The Daily Show and Jon Stewart on Mark Foley and the e-mails:

[hat tip Americablog]

The conservative Washington Times is calling for House Speaker Denny Hastert's resignation.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert must do the only right thing, and resign his speakership at once. Either he was grossly negligent for not taking the red flags fully into account and ordering a swift investigation, for not even remembering the order of events leading up to last week's revelations -- or he deliberately looked the other way in hopes that a brewing scandal would simply blow away. He gave phony answers Friday to the old and ever-relevant questions of what did he know and when did he know it? Mr. Hastert has forfeited the confidence of the public and his party, and he cannot preside over the necessary coming investigation, an investigation that must examine his own inept performance.

The Times wants Henry Hyde, who isn't running for re-election, to take his place.

Oh, the irony. On June 25, 2002, Rep. Mark Foley addressed the House on protecting the safety of "virtual" children from the liberal Supreme Court. The topic was the Child Obscenity and Pornography Prevention Act of 2002. From the Congressional Record:

Mr. FOLEY . Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me, and I thank the chairman for his hard work on this issue, as well the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith).

I have heard terms described today that this has been rushed to the floor of the House. Maybe those who claim it has been rushed have not had a chance to see the virtual pornography that has been created since the Supreme Court's ruling, endangering our children, virtually created; horrible portrayals of our young and most fragile citizens on the Internet.

Today's passage of this legislation is a pedophile's worst nightmare. Congress is one step closer to helping the High Court side with children over pedophiles.

If you're a law professor, lawyer or law student, the place to be October 5 is your local law school which likely is participating in the virtual National Guantanamo Teach-In. 200 law schools in 40 states are participating. If you're not near a law school, it will be live-streamed from the website.

On October 5th, Seton Hall will host an all-day conference available at academic institutions across the United States to study the national and international implications of indefinitely detaining hundreds of individuals deemed "enemy combatants."

The Guantanamo Teach-in will offer participants incisive analysis with diverse perspectives. Across America, from Maine to New Mexico, from Florida to Hawaii, and from Texas to Montana, law schools, colleges, universities, community colleges and seminaries will be linked in a national dialogue on the lessons of Guantanamo, sparked by, but not limited to, the broadcast presentations.

Great news on the military tribunal, torture and habeas restriction bill. A pre-emptive lawsuit to declare it unconstitutional was filed today by 25 prisoners at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.

Attorneys for 25 men being held in Afghanistan launched a pre-emptive strike Monday against President Bush's plan to prosecute and interrogate terror suspects.

Court documents filed Monday demand that the men be released or charged and allowed to meet with attorneys. Such a filing, known as a habeas corpus petition, is prohibited under the legislation approved by Congress last week.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, "who, in a Guantanamo Bay case last year, ruled that Congress had authorized the president to order the detention of "enemy combatants" for the duration of the war on terror. Leon did not set a hearing date in the new case."

The suit was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Received from NORML today:

While there are literally dozens of pro-marijuana law reform projects and initiatives under way this fall, no one effort to reform cannabis laws is as important as electing policy makers, especially federal policy makers, who agree with our long-stated position to substantively reform marijuana laws: replacing Marijuana Prohibition with alternatives, such as decriminalization and legalization.

With 35 days left before this important Election Day, NORML has once again partnered with Project Vote Smart and Working Assets to help educate and motivate citizens who possess strong interests in cannabis to take an active role in shaping the creation of their government.

• Reefer Report Card For Congress*
  View a listing and report card of every recent Congressional member's vote concerning cannabis-related legislation.

• You can't vote for change if you're not registered to vote*
  It is not too late to be an active participant in this fall's important elections! You can register to vote online! NORML and Working Assets have made it easy for you.

(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

So I have been following this story:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she cannot recall then-CIA chief George Tenet warning her of an impending al-Qaida attack in the United States, as a new book claims he did two months before the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. "What I am quite certain of is that I would remember if I was told, as this account apparently says, that there was about to be an attack in the United States, and the idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible," Rice said.

It is incomprehensible, and now we know it is true:

A review of White House records has determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, did brief Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July 10, 2001, about the looming threat from Al Qaeda, a State Department spokesman said Monday.

Path to 9/11? Rewrite!!

(Guest Post from Big Tent Democrat)

Just unbelievable, Drudge is sick:

Clip #1. And if anything, these kids are less innocent -- these 16 and 17 year-old beasts...and I've seen what they're doing on YouTube and I've seen what they're doing all over the internet -- oh yeah -- you just have to tune into any part of their pop culture. You're not going to tell me these are innocent babies. Have you read the transcripts that ABC posted going into the weekend of these instant messages, back and forth? The kids are egging the Congressman on! The kids are trying to get this out of him. We haven't got the whole story on this.

Clip #2: You could say "well Drudge, it's abuse of power, a congressman abusing these impressionable, young 17 year-old beasts, talking about their sex lives with a grown man, on the internet." Because you have to remember, those of us who have seen some of the transcripts of these nasty instant messages. This was two ways, ladies and gentlemen. These kids were playing Foley for everything he was worth. Oh yeah. Oh, I haven't...they were talking about how many times they'd masturbated, how many times they'd done it with their girlfriends this weekend...all these things and these "innocent children." And this "poor" congressman sitting there typing, "oh am I going to get any," you know?

Words fail me. But not Atrios, who points to the sick Media. C&L has the tape.

Update from Last Night in Little Rock, 8:48 pm CT

More doo-doo for Hastert:

Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., says she was not told about suggestive e-mails that a Florida congressman sent to a 16-year-old former Capitol page, even though she is one of three representatives who oversee the page program....

Several high-ranking House Republicans have known about the e-mails for months, including Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., chairman of the House Page Board.

Late last year, Shimkus met with Foley about the e-mails. But Shimkus never told Capito or the board's other member, Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Mich., about them until Friday, according to all three.

"There's only three of us on the page board. I feel that we should have been informed," Capito said. "I'm absolutely disgusted by what I'm hearing. I was caught totally unaware."

[Charleston Gazette]

by TChris

Tony Snow's attempt to spin Mark Foley's conduct as involving "simply naughty e-mails" (reported by TalkLeft here) is silly on its face, but will be even harder to sell if, as ABC reports today, "Mark Foley's Internet messages also include repeated efforts to get the underage recipient to rendezvous with him at night." Snow's remarks reflect, as John Nichols reports, the GOP's state of denial concerning the Republican cover-up of Foley's transgressions.

(Guest Post from Big Tent Democrat)

Tom Maguire is selling black helicopters on GOP Predatorgate:

Color me skeptical. Maybe the blog author was an unwitting catspaw, but I would want some assurance that this was not simply a successful attempt to promote a story that wasn't quite ready for the Mainstream Media by laundering it through some blogs (and wasn't that Matt Drudge's ecological niche, back in the day?).

Actually, color you a GOP sycophant who has gone around the bend. But tinfoil has always been largely the province of the Right, 9/11/Diebolders notwithstanding. It penetrates the Right's "mainstream" so readily. Remember Clinton's cocaine ring? Vince Foster's murder? Those stories ended up on the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page. I guess Maguire is gunning for a slot.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed a bill to grow hemp. Here's his letter to the Assembly explaining his decision. Snippets:

I would like to support the expansion of a new agricultural commodity in this State. Unfortunately, I am very concerned that this bill would give legitimate growers a false sense of security and a belief that production of "industrial hemp" is somehow a legal activity under federal law.