Staffer Cites Earlier Role by Hastert's Office  —  House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's chief of staff confronted then-Rep. Mark Foley about his inappropriate social contact with male pages well before the speaker said aides in his office took any action, a current congressional staff member …

New LA TIMES publisher is a Right Wing Hatchet man with ties to Judge Roberts and Ken Starr  —  Last night David Hiller, from the Chicago Tribune came into town to replace Jeffrey Johnson because he "publicly opposed a corporate demand for a stringent cost-cutting plan last month," In other words he was fired.

A True Blowout is Now Possible  —  After looking at the news for the past 10 days or so, I have to wonder how Democrats can possibly fail in their efforts to take both the House and the Senate.  —  The national atmospherics don't merely favor Democrats; they set the stage for a blowout of cosmic proportions next month.

Google in Talks To Buy YouTube For $1.6 Billion  —  Deal Could Put Search Giant  —  In Top Spot for Online Video;  —  A Front Door for Web Visits  —  The latest prize in the great Internet land grab, online-video company YouTube Inc., could soon be snapped up by Google Inc.

Lamont's Lull  —  In a record week, futures in Ned Lamont continued to plummet in the political market.  Big board polls put the Connecticut Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate falling sharply behind incumbent independent Joseph Lieberman.  Most legit polls that insiders and serious observers look …

2 ROCKETS DEFUSED AT PAKISTAN PARLIAMENT  —  ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Two rockets rigged with mobile phones and primed to fire toward Pakistan's parliament were discovered by a construction worker Thursday and safely defused by bomb disposal experts, a security official said.

September Employment Report  —  The BLS reports: U.S. nonfarm payrolls climbed by 51,000 in September, after a revised 188,000 gain in August, and the unemployment rate fell slightly to 4.6% in September from 4.7% in August.  —  Click on graph for larger image.  —  Here is the cumulative nonfarm job growth for Bush's 2nd term.

In House Races, More G.O.P. Seats Seen at Risk  —  Tim Mahoney, left, is the Democrat running for former Representative Mark Foley's seat in Florida.  Republicans chose Joe Negron to take Mr. Foley's place, but he faces an uphill battle.  —  At least five more Republican Congressional seats …

Newspapers 2.0  —  Here's a remarkable and comprehensive report (by Krestia DeGeorge in City) on the current fracas going on at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.  Key point: … (Or hell, into Google, or Technorati.) … As Tim Rutten reports (and I pointed to yesterday) …

Rove Aide Linked To Abramoff Resigns  —  A top aide to White House strategist Karl Rove resigned yesterday after disclosures that she accepted gifts from and passed information to now-convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, becoming the first official in the West Wing to lose a job in the influence-peddling scandal.

Why libertarians and Democrats will have to agree to disagree  —  And now I will alienate a large chunk of my readership by announcing that aside from the New York State races for governor and attorney general, I will probably vote the straight Democratic ticket come November 7th.

Start the Revolution Without Him … "I AM WISE TO YOUR SNARKY WAYS."  Superstar blogger Markos Moulitsas won't let me near his house.  Instead, he meets me at a Berkeley coffee shop.  "When the Newsweek guy was there, he saw some workmen putting in my new plasma television and said something about it in the article."

Release of Iraq Report Sought  —  Democratic Rep. Jane Harman says the White House is suppressing a new intelligence document that gives a 'grim' view of the war.  —  WASHINGTON — The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee accused the Bush administration Thursday of suppressing …