I would like to express my appreciation to Patrick Fitzegerald and his team for the long hours and hard work that they spent on this case.  Even had the verdict come out differently, I would still be thankful that there are people in public service (and it is a service when you compare what these people could likely be making in the private sector versus the public).  You and your team conducted yourself in an exemplary manner throughout this and have managed to restore my very shaken belief in justice at least somewhat.  I'm doubly thankful that your work was not in vain and hopefully someday the whole sorid mess will be exposed to the full light of day.  

Okay I had the Situation Room on earlier today 5:00 - 6:00 segment for background noise and caught an interview Blitzer was doing with Richard Ben-Vineste.  I only caught the tail end of it and I have been looking for the transcript ever since.  I was sure it would be all over the blogs and everyone would be talking about what was said, including Blitzer at one point hitting the table in a state of pique(what I perceived to be)at what Ben-Vineste was saying.  Was I dreaming?  Anyone else seen it.  I hope a front pager will diary this (if it wasn't a dream).  It was a real eye popper what I heard RBV say about the "interviewing" of Bush with Cheney present.  What RBV said basically slams the Bush administration and concurs with Clinton, take that you asshat Kean and Path to 911 perpetrator!  Sorry no link, I'm beginning to think I dreamed the whole thing (or worse a V for Vendetta moment), none to be found yet.

I have had my suspicions that the death count would be kept down all along.  Several things that I have read in the Times Picayune have done little to allay my fears. This from todays... http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/
 

So it seems that those that starved or dehydrated in their attics will not be counted. Those who starved or dehydrated in the convention center or Superdome will not be counted.  Those that died at the airport from prior lack of medical care will not be counted.   Those in the hospital who didn't receive the medical care, that they needed and died on the loading dock awaiting rescue will not be counted, unless it was because of medical equipment failure.    

The latest video clips coming out from the convention center on MSNBC and CNN are truly heartwrenching.  Children screaming "give us help".  Mothers saying that their infant babys have no water or formula and haven't had for days.  One asked quite poignantly, "are you going to just let us die?"  Where are the right to lifers right now?    Children and the elderly are most at risk for dehydration.  I wonder how many children have already died from dehydration.  

http://kidshealth.org/teen/safety/first_aid/dehydration.html

Rush Limbaugh and Mary Maitlan are going to Afghanistan to report on all the great things there these days.    (I don't expect them to report on this http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0219afghan-snow19.html)

Daryn Kagan of CNN who supposedly is an item with Rush these days was going, but now is not.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33668-2005Feb17.html

For those who don't have registration here are the details without the Kagan commentary.

http://www.blackanthem.com/World/2005021812.html

What you may or may not realize is that this trip is being sponsored by USAID.  What is  USAID?  A brief synopsis of their history.  http://www.usaid.gov/about_usaid/usaidhist.html

Who does USAID report to?  None other than our new Secretary of State...http://www.usaid.gov/policy/budget/

Note also that Congress appropriates the funds for this government organization.  

Chairman Michael Powell ordered an investigation today into whether Armstrong Williams broke the law by failing to disclose he was paid by the Bush Administration to shill their education agenda.   I think the key word here is disclose. If you are so inclined please give the story a rate on yahoo, the freepers are doing an excellent job keeping it down.  
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050115/ap_on_go_ot/fcc_williams

Senators Dorgan and Wyden are asking the GAO to investigate if other paid commentators have been paid for shilling the administrations agenda also.  This could get mighty interesting.  This is exactly what the right wing conservative media via Bob Novak and WSJ is trying to obsfucate right now.  

The icing on the cake is the quote toward the end from Michael Copps.

The below link has a really cool picture and a simple sign in for you to thank Senator Boxer. No registration required.  Just arrow to the bottom of the comments and you can post your thanks.  

I've already e-mailed her and Rep. Tubbs, but this is pretty neat too.   I think it took a lot of guts for both ladies to stand up and do this and I won't soon forget it.  Hopefully their courage will be contagious to others.  

http://www.fotolog.net/grand_lake/?photo_id=8845010

I'm trying to clean up my house pre Thanksgiving holiday and watching C-Span.  The Dems are mad.  It's a sight to see.   I'm very heartened at these Democratic Reps who are standing up and fighting the antis and their legislation in it.  

The whole of the bill became available on line at around 12:15 am last night.  Have you had time to read it?   I didn't think so, neither did I.  I just got off work at 11:00 am and since they are already getting ready to vote on it, not much reason to, I won't be able to reach my congress person by then if I find more objectionable material.  It is  about 2' high paperwise, thousands of pages, one of the reps just brought the whole dang thing up to the podium, bless him for it looked heavy too, hope he doesn't get back problems.  Joked he thought that it ought to be against OSHA regulations.  Wonder what other wonderful things have been stuffed into that bill?

I read this article and it kind of disturbs me was wondering how others felt about this?  Maybe, I'm just old fashioned, maybe to me it's just a question of loyalty.  Maybe I take politics too seriously, maybe my ethics/belief system needs a reality check?

I'm more than a little dismayed by this as is Tom Erickson, or am I wrong and it's hey we all gotta eat and feed our families?  I personally don't think I would want to have anything to do with the RNC in any way, shape or form, especially business, but that's me. More below the fold.

I am supposed to be working so I will make this short.  

Andrew Card is on CNN this morning at 5:40. He is saying that the amount of provisional votes in Ohio is "unsurmountable..." for Kerry to win.  He is proclaiming a Bush victory of 286, but he claims a clear and decisive win.   He goes on to talk about the margin in the popular vote, etc., etc.   (it's early and I'm going from memory).  Remember how they spun things so effectively in 2000?  We CANNOT let them get away with this.  The oversea ballots MUST be counted (remember the stink that they made about them in Florida?), the provisional votes must be counted and at this point, all precints in NM have not been counted, etc.  I haven't had time to check what else, but NM for sure and it is totally irresponsible for them to behave this way without the counting of ALL votes, including provisional.  Rest below the fold.

I thought that some might find this link useful to keep track of all the legal going ons and the latest update.   I have bookmarked, I doubt that  this diary will be up long.  It's a pretty interesting read if you like legalese.  I'd love to see someone with more legal knowledge than me give a daily opinion on this or start a diary and comment.  I'm out of my element on this one, but it is very interesting.   The link is to Ohio State Univeristy, Moritz College of Law, they apparently update the status on various filings in swing states.  
 http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/analysis/041031b.html

I was listening to IMUS in the background this morning. He had  Jim Maceda of NBC News reporting from Baghdad on.  He made a comment (transcript not up yet) about how clever Zarqawi is and how he was capitalizing on the findings at Al Qaqa.  He said a little reported incident yesterday was claimed  by Zarquwi to be  the "Al Qaqa Brigade", implying that he was capitalizing on the headlines in the past few days.  This intrigued me and I did a google search on the brigade and came up with this and other items referencing the AQ Brigade.  Apparently the AQ Brigade was claiming responsibility for things at least several weeks before this.  I think this is quite astounding. Does this answer the question of who  and where the explosives are.  I think it likely, but at this point I have more questions than answers.  I think the media should be reporting on this apparent link between the explosives.  http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=164826

This has to be filed under the most bizarre news of the day.  I would like to have been the proverbial fly on the wall.  I checked before posting this by doing a search, and couldn't find that anyone else had posted it.  If so, apologies.  It was too much of a hoot to let anyone miss it.  Speculate out loud on what provoked this.  Temper tantrum  Is Karl "losing" it in more ways than one?  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/19/politics/main650084.shtml