The Army Times and associated papers are calling for Rumsfeld’s resignation:

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Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.

This is not about the midterm elections. Regardless of which party wins Nov. 7, the time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard bruising truth:

Donald Rumsfeld must go.

And the reaction from the White House?

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“To sort of shrug it off,” said Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, pointing out that these are not the opinions of military people, but rather newspaper editorial writers “who live in Arlington, Va.”

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Obviously, in light of this week’s revelations, evangelist Ted Haggard is going to have some trouble keeping his old political allies. I suppose a guy learns who is real friends are after he’s been accused of having a meth-filled fling with a gay prostitute.

Considering the fact that the president considers loyalty one of the most important qualities a person can have, will Bush stand by his friend Haggard in his time of need? Not so much. Consider yesterday’s White House press gaggle:

Q: This Reverend Haggard out in Colorado, is he someone who is close to the White House? There had been reports that he was on the weekly call with evangelicals. Is that true?

MR. FRATTO: I’m actually told that that’s not true, that he has — in terms of a weekly call that he has? He had been on a couple of calls, but was not a weekly participant in those calls. I believe he’s been to the White House one or two times. I don’t want to confine it to a specific number because it would take a while to figure out how many times. But there have been a lot of people who come to the White House….

Yep, now that Haggard is mired in scandal, his old friend the president asks, “Ted who?”

Let’s set the record straight here. Every Monday, Haggard has participated in a West Wing conference call with evangelical leaders. He’s one of only a handful of religious leaders with immediate access to the Bush White House. Here’s a nice pic of Haggard and his friend Bush in the Oval Office. Haggard has personally (and successfully) lobbied the White House on policy issues more than once.

For the Bush gang to now say that Haggard is just some guy who might have been to the White House once or twice is simply wrong. And as it turns out, it’s part of a pattern.

When Enron’s Ken Lay got into trouble, his long-time friend dropped him like a hot potato. The president was so desperate to distance himself from a man with whom he’d been close friends for years, he even misled reporters about the nature of their relationship.

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US Customs and Border Protection issued a notice in the Federal Register yesterday which detailed the agency’s massive database that keeps risk assessments on every traveler entering or leaving the country. Citizens who are concerned that their information is inaccurate are all but out of luck: the system “may not be accessed under the Privacy Act for the purpose of contesting the content of the record.”

The system in question is the Automated Targeting System, which is associated with the previously-existing Treasury Enforcement Communications System. TECS was built to screen people and assets that moved in and out of the US, and its database contains more than one billion records that are accessible by more than 30,000 users at 1,800 sites around the country. Customs has adapted parts of the TECS system to its own use and now plans to screen all passengers, inbound and outbound cargo, and ships.

The system creates a risk assessment for each person or item in the database. The assessment is generated from information gleaned from federal and commercial databases, provided by people themselves as they cross the border, and the Passenger Name Record information recorded by airlines. This risk assessment will be maintained for up to 40 years and can be pulled up by agents at a moment’s notice in order to evaluate potential threats against the US.

If you leave the country, the government will suddenly know a lot about you. The Passenger Name Record alone contains names, addresses, telephone numbers, itineraries, frequent-flier information, e-mail addresses—even the name of your travel agent. And this information can be shared with plenty of people:

• Federal, state, local, tribal, or foreign governments
• A court, magistrate, or administrative tribunal
• Third parties during the course of a law enforcement investigation
• Congressional office in response to an inquiry
• Contractors, grantees, experts, consultants, students, and others performing or working on a contract, service, or grant
• Any organization or person who might be a target of terrorist activity or conspiracy
• The United States Department of Justice
• The National Archives and Records Administration
• Federal or foreign government intelligence or counterterrorism agencies
• Agencies or people when it appears that the security or confidentiality of their information has been compromised

That’s a lot of people who could be looking at your information and your government-designed risk assessment. The one person who won’t be looking at that information is you. The entire system is exempt from inspection and correction under provision 552a (j)(2) and (k)(2) of US Code Title 5, which allows such exemptions when the data in question involves law enforcement or intelligence information.

So a cop investigates you because of it, a court uses it to judge you, and the DOJ uses it to effectively sentence you. And you can not challenge it… Stalin would have been proud.

And next will be state lines?

The solution is simple. Just cross the border with three elephants and a six-member mariachi band; the government will never know!

Now, donkeys, on the other hand…

More posters here.

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Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging by Iraq’s High Tribunal on Sunday.

No surprise, of course. The real news is this:

“It has become clear to the Iraqi people and the whole world that this court is politicized 100 percent,” Salih al-Mutlaq, head of the second largest Sunni parliamentarian block, told the Doha-based al-Jazeera satellite channel.

Al-Mutlaq accused the U.S. and Iraqi governments of interfering with the work of the court and said a verdict would further polarize Iraqi society, already traumatized by sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis.

“This verdict will be the last nail in the coffin of the national reconciliation plan and the political process,” al-Mutlaq said. “I call upon Arab leaders and … to interfere for the sake of Iraq’s unity.”

The head of another prominent Sunni group, Harith al-Dhari, said any verdict should be delayed until after the departure of U.S. forces, who toppled Saddam following their March 2003 invasion of the country.

“If this court issues the verdict, I would consider it to be illegal, illegitimate and political,” al-Dhari told al-Arabiya, a satellite television channel viewed throughout the Arab world.

Echoing those sentiments, the Association of Muslim Scholars, a hard-line Sunni clerical group, demanded that Saddam’s trial be postponed until “the occupation leaves”.

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A judge ruled Friday that scanning of absentee ballots can start early, but the ruling could be meaningless in Cuyahoga County unless election officials overcome a potentially devastating glitch in their scanners.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Dan Gaul’s ruling, which applies to all 88 counties in Ohio, says scanning may begin at 7 a.m. Monday, 19 hours earlier than Secretary of State Ken Blackwell planned to allow.

County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora and County Prosecutor Bill Mason asked for the ruling to make sure as many as 100,000 absentee ballots get counted in Cuyahoga County by the end of Election Day.

But Cuyahoga officials discovered late in the week that their Diebold Election Systems scanners do not accurately read test ballots. The malfunction is similar to what happened in May, when the inability of scanners to read 17,000 misprinted absentee ballots forced a hand count that delayed election results for a week.

In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.

Ambrose Bierce (1842 – 1914), The Devil’s Dictionary

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Patricia Santangelo wouldn’t concede in her fight with record companies that accused her of pirating songs over the Internet. Now the companies are hoping for an easier tussle against her kids.

Five record companies, represented by the Recording Industry Association of America, filed a lawsuit in federal court in White Plains on Wednesday against Santangelo’s son and daughter.

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The AP wire article is also running in The New York Times and The Washington Post. And do a news search on Santangelo and it’s everywhere online as well: US Today, CBS and Fox news, The San Francisco Chronicle, BusinessWeek.

Everyone has it —

—- everyone, that is, except the Santangelo family and their lawyer, Jordan Glass.

Because the RIAA (Recording (Industry Association of America), run by EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France) and Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), with Warner Music as the sole US company, chose to use the mainstream media to launch their suit by releasing a suppose court document without bothering to file it with a court.

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The Rev. Ted Haggard was dismissed Saturday as leader of the megachurch he founded after a board determined the influential evangelist had committed “sexually immoral conduct,” the church said.

Haggard had resigned two days earlier as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, where he held sway in Washington and condemned homosexuality, after a Denver man named Mike Jones claimed to have had drug-fueled trysts with him. He also had placed himself on administrative leave from the New Life Church, but its Overseer Board took the stronger action Saturday.

“Our investigation and Pastor Haggard’s public statements have proven without a doubt that he has committed sexually immoral conduct,” the independent board said in a statement.

Think about this for a second – the problem here is not that these guys are being gay and hypocritical (okay, that is a problem, but not the BIG problem), the problem is that they are in the public eye, they know people are watching and they do it anyway.

How colossally arrogant is it to think that you can be a congressman and hit on underage pages and not think you are going to get busted? How arrogant is it to be the head of the organization that has made ant-gay preaching a foundational principle and then go hire a male prostitute on a monthly basis and not expect to get caught?

It’s addict mentality. They know they shouldn’t do it, but they can’t stop themselves, like the drunk who can’t say no to the next drink. Weak, pathetic losers, just like their congregations – soft, comfy, middle-class weakness. Unable to sacrifice, unable to deny themselves even when it’s in their best interest, unable to resist their appetites.

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With the writing all but written on the wall, Republicans are still yielding no ground.

Here’s a sampling of their most confident musings over the past few days:

» “If we mobilize all of our resources and mobilize our voters to the polls on Election Day, we’re going to do just fine.�? – Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, in Human Events magazine

» “I’m predicting we’re not going to lose any seats. My prediction is as good as anybody else’s. The day after the election, we’ll see who was right.�? – Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, in the Associated Press

» “When our voters show up at the polls, we will keep control of the House and Senate.�? – President Bush, in the Los Angeles Times

» “I’m confident we’re going to keep the Senate; I’m confident we’re going to keep the House.�? – White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, to Fox News

» “It is a Republican Congress we will have after the midterm elections.�? – Rep. Tom Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, to Fox News

» By many measures, there are strong indications of a right-of-center base that is engaged and committed.�? – RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, in a memo to supporters

» “I know of no more disciplined effort than the Republican campaign. I think we’re going to hold both houses.�? – Republican grassroots consultant Edward Grefe, at a panel discussion sponsored by The George Washington University