Michigan voters will decide on Tuesday whether to ban affirmative action in university admissions.

Newsweek reporter Ellis Cose has completed a report Killing Affirmative Action (pdf) for the USC Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism. The school's site also provides this helpful list of links on the topic.

Towards the end of the lengthy report, Cose writes:

James Dobson's Focus on the Family released this statement today about Ted Haggard:

"All of us at Focus on the Family are heartsick over the allegation, not yet confirmed, that Ted has had a private life with a homosexual for several years. We will await the outcome of this story, but the possibility that an illicit relationship has occurred is alarming to us and to millions of others.

"Ted has been my close friend and colleague for many years. He has been used mightily to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Colorado Springs and around the world. He will continue to be my friend, even if the worst allegations prove accurate. Nevertheless, sexual sin, whether homosexual or heterosexual, has serious consequences, and we are extremely concerned for Ted, his family and his church.

"We ask that the Focus on the Family constituency and Christians everywhere pray for Ted and his loved ones. Our hearts go out to all of them. Perhaps the allegations are false and the circumstances are not as we have heard. Either way, the situation has grave implications for the Cause of Christ, and we ask for the Lord’s guidance and blessings in the days ahead."

Yes, school bus drivers shouldn't flip the bird while they're on duty. And perhaps, as the Issaquah (WA) School District claims, a bus driver who gave President Bush the finger has engaged in a similar "pattern of behavior," although it would be nice to know whether she's ever been disciplined for prior alleged incidents of a similar nature. In any event, it's fair to wonder whether the school district fired the bus driver only because the president happened to see her making the gesture.

Congressman Dave Reichert called the district's superintendent to report that the president, who rarely takes note of the world around him, happened to notice the upraised finger. Shortly after that, the driver was fired -- a seemingly harsh response to a rather minor incident. Again, it would be useful to know whether lesser discipline has been imposed upon the driver for other work rule violations, and whether a policy of progressive discipline (starting with, for instance, a warning or a brief suspension) has been used with other employees who commit similar violations.

The driver has filed a union grievance. Perhaps the full factual record will become public as the grievance moves forward. At this point, losing a job over a disrespectful gesture seems extreme, particularly when it's the president who deserves to be fired. The district claims the decision isn't political, but would the termination have occurred if the complaint hadn't come from a congressman?

Regardless of Mike Jones' credibility (discussed here), Ted Haggard made some self-incriminating statements this morning.

This morning, Haggard said he had never had sex with Jones but said he did buy methamphetamine out of curiosity.

Curiosity? Haggard claims he threw the drugs away. He was curious about what meth looked like? That's a hard one to swallow. (Jones, you'll recall, claims that Haggard used the meth to enhance his sexual experiences with Jones.)

Haggard says he was massaged by Jones but denies having sex with him. Make of that what you will. (More about Haggard in this 2005 profile at Harper's.)

The Washington Times reports:

The Pentagon has stepped up planning for attacks against North Korea's nuclear program and is bolstering nuclear forces in Asia, said defense officials familiar with the highly secret process.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the accelerated military planning includes detailed programs for striking a North Korean plutonium-reprocessing facility at Yongbyon with special operations commando raids or strikes with Tomahawk cruise missiles or other precision-guided weapons.

How much war will be enough for this Administration? Who will fight all these wars? Your kids? Mine?

Could Mike Jones be lying about some or all of his accusations against Pastor Ted Haggard?

Mike Jones took a polygraph examination, and was asked about his claim of a sexual relationship with Haggard. The polygraph examination showed "some deception." However, the person who administered the test said on Denver radio station KHOW that the results could be skewed by Jones's "mental and physical exhaustion."

I am not a supporter of the accuracy of polygraphs. They are junk science in my opinion. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if Jones fabricated or embellished some of his story.

The meth allegations make more sense to me than the sex allegations, but we'll see what develops.

Bump and Update: 10:00 am. The deployment of Santos Cardona has been stopped. But, it was not because of concern of what he might do to others. It was because of concern others might try to harm him.

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Original Post:

If this weren't so totally disgusting, it would be comical. Time Magazine reports Sgt. Santos Cardona (holding the dog in the picture) is headed back to Iraq for another tour of duty -- this time to train Iraqi police:

Sgt. Santos Cardona, 32, a military policeman from Fullerton, Calif., served in 2003 and 2004 at Abu Ghraib as a military dog handler. After pictures of Cardona using the animal to threaten Iraqis were made public, he was convicted in May of dereliction of duty and aggravated assault, the equivalent of a felony in the U.S. civilian justice system. The prosecution demanded prison time, but a military judge instead imposed a fine and reduction in rank. Though Cardona was not put behind bars, he was also required to serve 90 days of hard labor at Ft. Bragg, N.C.

From Aravosis:

This is from Stephen Bennett, a top spokesman of the religious right, and yet another man loosely affiliated with the Concerned Women for America.

Will this affect the elections next Tuesday? Are Republicans disenfranchised with the hypocrisy within their own party - especially the hypocrisy within the driving force - the Christian Conservative base? You better believe it. The more and more hypocrisy I see each day, the more I realize next Tuesday we are going to get EXACTLY what we deserve. Yet I must NEVER forget where I came from and always remember 'But for the grace of God, there go I.

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.