WASHINGTON (Reuters) – John Roberts, a 50-year-old conservative, was sworn in on Thursday as the 17th chief justice of the United States, a lifetime job that positions him to help shape the American way of life for decades.

In a White House ceremony, Roberts took the oath as the youngest chief justice in two centuries — just hours after the Republican-led Senate confirmed him with significant Democratic support as President George W. Bush’s first nominee to the Supreme Court, the nation’s final legal arbiter.

“The Senate has confirmed a man with an astute mind and a kind heart,” Bush told a gathering that included members of Roberts’ family, fellow justices and Senate leaders.

The president is expected to soon name a second Supreme Court nominee, one likely to face a tougher fight since the often divided court’s ideological balance will be at stake.
Link Here.

What is at stake is whether we have a Supreme Court that contines to be a forum for Judicial Activism or return to what the founding fathers actually intended.

Senator Chuck Schumer, who runs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, has long decried the potential for identity theft and the loss of privacy in the marketplace. In April of this year, Schumer introduced legislation to create an entire new bureaucracy for “data merchants”, the Schumer-Nelson ID Theft Prevention Bill. What penalties does the Schumer-Nelson bill prescribe for violations? A thousand dollars per violation, for starters, and repeated violations probably would get escalated.

So what did Schumer and the DSCC do with two staffers that got caught with Lt. Governor Michael Steele’s (R-MD) credit report? Apparently gave them a two-month vacation with pay, according to the New York Post:

Phil Singer, a spokesman for the Schumer-headed Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said two staffers were instantly suspended — with pay — in July after admitting they obtained the credit report of Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who is running for Senate.
Sources familiar with the situation said the committee’s head of research, Katie Barge, and a deputy, Lauren Weiner, got the credit report by using Steele’s Social Security number, which they say they obtained from public documents.

Records obtained by The Post show the two continued to be paid by the Democratic committee at least through Aug. 31.

Katie Barge has quite a resumé as a researcher. She worked in that capacity for Media Matters, and before that for the John Edwards presidential campaign. In fact, she did opposition research for Edwards according to Common Dreams, which touted her as a key player to David Brock at Media Matters.

It seems that Ms. Barge got hired by the DSCC for exactly the purpose for which she got suspended. It seems telling that the Senator who wants to impose a new licensing and compliance bureaucracy on so-called data merchants hires people like Barge and then expresses outrage when they perform the tasks that made her such an attractive candidate for their position.

The DSCC’s suspension with pay — such a painful scolding! — earns Schumer the Captain Louis Renault Award, a recognition of hypocrisy so transparent that its existence serves only to entertain us. When Schumer starts treating his staff the way he proposes that the government treat the taxpayer, we’ll alert the usual suspects.

From the Captain’s Quarters.

NEW YORK — Saying the United States “does not surrender to blackmail,” a judge ruled Thursday that pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison must be released over government claims that they could damage America’s image.

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ordered the release of certain pictures in a 50-page decision that said terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven they “do not need pretexts for their barbarism.”

The ACLU has sought the release of 87 photographs and four videotapes taken at the prison as part of an October 2003 lawsuit demanding information on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody and the transfer of prisoners to countries known to use torture. The ACLU contends that prisoner abuse is systemic.Source

I’m sure the ACLU are throwing a party with their buddies at CAIR over this one. Just what we all wanted, more sickening pictures to fuel the flames of jihad.

From Stop the ACLU.

Katherine Kersten, Star Tribune

Across Iraq, Americans and Iraqis are working together to reclaim the country from Baathists and terrorists. They are building or refurbishing schools, hospitals, roads and sewer systems. “The battle with the terrorists left Fallujah in rubble,” says Vold. “But every day, people thanked us. ‘We might have to rebuild our house,’ they said, ‘but you gave us back our city.’ ”

Do the Washington protesters know about these great strides? Vold can’t say. “When I got back from Iraq, I was disappointed — astounded, really — to read the news. The media was saying it’s all a failure, while we saw successes around us every day.”

Vold puts the continuing sporadic violence in perspective. Most of Iraq, he says, is quiet. “Baghdad is a vibrant city, the size of Chicago’s metro area. A bomb goes off — it’s a bad thing, but it’s like we’re sitting in Eden Prairie and a bomb goes off in Andover. The police investigate, people go about their business. Rush hour is one big traffic jam.”

Antiwar demonstrators sometimes claim that their prime motivation is concern for the safety of American troops. “Support the troops,” the lawn signs say, “bring them home.”

But it doesn’t work that way, says Vold. “I try not to take it personally. The reason I’m a Marine is to ensure this is a free country. But I don’t think the protesters know the effect they’re having on the soldiers. You’re always tired, cold or hot, homesick. The last thing you need is a sense that people back home say your mission is doomed, when you see good things happening all the time.”

Vold adds that antiwar rhetoric sometimes implicitly portrays soldiers as dupes on a fool’s errand. “We volunteered to go to Iraq. The guys over there, who know the situation best, are re-enlisting in great numbers. Most of the guys I served with think this is the best thing America has done in our careers.”

How did the Sheehan protest play in Iraq? Yesterday, I asked Vold’s friend, Lt. Col. James MacVarish, an adviser to Iraqi troops in Fallujah. He told me in an e-mail that the Iraqis he works with believe such protests and the press they generate “play directly to the strengths of our mutual enemy.” Iraqis “are absolutely astounded,” he adds, “that we ‘allow’ that to continue.” A few days ago, he had to give his Iraqi colleagues an hourlong civics lesson on freedom of the press.

MacVarish says that the terrorists can’t win militarily. So their strategy is to make the U.S. and Iraqi people “bleed a little every day.” They hope that the resulting media attention will turn the tide of American opinion against the war, and make the political cost of sustaining it too high. “The more play the press gives Cindy Sheehan,” MacVarish concludes, “the better the terrorists’ chances are of ultimately succeeding here.”

Read the full article here.

Mayor Martin O’Malley formally began his campaign for governor today with a pledge “to get Maryland moving again,” telling hundreds of supporters gathered in a Baltimore park that Marylanders “deserve a governor who isn’t content with allowing our state to slip backward.”

O’Malley did not mention Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. by name, but he offered a litany of criticism of what is happening in the state that was clearly aimed at the Republican governor.

The mayor told a crowd estimated by city police to be 2,000 that the cost of a college education is up by 40 percent, fewer working Marylanders have health insurance, and state taxes and fees have been increased by more than $1 billion.

“I submit to you, sadly, that Maryland is adrift, and it’s time to get Maryland moving again, because we know a stronger Maryland can do better,” O’Malley said.

Audra Miller, spokeswoman for the Maryland Republican Party, said while Ehrlich has turned a huge budget deficit into a huge surplus, created jobs and increased aid for education, “the mayor has a six-year record of failed leadership for the people of Baltimore.”
from the Baltimore Sun.

Amazing. He has done nothing for the city, and he wants to run the whole state.

Just amazing. Just to note, here is some stuff I got from another republican website on O’Malley’s performance:

* 2004 was the deadliest year since O’Malley took office with 278 murdered, making it the 3rd most dangerous city in America.

* Baltimore schools rank as the worst in Maryland, all middle schools in the city failed proficiency in math and reading while the city receives the highest per pupil spending, The school system continually faced huge deficits while awarding big bonuses to schools’ CEO

* And city residents are leaving the city, more than 7,000 residents left last year and more than 24,000 have left since O’Malley took office.

Sure, let him run the state!

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has indicted House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in connection with the same campaign finance investigation that Earle has been conducting for a long time. Earle is a notorious Democratic Party hack whom we’ve written about before.

DeLay has issued the following statement:

These charges have no basis in the facts or the law. This is just another example of Ronnie Earle misusing his office for partisan vendettas. Despite the clearly political agenda of this prosecutor, Congressman DeLay has cooperated with officials throughout the entire process. Even in the last two weeks, Ronnie Earle himself had acknowledged publicly that Mr. DeLay was not a target of his investigation. However, as with many of Ronnie Earle’s previous partisan investigations, Ronnie Earle refused to let the facts or the law get in the way of his partisan desire to indict a political foe.

This purely political investigation has been marked by illegal grand jury leaks, a fundraising speech by Ronnie Earle for Texas Democrats that inappropriately focused on the investigation, misuse of his office for partisan purposes, and extortion of money for Earle’s pet projects from corporations in exchange for dismissing indictments he brought against them. Ronnie Earle’s previous misuse of his office has resulted in failed prosecutions and we trust his partisan grandstanding will strike out again, as it should. Ronnie Earle’s 1994 indictment against Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison was quickly dismissed and his charges in the 1980s against former Attorney General Jim Mattox-another political foe of Earle-fell apart at trial.

We regret the people of Texas will once again have their taxpayer dollars wasted on Ronnie Earle’s pursuit of headlines and political paybacks. Ronnie Earle began this investigation in 2002, after the Democrat Party lost the Texas state legislature to Republicans. For three years and through numerous grand juries, Ronnie Earle has tried to manufacture charges against Republicans involved in winning those elections using arcane statutes never before utilized in a case in the state. This indictment is nothing more than prosecutorial retribution by a partisan Democrat.

Well put. DeLay has also announced that he will temporarily step aside as Majority Leader, pursuant to the House Republican rules.

Via Power Line News.

Here is how DeLay finished his press conference this morning:

Mr. Earle, an unabashed partisan zealot with a well-documented history of launching baseless investigations and indictments against his political enemies, has been targeting a political action committee on whose advisory board I once served. During his investigation, he has gone out of his way to give several media interviews in his office – the only days he actually comes to the office, I’m told – in which he has singled me out for personal attacks, in direct violation of his public responsibility to conduct an impartial inquiry.
Despite his long-standing animosity toward me – and the abusive investigation that animosity has unfortunately rendered – as recently as two weeks ago, Mr. Earle himself publicly admitted I had never been a focus or target of his inquiry.

Let me be very, very clear. I have done nothing wrong. I have violated no law, no regulation, no rule of the House. I have done nothing unlawful, unethical, or, I might add, unprecedented even in the political campaigns of Mr. Earle himself. My defense in this case will not be technical or legalistic: it will be categorical and absolute. I am innocent. Mr. Earle and his staff know it. And I will prove it.

from Powerline.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Plans to build a freedom museum at the World Trade Center site were effectively scrapped on Wednesday as Gov. George Pataki gave in to pressure from vocal families of September 11 victims, saying the project had aroused “too much opposition, too much controversy.”

The International Freedom Center was criticized by some families of the 2,749 people killed on September 11, 2001, who said the museum would not focus strictly on the terror attacks and might mount exhibits that could be judged as anti-American.

“Today there remains too much opposition, too much controversy, over the programing of the IFC and we must move forward with our first priority, the creation of an inspiring memorial to pay tribute to our lost loved ones and tell their stories to the world,” Pataki said in a statement.
from Yahoo News.

Click here to read about Honor Killing in Denmark .

by Dale Light

During his testimony before a House committee yesterday, former FEMA Director Michael Brown talked about a number of things that had made an effective response to the building Katrina disaster difficult. One of these was the mainstream media.

MSNBC reports:

Brown blamed “a hysteric media” for compounding the crisis with what he said were unfounded reports of rapes and murders. He characterized blunt-spoken Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, the military coordinator for the disaster, as “a bull in the China closet, God love him.”

Read it here. .

Read the whole thing here..

Read the whole thinghere. .

Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos renewed his criticism of the Democratic mayor yesterday, the same day that his baseball team bought a full-page color advertisement in The Sun thanking Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. for pressing for favorable terms that protect the team from financial competition from the Washington Nationals.

“I think basically O’Malley is nothing more than a Washington suburbanite who does not understand the city or its people,” Angelos, a major Democratic donor, said in an interview yesterday.

Also yesterday, Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan, who is expected to face O’Malley in a Democratic primary, readied a pre-emptive strike on the mayor’s credibility. Duncan is set to release campaign fliers today that claim O’Malley has inflated the accomplishments of his six years as mayor, including fighting violent crime, improving public schools, cutting property taxes and fostering economic development.

“Martin O’Malley has a habit of exaggerating in order to divert attention away from a city still plagued by crime, a struggling school system and his failure to meet his own goals,” says a Duncan campaign flier obtained by The Sun.
from the Baltimore Sun.

It appears the New York Times could not resist getting a slam on Fox, even if the story appeared to be a lie.

Alessandra Stanley stated in the paper, incorrectly it turns out, that “Fox’s Geraldo Rivera did his rivals one better: yesterday, he nudged an Air Force rescue worker out of the way so his camera crew could tape him as he helped lift an older woman in a wheelchair to safety.”

Of course it was all there on tape and the New York Times admittered their mistake and thus lowered the standards for journalism even farther.Here is their correction.

The TV Watch column on Sept. 5 discussed broadcast journalists’ undisguised outrage at the failings of Hurricane Katrina rescue efforts. It said reporters had helped stranded victims because no police officers or rescue workers were around, and added, “Fox’s Geraldo Rivera did his rivals one better: yesterday, he nudged an Air Force rescue worker out of the way so his camera crew could tape him as he helped lift an older woman in a wheelchair to safety.”

The editors understood the “nudge” comment as the television critic’s figurative reference to Mr. Rivera’s flamboyant intervention. Mr. Rivera complained, but after reviewing a tape of his broadcast, The Times declined to publish a correction.

Numerous readers, however – now including Byron Calame, the newspaper’s public editor, who also scrutinized the tape – read the comment as a factual assertion. The Times acknowledges that no nudge was visible on the broadcast.

Ah, our wonderful media…

WHEN NAVY JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL RECRUITER Brian Whitaker visited Yale Law School in October 2003 to meet with students interested in serving as Navy lawyers, his reaction must have been something like that of the man who was tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail; if it weren’t for the honor of the thing, he’d probably rather have passed on it. Virtually all Yale law students had signed a petition vowing that they would not meet with Whitaker or other JAG recruiters. The petition was publicly displayed inside the law school as part of a protest display that included black and camouflage wall hangings. The one law student scheduled to meet with Whitaker cancelled the interview.

The ostensible cause of the consternation occasioned by Whitaker’s visit was the military’s compliance with the federal “don’t ask/don’t tell” law on homosexual conduct in the armed forces. Law schools across the country have hindered military recruiters from meeting with law students because the military’s adherence to the “don’t ask/don’t tell” law violates nondiscrimination policies enforced by the schools against on-campus recruiters.
link here.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Illegal immigrants are increasing despite tighter border security and now outnumber foreigners moving to the United States legally.
The Pew Hispanic Center reported Tuesday that immigration in general has been picking up, tracking the reviving American economy and improving jobs picture.

“The U.S. economy was obviously a very important factor in determining these flows,” said Roberto Suro, director of the center and a co-author of its study.

Immigration — both legal and illegal — topped 1.5 million people in 1999 and 2000, according to the report. The number of people entering the United States then plummeted to 1.1 million people by 2003, the same level as in 1992. Immigration bounced back to 1.2 million in 2004, but the report cautioned that it is difficult to say whether the recent upswing is part of a new trend.

“The extremely high (immigration) flows at the end of the past decade were not the norm, nor part of a long-term trend, but rather the peak of a momentary increase that lasted for only a few years,” said the report, which was written by Suro and demographer Jeffrey Passel.
from the USA Today.

BELFAST, Sept. 26 — Protestant politicians on Monday discounted official reports of a full disarmament by the Irish Republican Army, saying they wanted detailed proof before moving to reenter a power-sharing government with the British province’s Catholic community.

“Today was to be the day when the gun was to be finally taken out of Irish politics,” said Ian Paisley, 79, leader of the Democratic Unionists, Northern Ireland’s largest Protestant political party. He condemned the lack of photographs and full listing of the quantity and type of weapons destroyed.

Paisley spoke after the head of an international commission announced in Belfast that the IRA’s arsenal had been rendered “permanently unusable” in an operation witnessed by a Catholic priest and a Protestant minister. Catholic leaders and the prime ministers of Britain and Ireland called it a historic breakthrough that could bring a final close to more than three decades of sectarian conflict that has claimed about 3,600 lives.
from the Washington Times.

With the passage of time, it has become apparent that most of the “evidence” on the basis of which the Democrats launched their hysterical post-Katrina attack on the Bush administration was wrong. As the facts come into focus, the dominant question that emerges is: how could the mainstream media have done such a poor job in reporting on Hurricane Katrina?

Here’s the latest: The lurid reports of widespread criminality in New Orleans, and especially of crime and chaos at the SuperDome and Convention Center, were almost entirely untrue:

Following days of internationally reported murders, rapes and gang violence inside the stadium, the doctor from FEMA…came prepared for a grisly scene: He brought a refrigerated 18-wheeler and three doctors to process bodies. “I’ve got a report of 200 bodies in the Dome,” [Louisiana National Guard Col. Thomas] Beron recalled the doctor saying. The real total? Six, Beron said.

Of those, four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide, said Beron, who personally oversaw the handoff of bodies from a Dome freezer….

The vast majority of reported atrocities committed by evacuees — mass murders, rapes and beatings — have turned out to be false, or at least unsupported by any evidence, according to key military, law-enforcement, medical and civilian officials in positions to know. “I think 99 percent of it is [expletive],” said Sgt. 1st Class Jason Lachney, who played a key role in security and humanitarian work inside the Dome. The media’s enthusiastic mis-reporting of falsehood as fact seriously damaged the rescue effort:

Compass conceded that rumor had overtaken, and often crippled, authorities’ response to reported lawlessness, sending badly needed resources to situations that turned out not to exist.
It’s time for some accountability here. The conventional wisdom is that no one performed particularly well in the aftermath of Katrina–not local, state or federal authorities, and not considerable numbers of private citizens. But it now appears clear that the worst performance of all was turned in by the mainstream media. Congress should promptly investigate, and try to get to the bottom of the following questions:
from Powerline.

The Associated Press won’t even call them terrorists when they gun down schoolteachers in cold blood: Gunmen Kill Five Shiite Teachers in Iraq.

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Insurgents dragged five Shiite Muslim schoolteachers and their driver into a classroom, lined them against a wall and gunned them down Monday — slayings in Iraq’s notorious Triangle of Death that reflect the enflamed sectarian divisions ahead of a crucial constitutional referendum.
from LGF.

Cindy Sheehan Jealous Of Hurricane Rita

Un-freakin-believable:

I am watching cnn and it is 100 percent rita…even though it is a little wind and a little rain…it is bad, but there are other things going on in this country today…and in the world!!!!

by CindySheehan on Sat Sep 24th, 2005 at 06:29:15 PDT

She really does take the cake. Hey look at me, look at me, my son died doing what he VOLUNTEERED to do, but Bush is a criminal…..

Even more amazing is that someone on KOS actually disagreed with her:

it is 100 percent rita…even though it is a little wind and a little rain

I’m in Southeast Texas with family on the coast and in Lake Jackson, LA.

I’d like you to tell us it’s just a little wind and rain. They’ve lost their homes, jobs and businesses and gone through fear and panic while you bask in your fan’s adulation, party with your celebrity friends and play the star.

Shame on you, you’re jealous of media coverage of other’s suffering. You’ve become a caricature and I no longer support you. I’m ashamed I ever did.

Cindy answered back with a lie:

when i was watching cnn this morning, that’s what it was…i know it was much worse earlier and it was devastating, i didn’t make myself clear and i apologize.

i also know that the media will cover anything else besides the war.

from Flopping Aces.

click here.

Iran bubbles over.

GAZA (Reuters) – Israel launched multiple missile strikes in Gaza on Monday, hours after the main Palestinian militant group said it would stop attacking the Jewish state following Israeli air raids in response to rocket attacks.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faced a vote in his Likud party that threatened his leadership because of a rightist challenge to his withdrawal of troops and settlers from Gaza. A stormy eve-of-vote session on Sunday underlined party splits.

The worst surge of violence since Israel’s pullout from Gaza on September 12 after 38 years of occupation put pressure on a shaky ceasefire and on Sharon at the weekend.
from Yahoo News.