DARFUR UPDATE: Yesterday:

Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick Wednesday briefed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the current situation in Darfur.

“In general in Darfur, what you are seeing is [that] the large scale organized violence has substantially subsided,” said Mr. Zoellick. “But the situation remains very fragile and dangerous.”

Mr. Zoellick said that while Sudanese government forces have withdrawn, their government-backed Arab militias, known as the “janjaweed,” have not disbanded and are still contributing to the violence.

Today:

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said Thursday an unprecedented attack on a displaced persons’ camp in Sudan’s embattled Darfur region reportedly has killed 29 people.

Antonio Guterres, chief of the U.N. agency, cited aid workers’ reports of the attack Wednesday at Aro Sharow camp which also left 10 seriously injured. These reports said up to 300 armed Arab men on horses and camels attacked the camp in northwest Darfur and burned about 80 makeshift shelters.

Between 4,000-5,000 Sudanese were believed to be living in the camp and most reportedly fled into surrounding countryside, UNHCR said. The nearby village of Gosmeina was also reportedly attacked and burned.

Why don’t we send guns and trainers?

THIS SOMEWHAT UNDERCUTS claims that we’re living in some sort of 1984-world:

A federal judge has rejected former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s attempt to block a lawsuit by claiming that the threat of terrorism exempts the government from following peacetime regulations.

The decision allows a lawsuit by two Muslim men who were detained after the Sept. 11 attacks to go forward against Ashcroft and other high-ranking federal officials. The two, who were later deported, are seeking to hold the officials responsible for their confinement and alleged abuse at a federal jail in Brooklyn where Arab and Muslim men were held after the terror attacks.

U.S. District Judge John Gleeson’s ruling Wednesday also opens the door for depositions of Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller and other officials, who will be questioned under oath about their personal knowledge of detention policies if they are unable to successfully appeal the decision.

As I recall, though, the detainees were charged with various crimes — such as immigration law violations, etc. — not simply with “being Muslim.” And, in fact, these guys were apparently guilty: “Elmaghraby and Iqbal were deported to their home countries after serving time for charges unrelated to terrorism — Elmaghraby for a counterfeiting charge and Iqbal for fraud.”

Prosecutors enjoy nearly unlimited discretion on whom to prosecute, and if federal prosecutors chose to prosecute people they feared might have terror connections for unrelated crimes I don’t see how that can make out a constitutional violation. Perhaps, though, I misunderstand the claim, as the story isn’t very clear.

I’LL BE ON CNBC’S Kudlow & Company about 5:40 today, talking about the PorkBusters project.

If you’re just coming to this, here’s the background on the PorkBusters project, and here’s the PorkBusters page.

UPDATE: Ian Schwartz has video. Thanks, Ian!

COULD A TOM-DELAY-PAYBACK be on the way? Looks pretty thin to me, but that may not matter.

RUDY GIULIANI is still way ahead in Patrick Ruffini’s straw poll.

What’s more, his lead extends across different kinds of respondents. Online polls are iffy, but I think Patrick’s gets enough people from the group of activists and serious political junkies to be an indication — and it’s not even close, with Giuliani way ahead of the number-two candidate, George Allen. Giuliani is even ahead among those calling themselves conservative, as well as those calling themselves libertarian. He trails Allen among those who tag themselves as pro-life, but not by much. Overall, he looks pretty strong, and he’s certainly a stronger national candidate in the general election than Allen, who is far less well-known. Perhaps most tellingly, he leads in a runaway among fiscal conservatives, outpolling the next three candidates combined.

Could Giuliani be the Perot of this decade? If he wanted to be, I think he could. (Heck, if the two parties continue their spiral of mutual destruction, he might even get elected as an independent.)

MICKEY KAUS: “Here is Harriett Miers’ bio … and here’s Michael McConnell’s. Assume they’re both fine people. If you had to make a snap decision, which one should be on the United States Supreme Court?”

GRAND ROUNDS is up!

TAMMY BRUCE, JAMES HUDNALL, AND EUGENE VOLOKH: Profiled over at the Pajamas Media site.

SECURITY PROBLEMS AT NUCLEAR WEAPONS LABS? The source is a union that’s crossways with the feds, but given the experience at Los Alamos this bears scrutiny.

UPDATE: More here.

JOHN ROBERTS has been confirmed, by a rather hefty margin.

JOHN TABIN thinks that Tom Delay’s departure is a promising development in terms of controlling spending. I think he’s right.

UPDATE: Read this post from the GOP stalwarts at AnklebitingPundits:

The GOP ran against lobbyists. Not specific lobbyists but rather the very idea that “K Street fat cats” (as we called them) were drafting legislation and deciding policy for a decrepit Democrat majority. We ran against corruption, such as Rostenkowski and all that. We were then an anti-Washington party, dismissing the “corridors or power” as a giant piggy bank for the highest bidding special interest groups. Hillarycare was just icing on the cake.

And yet somewhere along the line we became what we despised. . . . Clearly the Congressional GOP has lost much of its bearings, and is turning into the 1992-1993 version of the Congressional Democrats. And the question arises, what’s the point of having a majority if that majority doesn’t stand for anything useful?

The GOP is at serious risk of losing a decisive chunk of its voters to a Perot-style movement.

GREG DJEREJIAN: “The 7/7 bombings were all about the Iraq war, right? Ah, but alas the French don’t appear to get a pass as a result of their noble non-interventionist policies…”

TOM DELAY UPDATE: Howard Kurtz has a roundup, and so does Joe Gandelman, who observes: “Now, as DeLay becomes the first House leader to go on trial in a century, the GOP is at a perilous crossroads — and so are the Democrats.”

I think we’ll see more of this late-1990s-style ethics warfare come around again. It’s a pretty standard second-term phenomenon.

JEFF GOLDSTEIN has thoughts on the media’s Katrina errors.

IN THE MAIL: Jay Greene’s Education Myths : What Special-Interest Groups Want You to Believe About Our Schools and Why it Isn’t So. Thesis: “One major reason people find it plausible that schools are inadequately funded is that they know many schools aren’t performing well. But while adequate funding is a necessary condition for school success, it is far from sufficient by itself.”

HEH: “I love the way Glenn Reynolds comes in for a gratuitous beating.”

Doesn’t everyone?

PORK UPDATE: Looks like we’re seeing signs of awakening sense:

The Senate was up to its old tricks Monday evening. It prepared to pass, without debate and under a procedure requiring unanimous consent, a federal infusion of $9 billion into state Medicaid programs under the pretext of Katrina relief. The bill, drafted in secret under bipartisan auspices, was stopped cold when Republican Sen. John Ensign voiced his objection. . . .

Fear has enveloped Republicans who see themselves handing the banner of fiscal integrity to the Democrats. The GOP is losing the rhetoric war, even though Democrats mostly push for higher domestic spending, because Republicans, while standing firm against tax increases, have also declined to cut spending. Fearing the worst in the 2006 and 2008 elections, Republican senators who would not be expected to do so are looking to McCain to lead the party back to fiscal responsibility. . . .

President Bush’s opposition to the Grassley-Baucus bill was meaningless. Bush could not kill the bill by objecting, but any senator could, and Ensign did. Ensign noted that Congress had appropriated an extra $62 billion in the wake of Katrina.

Read the whole thing.

BIRD FLU IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: Gateway Pundit has a roundup.

MICHAEL YON has another report from Iraq posted.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY has more thoughts on Louisiana:

As we’ve also noted, nine months before Katrina, three officials of Louisiana’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness were indicted for obstructing an audit of the use, or misuse, of federal funds for flood-mitigation activities.

Louisiana ranks third in the nation in the number of indicted officials per capita. Just the past generation has seen a governor, an attorney general, a federal judge, a state Senate president and a swarm of local officials convicted of assorted crimes.

Police Superintendent Eddie Compass didn’t say why he suddenly resigned. But it comes after his department announced that about 250 New Orleans police officers — 15% of the force — could face punishment for leaving their posts without permission during Katrina.

Before Katrina, New Orleans was a crime-ridden city with a murder rate 10 times the national average. Only one in four murders result in a conviction, largely because retaliation against potential witnesses is common. Yet New Orleans had only three cops per 1,000 residents, a ratio less than half that of Washington, D.C.

It’s a serious problem, and another reason why we shouldn’t just be throwing money at rebuilding efforts.

TENNESSEE REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN is blogging about pork over at RedState, and responding to criticisms from commenters. More here.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Several folks have heard back from their elected representatives. Here are some posts about the responses they got.

Dave Price was impressed with Barack Obama’s response.

Reader Julie Martin-Korb wrote Paul Sarbanes and reports: “Mr. Sarbanes is proud of his spending initiatives, and he is opposed to tax cuts for the wealthy ‘in this time of need,’ but the only sentence in his letter that is even remotely responsive to my request is this: ‘Simultaneously, Congress must continuously review federal spending in order to ensure that our Nation pursues a responsible economic course while providing needed recovery funds.'”

From Rochester, New York, Evan Dawson of 13 WHAM TV News emails:

I’m a reporter for the ABC News affiliate in Rochester, NY, and the pork-for-relief plan was our lead story on Monday, September 19th. Here are quotes and responses from two representatives:

From Rep. Randy Kuhl (R): “Are there some earmarks in the transportation bill that are key to economic development? In this area, with some of the earmarks that I was able to put in, they are. So I would be very hesitant to have them removed, because I think you have to have economic development in this country if you’re going to be able to support hurricane relief.” In other words, he’s not willing to trade in his pork, as it would undermine the country’s capacity to charitably support hurricane recovery efforts.

From Rep. Louise Slaughter (D), when asked about trasnportation bill pork: “A lot of it is frivolous.” However, when pressed regarding her own pork (Slaughter secured, among other things, $1.6 million for the Rochester Art Walk — an outdoor museum), she responded, “Well, we’ll look and see. That is indeed, as you point out — it’s in the transportation bill. We’ll look and see what can be postponed and what can be put off.” But she closed by saying that her first preference is to eliminate “Bush’s tax cuts for the extraordinarily wealthy.”

As a reporter, I take no position on the pork-for-relief proposal. I just wanted to help alert the public as to where their federal representatives stand.

I hope that lots of local media folks will do the same thing. Meanwhile, Matt Duffy continues his ongoing, though largely fruitless, dialogue with Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, and thinks that Price’s office is mostly interested in “slowing down my efforts at getting Price to answer these specific questions.” Gee, d’ya think?

Reader Robert Hahn shares this scintillating response from Rep. Donald Payne:

Thank you very much for your email. I always appreciate the chance to hear from constituents. Your issues are of concern to me; please be assured that I will take your views under consideration. If you haven’t already, please stop by my website at www.house.gov/payne.
Please feel free to email me again, and thank you very much for your letter.

Hahn adds: “I suppose if I get a non-form letter reponse in the next couple of days, I’ll forward that along.” We’ll be waiting!

Maybe for a while. Reader Jim Uren emails: “I emailed [Rep.] Anna Eshoo D-CA five days ago. No response.”

Zachary Rethorn notes that Sen. Mike Dewine is still reviewing proposals.

UPDATE: This column on PorkBusters gets it right: “It may be that only 30% of the items on the Porkbusters wishlist will be cut in, say, the first fiscal year after the Porkbusters campaign begins. That does not preclude another 30% or so being cut the next year. And the year after that as well. And so on. Changing the entitlement culture is an incremental process. But eventually, the small gains can add up and we can achieve a budgetary process that is more fiscally responsible than the one we are currently saddled with. Recognizing this fact will go a long way towards fashioning a successful anti-pork political strategy. And it is not like the political facts on the ground don’t make it easy to cut pork.” Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s more, from Republican columnist Frank Cagle:

Bush may still be popular with the branch of the Republican Party that only cares about abortion, stem-cell research and displaying the Ten Commandments, but the fiscal-conservative small-government don’t-tread-on-me wing of the party has had enough.

He offers some advice on what the GOP needs to do to avoid disaster, which he sees as otherwise inevitable.

Meanwhile, Carroll Andrew Morse is worried that Katrina reconstruction will turn into pork. I’d say it’s a well-founded concern.

And reader C.J. Burch emails:

I have to admit, I’m surprised more of the fiscally responsible conservatives in the mainstream haven’t signed on to this idea. They certainly should. Why haven’t they? Where’s Robert Novak? Where’s George Will? Have you gotten any help from the folks over at the Corner? How about Fred Barnes and Bill Kristol?

How about ’em? My sense is that while complaining about corruption and waste and how they doom our society is considered acceptable punditry, attempting to do anything about the problem is seen as hopelessly naive.

MORE SERENITY REVIEWS: Here, here, here (“Where Sith was fast food that left you feeling nothing but gas, Serenity was a seven course meal.”)

Also here, here, and here, as well as here, here, here, and here.

Also here, and here.

UPDATE: Here’s another, from Will Collier.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Neil Gaiman and Joss Whedon talk about stuff, in Time.

MORE: Still more blog reviews, here, here (“Much better than anything Lucas has done in the last 10 years. Go see it.”), here, and here.

IPOD NANO PROBLEMS: “Apple Computer Inc. , responding to consumer complaints that the screen on its sleek, recently introduced iPod cracks too easily, said on Wednesday it will replace any defective units.”

EVERYBODY MAKES MISTAKES, but this is a fairly big one:

Judge John G. Roberts Jr., nominated to be chief justice of the United States, was not the author of an unsigned memorandum on libel law that was the focus of an article published in The New York Times yesterday. The Times erroneously attributed it to him.

Bruce Fein, a Washington lawyer who was general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission in the Reagan administration, said yesterday that he wrote the memorandum, a caustic critique of New York Times v. Sullivan, the 1964 Supreme Court decision that revolutionized American libel law, and of the role played by the press in society. . . .

Three people quoted in the article discussed the Fein memorandum, provided to them by a reporter, on the assumption that it had been written by Judge Roberts.

Oops. (Via Bill Quick, who observes “Trust, but verify.” Indeed.)