How long with the "liberal" Media continue to refer to a bald faced liar as a straight talker? Bob Somerby documents the atrocities:

[P]onder this statement by the New York Post’s Charlie Hurt. The boys were discussing Saint Rudy:

HURT (11/6/07): You know, because [Giuliani] is such a gun-slinger, and because he is such a straight-talker, people believe him . . .

Giuliani’s endless, howling misstatements are becoming the stuff of legend—but to Hurt, he’s still a “straight-talker.” But then, Time’s Mike Allen had stated this view roughly one minute before:

ALLEN: . . . It turns out they like his gun-slinging, straight-shooting swagger, that he comes across—he will answer a question, he will say, “No way, no how.” People like that.

To Allen, he’s a “straight-shooter.” . . .

All week, Clinton’s “evasiveness” and “double-talk” have been trashed on Hardball—like Gore’s lies and Kerry’s flip-flops before her. But Giuliani is still a “straight-talker!” There is absolutely nothing on earth that will keep these lads from their Group Tales.

And the Hillary Haters cheer. More.

A few months ago, I wrote about a T A Frank article where he stated that Bob Herbert was boring.

Now that we know what Frank finds interesting, Jenna v. Chelsea, it all makes sense.

Frank is a blithering idiot.

h/t Digby.

What will the true believer capitalists say about this?

Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke urged Congress today to take steps to ease the mounting mortgage crisis as renewed turbulence in global stock and currency markets continues driving down the value of the dollar and raising doubts about U.S. economic performance. . . . Bernanke said Congress should take steps to ensure that home foreclosures are kept to a minimum as aggressive adjustable mortgages reset to higher interest rates in coming months. . . . He suggested that Congress, for example, give final approval to a pending proposal to change Federal Housing Administration programs that help make mortgage loans available to people with middle to low incomes. . . .

Traditionally, a Fed Chairman does not involve himself in specific tax or spending issues. Alan Greenspan obliterated that when he endorsed President Bush's tax cuts. But Bernanke promised he would reverse that:

[Bernanke] said he would be nonpartisan as Fed chairman, offering general economic analysis but no specific recommendations on taxes or spending.

Of course in Washington, promises are made to be broken.

This is not about the Colorado Rockies.

It is about Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue pining for Bill Starbuck.

Perdue's office has begun sending out invitations to a prayer service for rain at the Capitol next week. . . . Perdue, whose son is a Baptist preacher, has had similar prayer services in the past. "Georgia needs rain. The issue at the heart of our drought problems is a lack of rain," [a [Perdue spokesman] said. "And there is nothing the government can do to make that happen. "The governor recognizes that the request has got to be made to a higher power."

Sounds like a job for Elmer Gantry to me. If I were Pat Robertson, I would be tempted to say that this is God's judgment on Georgia for voting for Bush. Luckily for me, I am not Pat Robertson.

h/t balloon juice.

Against the odds, Senator Chris Dodd has led the fight against FISA telco immunity.

The first step is to make sure retroactive immunity doesn't make it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee -- where it will be considered shortly.

If we can get it stripped there, it will have to be offered as an amendment to the overall bill where it will be a lot easier to get 41 votes against retroactive immunity than 41 to sustain my filibuster if necessary

This is a vitally important issue, as the Dodd campaign demonstrates in this video of the whistleblower Marc Klein, who told the story of the telco's failure to respect the privacy of its customers that the law (the Communication Storage Act) requires.

I'm off to Las Vegas today for the BlogWorld expo where I'll be speaking on a couple of panels. I doubt I'll be back at the computer until late Thursday night, and I won't be back home until Friday night.

In the meantime, here's a place to discuss what's in the news, and anything else you feel like talking about.

Watch for news about Bernie Kerik's indictment. ABC News is reporting it may come down today, with Bernie scheduled to appear in court on Friday.

O.J. Simpson will be in court in Las Vegas today for the start of his two day preliminary hearing.

The case is likely to pivot on Simpson's contention that he didn't ask anyone to bring guns, that he didn't know anyone had guns and that no guns were displayed. Three of Simpson's co-defendants have pleaded guilty or agreed to do so and are expected to testify against him.

A preliminary hearing is a hearing at which the Judge decides whether there is probable cause to believe that a crime was committed and that it was committed by the charged defendant.

The rules of evidence are relaxed at a prelim, which means hearsay is allowed. Most cases are bound over for trial following a prelim.

But don't equate a preliminary hearing with proof of guilt. The standard of "probable cause" is far less than that of "reasonable doubt."

In other words, with three defendants cutting deals to testify against O.J., and their credibility not being a big issue at the prelim, you can expect him to be bound over for trial.

But, that doesn't mean the prosecution can prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. I hope everyone will keep an open mind.

On November 13, the Georgia Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case of death row inmate Troy Davis (background here.)

How many of you have ever heard the voice of a death row inmate? Now you can. Amnesty International asks you to sign a petition for Troy and listen to what he has to say.

Troy Davis was convicted without any physical evidence. 7 of the 9 witnesses against him have recanted or changed their testimony. Amnesty's 35 page report on his case is here (pdf).

Following next week's hearing, the court could order a new trial for Davis or order a hearing on the new evidence in the case. The hearing will be webcast live.

More...

The Eagles, performed "How Long" at the CMA Awards tonight. This took me hours to make -- I couldn't figure out how to get rid of the border and make it bigger and I tried converting to Quicktime, Windows and Mp4. The mp4 came out the biggest so that's the one I put on YouTube. On the plus side, it looks great on my iPod.

I finally did buy the new album, Out of Eden, stopping at the dreaded WalMart in Glenwood Springs. I listened to all of it on the drive back to Denver a few days ago. Out of the two cd's, this is far and away the best song on it.

Via Politico:

Former Senator John Edwards (N.C.) has been accusing his rival Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) of double-talk for a week, since she refused to say clearly whether illegal immigrants should get driver's licenses – but his own position on the issue is also incoherent, experts say.

. . . "He supports licenses as part of a path to citizenship. He doesn't support the Spitzer plan because it doesn't include a path to citizenship," said Edwards' deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince in an e-mail referring to the New York governor’s plan that prompted the question that flummoxed Clinton.

"That's not a rational position — Eliot Spitzer couldn't ever offer somebody a path to citizenship," said Margie McHugh, the Co-Director of the National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy at the Migration Policy Institute, which favors immigration reform. "I don't know if they think you're stupid or what they think," said Frank Sharry, the executive director of the National Immigrantion Forum, another broadly pro-immigration policy shop.

Yep.

The ACLU will be at Guantanamo tomorrow to monitor the military commission hearing of Omar Khadr. The process so far:

Khadr, now 21, was 15 years old when he was captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He is the first detainee to face a military commission since June when charges against him and a Yemeni prisoner, Salim Hamdan, were thrown out by military judges who said the commission lacked proper jurisdictional authority to prosecute them. The military judges ruled that the two defendants had not been designated “unlawful enemy combatants” as required under the Military Commission Act signed into law by President Bush in October 2006.

The U.S. government appealed the dismissal of the cases, and the newly established U.S. Court of Military Commission Review – a panel of three military officers appointed by the Pentagon – reinstated the charges in September by deciding that the military commission judges have the authority to decide whether detainees should be deemed “unlawful” enemy combatants. Despite an appeal filed by Khadr’s lawyers with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the military judge in Khadr’s case, Col. Peter Brownback, will hear the case Thursday.

Omar is a Canadian teenager and child of Jihad, captured in Afghanistan and sent to Gitmo where he alleges he was tortured.

In February, his U.S. lawyer told reporters the teenager had been used as a human mop to clean urine on the floor and had been beaten, threatened with rape and tied up for hours in painful positions at Guantanamo Bay.

ABC News reports Bernie Kerik is telling friends and his legal team he expects to be indicted on tax and bribery charges by November 15, at the latest.

The statute of limitations expires on Nov. 15. Months ago, his lawyers and DOJ agreed to extend the statute until then.

I thought there might be another extension, but it looks now like there won't be.

Rather than rehash what I've already written, here are some good Village Voice artices from 2005 and 2006 summing up Rudy's Bernie troubles and explaining Bernie' s state guilty pleas last year.

Russ Buettner for the Daily News has been following the case from the beginning. Here's his article on Bernie's 9/11 "Love Nest" (woven into a great post by the late Steve Gilliard, and a compilation of articles at Citizens for Judicial Accountability.

My 48 posts (to date) on Kerik are accessible at this link.