Note: This is not a bash of Bill O'Reilly. It is just a reporting of news. Please don't trash Mr. O'Reilly in the comments, or I'll shut them down. He and everyone at Fox News have been extremely gracious and respectful in my contacts with them, and no one should judge Mr. O'Reilly before the facts come out at trial.

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In a pre-emptive strike against an anticipated $60 million sex harassment suit, Fox News Show Host Bill O'Reilly has sued former Fox producer Andrea Mackris and her lawyers for extortion and other claims. Mackris filed her lawsuit today.

Smoking Gun has the text of Mackris' complaint against O'Reilly and it's a doozy. From the detail included in the descriptions of telephone calls, it may be Ms. Mackris taped them.

O'Reilly denies her allegations and a says it's a shakedown.

by TChris

After Tacoma's police chief, David Brame, killed his wife and then himself, a Washington State Patrol investigation uncovered a "culture of corruption" within the Tacoma Police Department. The City responded with its own investigation, but has made public only a few of its findings.

After months of refusing to make public an investigation of alleged misconduct by police and city employees, Tacoma City Manager Jim Walton released a heavily edited version of the report Tuesday. It includes the name of just one of the 32 individuals suspected of wrongdoing: David Brame .... It doesn’t identify anyone else, including a former employee whom Walton has determined improperly shared confidential medical records with his wife. And it blacks out descriptions of all but two of 33 allegations investigators examined.

Walton says that agreements with city employee and police unions prevent him from making more complete disclosures, as does the Public Disclosure Law, despite findings that sustained wrongdoing in twelve cases. A lawyer for Brame's deceased wife disagrees.

“The city’s not really being honest with the citizens of Tacoma when they say they can’t hand it out because of the Public Disclosure Act,” [Paul] Luvera said. “They got lawyers to go to court and prevent it from being disclosed. That’s the only reason it wasn’t disclosed.

The public's right to know extends to wrongdoing by public employees. Except, it seems, in Tacoma.

We're just about into the middle of October, and so far, no surprise. There will be one, of course, Karl Rove leaves nothing to chance.

Here's my current best guess: Osama will turn up dead. There's too many problems if he turns up alive....debate over where he gets held, does he get a trial and by who, yada yada.

If he turns up dead, it will be as if Bush killed the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz...people will be chanting, "Ding, Dong, the witch is dead" as if all our battles with terrorists will be over.

Bush needs Osama gone, not captured. Now here's the question: If he turns up dead, will an independent pathologist or medical examiner be allowed to examine his remains to determine how long he's been dead? Wouldn't you want to know if he died a few days ago or has been in storage for six months or more, in preparation for an October unveiling?

Just a thought.

A big round of applause for our nation's labor unions...they are making their own Vote for Change tour, only they are using electricians, rather than musicians. On a mass scale, union members are hitting the road to get out the vote and beat Bush.

Union leaders are running a massive on-the-ground effort to defeat President Bush in swing states — a push that could prove crucial as the race for the White House boils down to competing drives to turn out voters.

Longshore workers, who tangled with the Bush administration during the 2002 West Coast port lockout, are walking precincts in landlocked Las Vegas. Members of the United Auto Workers (news - web sites), whose organizing tactics are being challenged by Bush appointees on the National Labor Relations Board, are stirring up fellow union members in depressed Midwestern factory towns.

Janitors with the aggressive Service Employees International Union are riding buses from Los Angeles to Arizona and from New York to Florida, targeting Latino voters. Meanwhile, the political bellwether state of Ohio is teeming with union electricians, steelworkers, phone technicians and other volunteers from neighboring states.

These union members, and admittedly, there are union members and even unions that feel differently, really, really dislike Bush.

Kentucky Republican Senator Jim Bunning is in hot water with critics for admitting he used a teleprompter during a debate with his opponent this week.

I thought it was obvious Bush used a teleprompter during his closing statement at the first debate (September 30) and said so at the time. From my live-blogging post:

Closing: Bush has to be reading from a teleprompter for his closing. He's fluent for the first time all night. And his facial expressions are practiced and nuanced to fit the cadence of his speech. What a difference. He can't do it without a script.

Kerry's closing also seemed much more pat than his debate answers. I just assumed the rules allow use of teleprompters for closing arguments. Does anyone know the answer?

Here's how Bush and Kerry's stands differ on domestic issues, according to the San Francisco Chronicle:

Bush supports tax cuts for all Americans; Kerry favors cuts for those earning less than $200,000 a year. Kerry favors government subsidies and tax breaks to bring down the cost of health care; Bush favors a market-based approach. Kerry favors importation of prescription drugs from Canada; Bush does not.

Bush opposes legal abortion and federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, and supports a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage; Kerry supports abortion rights and federal spending on embryonic stem cell research and a state-by-state approach to same-sex marriage.

Bush supports the death penalty; Kerry opposes it.

Kerry's advisors apparently are telling him to rachet up the use of statistics during tonight's debate. [link corrected]

I think that's a very poor move. Statistics lose viewers. Cable news producers roll their eyes when guests start spouting them off. They even ask guests not to use them. Viewers want to hear ideas, not numbers.

Does anyone think the death penalty will come up as an issue tonight? Given the Supreme Court's oral arguments today on the juvenile death penalty, I would like to hear Bush explain his support for a punishment that has been rejected by almost every civilized nation in the world and puts us in the company of Iran, Iran, Pakistan, China and Saudi Arabia.

Or how about asking Bush to explain why abortion is murder but the death penalty isn't? If he truly supports life, and all life is valuable, shouldn't he oppose state-sanctioned murder?

This is an important debate...particularly if Bush flubs it again like he did during the first debate.

Six U.S. soldiers were killed today in Iraq. It will probably get worse now that an ultimatum has been given in Fallujah to turn over al Zarqawi or face new attacks.

In Baghdad, Iraq’s interim prime minister also warned that US. and Iraqi forces will launch military operations in the main insurgent stronghold Fallujah if residents do not hand over Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose group has kidnapped and beheaded numerous foreigners, including Briton Ken Bigley.

Fat chance, especially now.

Last year, insurgents sharply increased their attacks against coalition forces during Ramadan, expected to start at the end of this week. Extremists believe they win a special place in paradise if they die in a jihad, or holy war, during Ramadan.

PFC Lynndie England is a mother. She gave birth Sunday at Fort Bragg. The father reportedly is Charles Graner, who is also facing Abu Ghraib abuse charges. The Baltimore Sun reports the baby is a boy.

England's trial is set for January, 2005. If convicted on all 17counts, she could receive up to 38 years in jail.

Among the charges is conspiring to commit maltreatment of an Iraqi detainee by posing in a photograph holding a leash around the detainee, indecent acts with numerous soldiers and wrongfully creating sexually explicit photographs of herself.

Last year Attorney General John Ashcroft embarked on a three week tour of the country to promote the Patiot Act, followed by a one week Liberty Tour. How much did he spend bringing the Administrations' propoganda to those beyond the beltway? According to the GAO, more than $200,000.

Rep. John Conyers asked for the accounting. Now that it's in, he is asking for an investigation.

The law maker accused Ashcroft (pdf) of violating federal laws that prohibit the executive branch from conducting "propaganda" or legislative lobbying with public money.

The Justice Department responded:

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in Roper v. Simmons, a case that will decide the constitutionality of executing people who were under 18 at the time of their crimes. There are 71 Death Row inmates in the U.S. who committed murder as teens. (check out this graphic from the Dallas Morning News.)

We're in good company. The only other countries that execute offenders who were juveniles at the time of their crime are Iran, Iran, Pakistan, China and Saudi Arabia.;

In 1988 and 1989, when the Court last considered the issue, it ruled that states could not execute those younger than 16 when they commit murder, but concluded there was no national consensus against executing juveniles who are 16 or 17. [Note, that the issue revolves around the age at which the crime was committed, not age at the time of execution.] Here are some of the most recent news articles examining the case and issue:

Chicago Tribune: 4 of 9 Justices call for end to executing Juveniles.

Two justices who voted to strike down the death penalty for the retarded--Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy--may be the most likely to provide additional votes for outlawing juvenile executions.

The third and final Kerry-Bush debate takes place tonight in Arizona. Here's what topics are on the agenda :

"What I'm going to tell the people tomorrow night is we're not going to go back to the days of tax and spend," Bush told supporters in Arizona, criticising Kerry as a big-spending liberal whose health care plan would amount to a government takeover.

Kerry's plan: