At his press conference Mr. Fitzgerald said

It's critical that when an investigation is conducted by prosecutors, agents and a grand jury they learn who, what, when, where and why. And then they decide, based upon accurate facts, whether a crime has been committed, who has committed the crime, whether you can prove the crime and whether the crime should be charged.

...That's the way this investigation was conducted. It was known that a CIA officer's identity was blown, it was known that there was a leak. We needed to figure out how that happened, who did it, why, whether a crime was committed, whether we could prove it, whether we should prove it.

"[W]hether the crime should be charged."

It was Total Recall, where the bad guy was on Mars, charging people for oxygen.

House panel cuts food stamp funds
Plan would take aid away from 300,000 people
By Libby Quaid, Associated Press  |  October 29, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The House Agriculture Committee approved budget reductions yesterday that would take food stamps away from an estimated 300,000 people and could cut off school lunches and breakfasts for 40,000 children.

The cuts were approved as the government reported that the number of people who are hungry because they cannot afford to buy enough food rose to 38.2 million in 2004, an increase of 7 million in five years. The number represents nearly 12 percent of US households.

 Check the oral histories.

Alive in Truth is an all-volunteer, grassroots effort to record oral and written history about the lives of displaced New Orleanians, in their own words.

First and foremost, we are grateful to the people who share their stories here, and whose enormous strength of character is evident.

The project is founded and coordinated by New Orleans native Abe Louise Young. She is a nationally-awarded poet who's also been a Fellow for the Project in Interpreting the Texas Past, the Danish-American Dialogue on Human Rights, and the Jewish Women's Archive (collecting oral history of Jewish activists in New Orleans.)

Quote of note:

Detroit is about 80 percent black, and both candidates for mayor are black. But race and the issue of how much the city should cooperate with the surrounding suburbs have come up in the campaign repeatedly.

Ad depicting lynching faulted in Detroit race
By David Runk, Associated Press  |  October 29, 2005

DETROIT -- A full-page newspaper advertisement depicting black corpses hanging from trees and likening media coverage of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to lynching has drawn criticism in the home stretch of his reelection campaign.

The mayor distanced himself from the ad, which was published this week in the city's largest black newspaper and echoes complaints he has made about media coverage.

Wacth this clip from The Daily Show. See if you recognize anything.

Me and Torrance Stephens (aight, TBone) go back a ways. I just found out he's blogging at Raw Dawg Buffalo.

He's more nervous about some stuff than I am, but he's more well-travelled and hence less provincial than I.

Quote of note:

"The whole thing has been no fun, and debilitating, but not indicted is not indicted," said Ed Rogers, a Republican consultant and lobbyist. "It's binary: being indicted is real bad, and not being indicted is real good."

We actually know Rove lied to the Grand Jury. We know it took three more tries to clean it up. We know you or I (and I'm speaking as the American citizen, not specifically the Black partisan) would not have gotten those do-overs.

At this time the whole concept of equal treatment under the law looks like a joke. 

At Milestone in Inquiry, Rove, and the G.O.P., Breathe a Bit Easier
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT

U.S. Is Ceding More Control to the Iraqis
The military quickens the pace of transferring quiet areas to security forces, whose improving capabilities are key to America's exit plans.
By Solomon Moore
Times Staff Writer
October 29, 2005

TIKRIT, Iraq — Seeking to lower the visibility of U.S. troops and grant more authority to Iraqi government forces, the American military has now ceded control of 27 of the nation's 109 bases, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

Thousands of U.S. troops have been redeployed in recent months from bases in Najaf, Karbala, Tikrit and other cities, and Iraqis are now in charge of patrol areas that include four districts of Baghdad and the town of Taiji, northeast of the capital.

Quote of note:

Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller believes the rhetoric of the anti-evolution movement has had the effect of driving a wedge between a large proportion of the population who follow fundamentalist Christianity and science.

"It is alienating young people from science. It basically tells them that the scientific community is not to be trusted and you would have to abandon your principles of faith to become a scientist, which is not at all true," he said.

...For example, as CBS poll this month found that 51 percent of respondents believed humans were created in their present form by God. A further 30 percent said their creation was guided by God. Only 15 percent thought humans evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years.

Is US becoming hostile to science?
Fri Oct 28, 2005 1:10 PM BST
By Alan Elsner

Quote of note:

...one studio official, who asked not to be named, said: "We reevaluated those signs. Some of them came down Wednesday, some on Thursday and some [Friday]."

Asked how many of the signs were coming down, he said, "We're not going into specifics."

Studio Cuts Back 'Get Rich' Billboards
Signs near schools are removed after activists complain that they promote violence.By Eric Malnic
Times Staff Writer
October 29, 2005

Call it a Hollywood ending.

Paramount Pictures has begun removing billboards promoting 50 Cent's upcoming film "Get Rich or Die Tryin' " near schools after community activists complained that the signs promoted gun violence.

Jesus' General picked up on Trent Lott's statement the other day, and he has an audio clip of it too.

That's why I'm concerned that he's starting to pander to the tolerant. Just yesterday, he said the following (MP3 file) about Our Leader's search for a Supreme Court nominee to replace Harriet Miers:

I want the President to look across the country and find the best man, woman, or minority that he can find.

Yes, that's right. He's saying he could support all three: a man, a woman, or even a minority. That's not the old Trent Lott saying that. Certainly, it can't be the real Trent Lott saying that. The Trent Lott we know and love would not give the same consideration to a minority that he gives to men and women.

Cobb went and set up a Drupal site to aggregate content from The Conservative Brotherhood.

That default theme is fugly, ain't it?

Quote of note:

"Why should Georgia be singled out under this?" Westmoreland said.

Because your stupid ass just got caught trying to reimpose a poll tax, you idiot. And thank you for proving the law is still needed.

Voting Rights Act under scrutiny
Georgians in D.C. oppose provision
By BOB KEMPER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 10/28/05

WASHINGTON — Georgia's Republican congressional representatives are pushing to abolish part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that forces the state to keep proving to the Justice Department that the state no longer discriminates against minority voters.

At this point, we've gone so far into the projection of personal angst that is Shelby Steele's latest in OpinionJournal, we've lost all contact with existing reality. I'm just dropping the remainder below the fold, untouched. This way I've presented the entire article, in context, though with my commentary interspersed. You can read the virgin version at OpinionJournal.

That doesn't mean I'm done.

Mr. Steele writes as though he knows Black folks feel this shame over being inferior, but all he has presented indicates that feeling of shame is his alone. Frankly, given his public accomplishments I'm not sure why he's only buried rather than banished any such concern; having had the concern though, it's just not that unusual to assume everyone else feels just like you.

Social Projection to Ingroups and Outgroups: A Review and Meta-Analysis

Jordan M. Robbins​‌

Department of Psychology, Brown University

Joachim I. Krueger​‌

Department of Psychology, Brown University

Social projection is the tendency to expect similarities between oneself and others. A review of the literature and a meta-analysis reveal that projection is stronger when people make judgments about ingroups than when they make judgments about outgroups. Analysis of moderator variables further reveals that ingroup projection is stronger for laboratory groups than for real social categories. The mode of analysis (i.e., nomothetic vs. idiographic) and the order of judgments (i.e., self or group judged first) have no discernable effects. Outgroup projection is positive, but small in size. Together, these findings support the view that projection can serve as an egocentric heuristic for inductive reasoning. The greater strength of ingroup projection can contribute to ingroup-favoritism, perceptions of ingroup homogeneity, and cooperation with ingroup members.

I haven't read it yet; it just popped up on my radar, and I have to see who can get me a copy. I just want you to know the brother ain't totally crazy.

Anyway, here's part 1 of my response to Mr. Steele's still significant if not totally terminal delusions.. Here's part 2. You should have just read part 3.

And here's the end of his editorial...because everything it was based on was false, it struck me as so confused I just couldn't get a handle on it.

"Our early and expanded coverage here in The Situation Room begins now as The CIA Leak saga is about to reach its most dramatic, and perilous, point yet!"

I decided to make the flaws in Shelby Steele's latest in OpinionJournal absolutely clear. It's in three parts, below the fold so the RSS readers can skip it if they like.

Here's part 1. And here's part 2.

Okay, we getting verbose up in here. I decided to make the flaws in Shelby Steele's latest in OpinionJournal absolutely clear. It's in three parts, below the fold so the RSS readers can skip it if they like.

Here's part 1.

The Quote of note comes from The Mercury News' take on the poll.

A point of divergence between whites and blacks centered on interpretations of television images showing people in New Orleans breaking into supermarkets and other stores in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Respondents were asked, "Do you think they were looters and criminals or do you think they were people trying to take care of their families and their needs?"

Fifty-seven percent of blacks answered "trying to take care of their families." Only 31 percent of whites chose that answer, while 46 percent of whites said the people "were looters and criminals."

Hispanics and Asians were almost evenly split on their interpretations.

Katrina Forges New Consensus on Poverty
New California Media, Press Release, Oct 27, 2005
For Immediate Release:
October 27, 2005
CONTACT:
Brahmani Houston, NCM
[email protected] | 415-503-4170

Hurricane Katrina has forged a strong consensus among America’s major racial and ethnic groups to eliminate poverty in America, according to a new multilingual poll. The storm and its aftermath also shook public confidence in the U.S. government’s capacity to handle catastrophes, including a terrorist attack.

These are among the major findings of a national survey of 1035 Hispanics, Asians, African Americans and non-Hispanic whites on Katrina’s impact. The poll was conducted in six languages by Sergio Bendixen for New California Media.

Clear majorities of Asians, Hispanics, African Americans and whites believe that fighting poverty is now more important than fighting terrorism or establishing democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan, the poll found.

“This is the first time in decades that I have seen poverty make it to the top of the agenda for the U.S. public,” Bendixen notes. “The dramatic images of the families abandoned at the Superdome and on I-10 brought home just how tough it is to be poor in America.”

When asked what option they favored for repairing Katrina’s damage, a majority of all four groups chose “getting US troops out of Iraq as fast as possible”.

Like the consensus on poverty, a majority of Hispanics, Asians and African Americans and a plurality of whites also agreed that climate change and weak environmental policies were likely to cause future natural disasters.

All four groups were united in their view that Katrina has eroded trust in the U.S. government’s capacity to handle natural disasters, let alone protect Americans from a terrorist attack. Significant percentages of immigrants from Asia and Latin America believe their country of birth could have done a better job in responding to a similar disaster.

The one issue on which America’s major ethnic and racial groups disagreed was the role of racism in the Katrina catastrophe. Most African Americans blamed racial discrimination but a majority of whites said it was not a factor. Hispanics and Asians were evenly divided.

“All Americans witnessed Katrina and we wanted to know what they thought across the racial and ethnic spectrum,” says Sandy Close, executive director of New California Media. “What we found was a remarkable unanimity on issues of poverty, government incompetence and climate change. The question now is whether the leadership exists to act on this consensus.”

Quote of note:

Richard A. Viguerie, an architect of the conservative movement, said activists held their tongues for nearly five years as Bush expanded the federal role in education, imposed tariffs on imported steel, secured a prescription drug benefit for Medicare, and oversaw the rapid expansion of federal spending.

"But we did that because it was all about the courts, all about the courts, all about the courts," Viguerie said. "Then when he betrayed us on a Supreme Court nominee, that just woke us all up."

Reality of note:
People have spoken of the fragmented interests that make up the Democratic Party's base for years. Still do. But the fact is the Republican Party's base is just as fragmented, if not more...and always has been.

Republican interest groups were united by a single fact: fear that a progressive policy would force them to move into a world they don't control. The greatest enemy of any Conservative movement is the passage of time.

Yes, change can be blocked temporarily but only temporarily. And each faction in the Republican Party has been led to believe they are the driving force behind party "philosophy."

The fragmentation of the Republican Party was inevitable. There has never been a monocultural society on either of the American continents, so the only governing philosophy that stands a chance of surviving is a Progressive one.

The Rift's Repercussions Could Last Rest of Term
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 28, 2005; A08

The withdrawal of Harriet Miers's nomination to the Supreme Court yesterday was a triumph for conservative activists, but some of the drama's lead players said the bruising battle between erstwhile allies may have left scars for the remainder of President Bush's term.

Voter ID Law Is Overturned
Georgia Can No Longer Charge For Access to Nov. 8 Election
By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 28, 2005; Page A03

In a case that some have called a showdown over voting rights, a U.S. appeals court yesterday upheld an injunction barring the state of Georgia from enforcing a law requiring citizens to get government-issued photo identification in order to vote.

The ruling allows thousands of Georgians who do not have government-issued identification, such as driver's licenses and passports, to vote in the Nov. 8 municipal elections without obtaining a special digital identification card, which costs $20 for five years. In prior elections, Georgians could use any one of 17 types of identification that show the person's name and address, including a driver's license, utility bill, bank statement or a paycheck, to gain access to a voting booth.

Quote of note:

Proposition 78 would also require the state to administer discounts and rebates on drugs, but here the similarity ends. Company participation would be entirely optional, discounts might be very small because they are not tied to Medi-Cal rates, and there would be no enforcement mechanism, such as Proposition 79's ability to remove drugs from Medi-Cal's preferred list. It would also cover about half as many people as Proposition 79 — uninsured Californians with maximum incomes of $29,000 for individuals or $58,000 for a family of four.

Big drug companies' Rx for victory
They are using Proposition 78 as a decoy to draw votes from the real reforms of 79.
By Marcia Angell
MARCIA ANGELL, a senior lecturer in social medicine at Harvard Medical School and former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, is the author of "The Truth About the Drug Companies"
October 28, 2005

Quote of note

"Personally, I think there's a difference between living and being alive," Howard said. "A lot of us fear losing an arm or a leg; a lot of guys worry they'll get hurt and lose their genitals. It's the head injuries that are the worst, in my opinion. I fear getting a head wound -- having brain damage and still being alive, but not being able to care for my wife or kids."

15,220 live with the wounds of war
- Phil Sands, Chronicle Foreign Service
Thursday, October 27, 2005

Rawa, Iraq -- Less than two months into his first tour as a combat medic with the U.S. Army, Sgt. Erik Howard has treated 14 wounded soldiers at the scenes of bomb blasts.

This is not a test. A joke, maybe...

Quote of note:

There have been reports that paying for Hurricane Katrina may cost upwards of $250 billion. I can assure you that we're not going to spend $250 billion - it's not going to cost that much. Congress has already passed legislation that provided $62.5 billion worth of immediate relief to help the Gulf Coast get back on its feet. Part of that money to made sure that kids have a school to go to, they're fed, they have power and clean water to drink -- basic necessities that we all take for granted. What we don't need to do is to spend more money now and worry about how to pay for it later. In the House, we're working on a plan that will include off-sets to pay for any additional spending, eliminate wasteful and inefficient government programs and cuts mandatory spending. But it will keep tax relief in place so that we can create jobs and continue to grow the economy.

Welcome to my Blog
posted by Denny Hastert @ 10:09am (10/27/05)

Aide to Cheney Appears Likely to Be Indicted; Rove Under Scrutiny
By DAVID JOHNSTON and RICHARD W. STEVENSON

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 - Associates of I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, expected an indictment on Friday charging him with making false statements to the grand jury in the C.I.A. leak inquiry, lawyers in the case said Thursday.

Karl Rove, President Bush's senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, will not be charged on Friday, but will remain under investigation, people briefed officially about the case said. As a result, they said, the special counsel in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, was likely to extend the term of the federal grand jury beyond its scheduled expiration on Friday.

Okay, so I have over 900 sites in the old aggregator, and it's not pretty. There's close to 20 that are broken, one that for some readon has a <pre><code> tag pair around every item so it breaks the layout of the site (which is fragile enough...). I can probably fix the layout, but everyone's templates are so different, and just try making sense of a feed full of articles that were created with a different character set than the database that held it before shipping it out in a third (I kid you not).

But the basic functionality is laying around the place now. If you're registered, you can go to the news aggregator or "Site in the network" link. There's "Subscribe" links and a little box in the sidebar that that takes a feed or web page address. Either of them takes you to a form that lets you add key words to your subscription.

A Separate Peace
America is in trouble--and our elites are merely resigned.
Thursday, October 27, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

...Our elites, our educated and successful professionals, are the ones who are supposed to dig us out and lead us. I refer specifically to the elites of journalism and politics, the elites of the Hill and at Foggy Bottom and the agencies, the elites of our state capitals, the rich and accomplished and successful of Washington, and elsewhere. I have a nagging sense, and think I have accurately observed, that many of these people have made a separate peace. That they're living their lives and taking their pleasures and pursuing their agendas; that they're going forward each day with the knowledge, which they hold more securely and with greater reason than nonelites, that the wheels are off the trolley and the trolley's off the tracks, and with a conviction, a certainty, that there is nothing they can do about it.

Executive Summary (pdf) 

Between 1979 and 2004, real gross domestic product (GDP) per person in the United States increased about 60 percent. This report asks how well the U.S. economy has done translating this economic growth into good jobs.

The report defines a “good” job as one that offers decent pay (at least $16 per hour or about $32,000 per year), employer-paid health insurance, and a pension. In 2004 (the most recent year for which data are available), only 25.2 percent of American workers had a job that met all three criteria.

In both 1979 and 2004, about one-fourth of workers were in jobs that qualified as “good” by the definition used here. The basically unchanged good jobs rate across the two years suggests that the economy has failed to convert long-term economic growth into an expanding supply of good jobs.

The collective action of Movement Conservatives was dispositive...the individual power of the Leader had to yield.

Remember that when people tell you to drop your community connection in favor of the illusion of absolute individuality. 

When I posted American Intrapolitics: Icons as framing devices the other day, I was running out of the door. I was hoping someone would make a comment so I could wax all wise and philosophical.

Did any of you say anything? You did not...

So now I have to link to Bomani Jones, and though him to The search for RELLevance for their commentary on Derrick Z. Jackson's commentary.

Poll: Few doubt wrongdoing in CIA leak
Neighbor, former official questioned with grand jury set to expire

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Only one in 10 Americans said they believe Bush administration officials did nothing illegal or unethical in connection with the leaking of a CIA operative's identity, according to a national poll released Tuesday.

Thirty-nine percent said some administration officials acted illegally in the matter, in which the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative, was revealed.

The same percentage of respondents in the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll said administration officials acted unethically, but did nothing illegal.

The poll was split nearly evenly on what respondents thought of Bush officials' ethical standards -- 51 percent saying they were excellent or good and 48 percent saying they were not good or poor.