Here’s what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans’ fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser. (more…)

On September 28, ABC’s Word News, the CBS Evening News, and CNN’s The Situation Room and Lou Dobbs Tonight all aired a clip of President Bush’s September 28 attack on Democrats as “the party of cut and run” but failed even to mention the Democratic response to Bush’s comments. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (NV) issued a September 28 press release in response to Bush’s comments, stating that “the failure of his [Bush’s] policies has made the American people less safe.” In contrast, NBC’s Nightly News aired a clip of Bush’s attack, after which anchor Brian Williams noted: “Democrats responded instantly, saying it’s the president’s failed policies that have made this country less safe and have increased terrorism elsewhere.” (more…)

The News Star

Alexander said he also notified majority leader John Boehner of Ohio. “I don’t know what action (the House leadership) took,” Alexander said

WaPo

The resignation rocked the Capitol, and especially Foley’s GOP colleagues, as lawmakers were rushing to adjourn for at least six weeks. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post last night that he had learned this spring of some “contact” between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), and that Hastert assured him “we’re taking care of it.”

It was not immediately clear what actions Hastert took. His spokesman had said earlier that the speaker did not know of the sexually charged e-mails between Foley and the boy.

Boehner left it up to Hastert who did nothing,,,This is the type of Republican leadership that we’ve grown to know all too well. Will Denny fall? (more…)

Where on Earth does the party of morals find these people?

“What we’ve got is a failure in society, whether it’s in Mount Pleasant with yuppie parents or whether it’s on the East Side with poor crackhead parents,” Shirley said Friday. “We pick up stray animals and spay them. These mothers need to be spayed if they can’t take care of theirs. … Once they have a child and it’s running the streets, to let them continue to have children is totally unacceptable.” Deadbeat dads might ought to be sterilized as well, he said.

Oh. My. God. We have a Republican child predator in Florida, Republican thiefs in Ohio and Texas and now we have a red blooded Republican Josef Mengele in South Carolina. What the hell is next? (more…)

• See: The Franklin Scandal (cache)
  

AP, Atrios, TPM:

The page [that Mark Foley (R-NAMBLA) sent creepy IM messages to] worked for Rep. Rodney Alexander (news, bio, voting record), R-La., who said Friday that when he learned of the e-mail exchanges 10 to 11 months ago, he called the teen’s parents. Alexander told the Ruston Daily Leader, We also notified the House leadership that there might be a potential problem,” a reference to the House’s Republican leaders.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert said Friday he had asked the chairman of the House’s page board, Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., to investigate the page system. “We want to make sure that all our pages are safe and the page system is safe,” Hastert said.

OK, so that’s ten or eleven months from the report of child abuse until now, right? So: (more…)

Things have been looking up for accused child molester Jeffrey Ray Nielsen, the 36-year-old Christian conservative activist and lawyer with close ties to Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and Scott Baugh, head of the Orange County Republican Party. Police say Nielsen took a 14-year-old Westminster boy as his sex partner in 2003 and maintained a huge cache of man-boy pornography.

But prosecutors have allowed their case against Nielsen, once an intern in the district attorney’s office, to stall for 40 months.

Ironically, those delays have provoked new sex-crime allegations. Saying he fears a subversion of justice, a northern Virginia man claims that Nielsen repeatedly molested him when he was an adolescent. (more…)

ATLANTA – Top Diebold corporation officials ordered workers to install secret files to Georgia’s electronic voting machines shortly before the 2002 Elections, at least two whistleblowers are now asserting, Atlanta Progressive News has learned. (more…)

Israel is guilty of “collective punishment” of the Palestinian people through its military actions in the Gaza Strip, a United Nations human rights official said on Friday. (more…)

• Russian Daily Says U.S. Interfering in Russia-Georgia Relations
• Russian Defense Chief Accuses NATO of Selling Soviet Arms to Georgia
  
• War clouds gather in Georgian spy crisis
  
• Russia Goes on the Defensive
• Russia turns to UN in Georgia row

The Bush administration yesterday faced a raft of legal challenges to a sweeping new regime for Guantánamo that would deny court oversight to detainees in the war on terror, and would bar prosecution of US personnel for war crimes. (more…)

US Congress approves USD 500 million for development of joint defense systems with Israel; projects include development of short-range missile interception system

WASHINGTON - The US congress has approved a USD 500 million aid package for the development of joint defense systems with Israel .

U.S. domestic policy apparently is to strip us of our rights , while the foreign policy is to dump billions of U.S. taxpayers’ money into Israel, no questions asked. Wonderful. Oh, and start wars we can’t finish, of course. (more…)

WASHINGTON - The US Congress early Saturday gave its final approval to a new set of sanctions targeting foreign countries that continue nuclear cooperation with Iran and sell it advanced weaponry. (more…)

The eccentric North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il has hired doubles to carry out his more mundane tasks, according to South Korean intelligence officials. (more…)

A new U.S. push for greater Russian military openness collided with Cold War habits last week as Russian long-range bombers flew within 15 miles of U.S. airspace off Alaska, Denver Post website reported.

Fully-armed U.S. fighter jets responded, intercepting the two bombers. (more…)

Surveillance cameras placed in public places give many people that uneasy feeling that Big Brother is watching, but for those living in violent communities, the extra set of eyes may provide a much-needed sense of security. (more…)