Romney and Giuliani Spar as New Guy Looks On

Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts tangled over taxes and government spending yesterday as the Republican presidential candidates debated in Michigan, highlighting the way in which their increasingly fierce confrontation is starting to dominate the race for their party’s nomination.

The debate also marked the debut of Fred D. Thompson of Tennessee alongside his Republican rivals. Mr. Thompson often appeared unsmiling and less practiced than the eight others onstage with him, who had already met five times before yesterday. But he avoided any notable missteps and held his own on substantive exchanges over the economy and foreign policy.

Mr. Thompson often found himself a bystander as Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Romney attacked each another — or, just as frequently, went after Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, reflecting Republicans’ expectation of a general election contest against Mrs. Clinton, who is leading in polls of the Democratic candidates.

Mr. Giuliani, a former New York mayor, and Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, employed a blizzard of often-conflicting statistics as they sought to undercut each other’s records on cutting taxes or spending. But most of all, they clashed over a line-item veto that Mr. Romney said was essential to reducing spending in Washington and that Mr. Giuliani challenged successfully in the Supreme Court. Read on @ New York Times

Obama and the Black Vote

A money observation from an Andrew Sullivan reader and follow up by Andrew. One reason he has not wrapped up the black vote is because of readers like this one:

Obama will not be the Democratic Nominee, so this is probably a moot point. Too many of us do not believe America will elect him. That’s why he's stuck in the polls, despite being so good in so many ways, despite his fundraising. Or as some of the cynics among us note: "Yeah, America loves white liberals so much, let’s give 'em a Black liberal."

The "Bradley effect" is for the late Tom Bradley, former mayor of LA and two-time Dem. Governor nominee. And Black. Going into the 1982 election, he led in the polls, only to lose by less than 1%. It has been traced to white voters who said they would vote for Bradley, only once they were in the voting booth, pulled the lever for the white guy, the inferior George Deukmejian. (One can ruminate how different America might have been had Colin Powell decided to run in ’96 ...)

You would gain tremendous insight by talking to some Black, middle age folks. You will gain insight as to why this group favors (rightly or wrongly), Hillary. And they will tell you that (1) Obama is not ready; (2) He will be assassinated if he gets within striking distance of the White House. Middle-age Blacks know a thing or two about how America really is. One does not hear these insights from younger white folks.

Many African-Americans simply do not believe that a black man will ever be allowed to be president. They're sticking with Clinton because she's the strongest non-black Democrat. And so racism perpetuates itself through the fears and alienation of its victims. Call it the audacity of hopelessness. And Clinton needs it.

Steelers Run Over Seahawks, 21-0!

The Pittsburgh Steelers didn't have their two best defensive players, their two starting wide receivers or much offense for the first half. With all that, they still had far too much for the Seattle Seahawks.

Ben Roethlisberger, scrambling and improvising without his usual receivers, finally got the Steelers' offense going. He led three successive lengthy touchdown drives highlighted by Najeh Davenport's runs and Pittsburgh's undermanned defense dominated Seattle in a 21-0 victory Sunday.

Nobody Knows the Lynchings He’s Seen

WHAT'S the difference between a low-tech lynching and a high-tech lynching? A high-tech lynching brings a tenured job on the Supreme Court and a $1.5 million book deal. A low-tech lynching, not so much.

We are always at a crossroads with race in America, and so here we are again. The rollout of Justice Thomas's memoir, "My Grandfather's Son," is not happening in a vacuum. It follows a Supreme Court decision (which he abetted) outlawing voluntary school desegregation plans in two American cities. It follows yet another vote by the Senate to deny true Congressional representation to the majority black District of Columbia. It follows the decision by the leading Republican presidential candidates to snub a debate at a historically black college as well as the re-emergence of a low-tech lynching noose in Jena, La.

One former Nixon White House colleague, Pat Buchanan, said on "Meet the Press" last weekend that it was no big deal for Republican candidates to skip a debate before an African-American audience because blacks make up only about 10 percent of the voting public and Republicans only get about a tenth of that anyway. It didn't occur to Mr. Buchanan that in 21st-century America many white voters are also offended by politicians who snub black Americans — whether at a campaign debate or in the rubble of Hurricane Katrina.

Republicans who play the race card may find that it has an expiration date even in the South. In 2000, Mr. Bush could speak at Bob Jones University when it still forbade interracial dating among its students, and John McCain could be tarred as the father of an illegitimate black child in the South Carolina primary. No more. Just ask the former Senator George Allen, the once invincible Republican prince of Virginia, whose career ended in 2006 after his use of a single racial slur.

Read more of Frank Rich @ NYT

The Right Judicial Litmus Test...Follow the Constitution, or not?

This question is made all the more urgent by the fact that on Jan. 20, 2009, six of the nine current justices will be over the age of 70--an age at which many people either retire or begin to wind down their affairs. There is thus a very real possibility that the next president could appoint as many as four justices in his first term alone. We may be getting ready for the biggest turnover in the membership of the Supreme Court since Richard Nixon's election in 1968 brought the Warren Court to an end.

I submit that the proper basis on which we should evaluate the court's performance in this term and in the future is not whether it reaches "conservative" or "liberal" results in constitutional cases, but whether it reaches results that are faithful to the Constitution as written and understood at the time of its adoption. Likewise, the test for presidential candidates on the judiciary should be whether they can be trusted to nominate justices who will follow our written Constitution. Read on @ Wall Street Journal

Charge It to My Kids

The struggle against radical Islam is the fight of our generation. We all need to pitch in — not charge it on our children’s Visa cards. Previous American generations connected with our troops by making sacrifices at home — we’ve never passed on the entire cost of a war to the next generation, said Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, who has written a history — “The Price of Liberty” — about how America has paid for its wars since 1776.

“In every major war we have fought in the 19th and 20th centuries,” said Mr. Hormats, “Americans have been asked to pay higher taxes — and nonessential programs have been cut — to support the military effort. Yet during this Iraq war, taxes have been lowered and domestic spending has climbed. In contrast to World War I, World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam, for most Americans this conflict has entailed no economic sacrifice. The only people really sacrificing for this war are the troops and their families.” Read more of Thomas Friedman @ New York Times

An escape for a cloudy weekend...

Dead Poets Society-3

Why do I stand up here?

Why veto a popular health-care bill?

GEORGE BUSH has some fight left in him and he has chosen a thankless battle. On Wednesday October 3rd the president vetoed legislation that would have reauthorised and expanded the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which provides health-care insurance to more than 6m poor children.

It is a popular programme and the bill passed the House and Senate with robust bipartisan majorities. So Mr Bush’s veto—it is only his fourth—has done nothing for his public image. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, called the veto “heartless” and asked how the president sleeps at night. “It is incomprehensible,” said Ted Kennedy, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts. Some usually reliable allies were less melodramatic but still critical. Orrin Hatch, a conservative Republican senator from Utah, suggested that the president is receiving some bad advice. Read on @ The Economist...

Picks of the Week

College Football

No. 10 Oklahoma vs. No. 19 Texas = Sooners take out their frustrations on the Horns.
#9 Florida at #1 LSU = Can the Gators rebound in Baton Rouge...my heart is with UF but Tigers win.
Notre Dame at UCLA = The Irish eyes will weep in the Rose Bowl as Bruins win.
#25 Nebraska at #17 Missouri = Can the Tigers be for real...Yes, with a win against the Cornhuskers.
Kansas at #24 Kansas State = The battle for the Big 12 is in Kansas...what is the world coming too...Wildcats win!

The National Football League

Seattle at Pittsburgh = A repeat of Super Bowl XL opponents with the same result, Steelers win!
Chicago at Green Bay = Bears feeling black and blue as the Pack goes to 5-0
Cleveland at New England = Browns put up fight but the talented Pats stay undefeated
Jacksonville at Kansas City = Jags get a tough win @ Arrowhead Stadium
San Diego at Denver = The Charge has left SD as Broncos dominate in the Rockies

Any thoughts from fellow Prognosticators?!

The Arctic's alarming sea change

The Arctic ice cap shrank so much this summer that waves briefly lapped along two long-imagined Arctic shipping routes, the Northwest Passage over Canada and the Northern Sea Route over Russia.

Over all, the floating ice dwindled to an extent unparalleled in a century or more, by several estimates.

Now the six-month dark season has returned to the North Pole. In the deepening chill, new ice is already spreading over vast stretches of the Arctic Ocean. Astonished by the summer's changes, scientists are studying the forces that exposed one million square miles of open water, or 2.6 million square kilometers, beyond the average since satellites started measurements in 1979.

At a recent gathering of sea-ice experts in Fairbanks, Alaska, a geophysicist summarized it this way: "Our stock in trade seems to be going away." Scientists are also unnerved by the summer's implications for the future, and their ability to predict it.

Complicating the picture, the dramatic Arctic change was as much a result of ice moving as melting, many say. A study led by Son Nghiem at NASA, and appearing this week in Geophysical Research Letters, used satellites and buoys to show that winds since 2000 had pushed huge amounts of thick old ice out of the Arctic basin past Greenland. The thin floes that formed on the resulting open water melted quicker or could be shuffled together by winds and similarly expelled, the authors said. Read more @ International Hearald Tribune

Hounding the Bloggers

More vileness from Burma:

The government has called upon state-run media agencies and government supporters to publish photographs of citizen journalists and take action against them.

George Packer writes about the suddenly iconic image of the murdered monk, posted above and here:

How this particular monk came to be lying face down in a Rangoon stream is not known. But the picture—reminiscent, in a way, of others from places like Rwanda, Iraq, Cambodia, and Nazi Germany—shows totalitarianism in its most physical form: the elimination not just of an individual’s life but of his value. Aye Chan Naing, D.V.B.’s executive director, told me by phone from Oslo that as many as six thousand Burmese, the majority of them monks, have been detained in four locations around Rangoon, and their fate is uncertain. After nightly raids, the monasteries are “totally empty,” and he fears the worst for the detainees.

If you are moved by this you may consider to sign the petition.

Face of the Day

A toy factory worker in Guangdong Province China, as photographed by Michael Wolf.

Peggy Noonan's Open Eyes

A money passage from Andrew Sullivan I've long enjoyed Peggy Noonan's work (except for one dreadful book even she must regret writing). I don't always agree with her, but she represents for me that brand of blue-state conservatism that came of age in the Reagan era, one that was often Catholic (though not dogmatically so), repelled by the bile of the far left, respectful of religion and tradition but very much at ease with the modern world, often urban and ethnic, and very susceptible to the charm and rhetoric and deep seriousness of Reagan. I guess she reminds me of my mum and sister. These kinds of conservatives are meritocrats. They were much more Reagan than Bush. And they are deeply distrustful of dynasty and inheritance. They're not country club Republicans. But they're not Dobsonites either. And they don't always vote for the party of the right.

The idea of America being run by two families for two decades is anathema to such conservatives, as it is to many liberals. There is something inherently corrupting about it - not just corrupting of them, but corrupting of us. The experience of such power - presiding over the most powerful nation in modern history - cannot but corrupt; and our decision to delegate real decisions to various royal families while boning up on the latest news from Britney Spears is a sign of real decadence. In a war this dangerous, it's positively reckless, especially given the vast new neo-monarchical powers this administration has seized and will, in large part, bequeath to the next president. We have learned how one such succession has worked out. We should be extremely leery of another, especially since so many in the Washington establishment have already decided that this race is over, and it is now the voters' job to crown the next-in-line for the throne. So give Peggy a few minutes of your time today:

Barack Obama has a great thinking look. I mean the look he gets on his face when he's thinking, not the look he presents in debate, where they all control their faces knowing they may be in the reaction shot and fearing they'll look shrewd and clever, as opposed to open and strong. I mean the look he gets in an interview or conversation when he's listening and not conscious of his expression. It's a very present look. He seems more in the moment than handling the moment. I've noticed this the past few months, since he entered the national stage. I wonder if I'm watching him more closely than his fellow Democrats are.

Mr. Obama often seems to be thinking when he speaks, too, and this comes somehow as a relief, in comparison, say, to Hillary Clinton and President Bush, both of whom often seem to be trying to remember the answer they'd agreed upon with staff. What's the phrase we use about education? Hit Search Function. Hit Open. Right-click. "Equity in education is essential, Tim . . ."

You get the impression Mr. Obama trusts himself to think, as if something good might happen if he does. What a concept. Anyway, I've started to lean forward a little when he talks.

Read on @ Wall Street Journal

Worker Safety - The Triangle Fire Legacy

The following is the lesson in Economics class for Friday, October 5th.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 was a turning point for employee health and safety protections in the U.S. You will investigate the Triangle tragedy and how its impact is still felt today. Identify eerie parallels between the Triangle Fire and more recent workplace events with safety implications – recent complaints of Wal-Mart employee lock-ins, a deadly fire in a North Carolina poultry processing plant in 1991, and a 1993 fire in a Thailand toy factory given the sad distinction of most deadly industrial fire in the world. How can future tragedies be prevented in the workplace? Assess the costs, benefits and effectiveness of various government and labor actions. You will discover that worker safety is a complex issue and there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Following links to gather information on the worst industrial fire in U.S. History:
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire: 1911

In addition to the links already provided for the Triangle Fire, you will use the following links for information on more current cases.
Case 1: Wal-Mart Lock-Ins. 2003
Workers Assail Night Lock-Ins by Wal-Mart

Case 2: Kader Industrial Fire. 1993
Thai Toy Factory Fire

ILO Report on the Fire at the Kader Industrial Co. Ltd Factory

Next look at the issue of Sweatshops in the modern world by answering the following questions by clicking Sweatshop Watch.
1. Why do sweatshops exist?
2. How does this affect garment workers?
3. When workers demand their rights what is likely to occur?
4. Does the US and International Community have laws that protect such workers?

Visit and create a List What You Can Do…

Bush Vetoes Bill to Expand

BUSH VETOED A BILL that would have dramatically expanded children's health insurance. It's the fourth veto of his presidency, and one that Republicans fear could carry risks in next year's elections.

Democrats in Congress vowed to try to override the veto, though it appears unlikely that the House will have the necessary two-thirds support to do so. While House Democrats say they are within about 13 to 15 votes of being able to override the veto, top Republicans in the chamber say they are confident they will be able to stop the effort. Read on @ Wall Street Journal

GOP Is Losing Grip

Deficit Hawks Defect
As Social Issues Prevail;
'The Party Left Me'

The Republican Party, known since the late 19th century as the party of business, is losing its lock on that title.

New evidence suggests a potentially historic shift in the Republican Party's identity -- what strategists call its "brand." The votes of many disgruntled fiscal conservatives and other lapsed Republicans are now up for grabs, which could alter U.S. politics in the 2008 elections and beyond.

Some business leaders are drifting away from the party because of the war in Iraq, the growing federal debt and a conservative social agenda they don't share. In manufacturing sectors such as the auto industry, some Republicans want direct government help with soaring health-care costs, which Republicans in Washington have been reluctant to provide. And some business people want more government action on global warming, arguing that a bolder plan is not only inevitable, but could spur new industries. Read on @ Wall Street Journal

Clinton Widens Lead In Poll

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has consolidated her place as the front-runner in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination, outpacing her main rivals in fundraising in the most recent quarter and widening her lead in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

For the first time, Clinton (N.Y.) is drawing support from a majority of Democrats -- and has opened up a lead of 33 percentage points over Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.). Her popularity, the poll suggests, is being driven by her strength on key issues and a growing perception among voters that she would best represent change. Read on @ Washington Post

Who Likes Hillary Clinton, and Who Doesn't?

Americans' opinions about New York Sen. and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton mirror the underlying partisan divide in the American population today. According to an analysis of a special aggregated sample of more than 7,000 interviews in which Americans were asked to rate Clinton, all conducted between June and September of this year, the public is split precisely down the middle when asked whether its opinions of Clinton are favorable or unfavorable.
Forty-eight percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Clinton, while 48% have an unfavorable opinion. Only 4% don't have an opinion of Clinton, making her one of the nation's most well-recognized (and polarizing) political figures.

But just who is most likely to have a favorable opinion of Clinton, and who is least likely to have a favorable opinion? See The Gallup Poll

The Economics of Professional Sports

The Economics lesson for Tuesday and Wednesday, October 2nd and 3rd...see below.
The Economics of Professional Sports: If You Build It, Will They Come? Read through the two articles from the following websites and evaluate the author's arguments.
List the arguments for and against Professional Sports as a tool of economic development.
Consider the following questions as you read:
1. What are some of the "economic impact" arguments against the public financing of stadiums and franchises?
2. What are some of the "economic impact" arguments for the public financing of stadiums and franchises?
3. What are some of the non-financial benefits of local professional sports franchises?
Article 1: Professional Sports Facilities, Franchises and Urban Economic Development
Article 2: What Are the Benefits of Hosting a Major League Sports Franchise?

Surveillance Showdown... "Privacy" zealots want America to forgo intelligence capabilities during wartime.

Would any sane country purposefully limit its ability to spy on enemy communications in time of war? That is the question Congress must answer as it takes up reform of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Privacy activists, civil libertarians and congressional Democrats argue that both foreign and domestic eavesdropping must be subject to judicial scrutiny and oversight, even if this means drastically reducing the amount of foreign intelligence information available to the government, without ever acknowledging the costs involved. It is time the American people had an open and honest debate on the relative importance of privacy and security.

FISA, of course, is the law regulating the government's interception of "electronic communications" for foreign intelligence purposes. Earlier this year the special FISA court narrowed dramatically the National Security Agency's ability to collect overseas intelligence under the law, so Congress passed a six-month amendment before its August recess to allow current surveillance programs to continue. That amendment should be made permanent. Continue to read @ Wall Street Journal

Iraq until at least 2013?

During the debate, she rarely came out of a defensive crouch, as if determined to protect her favored position. Answering the first question, she said her goal would be to withdraw all American troops from Iraq by 2013, but "it is very difficult to know what we are going to be inheriting" from the Bush administration, so she cannot make any pledge...read more of David S Broder @ Washington Post

9/11 Is Over

Not long ago, the satirical newspaper The Onion ran a fake news story that began like this:

“At a well-attended rally in front of his new ground zero headquarters Monday, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani officially announced his plan to run for president of 9/11. ‘My fellow citizens of 9/11, today I will make you a promise,’ said Giuliani during his 18-minute announcement speech in front of a charred and torn American flag. ‘As president of 9/11, I will usher in a bold new 9/11 for all.’ If elected, Giuliani would inherit the duties of current 9/11 President George W. Bush, including making grim facial expressions, seeing the world’s conflicts in terms of good and evil, and carrying a bullhorn at all state functions.”

Like all good satire, the story made me both laugh and cry, because it reflected something so true — how much, since 9/11, we’ve become “The United States of Fighting Terrorism.” Times columnists are not allowed to endorse candidates, but there’s no rule against saying who will not get my vote: I will not vote for any candidate running on 9/11. We don’t need another president of 9/11. We need a president for 9/12. I will only vote for the 9/12 candidate.

What does that mean? This: 9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again. Continue with Thomas Friedman @ NYT

Obama at Howard

A strikingly expansive speech, a reminder of what Obama can deliver when he wants to. My sense is that he is holding back, or rather has been holding back. He is very, very careful not to get too angry as a black candidate. Perhaps too careful for his core message: real change. What he needs to do is find a way to explain how serious he is about change while explaining that he alone can overcome the boomer polarization that has prevented it. And that's true on the race issue as well. Yesterday, the message got sharper. Money quote @ Andrew Sullivan

Prison Beats College

What is wrong with this picture...nothing! However, what is wrong with this headline everything...

More than three times as many black people live in prison cells as in college dorms, the government said in a report to be released Thursday.

The ratio is only slightly better for Hispanics, at 2.7 inmates for every Latino in college housing. Among non-Hispanic whites, more than twice as many live in college housing as in prison or jail. To read more click Census Study Eyes Blacks in Prison

Photo of the Week

Arabian Night....

GOP Absent at Debate...

If you are a GOP Presidential candidate you need every opportunity to gain votes. The political climate for the GOP is not friendly when considering the issues of Iraq, Health Care, Energy, Environment, etc. Traditionally, when the GOP has the opportunity to slice into the Democratic voting base...they smile and swing away. Apparently, not when it comes to Minorities...soccer moms are OK but the major contenders for the GOP have taken a pass on the Thursday Republican Debate hosted in Baltimore. So the hits keep rolling for the GOP...from the left and the right. Why is the GOP scared of black voters?

Former Republican Congressman J.C. Watts Calls Decision Not to Attend 'Stupid'

Click here for ABCNEWS Video Report.

The Ugly Side of the G.O.P. by Bob Herbert @ NYT

President Bush at the United Nations

For all their nasty fights, maybe George W. Bush and the United Nations were meant for each other. They speak the same wide-eyed language of idealism, setting goals that are heavy on optimism and light on planning. And they love to strike heroic notes in the face of discordant reality. Bush tapped into that romantic synergy at the General Assembly Tuesday, calling on the U.N. and its members to rise to the promise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and using that founding U.N. text as a sounding board for a speech on global liberation from tyranny, poverty and disease. More on President Bush's speech

Hillary...more Harry Truman than Howard Dean?

In the beginning of August, liberal bloggers met at the YearlyKos convention while centrist Democrats met at the Democratic Leadership Council’s National Conversation. Almost every Democratic presidential candidate attended YearlyKos, and none visited the D.L.C.

At the time, that seemed a sign that the left was gaining the upper hand in its perpetual struggle with the center over the soul of the Democratic Party. But now it’s clear that was only cosmetic.

Now it’s evident that if you want to understand the future of the Democratic Party you can learn almost nothing from the bloggers, billionaires and activists on the left who make up the “netroots.” You can learn most of what you need to know by paying attention to two different groups — high school educated women in the Midwest, and the old Clinton establishment in Washington. Read more of David Brooks @ NYT

Tactics from 1970 don't fit '07 reality

Just when it looked like Detroit's auto industry was poised for a breakthrough deal, the United Auto Workers strikes General Motors Corp. and we're back to 1970 all over again.

But it's not 1970, except here in Michigan. GM doesn't dominate its home market; foreign-owned rivals do. The UAW doesn't represent the growing work forces at rivals operating down South -- and probably won't anytime soon should this walkout become a recruiting poster for anti-UAW forces from Alabama to Texas.

What happened? continue @ Detroit News

What does President Bush, Israel, Syria and North Korea have in Common? A Secret...

Israel attacked Syria over Nuclear...Yes, in fact this has already happened but it is not prominently in the news? Puzzled read on...

Israel's decision to attack Syria on Sept. 6, bombing a suspected nuclear site set up in apparent collaboration with North Korea, came after Israel shared intelligence with President Bush this summer indicating that North Korean nuclear personnel were in Syria, U.S. government sources said. Read more @ Washington Post

How does Syria Respond? Read Syria's move

What Israel Really Gained by Bombing Syria...continue on @ The New Republic

Is President Bush Forsaking the GOP in 2008?

George W. Bush's damn-the-torpedoes determination to stay the course in Iraq has thus created an excruciating dilemma for the GOP. By sticking with the White House, Republicans in Congress can block the Democrats' efforts to end the war, either by filibuster or by upholding an almost certain veto of any bill challenging the war. But any such victory will be Pyrrhic, costing them dearly in next year's election. Between now and then, they'll remain trapped between a White House that isn't ready to give an inch and a Democratic caucus in the House and Senate that can force them to cast vote after embarrassing vote in defense of Bush's war over the next thirteen months, in full public view. Read more of Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation

Picks of the Week

College Football
#12 South Carolina at #2 LSU = Tigers chew up Gamecocks
Iowa at #9 Wisconsin = Hawkeyes pull the upset in Madison
#22 Georgia at #16 Alabama = Bulldogs bring the Tide back to earth
Washington at UCLA = Huskies get a big victory in LA
Oregon State at Arizona State = Reunion of OSU and Erickson goes to the Sun Devils

National Football League
San Francisco at Pittsburgh = Battle of two 2-0 teams goes to the Steelers
Indianapolis at Houston = Battle of two 2-0 teams goes to the Colts
Cincinnati at Seattle = Hawks deal another blow to the Bengals
Dallas at Chicago = Dallas learns the meaning of Big D in Chicago
Tennessee at New Orleans = Saints enjoy some home cooking and a win in the Super Dome

Thousands rally to show support for 'Jena 6'

Buses lined roads into Jena, Louisiana, today as people from across the country came to support the "Jena 6," six black teens charged in the beating of a white classmate. Buses lined up as far as the eye could see, reported CNN.com's Eliott McLaughlin. developing story
Other links to this story that has been in the shadows...

Federal Reserve Rate Cut: What Does It Mean?

The country's top monetary policymakers took a somewhat unusual step in trimming the discount rate. We explain what it does -- and doesn't mean.

The Federal Reserve's move to cut a half-point from the discount rate will go some distance in soothing financial markets roiled by problems in housing and subprime mortgages. But the Fed's move is significant not only for what it did, but also for what it didn't do -- cutting the federal funds rate, which has a direct impact on interest rates paid by businesses and individuals. To help you decipher what's going on, we've put together some questions and answers.

Bush Taps Retired N.Y. Judge for Attorney General Post

Calling him a "tough but fair judge" President Bush named Michael B. Mukasey as his choice to replace embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who resigned after months of criticism for his management of the Department of Justice. Bush said that Mukasey is a "sound manager" who will bring "impressive credentials" to the job.

Mukasey, a retired federal judge, said he was "deeply honored" to be selected and said that his "fondest hope and prayer" was to give the employees at the Department of Justice the "support and leadership they deserve." Go to ABCNews

Iraq punishes US firm over 'random' killings

Employees of a US security firm face prosecution in Iraq after a Baghdad shooting in which 11 people were killed.

Iraq has withdrawn the licence of Blackwater, one of the biggest foreign security contractors in Iraq.

An Iraq Interior Ministry spokesman said guards working for Blackwater opened fire when mortar rounds landed near their convoy in west Baghdad's Mansour district yesterday.

"By chance the company was passing by. They opened fire randomly at citizens," Brigadier-General Abdul-Karim Mr Khalaf said. Eleven people were killed, including one policeman, and 13 people were wounded, he said. Continue here

Somebody Else’s Mess

Thomas Friedman, New York Times
George W. Bush delivered his farewell address on Thursday evening — handing the baton, and probably the next election, to the Democrats.

Why do I say that? Because in his speech to the nation the president basically said that on the most important, indeed only, legacy issue left in his presidency, Iraq, there would be no change in policy — that a substantial number of U.S. troops would remain in Iraq “beyond my presidency.” Therefore, it will be up to his successor to end the war he started.

“In one fell swoop George Bush abdicated to Petraeus, Maliki and the Democrats,” said David Rothkopf, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment, referring to Gen. David Petraeus and the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki. “Bush left it to Petraeus to handle the war, Maliki to handle our timetable and therefore our checkbook, and the Democrats to ultimately figure out how to end this.”

The sad thing for the American people is that we have no commander in chief anymore, framing our real situation and options. The president’s description on Thursday of the stakes in Iraq was delusional. An Iraqi ally fighting for “freedom” against “extremists”? There are extremists in the Iraqi government, army and police. There is a civil war on top of tribal, neighborhood and jihadist wars, fueled not by a single Iraqi quest for freedom, but by differing quests for “justice,” revenge and, yes, democracy. The only possible self-sustaining outcome in the near term is some form of radical federalism.

We also do not have a commander in chief weighing the costs of staying in Iraq indefinitely against America’s other interests at home and abroad. When General Petraeus honestly averred that he could not say whether pursuing the surge in Iraq would make America safer, he underscored how much the war there has become disconnected from every conceivable worthy goal — democratization of Iraq or spreading progressive governance in the Arab-Muslim world — and is now just about itself and abstractions of “winning” or “not failing.”

That is why I thought the most relevant comments from the Petraeus hearings last week were those offered by the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Ike Skelton, when he said at the outset:

“We must begin by considering the overall security of this nation. It’s our responsibility here in Congress under the Constitution to ensure that the United States military can deter and if needed prevail anywhere our interests are threatened. Iraq is an important piece of the overall equation, but it is only a piece. There are very real trade-offs when you send 160,000 of our men and women in uniform to Iraq. Those troops in Iraq are not available for other missions.”

While Mr. Bush’s tacit resignation last week greatly increases the odds of a Democratic victory in 2008, there are several wild cards that could change things: a miraculous turnaround in Iraq (unlikely, but you can always hope), a terrorist attack in America, a coup in Pakistan that puts loose nukes in the hands of Islamist radicals, or a recession induced by the meltdown in the U.S. mortgage market, which forces a stark choice between bailing out Baghdad or Chicago.

The first three, for sure, could propel the right Republican candidate right back into the thick of things — especially if the Democrats have not positioned themselves with a credible approach to Iraq and the wider national security issues facing the country.

There is an opportunity now for Democrats, and Americans will be listening — but they need to articulate a concrete endgame policy, and it would have to include at least three components:

First, a detailed blueprint with a fixed withdrawal date tied to a negotiation with Iraqi factions on a federal solution tied to a military redeployment plan to contain the inevitable spillover from Iraq.

Second, a commitment by the next president to impose a stiff tariff on all imported crude oil, to make sure we become less dependent on what is sure to be a more unstable Middle East as we leave Iraq. And third, a plan to deal with the broader terrorist challenge. Set a date. Set a price. That will get people’s attention.

Democratic candidates have been talking about health care and other important issues, but the overriding foreign policy message that still comes across from them to many Americans, argues Mr. Rothkopf, is that Democrats are simply “anti-Bush, antiwar and antitrade.” Be careful: despite the mess Mr. Bush has made in the world, or maybe because of it, Americans will not hand the keys to a Democrat who does not convey a “gut” credibility on national security.

Photo of the Week

Steelers win 26-3, move to 2-0

Steelers move to 2-0 on this young season against the Buffalo Bills. Steelers were lead by another impressive show on defense which has aloowed ten points after two games. Offensively, Pittsburgh was lead by "Fast" Willie Parker with back to back 100 yard games 23 carries for 126 yards. Big Ben passed for 242 yards and 1 TD. Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Picks of the Week

College Football
#22 Tennessee at #5 Florida = In the Swamp it's the GATORS!
#10 Ohio State at Washington = It will be close but no cigar for the Dawgs, OSU wins!
#1 USC at #14 Nebraska = Defense, defense, defense...USC will be victorious.
Fresno State at #19 Oregon = Oregon gets a scare but wins....
Idaho State at Oregon State = OSU back on track after their poor outing in Ohio

National Football League
Buffalo at Pittsburgh = Steelers start 2-0...Bills are beat up from Denver last week
San Diego at New England = Patriot Gate, gives NE "us against the world" edge against SD
New Orleans at Tampa Bay = Saints score points and a win in Florida
Dallas at Miami = Dallas is rolling out of Miami 2-0
Seattle at Arizona = Bad luck follows 'Zona...Seahawks win

Your thoughts fellow prognosticators?!

Why they should stay

For all General Petraeus's spin, Iraq is still a violent mess. That is why America should not leave yet

POLITICS, said the late John Kenneth Galbraith, is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. The problem for America in Iraq is that it is agonisingly difficult to tell which is which.

General David Petraeus, America's senior commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, its ambassador, went to Capitol Hill this week to tell Congress that bringing the troops home too soon would result in disaster. The general took along a flipchart of tables purporting to show that the “surge” of recent months was beginning to work (see article). The ambassador said he could not guarantee success but that if America gave up now the consequences would be massive human suffering, the intervention of regional states and gains for Iran and al-Qaeda. Continue at The Economist...

A Humbled President

He seemed almost broken to me. His voice raspy, his eyes watery, his affect exhausted, his facial expression almost bewildered. I thought I would feel angry; but I found myself verging toward pity. The case was so weak, the argument so thin, the evidence for optimism so obviously strained that one wondered whom he thought he was persuading. And the way he framed his case was still divorced from the reality we see in front of our nose: that Iraq is not, as he still seems to believe, full of ordinary people longing for democracy and somehow stymied solely by "extremists" or al Qaeda or Iran, but a country full of groups of people who cannot trust one another, who are still living in the wake of unimaginable totalitarian trauma, who have murdered and tortured and butchered each other in pursuit of religious and ethnic pride and honor for centuries. This is what Bush cannot recognize: there is no Iraq. There are no Iraqis. There may have been at one point - but what tiny patina of national unity that once existed to counter primordial sectarian loyalty was blown away by the anarchy of the Rumsfeld-Franks invasion. The president's stunning detachment from this reality tragically endures - whether out of cynicism or delusion or, more worryingly, a simple intellectual inability to understand the country he is determined that the United States occupy for the rest of our lives. Read on...

Credit for Beginners

Economics lesson for Friday September 14, 2007, click here.

Left Attack on Petraeus Poses Problem for Democrats

The Democrats, especially the Democrats running for president, have a problem, and his name is Petraeus.

In two days of hearings on Capitol Hill, he probably didn’t change any of the views held by members of Congress about the war in Iraq. But he almost certainly impressed a lot of people sitting at home by displaying all the traits Americans hope for in a military leader.

He was, to put it simply, good, a man who came across as brave, honorable, and true, and that’s the problem.

On Monday, the day Petraeus was to begin his testimony, in the great tradition of Washington politics, MoveOn.org blasted him before hearing a word of it. In a full page ad in the New York Times, that became the talk of Congress, the talk shows, and cable news (as it was supposed to), the liberal group accused Petraeus of "cooking the books," and charged that he was betraying the American peoples' trust by spinning the facts to support the White House.

That is, by the way, how MoveOn itself summarized the ad, in an email to its supporters sent the next day, giving notice that it wasn’t backing down. Read more of Susan Estrich

A New Strain of Anti-Semitism is Spreading

Who recently said: "These Jews started 19 Crusades. The 19th was World War (1). Why? Only to build Israel."

Some holdover Nazi?

Hardly. It was former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan of Turkey, a NATO ally. He went on to claim that the Jews -- whom he refers to as "bacteria" -- controlled China, India and Japan, and ran the United States.

Who alleged: "The Arabs who were involved in 9/11 cooperated with the Zionists, actually. It was a cooperation. They gave them the perfect excuse to denounce all Arabs."

A conspiracy nut? Answer

US Senate Race, Oregon 2008

In Oregon, the concept of doctor-assisted suicide is not a revolutionary idea. The notion that the government ought not mess with someone's guns is also well within the mainstream. The state has an income tax, but no sales tax, and anyone who tries to change that will bring upon themselves the combined wrath of Oregon's approximately 3.5 million, mostly socially liberal, fiscal conservative voters.

Divided roughly a third of the width of the state by the Cascade Mountains, there are strong conservative areas in the eastern high desert, though new transplants from California are giving Democrats a chance in state legislative elections in wealthy Bend, in the middle of the state. Those conservatives are outnumbered by liberal Portland, a town that epitomizes the concept of a Pacific Coast liberal bastion.

The combination of four straight Democratic presidential wins, a Democratic governor since 1986 and four Democrats out of five congressional representatives would seem to preclude national Republicans from having so much as a hope of picking up a Senate seat. Instead, the state is home to a long tradition of moderate Republican statesmen, including former Appropriations Committee chairman Mark Hatfield and Republican-turned-Democrat Wayne Morse.

It is no surprise, then, that Gordon Smith...read on

Oden To Miss Season

Celebrated Trail Blazers rookie center Greg Oden, the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, will likely miss the 2007-08 season after undergoing knee surgery Thursday, the team said.

Doctors found cartilage damage during an exploratory procedure, and team physician Dr. Don Roberts performed microfracture surgery to repair the damage.

"There are things about this that are positive for Greg," Roberts said in a statement posted on the Trail Blazers' Web site. "First of all, he is young. The area where the damage was is small and the rest of his knee looked normal. All those are good signs for a complete recovery from microfracture surgery."

Seven-footer Greg Oden will spend pretty much all of his first season in the NBA on the Trail Blazers' bench.

The 7-foot center is expected to be on crutches for up to eight weeks. A full recovery likely will take six to 12 months, the team said. Read more at ESPN

Portland: What are these people looking at?

As the sun sets each night in September, Portlanders flock to Chapman school to watch the Vaux's swifts swirl and roost in the school's big brick chimney. Elaborate picnics unfold. Frisbee games and footbag start up. Kids charge around making friends out of strangers.

Iraq Through China’s Lens

It’s nice to be in a country where Iraq is never mentioned. It’s just a little unnerving when that country is America’s biggest geopolitical and economic rival these days: China.

I heard China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, address an international conference here in Dalian, and what impressed me most was how boring it was — a straightforward recitation of the staggering economic progress China has made in the last two decades and the towering economic, political and environmental challenges it still faces.

How nice it must be, I thought, to be a great power and be almost entirely focused on addressing your own domestic problems?

No, I have not gone isolationist. America has real enemies that China does not, and therefore we have to balance a global security role in places like the Middle East with domestic demands.

But something is out of balance with America today. Looking at the world from here, it is hard not to feel that China has spent the last six years training for the Olympics while we’ve spent ourselves into debt on iPods and Al Qaeda.

After 9/11, we tried to effect change in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world by trying to build a progressive government in Baghdad. There was, I believed, a strategic and moral logic for that. But the strategy failed, for a million different reasons, and now it is time to recognize that and focus on how we insulate ourselves from the instability of that world — by having a real energy policy, for starters — how we protect our security interests there in more sustainable ways and how we get back to developing our own house.

By now it should be clear that Iraq is going to be what it is going to be. We’ve never had sufficient troops there to shape Iraq in our own image. We simply can’t go on betting so many American soldiers and resources that Iraqis will one day learn to live together on their own — without either having to be bludgeoned by Saddam or baby-sat by us.

So either we get help or get out. That is, if President Bush believes staying in Iraq can still make a difference, then he needs to muster some allies because the American people are not going to sustain alone — nor should they — a long-shot bet that something decent can still be built in Baghdad.

If the president can’t get help, then he has to initiate a phased withdrawal: now. Because the opportunity cost this war is exacting on our country and its ability to focus on anything else is out of all proportion to what might still be achieved in Iraq by our staying, with too few troops and too few friends.

Iraqis can add. The surge has brought more calm to Iraq largely because the mainstream Iraqi Sunnis finally calculated that they have lost and that both the pro-Al Qaeda Iraqi Sunnis and the radical Shiites are more of a threat to them than the Americans they had been shooting at.

The minute we start withdrawing, all Iraqis will carefully calculate their interests. They may decide that they want more blood baths, but there is just as much likelihood that they will eventually find equilibrium.

I have not been to Dalian in three years. It is not just a nice city for China. It is a beautiful city of wide avenues, skyscrapers, green spaces, software parks and universities.

The president of Dalian University of Technology, Jinping Ou, told me his new focus now is on energy research and that he has 100 doctoral students dealing with different energy problems — where five years ago he barely had any — and that the Chinese government has just decided to open its national energy innovation research center here.

Listening to him, my mind drifted back to Iraq, where I was two weeks ago and where I heard a U.S. officer in Baghdad tell this story:

His unit was on a patrol in a Sunni neighborhood when it got hit by an I.E.D. Fortunately, the bomb exploded too soon and no one was hurt. His men jumped out and followed the detonation wire, which led 1,500 feet into the neighborhood. A U.S. Black Hawk helicopter was in the area and alerted the U.S. soldiers that a man was fleeing the scene on a bicycle. The soldiers asked the Black Hawk for help, and it swooped down and used its rotor blades to blow the insurgent off his bicycle, with a giant “whoosh,” and the U.S. soldiers captured him.

That image of a $6 million high-tech U.S. helicopter with a highly trained pilot blowing an insurgent off his bicycle captures the absurdity of our situation in Iraq. The great Lebanese historian Kamal Salibi said it best: “Great powers should never get involved in the politics of small tribes.”

That is where we are in Iraq. We’re wasting our brains. We’re wasting our people. We’re wasting our future. China is not.

Iowa vs. America

In America, Hillary Clinton holds a solid and enduring 15- to 20-point lead over Barack Obama, who, in turn, enjoys a 2-to-1 advantage over John Edwards, who languishes in third place. But in Iowa, Edwards is often in first place in the polls and, at best, Hillary is locked in a three-way tie with her rivals.

In America, Rudy Giuliani continues to lead the Republican field while Fred Thompson edges past the ill-fated Mitt Romney and the snakebit John McCain. But in Iowa, it is all Romney all the time as the former Massachusetts governor, riding a wave of paid television ads, has first place all to himself and has been atop the Iowa polls for four or five months. Meanwhile, Arkansas's former governor, Mike Huckabee, way down in the national polls, is surging in Iowa and now boasts 14 percent in the polls. Ahead of McCain, he is challenging Thompson and Giuliani in the first-in-the-nation caucuses.

So which is reality? To read the rest of Dick Morris's article click here.