Are you ready for the White Separatist Twins?.

Thirteen-year-old twins Lamb and Lynx Gaede have one album out, another on the way, a music video, and lots of fans....Known as "Prussian Blue" — a nod to their German heritage and bright blue eyes — the girls from Bakersfield, Calif., have been performing songs about white nationalism before all-white crowds since they were nine.

"We're proud of being white, we want to keep being white," said Lynx. "We want our people to stay white … we don't want to just be, you know, a big muddle. We just want to preserve our race."

Not only is their song "Sacrifice" a tribute to Hitler Deputy Rudolf Hess, but they model and promote Happy Hitler t-shirts.

The video's producer is Michael Murrey. They have a weblog, forums and have been hired as models for Aryan Wear . If you'd like them to know what you think of them, why not send them an e-mail.

You can read an interview with the twins here.

Via Raw Story, the Sunday New York Times has Judith Miller's response to Bill Keller's e-mail.

Ms. Miller said in an interview that Mr. Keller's statements were "seriously inaccurate." She also provided The Times with a copy of a memorandum she had sent to Mr. Keller in response. "I certainly never meant to mislead Phil, nor did I mislead him," she wrote to Mr. Keller, referring to Mr. Taubman.

...She added, "As for your reference to my 'entanglement' with Mr. Libby, I had no personal, social, or other relationship with him except as a source."

I think the Times should publish Ms. Miller's entire response to Keller, rather than just a few sentences. Perhaps someone else will.

by TChris

TalkLeft reported here the manslaughter charge against Bryan Conroy, a New York police officer who shot an unarmed African immigrant he suspected of smuggling counterfeit CD's. The victim, Ousmane Zongo, wasn't involved in that crime. Zongo was apparently frightened of the officer, who was wearing plain clothes and pointing a gun. Zongo, who spoke little English, tried to flee. Conroy gave chase. Conroy claims Zongo lunged at him before he shot Zongo four times.

Conroy's first trial ended in a hung jury, 10-2 in favor of a manslaughter conviction. Conroy, undoubtedly worried that his defense wasn't playing well to jurors, waived a jury for his second trial. That gamble paid off, as the judge acquitted Conroy of manslaughter. He found Conroy guilty of negligent homicide, a lesser crime that exposes Conroy to a maximum prison term of four years.

Via Discourse.Net, I found this net blog worth calculator. How much is your blog worth?

TalkLeft is worth $901,570.38. (Yes, I will sell it for $1 million)

That may sound like a lot. But consider:

• Daily Kos: $5,689,434.12
• Atrios: $2,118,154.08
• Crooks and Liars: $2,611,562.04

From Dan Abrams' blog (scroll down):

As some of you may know, the son of famed attorney Robert Shapiro died last week from a drug over-dose in California. I consider Bob a good friend.

His son Brent was a graduate of the University of Southern California who spent several semesters on the Deans list. Bob tells us Brent had turned his life around. He was engaged to be married and he had been sober for a one year and a half before he died last week.

I wrote Bob telling him how sorry I was for his loss and asked if there was anything I could do to help. He informed me that his family is starting a foundation to educate children and parents about drug awareness. It’s an effort to eliminate the stigma associated with drug abuse. Their goal is to change perceptions and to get parents and kids talking about it.

This is America? I realize that the 24/7 cable news industry has turned sex offenders into the latest pariahs, but this is over-the-top:

Child-welfare authorities seized a newborn from a hospital Friday and placed the baby in a foster home because his father is a convicted sex offender. A judge granted the mother supervised visitation rights but prohibited visits from the father.

The baby was born Tuesday and the agency obtained an emergency court order Wednesday authorizing it to take the infant after arguing that his safety is in jeopardy because the father pleaded guilty to rape and sodomy two decades ago in New York. The agency also cited concerns about the mother's alleged history of drug abuse, the mother's lawyer said.

The parents did not live together. Where is the evidence that he is a repeat offender or a risk to his child? How old was the victim in his first offense? What's next? A parent with a marijuana conviction stands to lose their kids because authorities think he or she might still be using in the home?

Reuters reports two of Fitzgerald's lead prosecutors, lugging giant legal briefcases, met with the grand jury today.

The grand jury, which expires on October 28, convened on Friday with two of the lead prosecutors present, but it was unclear what issues they were working on since the panel appears to have completed hearing from witnesses....One of the lawyers said prosecutors were likely starting to present their final case to jurors, either for bringing indictments or to explain why there was insufficient evidence to do so.

This should not be unclear at all. The prosecutors draft up the charges they want the grand jury to indict on, there will be discussions and questions and then the grand jury will vote on each charge presented to them.

This is usually TChris's department, but I can't resist.

A rapist was captured after he forced his victim to write him a check and then tried to cash it, police said.

Anthony R. Roberts, 25, was arrested Wednesday night outside a check cashing store, minutes after he left the woman's apartment, police said. Police said Roberts forced his way into her apartment at gunpoint, bound her with tape and raped her. But first he forced her to make out a $1,400 check in his name, and told her to write on it that it was for electrical work, authorities said.

[First posted on October 20, I've bumped it up since reporters are beginning to focus on the March, 2003 rather than June, 2003 date.]

Joseph Wilson wrote in his book and told Tim Russert on Meet the Press that the White House campaign to discredit him began in early March, 2003, after he had appeared on CNN and criticized the Niger documents as forgeries. In an earlier post, I quoted both:

Wilson's Book:

...According to my sources, between March 2003 and the appearance of my article in July, the workup on me that turned up the information on Valerie was shared with Karl Rove, who then circulated it in administration and neoconservative circles.

....Apparently, according to two journalist sources of mine, when Rove learned that he might have violated the law, he turned on Cheney and Libby and made it clear that he held them responsible for the problem they had created for the administration.

Crooks and Liars got a copy of the regret-laced memo Bill Keller of the New York Times sent out to his staff about Judy Miller.

I wish that when I learned Judy Miller had been subpoenaed as a witness in the leak investigation, I had sat her down for a thorough debriefing, and followed up with some reporting of my own. It is a natural and proper instinct to defend reporters when the government seeks to interfere in our work. And under other circumstances it might have been fine to entrust the details -- the substance of the confidential interviews, the notes -- to lawyers who would be handling the case.

But in this case I missed what should have been significant alarm bells. Until Fitzgerald came after her, I didn't know that Judy had been one of the reporters on the receiving end of the anti-Wilson whisper campaign. I should have wondered why I was learning this from the special counsel, a year after the fact. (In November of 2003 Phil Taubman tried to ascertain whether any of our correspondents had been offered similar leaks. As we reported last Sunday, Judy seems to have misled Phil Taubman about the extent of her involvement.) This alone should have been enough to make me probe deeper.

by TChris

The Kansas Supreme Court today struck down a provision in state law that imposed a harsher sentence on sexual contact with minors of the same sex than it imposed on sexual contact with minors of the opposite sex. The state's "Romeo and Juliet" law would have allowed a maximum sentence of 15 months to be imposed on an 18 year old man who had a sexual encounter with a consenting 14 year old girl. That limitation did not apply to an 18 year old man who has a sexual encounter with a consenting 14 year old boy.

The Supreme Court said in a unanimous ruling that a law that specified such harsher treatment and led to a 17-year prison sentence for an 18-year-old defendant "suggests animus toward teenagers who engage in homosexual sex."

"Moral disapproval of a group cannot be a legitimate state interest," said Justice Marla Luckert, writing for the high court.

Via AmericaBlog, the Providence Journal reports:

A Rhode Island Republican Party fundraiser scheduled for tonight featuring Andrew H. Card, White House chief of staff, has been canceled because Card is spending the weekend with President Bush at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Patricia Morgan, Republican state chairwoman, said yesterday.

I suspect they will be discussing replacements for those who about to be indicted, and/or those who have agreed to plead guilty.

I'm still leaning towards believing that Rove and Libby will fall on their swords and have plea agreements in place by next week, to spare their respective bosses, Bush and Cheney, the ugly fallout from a protracted criminal case and from being called as witnesses.

The question is, will Bush pardon them in return for their loyalty before or after they serve any jail time required by the deals?