after she had obtained what she described as a waiver offered "voluntarily and personally" by a source who said she was no longer bound by any pledge of confidentiality she had made to him. Ms. Miller said the source had made clear that he genuinely wanted her to testify.

That source was I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, according to people who have been officially briefed on the case. Ms. Miller met with Mr. Libby on July 8, 2003, and talked with him by telephone later that week, they said.

Poll: Casey maintains lead over Santorum

I'm sure Frist and DeLame's "issues" are of little help to him. (tee hee)

Link: mcall.com - Poll: Casey maintains lead over Santorum.

Poll: Casey maintains lead over Santorum

Of The Morning Call

With a little more than a year left before the 2006 elections, Democrat Bob Casey Jr. leads Rick Santorum in the race for Santorum's U.S. Senate seat, with more than a third of Pennsylvania voters undecided on their preference, according to a Morning Call/Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion survey.

The race is marked by stark partisan divide, with strong Republican support for Santorum and solid Democratic backing of Casey. Among non-affiliated voters Casey appears to have a lead over Santorum, although a large portion of this key voting block is undecided.

Pennsylvania voters are divided on Santorum's job performance, with high levels of partisan separation on the way that he is handling his role as the commonwealth's junior Senator Likely Democratic nominee Bob Casey Jr. maintains a solid favorable to unfavorable ratio, but most voters in the state have not set an opinion of Casey at this time.

Bill Bennett: "[Y]ou could abort every black ba ... [Media Matters]

Wish he could have been one of those aborted...

Link:
Bill Bennett: "[Y]ou could abort every black ba ... [Media Matters].

From the September 28 broadcast of Salem Radio Network's Bill Bennett's Morning in America:

CALLER: I noticed the national media, you know, they talk a lot about the loss of revenue, or the inability of the government to fund Social Security, and I was curious, and I've read articles in recent months here, that the abortions that have happened since Roe v. Wade, the lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30-something years, could fund Social Security as we know it today. And the media just doesn't -- never touches this at all.

BENNETT: Assuming they're all productive citizens?

CALLER: Assuming that they are. Even if only a portion of them were, it would be an enormous amount of revenue.

BENNETT: Maybe, maybe, but we don't know what the costs would be, too. I think as -- abortion disproportionately occur among single women? No.

CALLER: I don't know the exact statistics, but quite a bit are, yeah.

BENNETT: All right, well, I mean, I just don't know. I would not argue for the pro-life position based on this, because you don't know. I mean, it cuts both -- you know, one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up. Well --

CALLER: Well, I don't think that statistic is accurate.

BENNETT: Well, I don't think it is either, I don't think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don't know. But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

"Lost Control of our budget", Alan Greenspan(?)

Link: Independent Online Edition > Business News : app2.

itter disagreements over global economic policy broke out into the open yesterday as the French Finance Minister claimed that Alan Greenspan had admitted America had "lost control" of its budget while China warned the US to drop demands for radical economic policy changes. In an extraordinary revelation after a meeting between Thierry Breton and Mr Greenspan, M. Breton told reporters: "'We have lost control,' that was his [Mr Greenspan's] expression. "The US has lost control of their budget at a time when racking up deficits has been authorised without any control [from Congress]," M. Breton said. "We were both disappointed that the management of debt is not a political priority today. The situation that is creating tension today on the currency market ... is clearly the American deficit." The public comments, which were made during meetings between the G8 nations and the International Monetary Fund, are certain to anger the Bush administration and widen divisions between the US and France over issues such as the Iraq war and global warming. A clearly irritated senior US Treasury source said: "Things can get lost in translation."

Find the Brownie - New York Times

What corruption?

Link: Find the Brownie - New York Times.

A tipster urged me to look for Brownies among regional administrators for the General Services Administration, which oversees federal property and leases. There are several potential ways a position at G.S.A. could be abused. For example, an official might give a particular businessman an inside track in the purchase of government property - the charge against David Safavian, who was recently arrested - or give a particular landlord an inside track in renting space to federal agencies. Some of the regional administrators at G.S.A. are longtime professionals. But the regional administrator for the Northeast and Caribbean region, which includes New York, has no obvious qualifications other than being the daughter of the chairman of the Conservative Party of New York State. The regional administrator for the Southwest, appointed in 2002 after a failed bid for his father's Congressional seat, is Scott Armey, the son of Dick Armey, the former House majority leader.

John Kerry: "This is the Katrina Administration..."

Link: JohnKerry.com - Senator John Kerry's Speech at Brown University.

Katrina is a symbol of all this administration does and doesn't do. Michael Brown -- or Brownie as the President so famously thanked him for doing a heck of a job - Brownie is to Katrina what Paul Bremer is to peace in Iraq; what George Tenet is to slam dunk intelligence; what Paul Wolfowitz is to parades paved with flowers in Baghdad; what Dick Cheney is to visionary energy policy; what Donald Rumsfeld is to basic war planning; what Tom Delay is to ethics; and what George Bush is to %u201CMission Accomplished%u201D and "Wanted Dead or Alive." The bottom line is simple: The "we'll do whatever it takes" administration doesn't have what it takes to get the job done. This is the Katrina administration.

Bush allows Katrina contractors to pay below prevailing wage - Sep. 8, 2005

I love this... he wants Federal contractors to not have to pay below prevailing wages. People are down there trying rebuild and he's giving the contractors a fucking break.

Disgusting.

If he could do that with the military he would... oh, wait... yeah... that's called a backdoor draft in many quarters.

Link: Bush allows Katrina contractors to pay below prevailing wage - Sep. 8, 2005.

President Bush issued an executive order Thursday allowing federal contractors rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to pay below the prevailing wage.

DeLay PAC Is Indicted For Illegal Donations

The unraveling continues...

Link: DeLay PAC Is Indicted For Illegal Donations.

A grand jury in Texas indicted yesterday a state political action committee organized by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) for accepting $120,000 in allegedly illegal corporate campaign contributions shortly before and after the 2002 election that helped Republicans cement their control of the House of Representatives.

Leaders Lacking Disaster Experience

Link: Leaders Lacking Disaster Experience.

FEMA's top three leaders -- Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler -- arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska anda U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political op

Good News! Bush might be evolving!

Or, is it Rove that's evolving.

Then again... there is no evolution, right?

Link: Researchers Say Human Brain Is Still
Evolving - New York Times.

Two genes involved in determining the size of the human brain have undergone substantial evolution in the last 60,000 years, researchers say, suggesting that the brain is still undergoing rapid evolution. The discovery adds further weight to the view that human evolution is still a work in progress, since previous instances of recent genetic change have come to light in genes that defend against disease and confer the ability to digest milk in adulthood.