Via Kevin Drum:

The Pentagon budget signed a couple of weeks ago includes a hard date for putting Stuart Bowen, the Inspector General for Iraq, out of business:

The order comes in the form of an obscure provision that terminates his federal oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, on Oct. 1, 2007. The clause was inserted by the Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee over the objections of Democratic counterparts during a closed-door conference, and it has generated surprise and some outrage among lawmakers who say they had no idea it was in the final legislation.

That's a real shocker, isn't it? The official excuse from Duncan Hunter (R–Running For President), who inserted the provision, is that he wanted to return to a "non-wartime footing" for all this inspection stuff.

I'll make a deal with the Republicans, you can fire the Inspector General when the troops are out of Iraq. You know, when we are no longer on a "war-time footing."

I remember when the Government complained about the Anarchist's Cookbook website with instructions for building a bomb, among other nefarious items. But how does that compare to this:

Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The Bush administration did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who had said they hoped to “leverage the Internet” to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein.

But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.

The Government shut down the web site last night.

Update: Church says Haggard confessed to some, but not all, of the allegations against him. My speculation: He confessed to buying meth from Jones.

Denver's 9 News tonight reports a voice expert has analyzed paid escort Mike Jones' voicemail evidence against Ted Haggard and concluded the voice is Haggard's.

Jones turned over two voicemails to the station which had them analyzed by Richard Sanders, who it says is an expert voice analyst.

The first voice message, left on August 4 at 2:18 p.m., says:

"Hi Mike, this is Art. Hey, I was just calling to see if we could get any more. Either $100 or $200 supply. And I could pick it up really anytime I could get it tomorrow or we could wait till next week sometime and so I also wanted to get your address. I could send you some money for inventory but that's probably not working, so if you have it then go ahead and get what you can and I may buzz up there later today, but I doubt your schedule would allow that unless you have some in the house. Okay, I'll check in with you later. Thanks a lot, bye."

All children born in the U.S. are United States citizens. But the Bush-signed Deficit Reduction Act that went into effect in July prevents Medicaid from covering health care benefits to those born to undocumented residents -- unless the parents file proof of citizenship for the child, which is a catch-22 because the application form takes weeks or months and many of the immigrant parents don't want to alert authorities to their presence here.

Hospitals are just now catching up with the law's demands and doctors are justifiably outraged:

Dr. Jay E. Berkelhamer, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the policy “punishes babies who, according to the Constitution, are citizens because they were born here.” Dr. Martin C. Michaels, a pediatrician in Dalton, Ga., said that continuous coverage in the first year of life was important because “newborns need care right from the start.”

“Some Americans may want to grant amnesty to undocumented immigrants, and others may want to send them home,” Dr. Michaels said. “But the children who are born here had no say in that debate.”

Compassionate conservatism at work. Vote these xenophobic louts out November 7. These babies are citizens and entitled to every advantage we can provide. Every child is entitled to an equal chance to succeed. Medical care during the first year of life is critical.

Butch Cassidy sez

I was going to post on yet another GOP outrage (Which one? You pick one. So many to choose from) confirming yet again why we must "Throw the Rubberstamp Republican Bums Out." But we can resume that series later. I have something more important to talk about . . . Barack Obama. (I'm joking.)

Sterling Newberry's harsh critique of Obama allows me to do something I have not done for quite some time - defend Barack Obama. Since I am not likely to get to do that much in the face of the seemingly endless Media worship of The Hope and Audacity Man, like George Washington Plunkett - 'I seen my opportunity and I am taking it.'

The stars seem to have aligned in opposition to hypocrisy. First Mark Foley, now Rev. Ted Haggard:

The leader of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals, a vocal opponent of the drive for same-sex marriage, resigned Thursday after being accused of paying for sex with a man in monthly trysts over the past three years.

Statewide marijuana reform proposals will be on the ballots of three states next week: Colorado, Nevada and South Dakota. NORML has a rundown of each as well as the various municipal ordinances facing voters in other states. Here are the statewide measures:

• COLORADO: Amendment 44, the "Alcohol-Marijuana Equalization Initiative," would revise state statutes to eliminate all criminal and civil prohibitions on the private possession and use of up to one ounce of cannabis for anyone age 21 or older. The measure, sponsored by Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER), has been endorsed by numerous Colorado newspapers, including the Aspen Times, the Boulder Weekly, and the Aurora Daily Sentinel. Last year, voters in Denver passed a similar municipal initiative by 54 percent.

• NEVADA: Question 7, the "Regulation of Marijuana Initiative," would remove all criminal and civil penalties for the private possession and use of small quantities of cannabis by those age 21 or older. The measure would also seek to create a statewide system for the taxation, legal cultivation, distribution, and sale of cannabis to adults by licensed vendors. Question 7 has been endorsed by the Las Vegas Review Journal and more than 30 state religious leaders. A similar proposal was rejected by Nevada voters in 2002.

In a 31 page opinion I have uploaded here (pdf), the Judge in the Scooter Libby trial today denied Libby's request to use a memory expert at trial. [Background here.]

I'm still digesting the opinion, but the shorter version seems to be:

• The studies relied on by Libby mostly pertain to eye-witness identification and don't fit the facts of his case.

• The 13 points of memory principles Libby expert Robert Bjork would testify to are unlikely to assist the jury because the jurors could figure most of them out.

• Libby has not shown that the traditional method of cross-examining the Government's witnesses would not be sufficiently effective.

I wonder whether the Judge has not just handed Libby his first legitimate issue for appeal. I see definite corollaries between the memory principles that affect eyewitnesses and other fact witnesses. It would have been safer for the Government if the Judge had allowed the testimony.

Red State thinks Vice President Cheney is funny:

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Just wait, it gets better. (Laughter.) [Howard Dean] said the capture of Saddam Hussein did not make America any safer. And maybe it should be no surprise that such a party would turn its back on a man like Senator Joe Lieberman, who has been an unapologetic supporter in the fight against terror. (Applause.)

Cheney and Lieberman, laughing at our expense. Where is that darn WMD?

Here's an eye-opening report by Nick Turse at Tom Dispatch on the Bush Planetary Lock Up:

In a remarkably few years, the Bush administration has been able to construct a global detention system, already of near epic proportions, both on the fly and on the cheap."

...."Even with a couple million prisoners under its control, the U.S. prison network lacks the infrastructure or manpower of the Soviet gulag or the orderly planning of the Nazi concentration-camp system. However, where it bests both, and breaks new incarceration ground, is in its planet-ranging scope, with sites scattered the world over -- from Europe to Asia, the Middle East to the Caribbean.

Reporter Ben Smith of the New York Daily News has the exclusive on how the National Republican Campaign Committee participated in damage control talks on Rep. Mark Foley two days before ABC News broke the story of his inappropriate e-mail to a congressional page.

NRCC Communications Director Carl Forti and Reynolds then chief-of-staff Kirk Fordham both took part in the first call the evening of Wednesday, September 27, and one call the next day, Forti and other sources familiar with the call confirmed. Forti's involvement and the NRCC's role in the run-up to the Foley scandal add another link between the disgraced former congressman and Reynolds, who has said he knew only indirectly of questionable emails, and that he reported them to his House superiors. They also reflect another moment at which House GOP leadership was aware of concerns about Foley and pages.

Smith was tipped to the calls by the intrepid Murray Waas: