† How ACORN Got Buried By “Squirrelly Right-Wingers”: ACORN’s lawsuit against James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles accuses the two undercover citizen journalists of violating a MD law that requires two-party consent for electronic surveillance, and names the news aggregator Breitbart.com as a defendant for posting their videos, reports The Washington Times:

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is seeking a court order to prohibit further distribution of the videos and payment for compensatory and punitive damages. …

The legal action puts ACORN back on an offensive footing after waging a largely unsuccessful public relations campaign to repair its image by firing employees caught in the sting, temporarily closing offices to retrain staff and enlisting independent investigators to review its operations. The moves did little to preserve support in Washington. …

The IRS was the latest agency to distance itself from ACORN. The IRS said it would eject ACORN from the agency's volunteer tax assistance program, which provides tax-preparation help to about 3 million low-income workers.

In a conference call with the media, ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis told reporters the organization does not support criminal activity and that it thinks the filmmakers should have obeyed Maryland laws.

Meanwhile, FOX News talk-show host Glenn Beck derided ACORN’s internal investigation into its operations as being “bogus,” reports The Washington Times:

"It's a show," Mr. Beck told The Washington Times' "America's Morning News" radio show. ... "Until you start going to the people at the top ... the people connected to the White House, you cannot clean up this mess."

Mr. Beck noted that ACORN's advisory board includes Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy and former Maryland lieutenant governor; John Podesta, a Clinton administration chief of staff; and Henry G. Cisneros, secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the Clinton administration.

"How could you possibly clean up ACORN with these people on the board," Mr. Beck said. "You have the worst of the worst sitting on this board making decisions."

Editorial Note: The Washington Post reports that Robert Groves, who heads the U.S. Census Bureau axed ACORN as an agency partner because the bureau's link to the discredited organization was hurting efforts to get Americans to participate in the count.

† Obama – Not McCain - Will Be Bush III: The Obama administration will not to seek new legislation from Congress authorizing indefinite detention of terrorism suspects held without charges at  Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, reports The New York Times:

Instead, the administration will continue to hold the detainees without bringing them to trial based on the power it says it has under the Congressional resolution passed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, authorizing the president to use force against forces of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

In concluding that it does not need specific permission from Congress to hold detainees without charges, the Obama administration is adopting one of the arguments advanced by the Bush administration in years of debates about detention policies. …

The Justice Department … pointed out that courts would continue to review the cases of those held without charges through habeas corpus hearings. …

The legal interpretation applies to detainees whom the government concludes should be held because they are a continuing danger to national security but who cannot be brought to trial for various reasons, like evidence tainted by harsh interrogations. Although it has not determined definitively how many detainees that applies to, officials said it would probably be about 50 of the more than 200 men still held at Guantánamo. The government plans to bring the others to trial or send them to other countries.

† Why Shouldn’t Illegals Get Government Healthcare?: Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta is in court fighting to shutter its outpatient dialysis clinic, which accounts for $2 million of the $33.5 million it lost last year. As lawyers for the 90 patients who undergo dialysis three times a week – two-thirds of whom are uninsured illegal aliens – got a restraining order to keep the facility open until patients could make other arrangements, Grady continues to pick up the tab of up to $50,000 a year for each of them, reports The New York Times:

The dialysis unit on Grady’s ninth floor might as well be ground zero for the national health care debate. It is there that many of the ills afflicting American health care intersect: the struggle of the uninsured, the strain of providing uncompensated care, the inadequacy of government support, and the dilemma posed by treating illegal immigrants.

Grady is one of many public hospitals that have been battered by the recession as the number of uninsured has mounted. New York City’s public hospital system is eliminating 400 positions and closing some children’s mental health programs, pharmacies and clinics. University Medical Center in Las Vegas has closed its mammography center and outpatient oncology clinic. …

Public hospital officials are concerned that the health care legislation being negotiated in Washington could worsen their plight before making it better. Under bills traveling through both houses of Congress, as the number of uninsured declines there would be commensurate reductions in Medicaid subsidies to hospitals that provide large amounts of uncompensated care.

At Grady, about four in 10 patients are uninsured, and an additional 25 percent are insured by Medicaid, which reimburses at rates so low they often do not cover actual costs.

The hospital has succeeded in moving a third of dialysis patients to other states or back to their home countries.

The free care that illegal aliens receive at public hospitals has crippled their ability to treat impoverished, ailing Americans. As facility after facility is forced to curtail services or shut its doors altogether, our most vulnerable citizens - the elderly, disabled and those who do not have ready access to private or public transportation - must travel miles to get the treatment that they need. In this respect, their healthcare is already rationed. Healthcare “reform” - and waving a magic want to transform illegal aliens into citizens - is only going to exacerbate their difficulties.

† “The Oath I Follow As A Doctor Supersedes Presidential Decrees”: In a New York Post op-ed internist Marc Siegel, an associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, explains why most doctors are against healthcare "reform" and why you won’t get to keep your doctor, despite Presdient Barack Hussein Obama insisting otherwise:

Two-thirds of doctors "oppose the proposed health-care plan," reports an Investors Busi ness Daily/TIPP poll. Almost half would "consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement" if "Congress passes its health-care plan." …

An Association of American Medical Colleges survey predicts a doctor shortage of 150,000 (at current rates of population growth) by 2025 if universal health insurance is adopted. The doctors we do have would be overwhelmed with far more patients than we could realistically take care of. …

All the current health-care bills are unfair to doctors. … How far does Congress think it can cut our [Medicare and Medicaid] reimbursements before compromising care, if not driving us out of business?

How will you be able to “keep your doctor,” as Obama has repeatedly promised, if your doctor has hiked up his white coat and run for the hills?

† Obama Is Just About Every U.S. President All Rolled Into One!: President Barack Hussein Obama has now been compared to Woodrow Wilson by Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, in this National Review Online interview about the president’s address to the U.N.:

“It was a very naïve, Wilsonian speech, and very revealing of Obama’s foreign policy,” says Bolton. “Overall, it was so apologetic for the actions of prior administrations, in an effort to distance Obama from them, that it became yet another symbol of American weakness in the wake of the president’s decision to abandon missile sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, and his recent manifest hesitation over what to do in Afghanistan.” …

“The president’s speech showed a fascination with U.N.-centric issues. Obama talked about getting past ‘balance of power’ politics. He talked about the interests that unite us rather than divide us.”

Bolton’s conclusion: “It was all extremely naïve. The president did everything he could to say: ‘Can’t we all just get along?’”

† Sotomayor: A Quintessential New Yorker: The Yankees announced that Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a fan of the Bronx Bombers and a native of the borough after which they are named, will take the mound tomorrow to throw the ceremonial first pitch in honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which began on September 15^th to commemorate the anniversary of independence of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua in 1821, as well as the independence days of Mexico (September 16^th), Chile (September 18^th) and Belize (September 21^st).

† You Are What You (Can’t) Eat: NYC health commissioner Thomas Farley is now going after iced blended coffee drinks, which range from 239 to 860 calories, depending on added flavorings, toppings and cup size. He would prefer us all to drink our coffee and tea without sugar (presumably, sugar substitutes are OK) and with low-fat or skim milk. Meanwhile, more nutritional hypocrisy from Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who also does double-duty as  Chief of Food Police. The New York Times reports:

He dumps salt on almost everything, even saltine crackers. He devours burnt bacon and peanut butter sandwiches. He has a weakness for hot dogs, cheeseburgers, and fried chicken, washing them down with a glass of merlot.

And his snack of choice? Cheez-Its.

Mr. Bloomberg is an omnivore with his own glaring indulgences, many of them at odds with his own policies. And he struggles mightily to restrain his appetite.

As a billionaire in one of the dining capitals of the world, he can eat anything he wants. But he is obsessed with his weight - so much so that the sight of an unflattering photo of himself can trigger weeks of intense dieting and crankiness, according to friends and aides.

His food issues have become New York City’s. Although he has described his battle against unhealthy foods as common-sense public policy that will shed pounds (and save lives), many of his targets overlap with his own cravings.

Editorial Note: As it happens, The Stiletto shares a couple of Hizzoner’s stranger culinary peccadilloes: peanut butter and bacon sandwiches, and charred (black as charcoal) toast. However, she rarely salts anything, preferring the taste of food to the taste of sodium chloride.

† Prince Charles Is Carbon Neutral. Now We Are (ROTFL) Amused. (third item): The Telegraph (London) reports that Britain ’s Prince Charles, the err-to-the-throne, wants his fellow countrymen to ditch their cars and walk, ride bikes or take public transportation – and is urging developers and urban planners to create “low carbon” communities. This from a man who owns two Jags, two Audis, a Range Rover and tools around in the Aston Martin the Queen gave him on the occasion of his 21^st birthday.

† All The News That’s Fart To Print (last item): First, environazis stuck their noses into the types of light bulbs we buy, and now they're sticking their noses where the light don’t shine, reports The Washington Post:

There is a battle for America's behinds.

It is a fight over toilet paper: the kind that is blanket-fluffy and getting fluffier so fast that manufacturers are running out of synonyms for "soft" (Quilted Northern Ultra Plush is the first big brand to go three-ply and three-adjective). …

[P]lush U.S. toilet paper is usually made by chopping down and grinding up trees that were decades or even a century old. They want Americans, like Europeans, to wipe with tissue made from recycled paper goods. …

Big toilet-paper makers say that they've taken steps to become more Earth-friendly but that their customers still want the soft stuff, so they're still selling it. …

Toilet paper is far from being the biggest threat to the world's forests: together with facial tissue, it accounts for 5 percent of the U.S. forest-products industry, according to industry figures. Paper and cardboard packaging makes up 26 percent of the industry, although more than half is made from recycled products. Newspapers account for 3 percent.

But environmentalists say 5 percent is still too much.

Felling these trees removes a valuable scrubber of carbon dioxide, they say. If the trees come from "farms" in places such as Brazil, Indonesia or the southeastern United States, natural forests are being displaced. If they come from Canada's forested north - a major source of imported wood pulp - ecosystems valuable to bears, caribou and migratory birds are being damaged.

Editorial Note: When one manufacturer of recycled toilet paper asked WaPo reporter David Fahrenthold to participate in a blind test to compare the softness of its product against virgin toilet paper, the paper that felt softer to him was … wait for it … not the recycled paper.

† Updates To Previous Posts (fourth item, Not Giving Credit Where Credit’s Due): Najibullah Zazi was charged in NYC with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, in “an advanced-stage plot to detonate explosives made with beauty-supply chemicals” that experts are calling “one of the most significant homegrown terrorism threats in nearly two decades,” reports The Washington Post:

Zazi, who has permanent legal U.S. residency, was in "urgent" contact with al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan and had bought and tested a volatile brew of chemicals before heading from his home outside Denver to New York this month, prosecutors said. …

City police and federal agents are on the hunt for more suspects and associates, visiting storage facilities and chemical companies and interviewing members of Afghan immigrant communities in New York, Denver and the Washington area as they search for leads and any stray chemical compounds, according to two law enforcement sources.

Authorities have not yet determined whether Zazi and his confederates detonated explosives in a "test run" as other alleged bombers have done in the past, the sources said. They are turning up the heat on witnesses and possible targets of the investigation to signal that people who come forward and help fill in the missing links will be treated more favorably by law enforcement agencies, they added. The case has prompted national warnings to sports stadium operators and transit authorities, although officials say those are "precautionary" measures.

Law enforcement officials sought to detain Zazi indefinitely on a charge that could send him to prison for life.

The difference between Zazi and other would-be jihadis who have been investigated and prosecuted in the years since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks is that most other plots were aspirational, wheras Zazi’s was very close to being operational, reports The New York Times (emphasis throughout, The Stiletto):

Documents filed in Brooklyn against the driver … contend he bought chemicals needed to build a bomb - hydrogen peroxide, acetone and hydrochloric acid - and in doing so, Mr. Zazi took a critical step made by few other terrorism suspects.

If government allegations are to be believed, Mr. Zazi, a legal immigrant from Afghanistan, had carefully prepared for a terrorist attack. He attended a Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, received training in explosives and stored in his laptop computer nine pages of instructions for making bombs from the same kind of chemicals he had bought. …

More often than not the earlier suspects emerged as angry young men, inflamed by the rhetoric of Osama bin Laden or his associates. Some were serious in intent. More than a few seemed to be malcontents without the organization, technical skills and financing to be much of a threat. In some cases, the subjects appeared to be influenced by informants or undercover agents who pledged to provide the weapons or even do some of the planning. …

The Zazi case “actually looks like the case the government kept claiming it had but never did,” said Karen J. Greenberg, executive director of the Center on Law and Security at New York University law school.

Her center has studied all the prosecutions of terrorism-related crimes since 2001, and she said many had turned out to be “fantasy terrorism cases” where the threat seemed modest or even nonexistent.

This time, she said, “the ingredients here are quite scary,” and the government’s statements have had none of the bombast and exaggeration that accompanied some previous arrest announcements.

[I]n recent years, foiled plots announced with fanfare in Washington have sometimes involved unsophisticated people who seemed hardly capable of organizing a major attack.

The Times’ article is shot through and through with skepticism and derision, as if to suggest that the Bush administration never contended with any serious terrorism plots, and that the FBI and counterterrorism experts may be making a mountain out of a molehill – as is their wont. Take that, Dick (“for eight years, we had no further mass casualty attacks against the United States”) Cheney!