Kids In The Hall. Paul Molitor and Dennis Eckersley were elected to the Hall of Fame. ... The Yankees and Javier Vazquez agreed to a 4-year/$45 million contract. ... Did Pete Rose also cork his bats? I have no desire to discuss whether Rose should be eligible for the HoF or not, but I will say that if he continues to be ineligible, the Hall of Fame should remove everything associated with him -- caps, bats, gloves, balls, pictures, whatever -- from their exhibits. People pay to see those exhibits, so the Hall is technically making money off of Rose and his achievements. Be consistent. If he's out, get him all the way out.

Box of Soap. Beverly Eckert: "I've chosen to go to court rather than accept a payoff from the 9/11 victims compensation fund. Instead, I want to know what went so wrong with our intelligence and security systems ... I am suing because unlike other investigative avenues, including congressional hearings and the 9/11 commission, my lawsuit requires all testimony be given under oath and fully uses powers to compel evidence. ... My husband's life was priceless, and I will not let his death be meaningless. My silence cannot be bought."

New York Times columnist William Safire was one of the most prominent voices to spread the news that Air Force One had been a specific target on 9/11. While the White House had to admit by the end of the month the claim was 100% hogwash, it did serve to quiet the criticisms of Bush's avoidance of Washington, DC that day (W told a German interviewer that he was "trying to get out of harm's way"). Tom Tomorrow believes Safire recently (and unwittingly) outed his source for the lie. ... "In an extraordinary request, the Bush administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to let it keep its arguments secret in a case involving an immigrant's challenge of his treatment after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. ... Lucy A. Dalglish, executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press: '[W]e're living in frightening times. People can be arrested, thrown in jail and have secret court proceedings, and we know absolutely nothing about it.'"

Moveon.org is catching flak because 1 of the 1,512 videos submitted for its "Bush in 30 seconds" advertising contest links Bush to Hitler. After complaining about the ad, the RNC is now hosting it themselves! (Another ad includes comments from Theodore Roosevelt, George W. Bush, Hermann Goering and Benjamin Franklin, which can be read here; the text of a similar ad is here). ... Since when did the right -- with its talk of Femi-nazis and Hitlery -- become so concerned with comparisons to Nazi Germany? They seem cool with it as long as the jack boot is on the other foot. ... Most people think of Hitler solely in terms of the Holocaust and not his genius for political manipulation, propaganda, and fear-mongering (all of which the Bush administration mimics quite well), so the comparison seems foolish (although Cuba's National Assembly did refer to "concentration camp[s]" at the Guantanamo naval base). ... Regardless, there is a clear historical connection between the Bush family fortune and Hitler's Nazi party.

"On Oct. 20, 1942, the US government ordered the seizure of Nazi German banking operations in New York City which were being conducted by Prescott Bush. Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the government took over the Union Banking Corporation, in which Bush was a director. The US Alien Property Custodian seized Union Banking Corp.'s stock shares, all of which were owned by Prescott Bush, E. Roland "Bunny" Harriman, three Nazi executives, and two other associates of Bush. ... Bush's family had already played a central role in financing and arming Adolf Hitler for his takeover of Germany; in financing and managing the buildup of Nazi war industries for the conquest of Europe and war against the USA; and in the development of Nazi genocide theories and racial propaganda, with their well-known results."

"[N]ewly-uncovered government documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of and US banking operative for the financial architect of the Nazi war machine from 1926 until 1942, ... nearly eight months after the U.S. entered the war." ... The financial connection was also reported last October by AP and CNN.