You gotta see the title of his post to understand the joke.  But the meat of it is :

Let’s pause for a bit of Congress interruptus

The actual ethical matter before us is much simpler than that. The rights and wrongs that we should be addressing are these:

1) It is wrong for adults to express their sexual desires to minors, to titillate or chase them, verbally or physically.

2) In addition to being ethically wrong, such behaviors are illegal.

3) Illegal actions warrant prosecution.

4) In any workplace, including government offices, personnel supervision systems exist to rein in illegal and inappropriate actions. If the people providing that oversight become aware of such actions by any person in that workplace, it is essential that they respond with disciplinary actions and extra oversight of the offender, to be certain that all others in that workplace remain protected.

I told you before that Colin Powell's public career would survive. 

In the end, Colin Powell's public career will survive this debacle. I'm not sure about Condoleeza Rice, but I lean toward expecting her to fade out of the limelight entirely when the Bushista are forced to bail.

General Powell will be able to do the good soldier thing. Black folks will remember he spoke in favor of the idea of affirmative action programs. They'll remember he was The Good Soldier that had to get pulled in line periodically; he followed marching orders precisely but tended to wander out of line when left on his own. Clarke's defense against charges of disloyalty to Bush will be used in Powell's defense against charges of disloyalty to Black folks (charges that are already being made in some circles):

• It's not a lie, it's politics
• When you work for the president and he orders you to emphasize the positive, you do it

And in the end Black folks will accept him back into the fold, because we always do. We're suckers like that. That is the crucial point because I have NO doubt Colin Powell is a Republican and he will always be seen by the party as a possible means to access the Black vote, fools that they are.

 Let the rehabilitation begin!

Powell had served in the administration of Bush's father and considered himself part of the extended Bush family, with the personal loyalty that kinship entailed. "It wasn't as if I was a stranger, or that anybody had to worry or could imagine that I would not be for Sonny when the time came," he later reflected. He wrote a $1,000 check to McCain and contributed an equal amount to Bush.

Worried that Powell would outshine their candidate and suspicious of his Republican credentials, Bush's handlers ignored him for most of the campaign -- even as they regularly implied to the media that the respected general was a behind-the-scenes member of the governor's brain trust. Once McCain was vanquished in the Republican primaries and Bush began a head-to-head battle against Democrat Al Gore, the campaign hinted that Powell would accompany Bush on fact-finding trips overseas and would become his secretary of state. But no one on the Bush team ever approached Powell about such a trip, and there was no substantive discussion of a Cabinet position. 

Falling on His Sword
Colin Powell's most significant moment turned out to be his lowest
Sunday, October 1, 2006; W12

ON WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2004, eight days after the president he served was elected to a second term, Secretary of State Colin Powell received a telephone call from the White House at his State Department office. The caller was not President Bush but Chief of Staff Andrew Card, and he got right to the point.

"The president would like to make a change," Card said, using a time-honored formulation that avoided the words "resign" or "fire." He noted briskly that there had been some discussion of having Powell remain until after Iraqi elections scheduled for the end of January, but that the president had decided to take care of all Cabinet changes sooner rather than later. Bush wanted Powell's resignation letter dated two days hence, on Friday, November 12, Card said, although the White House expected him to stay at the State Department until his successor was confirmed by the Senate.

Is Woodward Calling Bush a Liar?
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, September 29, 2006; 12:46 PM

After two books that made President Bush look pretty good, Bob Woodward is out with a new one that comes awfully close to calling the president a liar.

Amusing as the question in the title is, it's not the issue that dropped my jaw today.

Such a bill could have only one motive: to protect unconstitutional government actions advancing religion. The religious right, which has been trying for years to use government to advance their religious views, wants to reduce the likelihood that their efforts will be declared unconstitutional. Since they cannot change the law of the Establishment Clause by statute, they have turned their attention to trying to prevent its enforcement by eliminating the possibility for recovery of attorneys' fees. 

Legislating Violations of the Constitution
By Erwin Chemerinsky
Special to washingtonpost.com
Saturday, September 30, 2006; 12:00 AM

With little public attention or even notice, the House of Representatives has passed a bill that undermines enforcement of the First Amendment's separation of church and state. The Public Expression of Religion Act - H.R. 2679 - provides that attorneys who successfully challenge government actions as violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment shall not be entitled to recover attorneys fees. The bill has only one purpose: to prevent suits challenging unconstitutional government actions advancing religion.

The Times leads the article with a picture of this big diesel-looking brother holding the "Board of Education." He's a Texan...which simply doesn't surprise me...and I noticed it's legal in Freaky Foley's district as well.

“I believe we have reached the point in our social evolution where this is no longer acceptable, just as we reached a point in the last half of the 19th century where husbands using corporal punishment on their wives was no longer acceptable,” said Murray Straus, a director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire.

Among adherents of the practice is James C. Dobson, the child psychologist who founded Focus on the Family and is widely regarded as one of the nation’s most influential evangelical leaders.

DuBose Ravenel, a North Carolina pediatrician who is the in-house expert on the subject for Mr. Dobson’s group, said, “I believe the whole country would be better off if corporal punishment was allowed in schools by parents who wish it.” 

In Many Public Schools, the Paddle Is No Relic
By RICK LYMAN

EVERMAN, Tex. — Anthony Price does not mince words when talking about corporal punishment — which he refers to as taking pops — a practice he recently reinstated at the suburban Fort Worth middle school where he is principal.

“I’m a big fan,” Mr. Price said. “I know it can be abused. But if used properly, along with other punishments, a few pops can help turn a school around. It’s had a huge effect here.”

Tina Morgan, who works on a highway crew in rural North Carolina, gave permission for her son to be paddled in his North Carolina middle school. But she said she was unprepared for Travis, now 12, to come home with a backside that was a florid kaleidoscope of plums and lemons and blood oranges.

“This boy might need a blistering now and then, with his knucklehead,” Ms. Morgan said, swatting at him playfully, but she added that she never wanted him to be beaten like that. “I’ve decided, we’ve got to get corporal punishment out of the schools.”

Over most of the country and in all but a few major metropolitan areas, corporal punishment has been on a gradual but steady decline since the 1970’s, and 28 states have banned it. But the practice remains alive, particularly in rural parts of the South and the lower Midwest, where it is not only legal, but also widely practiced.

Because I'm a pretty open-minded guy...

Aight, stop laughing. I'll try that again.

I was once asked what it would take to make me work with Republicans. I said because I don't trust the party and because it's obvious they respect nothing but power, I would have to have a threat to hold over their heads.

I would seem Republicans themselves have the same idea. I say this because the same Mark Foley that

engaged in a series of sexually explicit instant messages with current and former teenage male pages.

that said this to one of several underaged boys

In one message, ABC said, Foley wrote to one page: "Do I make you a little horny?"

In another message, Foley wrote, "You in your boxers, too? ... Well, strip down and get naked."

Rep. Mark Foley resigns

Sept. 29: Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., is resigning from the House in the wake of questions about e-mails he wrote a former Capitol page. These officials said a decision appeared imminent. “Hardball” host Chris Matthews reports

The boy Foley was hitting on was a minor. Check the video.

Even better: check Foley's emails.

Rep. Foley considering resigning
Fla. Republican's emails to former Capitol page prompt questions
The Associated Press
Updated: 3:15 p.m. ET Sept. 29, 2006

WASHINGTON - Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., is considering resigning from the House in the wake of questions about e-mails he wrote a former Capitol male page, congressional officials said Friday.

These officials said a decision appeared imminent.

He says there was nothing inappropriate in the emails, but why would you consider resigning if that were the case?

And the pathetic thing is how little your sexual mode has to do with your competence. Not that Foley can be all that competant given that he volunteered for this grief by hiding and supporting those that would make him hide.

I was a heartbeat from change a line in Well, THAT sucked pretty bad from

I realized I would have sucked anyway.

to

I realized I would probably have sucked anyway.

I'm such a punk today... 

After all, he only said "macaca" once.

“Loping across the field came this young man,” she said. “And as I recall, he was politicking then and he shook my aunt's hand and I hadn't told her anything about this because she was so upsettable and such a sweet old lady that I wouldn't even want her to hear this ugly story…When he got to me, he didn't recognize me. And I did not shake his hand. I just said looked him in the eye and said, ‘You do not remember me, do you?’ And then he remembered me. And then I could see the light go on in his eyes. And at that point, he turned and scurried off like scared rabbit I guess.” [P6: Which means he was a hypocrite even then.]

The aunt who allegedly witnessed the run-in at the fair passed away. But another Waring relative, Beverly Brewster, who graduated from UVA’s law school one year behind Allen, told us Waring talked about the alleged Allen incident at the time. Another relative whom we spoke to says Waring told the story "through the years." Several people say she talked about it this summer.

Woman says Allen used racial slur repeatedly
George Allen's campaign manager denies the latest accusations
By David Shuster
MSNBC correspondent

Just six weeks before the congressional elections, Virginia's incumbent senator, George Allen, is now facing more charges that he used racial slurs.

Pat Waring, 75, of Chesterton, Md., first brought her story to MSNBC when she contacted us in a direct phone call. We then conducted a series of interviews. Waring says that at a sports match in the late 1970's, Allen repeatedly use the ‘n’ word to describe blacks.

"I just didn't think in the late 70's people would be so ugly and so overt about it and so public," Waring said.

I have never owned a hardcopy edition of The Shaping of Black America by Lerone Bennett. I have had several paperback copies.

I am in the process of getting so many new books I'll probably ship them home by FedEx. It's that or wear multiple sets of clothes to make room in the suitcase. There's a book signing, and the last two living men whom I acknowledge as Village Elder: Drs. John Hope Franklin and Lerone Bennett. I will be buying a copy of Dr. Franklin's Mirror to America there. I was hoping to get another copy of The Shaping of Black America...if you're going to be all fanboy it should be over your favorite book...but it wasn't listed among the books he was to have with him at the signing.

Writing this up before I change my mind...

The panel was rescheduled. I had the slot just before lunch and immediately following a really interesting panel we hoped we could tap for audience. My new position was at 8:30 am. Great. Even better, much of the rescheduling (and there was a significant amount of it) was done after the program was printed. Much of what I prepared on collectivity made little sense in a basically empty room, and improvising in my first academic panel wasn't what I was ready for.

Excuses out of the way, I realized I would have sucked anyway.

The various Republican head explosions over Bob Woodward's latest is quite amusing, given the reception his last book got.

Here's the deal, people. Wildlife waste is like background radiation...it's part of the system. You CAN'T get rid of it. If the system gets out of balance, something else caused it.

Wildlife Waste Is Major Water Polluter, Studies Say
By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 29, 2006; A01

Does a bear leave its waste in the woods?

Of course. So do geese, deer, muskrats, raccoons and other wild animals. And now, such states as Virginia and Maryland have determined that this plays a significant role in water pollution.

Scientists have run high-tech tests on harmful bacteria in local rivers and streams and found that many of the germs -- and in the Potomac and Anacostia rivers, a majority of them-- come from wildlife dung. The strange proposition that nature is apparently polluting itself has created a serious conundrum for government officials charged with cleaning up the rivers.

Bush's Conception Conflict
By Michael Kinsley
Friday, September 29, 2006; A21

It was, I believe, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) who first made the excellent, bitter and terribly unfair joke about conservatives who believe in a right to life that begins at conception and ends at birth.

This joke has been adapted for use against various Republican politicians ever since. In the case of President Bush, though, it appears to be literally true.

Bush, as we know, believes deeply and earnestly that human life begins at conception. Even tiny embryos composed of a half-dozen microscopic cells, he thinks, have the same right to life as you and I do. That is why he cannot bring himself to allow federal funding for research on new lines of embryonic stem cells or even for other projects in labs where stem cell research is going on. Even though these embryos are obtained from fertility clinics, where they would otherwise be destroyed anyway, and even though he appears to have no objection to the fertility clinics themselves, where these same embryos are manufactured and destroyed by the thousands -- nevertheless, the much smaller number of embryos needed and destroyed in the process of developing cures for diseases such as Parkinson's are, in effect, tiny little children whose use in this way constitutes killing a human being and therefore is intolerable.

I'm not sure at all I want to see Jesus Camp. I get enough of that from The Word Network, which my mother uses as Muzak. 

"Jesus Camp" opens with an unsettling sequence, during which young Christians -- dressed in camouflage and with their faces painted brown and green -- enact a warlike ritual dedicating themselves to fighting for God. Soon after, we meet the film's stars: 12-year-old Levi, who wears his hair cut short except for a rat's tail, declares he was saved when he was 5 "because I wanted more out of life," and now aims to be a preacher; Rachael, 9, who longs to be an evangelist and is practicing spreading the Word at her local bowling alley; and Tory, 10, who loves to dance but shamefully admits that sometimes she doesn't dance only for Jesus, but also "for the flesh." And we also meet Becky Fischer, the outgoing, charismatic leader of a youth ministry in the kids' home state of Missouri, who serves as a counselor at a summer camp called Kids on Fire in (wait for it) Devil's Lake, N.D...

Dahlia Lithwick at Slate:

Look again at the images from Abu Ghraib. Most of those prisoners aren't being sodomized or water-boarded. They are largely being subject to stress positions, sexual humiliation, religious desecration, mock executions, and terrorization with dogs. And make no mistake: These are among the "alternative interrogation tactics" that will, along with sleep deprivation and exposure to extreme temperatures, likely be permitted by CIA interrogators under the new detainee legislation; or, to the extent there is a difference, that is how the president will construe the new law.

So, what happened between April 2004 and September 2006 that has so deadened American outrage? What has made Democratic senators who were prepared to filibuster over a judicial nomination unwilling to do so now, or even to express horror over the brutalization of enemy prisoners? Is it that in the intervening time we have made a hero out of 24's Jack Bauer, a man who tortures so that the rest of us may walk free? Is it that if you see enough "iconic" photos of a man in a hood with electrodes, they lose their ability to turn your stomach? Or is all the legalistic jive talk—the brazen congressional hairsplitting over abuse that results in "severe" vs. "serious" vs. "extreme" pain—numbing us to the reality of what remains unconscionable conduct?

It is all of these things, and also this: The legal "expectation of abuse" has been shaped by the new jurisprudence of abuse. The legal notion of what constitutes a "reasonable expectation of privacy" is often criticized as circular because the test for unreasonable government searches depends on one's subjective expectation of privacy, which is diminished as the government encroaches upon our privacy. So, too, the public notion of what constitutes reasonable abuse is diminished each time the government condones abuse. Thus the images from Abu Ghraib and the torture memos and the new detainee bill don't merely codify the boundaries of acceptable interrogation. They also shape them.

...which is why I don't publish war porn.

...you can read The Angry Black Woman. In fact, you can read it even after I get back.

...thy name is Pirro.

The investigation of Ms. Pirro is focused on whether she and Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, illegally taped conversations of Ms. Pirro’s husband last year to determine if he was having an affair.

Pirro Hits Trail After Inquiry Emerges
By PATRICK HEALY

After acknowledging on Wednesday that she is under investigation by federal prosecutors in New York, Jeanine F. Pirro, the Republican candidate for state attorney general, was back on the campaign trail this morning, vigorously defending herself and calling for a federal investigation into the leak of sealed court documents.

We are not dealing with hypothetical abuses. The president has already subjected a citizen to military confinement. Consider the case of Jose Padilla. A few months after 9/11, he was seized by the Bush administration as an "enemy combatant" upon his arrival at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. He was wearing civilian clothes and had no weapons. Despite his American citizenship, he was held for more than three years in a military brig, without any chance to challenge his detention before a military or civilian tribunal. After a federal appellate court upheld the president's extraordinary action, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, handing the administration's lawyers a terrible precedent.

The new bill, if passed, would further entrench presidential power.

Poor Senator Macaca is catching it the neck from every direction!

The group is looking at the Senate race in Virginia between George Allen, the incumbent Republican, and James Webb, a Democrat; a stem cell ballot issue in Missouri; the question of intelligent design in Ohio; and Congressional races in Washington State, Mr. Brown said.

Scientists Form Group to Support Science-Friendly Candidates
By CORNELIA DEAN

Several prominent scientists said yesterday that they had formed an organization dedicated to electing politicians “who respect evidence and understand the importance of using scientific and engineering advice in making public policy.”

In [TS] The Grand Delusion, David Brooks promotes one.

You probably know Daniel Defoe as the author of “Robinson Crusoe,” but he was also a journalist, and in 1705, he noticed a gigantic change occurring around him. “The Power of Nations,” he wrote, “is not now measur’d, as it has been, by Prowess, Gallantry, and Conduct. ’Tis the Wealth of Nations that makes them Great.”

In other words, nations had begun measuring themselves not by whom they conquered, but by how they fared in the competition for economic success. This was a major shift in consciousness, and as the great historian of nationalism, Liah Greenfeld, observes, today you can see a wide variety of societies — the U.S., Japan, China, India, Europe — that define their national greatness in this way.

"The Black Power Movement: New Scholarship" was enlightening. The participants were Peniel Joseph of SUNY-Stony Brook, Rhonda Y. Williams of Case Western University and Stephen Ward of the University of Michigan.

Peniel has written a book called Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America that looks impressive as hell. Dr. Walter Hill of the National Archives was in the house. He told me Peniel is constructing the paradigm for Black Power scholarship going forward. That's a stronger recommendation than I can even imagine issuing (you gotta recognize the source). His talk was an introduction to the book. 

Okay, so I'm at this ASALH convention. It's kind of funny that evryone is walking around wearing these name tag/pouch things...no worse than those "Hi! I'm (write your name)" stickers and does not stain your clothes. But I never wore those either...guess I should get over it.

Yesterday the big thing was the reception to view segments of a DVD titled "Freedom's Song." It's the story of Black History and a very nice piece of work. How nice? They showed the section on the Tulsa race riots, and a survivor of said riots was in the audience...and she said it was good and correct.

Farmers has joined with The Association for the Study of African American Life and History to create a documentary film, Freedom’s Song: 100 years of African-American struggle and triumph, that highlights significant milestones in the history of the African-American experience during the past century. It includes living testimonials designed to put a personal face on the actual historical events featured in the film.

The Freedom’s Song package is free to educators and includes a DVD copy of the film, engaging and thought-provoking lesson plans and an interactive web site that will be continually updated with audio and video content.

I'm in Atlanta now...and I just heard on CNN that Congress is considering givin Bush retroactive immunity for war crimes!

Okay, people. I know BushCo committed war crimesand YOU know BushCo committed war crimes.

Now we know for sure...for SURE...the Republican Congress knows BushCo committed war crimes.

I'm still not up for capital punishment. But I'm damn sure up for  impeaching his goat-smelling ass.

I got a reception to go to. I'll continue the Warrior Lessons I discussion tomorrow. 

I think the Net Neutrality debate is over.

The moderate centrist blogger Darkstar has been watching the racial politics. One set of observations about the Steele campaign,

Situation: Michael Steele has stated many times that Blacks need to focus on the issues, their own beliefs, and then make political choices based on who more closely aligns with their beliefs. He has said race should not be a factor. That's a great statement that cannot be denied. Later, he was quoted in The U.S. News & World Report as stating that if he has a race against Mfume, he would go to white voters with the message that he, Steele, would represent ALL voters while Mfume would only represent one race.

Observation: No comment needed.

and another more general look at things.

How many people like this are out there??

Just buy out the whole tobacco industry and divert the whole profit into the various state govenments that depend on these settlements to balance thei budgets.

Tobacco Makers Lose Key Ruling on Latest Suits
By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON and MELANIE WARNER

In a legal blow to the tobacco industry, a federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that people who smoked light cigarettes that were often promoted as a safer alternative to regular cigarettes can press their fraud claim as a class-action suit.

Judge Jack B. Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn found “substantial evidence” that the manufacturers knew that light cigarettes were at least as dangerous as regular cigarettes.