Laura Rozen of War and Piece writes about why the Bush-Cheney proposal to exempt the CIA from the torture amendment should be rejected. Among her arguments:

I was in a torture chamber once, in the basement of a police station in Kosovo days after it was abandoned by Serb forces defeated by Nato. It was hideous as you would imagine. The British soldiers who were with me were equally shocked. A lot of the instruments and interrogation drugs I saw there also suggest they were not designed to cause organ failure or death in their victims, just pain and terror, as Mr. Cheney and his office mates suggest is what they are going for in terms of legal wiggle room. And like Mr. Cheney and his office mates, Mr. Milosevic and his Serb troops didn't seem to overly concern themselves with the Geneva conventions, until it was a bit late. Having laid my eyes on what such a scene looks like, I just associate such activities with the forces of not only the pathological and depraved, but those who are headed for defeat. If you've seen it, you realize in a way that's hard to explain, it's the tactics of the losers.

All four ballot initiatives backed by Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger failed at the polls yesterday.

Voters turned down his plans to curb state spending, redraw California's political map, restrain union politics and lengthen the time it takes teachers to get tenure. Voters also rejected four other statewide initiatives, including one requiring parental approval for a minor's abortion.

Bump and Update: I can't believe I took the time to do this, but I did. At the end of the post you will find all of the same day appearances, times included, for 2002 for Joseph Wilson and Paul Vallely. [Source: Lexis.com] With the possible exception of one date, September 12, when they were on different segments of Studio B with Shepard Smith, they would not have been in the green room within hours of each together. And even that date is dubious unless Vallely arrived very early for his segment.

Update: Left Coaster has more.

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Original Post (11/8)

Crooks and Liars has a roundup of blogger reaction to the right wing's attempt to smear Joseph Wilson by claiming he leaked his wife's identity in 2002 to Paul Vallely in the Green Room of Fox News. The smear tactic won't work.

It looks like President Bush officially begins his lame duck status this morning.

The New York Times:

...everyone from political consultants to the leaders of countries in the remote corners of Asia and Africa are going to assume the same thing from the results of yesterday's balloting: Mr. Bush's political capital has turned into a deficit.....

The issue right now is a national fear that the White House has no plan, and no capacity to carry one out even if it existed.

Associated Press:

Texans voted to amend their state constitution yesterday to ban gay marriage. The amendment passed overwhelmingly. Texas follows 18 other states that have done the same.

Like every other state except Massachusetts, Texas didn't permit same-sex marriages previously, but the constitutional amendment was touted as an extra guard against future court rulings.

That's what this is all about. Decreasing the power of the judiciary. We are supposed to have three equal branches of Government. By abusing the constitutional amendment process, we are weakening our independent judiciary.

This is the radical right at work. They herd people like sheep into believing their evangelical brand of bigotry.

The papers may be full of election news tomorrow, but hopefully they will also cover the arrival of Ahmed Chalabi. If they don't, you can catch what you're missing over at Huffington Post, where Arianna is staying on the story.

• Rub Elbows With Judy Miller, Just $375!
• Ahmad Does D.C.: An Alternative Chalabi Itinerary
• Dick Durbin Tees Off

Durbin's speech today to the Senate on Chalabi is a must-read:

by TChris

The teaching of science in Kansas is no longer dictated by science. Responding to demands that science classes reflect religious belief in addition to conclusions drawn from scientific evidence, the Kansas Board of Education voted to require science teachers to tell high school students "that aspects of widely accepted evolutionary theory are controversial." That the controversy was created by religious groups, not from any debate raging within the scientific community, doesn't seem to matter. The first fact that teachers impart to students in compliance with the directive should be this: the "controvery" is grounded in politics, not science.

Some Board members were realistic about the image the Board created of Kansas:

by TChris

An Italian news channel today aired a documentary that "accused the United States of using chemical weapons against the civilian population during a November 2004 bombardment of Fallujah."

RAI says the use of white phosphorus in built-up areas amounts to the illegal use of chemical weapons, although the BBC notes that such bombs are considered incendiary devices. The US military admits to using the weapon to illuminate battlefields in Iraq, and says it did so in Fallujah, but insists it did not use it in civilian areas.

The military denies that video in the documentary shows the indiscriminate use of white phosphorus "on both insurgents and the civilian population," as the documentary alleges. The description of photographs posted by the news service is gruesome:

by TChris

Golden rule days:

President George W. Bush's chief of staff Andrew Card and other top White House officials started attending classes on ethics and the handling of classified information on Tuesday in response to the indictment of a top aide in the CIA leak investigation.

Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, was expected to attend one of the classes scheduled for Wednesday.

Cheney's new chief of staff, David Addington, was also scheduled to attend, the White House said.

Bush and Cheney seem to be cutting class.

The CIA has referred the leak of secret prison locations that appeared in the Washington Post to the Justice Department for investigation. This is the same way means by which the criminal investigation began into PlameGate.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue deals with classified information, said the referral was made shortly after the Nov. 2 story. The leak investigation into the disclosure of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity came about through the same referral procedure. The Justice Department will decide whether to initiate a criminal investigation.

The polls should be closing soon. I haven't followed the elections around the country today, so here's a place to discuss them. Corzine in NJ and Bloomberg in NY appear to be winners. Who else, and what if anything do today's results portend for 2006?

Check out what local progressive political bloggers are saying about the elections:

• Virginia
• New Jersey
• California
• Ohio

More local blogs are on Blogpac. Just click inside the map for the state you are interested in.

Wow. A new Pew Research poll shows that 79% of Americans believe the indictment of Cheney's Chief of Staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby is important to the country. Pew's summary of findings are here.

And Bush's base is weakening:

Will PlameGate and other Administration missteps affect today's elections around the country? Another question: Will today's voting be an indicator for the 2006 elections?