According to Connie Hair at Human Events, the idea for a Congressional commission died on Mme. Speaker’s desk. Apparently Ms. Pelosi’s magical powers of divination extend beyond the ability to discern the content of legislation without reading it; she can also prevent future oil spills using only taxes, slush funds and earmarks, without even bothering to investigate why this well failed.

Another proposal of the CLEAR Act thumbs its nose at State authority by extending Federal regulation of oil and gas activity to State waters. Because the Feds handled the Deepwater Horizon so competently. Bizarre!

Perhaps the most dunderheaded proposal in the CLEAR Act is a brand new tax on oil and gas: $2 per barrel and 20 cents per thousand cubic feet fee on all production from Federal lands. The Feds already enjoy a risk-free share of production in their lease royalty. This new tax will fall primarily on small American producers. It will kill jobs, inhibit development of Federal lands, deprive Western States of future revenue and work exactly counter to the goal of increased domestic energy security.

It’s an ANTI-TARIFF. Strange, bizarre, weird, but true!

"The politically charged gang led by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is more interested in helping felons vote than in helping the military to vote.... The Justice Department is so unenthusiastic about military voting that its website still lists the old requirement for a shorter 30-day military voting window, rather than the current law mandating 45 days. On the other hand, the Justice Department has no legislative mandate whatsoever to involve itself with helping felons to vote, but its website devotes a large section - 2,314 words - to advising felons how to regain voting privileges."

What the editorial doesn't describe is the content of those 2,314 words. It's amazing. The time and effort required to compile all the information, and the obvious priority the Obamites made it, really show the highly politicized cast of mind of this administration. The section includes a state-by-state list of where felons can call or write in order to try to get their voting privileges back. Yet, I repeat, this should be NO business of the Justice Department. It has no statutory or constitutional role to play in helping felons regain voting privileges. But it DOES have a statutory requirement to help DoD ensure voting rights for the military, yet it can't even be bothered, with an entire year to do it, to post even a simple link to the new law requiring that ballots be mailed to military personnel 45 days before an election.

Along with former DoJ official Eric Eversole, who first broke this story at the Washington Times, J. Christian Adams has been way out front on this military voting issue, with all sorts of interesting information that is damning of the Civil Rights Division at Justice and especially its new Obamite overseers. (His Election Law Center blog is a treasure trove of information about all sorts of voting-related legal issues.) And Adams also is the one who blew the whistle on DoJ for its weird compulsion to help armed robbers and drug pushers and other felons gain voting privileges. The good news is that U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas is fighting back on behalf of military voters.

Felons tend to vote for Democrats, like Barack Obama. The military tends to vote for Republicans. And Eric Holder's Justice Department isn't interested in justice, but in serving as a political arm of the White House and the Democratic Party. Hence the greater interest in helping felons vote than in ensuring that soldiers and sailors risking their lives for our country get a chance to exercise their rights of citizenship.

Florida businessman Rick Scott holds a 43 – 32 percent lead over State Attorney General Bill McCollum for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, according to a Quinnipiac University poll of likely primary voters released today.  Another 23 percent are undecided and 43 percent of those who do name a candidate say they might change their mind.

In the race for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate, businessman Jeff Greene has jumped to a 33 – 23 percent lead over U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, with former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre at 4 percent.  But 35 percent are undecided and 54 percent of those who name a candidate say they might change their mind.

Just remember, on June 4, Time wrote a piece on Meek, entitled, "How Florida's Forgotten Democrat Could Win the Senate Race."

He's going to have to do better than 23 percent in his own primary.

Quinnipiac also notes, "Immigration reform should focus on stricter enforcement of laws against illegal immigrants, 58 percent of New York State voters say, while 32 percent say reform should focus on integrating immigrants into society.  Here there is no gender split as women back enforcement 60 – 30 percent, while men want enforcement 57 – 35 percent."  

The Cure for Political Dejection by Quin Hillyer: The worst of times don't have to last.

Swift Tax Dodgers by Andrew Cline: John Kerry's not alone in dodging Massachusetts taxes.

Bring Back the Duel by Christopher Orlet: Because drive-by shootings ain't what they used to be.

Cameron's Flotilla Folly by Aaron Goldstein: The new British prime minister chooses Turkey and Hamas over Israel.

Amongst the Gibbering Journalists by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.: What's with the wretches and patheticos also known as Journolists?

How the New Beetle Got Old by Eric Peters: So long to the New Beetle and its miserable 12-year run.

A Prescription for Fiscal Discipline by Rep. Paul Broun, MD: It's one medicine Obamacare won't care to cover.

You Have Reached... by Reid Collins: Whenever storms knock power out, Pepco remains in the dark.

What to Watch for:

Judge's ruling on AZ law sets stage for legal fight (Wash Post) 

Obama on the View (ABC News) 

Insurers cheat dead soldiers' families (Bloomberg) 

Americans cut back on visits to doctor (WSJ) 

US Military scrutinizes leaks for risks to Afghans (NY Times) 

Clip of the Day:

Robert Gibbs tells media to "grow some skin thats a little thicker; full briefing below talking about Obama's "beer picnic"

Likely voters are closely divided between Democrat Jerry Brown (37%) and Republican Meg Whitman (34%), with 23 percent undecided. Of those saying that a candidate’s environmental positions are very important in determining their vote, 50 percent would vote for Brown and 16 percent would vote for Whitman. Among those who say a candidate’s environmental positions are somewhat important, Whitman is favored (42% to 33%). Preferences follow party lines, with independents split (30% Brown, 28% Whitman, 30% undecided). (The survey questionnaire lists results for all six candidates listed on the November ballot.)

Most likely voters (79%) also view the U.S. Senate candidates’ positions on the environment as at least somewhat important. Thirty-nine percent of likely voters support Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, 34 percent support Republican Carly Fiorina, and 22 percent are undecided. Those who view candidates’ positions on the environment as very important are three times as likely to support Boxer (54%) as Fiorina (18%). Among those who say candidates’ views on the environment are somewhat important, support is evenly divided (37% to 37%). Each candidate has the support of her party’s likely voters. Among independents, 35 percent support Boxer, 29 percent support Fiorina, and 25 percent are undecided.

Both of these races are winnable for the GOP, and I'm trying to think of the last time I saw a three-term Senate incumbent getting 39 percent. (Perhaps Harry Reid on one of his bad days.) But clearly, both Whitman and Fiorina have a lot of work ahead.

Heaven forbid we actually try a new approach to dealing with illegal immigration, and see if it works. No, we need to litigate this change in policy all the way up to the Supremes before we can take it for a test drive....

This is the sort of decision that Andy McCarthy was born to dismantle. He concludes, “However this ruling came out, it was only going to be the first round. Appeal is certain. But the gleeful Left may want to put away the party hats. This decision is going to anger most of the country. The upshot of it is to tell Americans that if they want the immigration laws enforced, they are going to need a president willing to do it, a Congress willing to make clear that the federal government has no interest in preempting state enforcement, and the selection of judges who will not invent novel legal theories to frustrate enforcement. They are not going to get that from the Obama/Reid/Pelosi Democrats.”

That was my take: legally, this is frustrating for those who want a tougher line drawn on illegal immigration. But politically, this probably hurts the amnesty crowd, watching the federal government sue and win restrictions against the state government to prevent them from doing something that the public overwhelmingly wants the federal government to do – well, if he were alive today, Kafka would be telling us he couldn’t get his head around it.

William Jacobson, writing at Legal Insurrection, has a particularly grim assessment: “The decision has to be viewed as a near complete victory for opponents of the law, as it restricts the state from routine and compulsory checks of immigration status as a matter of legislative mandate. The decision would not, as I read it, prevent police from checking immigration status in a particular case, but would prevent a statewide system to do so. The result of the decision will be to have a chilling effect on law enforcement officers who, in the absence of the law, would have checked immigration status based on reasonable suspicion anyway. Enforcement of immigration laws in Arizona, as a result of the decision, will be even more difficult than prior to S.B. 1070.” Later he elaborates, “At a legal level, it is true that nothing has changed. S.B. 1070 never took effect, so no law was lost. At a more realistic level, everything has changed. States have been left helpless to deal with the anarchy created by the failure of the federal government to enforce border security. Whereas yesterday it was unclear how far states (such as Rhode Island) could go, today states are powerless… With a federal government which refuses to take action at the border until there is a deal on "comprehensive" immigration reform, meaning rewarding lawbreakers with a path to citizenship, this decision will insure a sense of anarchy. The law breakers have been emboldened today, for sure."

I'm still left wondering how the state government can preempt a federal action that is largely not being taken.

I mentioned this article yesterday. A federal grand jury is asking questions about Nathan Deal’s business deals (pun intended).

Deal, for his part, says he is not the subject of any federal investigation — which either means he is right or United States Attorneys are randomly subpoenaing people to talk to federal grand juries about Nathan Deal for no reason other than politics. Riiiigggghhhhtttttt.

This will be the first election since passage of the Voting Rights Act that Republicans do not control the White House during redistricting. That makes solidifying Republican majorities in as many states as possible crucial as we head into redistricting in 2011.

A federal grand jury investigating Nathan Deal could seriously undermine the Republicans’ chances in November should he be the nominee. But to understand why, we need to back up to March 29, 2010.

On that day,

[T]he Office of Congressional Ethics released its report [despite Deal's resignation], concluding that Mr. Deal appeared to have improperly used his office to pressure Georgia officials to continue a vehicle inspection program that generated hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for his family’s auto salvage business.

The 138-page report details how Mr. Deal and his chief of staff intervened in 2008 and 2009 on behalf of the company, Recovery Services Inc., also known as Gainesville Salvage and Disposal. The report also said Mr. Deal had improperly failed to disclose that he was a corporate officer at the company, meaning that the $75,000 he earned from the business in 2008 violated a House limit on members’ outside income.

Certainly the Deal campaign can say this was a partisan move. Once a congressman resigns, the ethics show is over. But, were Deal to do that, the next question must become: did Nathan Deal resign to pre-empt ethics report?

If you remember, Deal intended to resign sooner than he did. But the outcry over him leaving before the health care fight kept him in. Ironically, in doing so, it also kept the Ethics Committee’s investigation going.

And what did House Ethics Committee find? Six ethical violations of House Rules.

That brings us forward to now. A federal grand jury is investigating now.

When the House Ethics Committee takes the unusual step of laying serious smack down on members of congress for outside business dealings personally benefiting the members of congress, federal investigations typically ensure. Those federal investigations are generally serious.

With a lot at stake headed into the general election, including Georgia picking up a congressional district, the Geogia GOP is taking a serious gamble against the odds in choosing Nathan Deal to challenge Roy Barnes.

Word of the federal investigation is only the beginning. The Democrats will use it to get independent voters on their side. With dissatisfaction toward Washington at an all time high, the Georgia GOP might want to think carefully before choosing a 20 year Washington insider under a federal investigation as its horse on which to ride into November.

We have columnists for major newspapers who are so nastily partisan that they fail to do even the most basic of investigatory requirements before sliming good, honest, decent Americans such as Justice Department whistleblower J. Christian Adams.

We have congressmen so eager to play gotcha that they try to blame former presidents for failing to do a constitutional duty even when the well-reported facts are that the operatives for the president of the congressman's own party unwittingly were the culprits in the supposed problem at issue. (Yeah, you won't know what I'm talking about; that's why you absolutely must read this link.)

We have a major congressional committee chairman who has conniption fits about not being given a $1 senior-citizen's discount, but who won't apologize for costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars by refusing for years to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (He also didn't seem too exercised about his boyfriend running a male prostitution ring out of his own basement, but that's another story.)

We have writers for publications respected by the "mainstream" media who are so vicious and dishonest that they would suggest randomly throwing around charges of racism without a shred of evidence -- a charge made the ore despicable because one of the named victims of the smear happens to be one of the nicest, most decent people in all of Washington punditry or politics.

We have a national debt exploding so rapidly, by deliberate design of the president, that one almost believes he is trying to implement the Cloward-Piven strategy of manufactured crisis. Cause a political and economic cataclysm; use it as an excuse for radical executive orders and proto-martial law; that sort of thing. Again, I did say "almost." But we are getting to a point where it almost doesn't matter what the motivations are; the reality being created could have the same effect whether by intention or by autocratic reaction to the fruits of the leader's own incompetence.

We have a president who may as well have declared war on my home state. Or on the whole central Gulf Coast.

We have a speaker of the House so cynical (or batty) that she says we must pass a bill first in order to know what's in it, and a majority leader so accustomed to railroad jobs and internal autocracy that he actually makes fun of the idea of requiring that congressmen be allowed at least 72 hours to examine bills before voting on them.

We have Supreme Court nominees sailing through despite saying that genetic differences might make Latinas better judges (Sotomayor) and despite openly flouting the law to harm military recruiting in a time of war (Kagan), and despite wanting to rule that the Constitution forbids states from keeping currently incarcerated rapists and murderers from voting (Sotomayor) and despite manipulating both science and the law in order to keep the barbaric practice of partial birth abortion legal for another decade (Kagan). (Sorry, readers: I'm tired of providing links, but Google these things at the Washington Times and you'll find them.)

I could go on with other bad news, but I'm tired. I'm dejected. I'm disgusted. I'm furious. I'm disheartened and disillusioned.

I want fair play and integrity and intellectual consistency and common decency from all points on the political spectrum. But those attributes are not as prevalent on the right as they should be, and it seems they are almost nonexistent on the left. I don't mind honest and respectful disagreements; I am sickened by vicious attacks without substance.

And, dear reader, I assume you agree. I hate writing all these "I" sentences (yikes: I almost sound like Obama!), so let's make this about you. What are you going to do about all this? What do you want to see happen? How much do you care about your country and your community?

If you are reading this, the answer to the questions in the last sentence is probably "one heck of a lot." You care. You have aspirations for communities of freedom and comity. You want to stop all of these political horrors, and you want to stop cultural horrors not even touched upon here but that could take pages and pages of exposition. You want to believe in America. And, dare we say it without sounding too pie-in-the-sky, you want to do what Ronald Reagan said all good Americans want to do: "to dream heroic dreams." And to work to make them reality.

So get to it. Keep up your activism. Talk to your neighbors. Volunteer at campaign headquarters. Contribute financially to candidates. Make phone calls. Go to rallies. Write thoughtful and concise letters to the editor. Help register like-minded voters. Drive elderly or infirm like-minded voters to the polls in November.

Get involved and stay involved. For the sake of your country, your loved ones, your future. Our future. Together. As Americans. Go do it. Now.

Quin Hillyer is a senior editorial writer for The Washington Times and a senior editor of The American Spectator. He can be reached at Qhillyer@gmail.com.

Last week the Boston Herald reported that in March Kerry registered his $7 million yacht not in Boston, where he lives, but in Newport, R.I. Kerry's office has said the Rhode Island registration had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Rhode Island has no sales or use tax on boats, but Massachusetts has both.

The Herald's public service here was not to expose Kerry as a hypocrite. Kerry needs no help doing that. In 2004, he said people earning more than $200,000 should pay more in taxes, but here he is dodging taxes on a $7 million yacht. He also said it was immoral to move American manufacturing jobs overseas. But he had his custom-built yacht made in New Zealand. The real public service in the Herald story was to expose just how awful Massachusetts taxes are.

The state has a 6.25 percent sales and "use" tax on most everything, not just boats. If you live in Massachusetts and buy a product in sales-tax-free New Hampshire, where I live, Massachusetts expects you to pay a tax just for the privilege of using it. And the state is aggressive about pursuing that tax.

Last year, Massachusetts tried to order a regional tire chain doing business in neighboring states, Town Fair Tire, to charge the state's sales tax on tires purchased by Massachusetts residents at New Hampshire stores. In the 1990s, the state successfully forced Circuit City to pay sales taxes on items stored in Massachusetts but purchased in another state.

In the past, Bay State tax collectors aggressively went after residents who registered their cars and bought liquor in New Hampshire. In the 1970s, New Hampshire Gov. Meldrim Thomson sent state troopers to arrest Massachusetts tax agents who were parked (Thomson said "loitering") in New Hampshire Liquor Store parking lots to record the license plate numbers of Bay Staters buying N.H. booze.

Massachusetts has lowered a lot of taxes since earning its "Taxachusetts" label, but its taxes still send people over the border for all sorts of activities. A lot involve avoiding the sales and use tax. And those tax dodgers include many of the Democratic public officials who support high taxes.

Last year, a Massachusetts resident saw Massachusetts state Rep. Michael Rodrigues walk out of a New Hampshire liquor store with a box of booze. The poor representative had driven there in his personal car, which bears his official legislative license plates. It turns out that Rodrigues had voted earlier that year to raise the state's sales tax to 6.25 percent. Months later, he was in New Hampshire (along with thousands of fellow Bay Staters) dodging the very sales tax he had voted to raise.

Earlier this month, former U.S. Rep. Marty Mehan, D-Mass., now president of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, was caught by the Lowell Sun coming out of a New Hampshire liquor store with two bottles of wine -- a savings of nearly $5 in taxes.

It's not that John Kerry is a hypocrite. It's that the entire political class in Massachusetts is a bunch of hypocrites. They support high taxes, except when given any opportunity to dodge them.

They don't really believe everyone should have to pay 6.25 percent to the state on every purchase. They simply find it a convenient way to raise revenue. If they believed that their high taxes were moral and just, they would pay them, not dodge them.

With the Obama administration, the story of tax-dodging advocates of high taxes has become familiar to the nation. To those of us who live near Massachusetts, it's an old, old story.

It was a rather daft observation on the part of Cameron, especially when one considers the luxurious mall opened earlier this month in Gaza. This isn't to say that life in Gaza is all strawberries and cream. But that Cameron would pillory Israel while holding the Hamas-run government blameless in this state of affairs is very telling indeed.

By simultaneously describing Gaza as a prison camp on and endorsing Turkish entry into the EU while on Turkish soil, Cameron effectively endorsed Turkey's efforts to break Israel's blockade on Gaza through the flotilla campaign. In so doing, Cameron has for all intents and purposes declared that Israel has no right to defend itself. "The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable," said Cameron.

To borrow an English term, Cameron's statement is absolute bollocks. For Cameron to suggest that Israel wantonly launched an unprovoked attack the Mavi Marmara on May 31, 2010 is an act of defamation. IDF forces instructed the Mavi Marmara to dock in the port of Ashdod where goods would be inspected and any humanitarian supplies would be sent to Gaza through a convoy of trucks. The Mavi Marmara told the IDF to "Go back to Auschwitz."

When the Mavi Marmara made it clear it would proceed to Gaza come hell or high water, Israel was left with no choice but to board the ship. It was only after Israeli troops were bombarded with metal bars, stabbed and had grenades thrown at them that they opened fire, killing nine of their attackers. Had the Mavi Marmara complied with Israel's request (as had the five other ships accompanying Mavi Marmara) there would have been no loss of life. Therefore, those aboard the Mavi Marmara have only themselves and the Turkish government to blame in their pursuit of martyrdom.

Let's put it another way. What if the IRA had suddenly resumed engaging in terrorist activities and had embarked on a campaign to send flotillas to Northern Ireland full of weaponry to be used against British civilians and Irish Protestant activists under the guise of a humanitarian mission? What if a Royal Navy commander had instructed the IRA flotilla to dock in the Welsh port of Holyhead instead of Belfast? What if the IRA flotilla told the Royal Navy commander, "Death to the Queen!!!"? Do you think for a moment that David Cameron would hesitate in sending Her Majesty's Armed Forces aboard an IRA flotilla? And if those aboard the IRA flotilla were to have attacked British soldiers with metal bars, knives and grenades, would he have expected those men not to defend themselves? Not on your bloody life.

Cameron's apparent ignorance of the intentions of those aboard the flotilla is baffling when one considers the recent statements of former British Prime Minister and now Middle East Quartet representative Tony Blair. When a Lebanese flotilla announced plans to set sail for Gaza last week Blair said, "Such convoys are not helpful, do not resolve the economic difficulties in Gaza and carry the risk of escalation needlessly."

Yet on the other hand Blair is no longer subject to the pressures of elected office. The same cannot be said for Cameron. It's simple mathematics really. In the 2001 Census, there were nearly six times as many Muslims as there were Jews in the United Kingdom. There's every reason to believe the gap between the number of Muslims and Jews in the U.K. will only widen with the results of the next census which is set to take place next year.

One must also consider the assertiveness of Britain's Muslim community with regard to the imposition of Sharia law in the land of the Magna Carta. As of June 2009, there were 85 Sharia courts operating in the United Kingdom and their decisions are legally binding. But for many British Muslims that isn't enough. They want all Britons to be subject to Sharia law.

So when British Muslims are demonstrating outside of Number 10 Downing Street for Sharia law do you think David Cameron is more likely to support the aspirations of a Muslim country like Turkey (which under Erdogan is moving away from secularism) or is he more likely to stick his neck out for the world's only Jewish state?

Under the circumstances, it is more politically expedient for Cameron to vilify Israel and support Turkish entry into the EU even as it acts as a sponsor for terrorism against Israel while ignoring the transgressions of Hamas. Suffice it to say, this isn't Britain's finest hour.

It was a tragedy, to be sure. An innocent teenager was killed in the melee. Police think he just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, hanging out in front of the wrong house, when he should have been home hiding under his bed.

Our inaugural drive-by has been a long time coming. Crime rates have been soaring and murders are a dime a dozen, which I guess is a gangbanger's idea of a bargain. Even so, our homicides usually involve robberies or rapes, the sort of youthful pastimes where someone is bound to get shot eventually. The whole drug gang war era drove right past us without even honking.

Obviously a lot has changed. But perhaps the biggest shift has been the revolution in the art of the drive-by shooting.

Readers may remember how a quarter of a century ago drive-bys were all the rage among drug gangs for their highly efficient manner of dealing with conflict. You'd spot a rival gangster hanging out on the street, you'd call your friends, fetch your semi-automatics and drive over and take care of a little business. It was always about business, about who got to be territory sales manager of the month. Sure, sometimes an innocent kid got in the way, but it was never personal.

These tactics were no different than the tactics of the Irish and Italian mafia. It was Prohibition gang leader Bugs Moran who gets credit for popularizing the act of driving by a rival's hangout and spraying it with Thompson submachine gunfire. As with any war, there is bound to be some collateral damage, but even the most callous gangster would try to minimize that.

Today, however, it's personal.

The 15-year-old who was gunned down in my hometown wasn't a gang member. Nor was the kid who was supposed to be gunned down. So why was he targeted? Because he had offended the shooter or the shooter's mom or maybe the shooter's cat. Whatever the case, he had been disrespectful. For a large part of our urban street culture, being disrespectful is tantamount to a death sentence.

A recent series in the Washington Post tells how one D.C. teenager reacted when his cheap bracelet turned up missing. The 19-year-old became obsessed with avenging this show of disrespect. This set off a tit-for-tat series of drive-by shootings that resulted in five deaths. It turned out the bracelet hadn't even been stolen.

IT HASN'T ALWAYS been thus. When I was a kid and you said something nasty about another kid you could expect a punch in the mouth. Sometimes the rivals would meet in the parking lot after school and there would be a very well attended dust-up. I'm not sure how grown-ups settled their differences -- perhaps by dumping their grass clippings on the offending neighbor's perfectly manicured lawn. It certainly wasn't pistols at dawn, as was the habit of Southern gentlemen of a bygone era. It's too bad we've abandoned the art of dueling. There was at least a degree of honor in it, and it afforded a fair fight. Men of the highest renown dueled. Andrew Jackson fought at least 13. Duels were so popular, in fact, that anti-dueling societies popped up in most Southern cities. The Civil War ended dueling and many other dubious southern practices, which was fine, until now.

Now, as part of our urban street culture, he who is dishonored or "disrespected" is expected to gun down the offending party in cold blood. The thinking -- if you can call it that -- goes like this: "You have insulted my masculinity, therefore I will do the cowardly thing and shoot you from a speeding car."

Why can't our urban teens simply challenge one another to a bout of old fashioned fisticuffs? Why is the yellow-bellied act of shooting an unarmed boy in the back of the head seen as the proud and manly thing to do? Why aren't such people ridiculed as pansies and pantywaists -- I mean, besides the obvious reason that they will shoot you if you say anything.

Obviously, I am just an old crank trying to make sense of the inscrutable ways of the youth who are Our Future. I just wish Our Future would learn the difference between a fair fight and the actions of a coward.

Well, let me address Barnes's thoughts before jumping on the Journolist controversy. I rather doubt that journalism was ever a conspiracy. If fact, I doubt that journalism was preordained to be dominated by liberalism. There was a day, before the New Deal, when there were plenty of journalists who were not guided by left-wing ideas or any motive at all. The clever journalist, usually, just wanted to get a good story. Yet the New Deal came along, and then the War, and finally television. At first, it was humanitarian to be in sympathy with the New Deal. Then it was patriotic to be in sympathy with what was a growing homogenization of views amongst news gatherers. Finally, it was good sense to be a liberal newsperson. By the time television came into its own, liberalism was the corporate mentality of the news gathering business. Hence you can take a television news gatherer or a print news gatherer and plug them in interchangeably.

But by the 1990s this corporate mentality had begun to change. Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes saw a market. They dissented from the media's corporate mentality and presented the news from a conservative perspective. Talk radio came along and presented a conservative talk venue. Now Fox News alone brings in more revenue than the combined revenue of CNN, MSNBE, and the network news shows ABC, NBC, and CBS. The corporate mentality was suddenly in trouble.

Instead of breaking up along reasonable lines, it has tried to remain coherent and viable against the odds. While Murdoch and Ailes at the Wall Street Journal and Fox have employed ideologues and entertainers, the media's stalwarts are all "true" journalists who have continued gathering the news, pronouncing on it and covering their gluteus maximus when some poor wretch such as Dan Rather proves to be an embarrassment.

Recently there proved to be another embarrassment. I have in mind Barnes' "hundreds" of journalists. They were indeed sedulously advancing "liberalism and liberal politicians at the expense of traditional journalism." Yet, with admirable sang-froid Howard Kurtz, who watches over the corporate mentality of journalism like a mother hen, tsk-tsked , "They ["some of these messages"] show liberal commentators appearing to cooperate in an effort to hammer out the shrewdest talking points against the Republicans -- including, in one case, a suggestion for accusing random conservatives of being racists."

Did you say "liberal commentators," Howard? They were all left-wing commentators. One of the reason the keepers of the news' corporate mentality can no longer be taken seriously is they cannot identify a "left-winger." There is no sense of symmetry in their world. Where the products of Murdoch and Ailes can be called conservative, no product of ABC, CBS, NBC, the Times or the Washington Post can ever be called liberal, to say nothing of left-wing. Call them the products of the corporate mentality.

Typical of the corporate mentality -- any corporate mentality -- they lack wit, humor, any form of urbanity. Here is a sampler preserved from the Daily Caller by Peter Wehner of the sort that aroused Barnes's initial thought on journalism:

LAURA ROZEN: People we no longer have to listen to: would it be unwise to start a thread of people we are grateful we no longer have to listen to? If not, I'll start off: Michael Rubin.

MICHAEL COHEN, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: Mark Penn and Bob Shrum. Anyone who uses the expression "Real America." We should send there a** to Gitmo!

JESSE TAYLOR, PANDAGON.NET: Michael Barone? Please?

LAURA ROZEN: Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich (afraid it's not true), Drill Here Drill Now, And David Addington, John Yoo, we'll see you in court?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, THE NEW YORKER: As a side note, does anyone know what prompted Michael Barone to go insane?

MATT DUSS: LEDEEN.

SPENCER ACKERMAN: Let's just throw Ledeen against a wall. Or, pace Dr. Alterman, throw him through a plate glass window. I'll bet a little spot of violence would shut him right the f*** up, as with most bullies.

JOE KLEIN, TIME: Pete Wehner…these sort of things always end badly.

Then there was a NPR producer who wrote she would upon hearing Rush Limbaugh had a heart attack "laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out....I never knew I had this much hate in me."

Meet America's elite thinkers.

Over the past two years, Washington has seized every opportunity to increase spending, increase taxes, and, as a result, increase uncertainty in the private sector. Washington's legislative agenda has increased the financial burden on job creators, causing individuals and families to feel the pain as well. With unemployment looming near 10 percent, small businesses are struggling to make payroll, and families are tightening their belts to pay their mortgages, electric bills, and medical bills.

The big-government stimulus forced through by Democrats last year cost the American tax-payers more than $1 trillion, with the promise that unemployment would remain below 8 percent. Instead, more than 3 million individuals lost their jobs, the deficit rose to a record-high $1.6 trillion, and three out of four Americans now believe that their hard-earned tax dollars were wasted. To make matters worse, Democrats wasted little time before pushing through an unaffordable and unconstitutional takeover of our nation's health care system.

In the few short months since the bill became law, the estimated costs of the new health care mandates have increased by a staggering $115 billion. ObamaCare not only robs patients of the freedom to make their own health care decisions, but it also takes away more economic freedom by forcing families and small businesses to bear a weighty economic burden. An overwhelming majority (90 percent) of employers believe health care reform will increase their organization's health care benefit costs. Eighty percent of those businesses plan to pass the increased costs from the law on to their employees through higher premiums. Despite the fact that most Americans opposed a government takeover of health care, individuals will now be forced to pay for products and services they do not want and cannot afford.

Unfortunately, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Leader Harry Reid have several more items left in their overreaching agenda. Their cap and trade and financial regulatory reform proposals will put millions of Americans out of work, further increase federal spending, increase the debt, and give more control of the private sector to the government.

In order to preserve their personal freedoms, the American people must demand fiscal discipline from Washington. The most basic step toward fiscal responsibility is balancing the books. I introduced a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would ensure the federal government does not spend more than it takes in. If American families overspend or hit hard times, they have to adjust -- Congress should be expected to do the same. After decades of deficit spending, it's time to make balancing our budgets the rule -- not the exception.

The Declaration of Independence acknowledges that each individual is endowed with the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." These basic rights start with allowing individuals, families, and businesses to keep more of the money they earn. We can achieve this by shifting Washington's focus from empowering bureaucrats to empowering individuals -- giving folks the freedom to choose how and when to spend their resources. Rather than squeezing every last penny out of the pockets of families and small businesses, my balanced budget amendment would require all surplus revenue at the end of the fiscal year to be returned to American taxpayers.

I am confident that restoring fiscal discipline to the federal budget will restore and retain freedom for individuals, families, and job creators. However, the American people can not sit idly by and allow Washington to continue to spend their hard-earned money. If Americans want to ensure their liberty is preserved, they have to demand change. The good news is "we the people" have the ultimate power to affect the policies that come out of Washington.

VW's New Beetle only lasted 12 years in production (2010 will be the final year; 1998 was the first year).

Though it arguably can be credited with almost single-handedly launching what became the "retro" trend in new car design -- spawning similarly historically-minded new/old cars like the Chrysler PT Cruiser, Chevy SSR, Mini Cooper and (most recently) the revived Camaro -- it never got its hooks into the public psyche the way its predecessor, the original Beetle did.

There were several reasons for this.

First, despite the generally familiar shape, the New Beetle was functionally nothing like the old one. It was built around a front-engined/front-wheel-drive layout while the old Beetle was, of course, rear-engined and rear-wheel-drive. The latter arrangement gave the old Beetle much of its charm -- as well as desirable attributes that included impressive tenacity in snow because the weight of the engine was right on top of the drive wheels, which aided traction.

The New Beetle's engine was also water-cooled (like almost all modern engines) and like all modern engines, it was a highly complex piece of machinery beyond the skill set (and tool set) of the average Do-it-Yourselfer. This meant that when the car needed work, a trip to the dealer was all but inevitable.

With the old car -- powered by a 1930s-era air-cooled "boxer" flat four with a single one-barrel carburetor, single fan belt, no radiator or water pump and a screen for an oil filter that you removed by turning out a single easy-to-reach bolt on the bottom of the engine case -- virtually all normal maintenance could be done in the driveway by any reasonably handy person with a few basic, inexpensive hand tools. This kept ownership costs low, which was always a key reason why people loved the old car so much.

Sure, it was slow and it leaked carbon monoxide into the passenger compartment (and water, when it rained). It was rust-prone and it often needed a turn of the screwdriver here or a trip to the NAPA store there. But it almost never cost you real money and while little troubles did pop up, they could usually be fixed -- by you -- in the space of 10 or 15 minutes. This was empowering, even if it was a minor hassle at the time.

Few things are more defeating in this life than being stuck by the side of the road with a dead car and no clue what to do as you wait helplessly for someone who does.

A final problem for the New Beetle was that in a market that craves change, the car was very hard if not impossible to update without it becoming something else entirely. The old Beetle was more or less the same for decades and no one minded because in those days, people were content with a slower pace and satisfied with the familiar -- and with what did the job well enough.

That won't sell today. The life cycle of a modern car is maybe four years before the market demands a major reworking, which amounts to a complete re-styling and re-engineering.

Not even Jaguars -- formerly known for their ageless design that endured for decades, as in the case of the old XJ sedans -- are safe from the march of time… and trendiness. 

So when after three or four years on the market the New Beetle was still the same car it was at the beginning, people began to lose interest. After seven or eight years, it had become yesterday's news, old hat -- and no longer anything special or even especially interesting. And since it lacked the old car's miserly virtues to sell it, sales began to collapse.

VW did make an attempt to inject some of the old car's parsimony into the New by offering an advanced turbo-diesel engine. The problem was it cost a lot (close to $20k, new) which sort of defeated the whole purpose.

There was also a turbocharged sport version with a pop-out wing, just like a 911 Porsche. But that was a bad fit. A fast Beetle is a lot like a 4WD Corvette.

The New Beetle never quite found its niche, or developed one. It wasn't inexpensive, or easier to own than any other modern FWD car. Often, it was harder -- due to reliability and quality control problems.

Cuteness and retro styling only take you so far... .

Over the years, I've owned several of the original Beetles, including a '73 Super Beetle. I never paid more than $1,500 for any of them and this was as recently as the early 1990s. They were ideal college cars/first-time-job cars -- as old Beetles have always been, since before I was even born. The rugged little machine, conceived in the 1930s, survived the war, flowered along with Flower Power in the '60s, grooved into the '70s and even though the federal government legislated it out of existence (in the U.S., at least) after 1979 (due to emissions and safety regulations) it continued to be built right up to 2002 in Mexico -- a production run that has never been equaled and probably never will be.

Only one car has sold more total units (the Toyota Corolla) and the comparison's not really fair because the Corolla has had the benefit of an industrialized/westernized world market to play in while the VW had to slog through a cratered Germany/Western Europe after WWII and try to compete in a market (the U.S., 1950s and '60s) that laughed at small cars with four-cylinder engines.

In comparison, the New Beetle's record is pitiful. Twelve years. The Thousand Year Reich lasted about as long as that. It is a blip on the screen relative to the lifetime-long run (almost 70 years, from say 1936 through 2002) of the old car -- which would probably still be in production today if the government would allow it. Buyer demand never slackened; it was just that the fragile (1,600 pound) shell could not comply with modern crash-test demands and the ancient air-cooled engine wouldn't pass smog check.

Ultimately, what sealed the doom of the New Beetle was that it was fundamentally fraudulent, It may have looked like the old car, but in every key category that made the old model so appealing, the new car was anything but. It was in fact just another expensive, complex, can't-work-on-it-yourself front-wheel-drive not-so-economical "economy" car draped in the sort-of sheetmetal of the real deal.

It won't be missed much, I suspect.

But the old Beetle will never be forgotten.

More than 300,000 Pepco subscribers lost power late Sunday in suburban Washington; late Tuesday more than 91,000 were still waiting for the lights to come back on. But some things were learned. For a couple of days a Pepco computer was deciding when the power would be restored, judged apparently by the numbers without service. Some subscribers were told it would be in mid-September. Finally Pepco took to the airways and as much as said: "Don't believe anything we tell you. A computer is figuring this out for us." Last I heard my power would return early this coming Friday. It returned Tuesday night.

From Sunday to Tuesday was nothing. A few years ago I stood with a regional director of Pepco as we surveyed a downed tree down the block in Kensington. I was informed, "We don't do trees."

And they didn't. We were without electricity for 8 full days! We and several nearby blocks.

A neighbor had a relative visiting and he was driving a few blocks away when he happened across a truck from a New Jersey power outfit and a crew that was sitting around. The crew said there was nothing for them to do; Pepco had no assignment for them. The visitor said there was an area a couple of blocks away that had not had power for several days. The Jersey guys drove up, surveyed the offending tree, and in a matter of a couple of hours we had the power back! Not by Pepco design; by sheer happenstance.

I have heard many threats by powerless folk who put Pepco executives on their list of things to do.

This is not fair, I tell them, so long as there are uninhabited islands in the South Pacific. They could name their new-found paradise "Pepco-Metro."

You can pre-order Red State Uprising: How to Take Back America right here via the RedState Store at Amazon.

Below are the opening paragraphs (subject to editing) to give you a flavor of what the book is about. And yes, the first chapter is a denunciation of the GOP’s failures over the past decade. I have a hard time intellectually attacking the Democrats for stuff the GOP did without also beating up the GOP. So my co-author, Lew Uhler, and I take them both on and provide some ideas to fix the problems.

Here’s the opening:

They’re all terrible. All of them. Democrats. Republicans. The so called “leaders” of both parties do nothing but compromise away our freedoms. The good guys are few and far between and need reinforcements.

Ask yourself a simple question: when is the last time the Democrats ever compromised in favor of the free market? Can’t think of one? That’s because it rarely happens. It’s always the Republicans who compromise in favor of big government.

George W. Bush gave us steel tariffs in Pennsylvania, No Child Left Behind, the prescription drug benefit, TARP, and the auto bailout. His father before him gave us his lips on which we read a lie. They, like so many other Republicans, paraded around in conservative’s clothing while having little in common with actual conservatism.

The Republicans gave us progressivism (read up on Robert LaFollette and Teddy Roosevelt). The Republicans gave us the Environmental Protection Agency. Heck, Republicans gave us Earl Warren, Nelson Rockefeller, Dede Scozzafava, Charlie Crist, and the list goes on and on and on.

The Democrats, by contrast, have given us over to European socialism, degenerated our moral society, destroyed the nuclear family, never met a race they didn’t bait, and mushroomed the GOP’s spending programs.

For too long the Republican Party has decided to be the Democrat-lite party, and the American voters in 2008 decided to just go with the real thing. Turns out, there is a difference between the Republican Party and the Democrat Party. While both may be terrible, the Democrats are worse.

Therein lies the terrible conundrum for voters. We’re not choosing the lesser of two evils. We are choosing between the assorted evils of two lessers. The problem is compounded by a very simple fact: there are no betters than these two lessers. No third party is or will ever be viable. The deck is stacked against them.

Contrary to what we may say and the polemical frustration conservatives too often are forced to express about the Republican Party, there remain very real differences between the two parties—life and death differences that cannot be underestimated or ignored.

It is easy to say both parties are appalling. They are. It becomes very difficult to figure out what to do about it. There is, however, a starting point. As bad as you or I may think the Republican Party is, at least it will not sell us down the river to our nation’s enemies. At least it will more often than not support businesses and individuals against the government. At least it will support you working for yourself over you working to give money to someone else.

There are real differences, but too often Republican leaders try to find ever shrinking common ground with the left, than make a stand on opposing ground fighting for free people and free markets against the leviathan of government. With the rise of the tea party movement, conservatives must unite to clean up the Republican Party. If they don’t, voters will keep rejecting Republican pseudo-socialists in favor of authentic socialists.

Behind the scenes, Sharron Angle recognized she needed to regroup and reassess. For the past couple of weeks there has been a reorganization, some new faces, and renewed commitment to winning. Angle realizes a lot more is at stake than just beating Harry Reid.

Conservatives went with Angle against Sue Lowden. If Angle screws us, there will be a lot of egg on a lot of conservatives’ faces by the “we told you so” crowd — some of whom would actually like to see Harry Reid win so they can rub it in.

I’ve now been on the ground in Nevada, met with Sharron Angle, gotten to know her updated campaign team, and talked to Nevada voters. Harry Reid should be scared.

Take a look at the various surveys of Nevada, including the latest Rasmussen survey that has it 45% to 43% in favor of Reid, and I’m not so worried about Sharron Angle being two points behind the incumbent Majority Leader of the United States Senate.After left-wing groups have poured more than $11 (ELEVEN) million into Nevada to tar and feather both Sharron Angle and the tea party movement, she is only two points behind. More troubling for Reid, after all the shift in support away from Angle, Reid hovers at 45% and can’t get most of the undecideds to come to him.

It is as if the undecideds want to see some signs of good faith and competence from Angle and they’ll go back to her. Given the Reid ground game in Nevada, it is apparent that he understands this too.

Dive into the numbers and it is easy to see what has Harry Reid so scared and his son afraid to use his last name in his own gubernatorial race.

Angle leads among white voters 48% to 41%.

Angle leads among seniors 48% to 43%.

Among unaffiliated voters, Reid barely wins 41% to 39%. This one is within the margin of error.

Then there are the negatives:

• Voters who have a strongly negative opinion of Harry Reid outnumber those who have a strongly negative opinion of Sharron Angle 48% to 41%.
• Seniors who have a strongly negative opinion of Harry Reid outnumber seniors who have a strongly negative opinion of Sharron Angle 47% to 36%; and
• Unaffiliated voters who have a strongly negative opinion of Harry Reid outnumber unaffiliated voters who have a strongly negative opinion of Angle 52% to 44%.

Add to that data from Rasmussen that 62% of Nevadans have a negative view of Barack Obama and there are lots of danger signs for Harry Reid.

A key story from today centers on John Dingell and his criticism of Chairman Julius Genachowski and the Obama FCC. Hillicon Valley reports that Dingell is criticizing the Commission harshly for failing to justify its Title II Reclassification plans to Deem and Pass Net Neutrality regulation of the Internet, and is telling them to stop and let the Congress do its job. Seriously, this is strong language from Democrat to Democrat:

“Unfortunately, the paucity of substantive responses to my [questions] has served only to substantiate my fear that the commission’s proposed path with respect to the regulation of broadband is based on unsound reasoning and an incomplete record, and is thus fraught with legal risk,” Dingell said.

He said the commission should instead look to Congress to grant it more power.

“In this way, the Congress and the commission may ensure the establishment of a steadfast legal foundation for an open Internet,” Dingell wrote.”

The fact is that the Free Press/Google “third way” to Net Neutrality is an illegal power grab online. Support for it is the radical extremist position.

Speaking of Free Press, Digital Society rips them for some terrible logic. Free Press is equating iPhone jailbreaking (the process by which people circumvent Apple’s limits and install whatever software, or run on whatever wireless network, they want) with Net Neutrality.

Nick Brown at Digital Society makes good points against that argument, but I have a simpler one: Net Neutrality is like the App Store, not unlike it, because it creates a central authority to regulate all activity in the name of better operations. If you like jailbreaking your iPhone, then oppose Net Neutrality regulation so we don’t have to jailbreak the whole Internet.

This one’s a little more technical than usual, but it’s funny. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or North Korea (pictured in our Tech at Night logo in the literal darkness of tyranny) has a website. But it has a problem: It wasn’t written very competently. The regime seems to have since fixed the oddity, but it’s still good to laugh at Communists, whether the old Stalinist/Juche kind, or the neo-Marxist Free Press kind.

Are you afraid of Google monitoring your Internet activities? If you use Mozilla Firefox, get the Google Alarm which will warn you whenever Google’s trying to spy on your activities. I’m using dramatic language (and the Alarm certainly uses a a dramatic warning), but the technology is there and the possibility is real. The databases exist, and if they exist, they can be broken into by bad guys, subpoenaed by the government, or anything else.

Some people think that things on the Internet aren’t “real.” You see people distinguish between “IRL” friends and online friends, or get indignant when people demand basic manners during online activities, replying that the Internet is not “serious business.” But it is, and Wikileaks was a party to treason by Americans, says Peter King.

One more for the road, though I have to hurry because it’s now 11:59PM on Wednesday as I write this. If you want to know why I think the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is overbroad, and that the right to reverse engineer Digital Rights Management (DRM) should be retained in all cases, read this story about 12,000 people effectively ripped off by Valve.

You guessed it — Keeton, a Christian, is not supportive of “gay rights”.

CNN has an interesting roundtable on the case of Jennifer Keeton, who has sued Augusta State University to keep from getting expelled for not repudiating her statements about homosexuality. Keeton expressed her biblical perspective on the subject in and out of class while working toward a degree in counseling, and the school mandated a “remediation plan” that appears to have required her to renounce her Christian doctrine in order to gain a diploma from the school.  The school has responded that a bias against homosexuality would disqualify Keeton from certification, a position that would put most Christians in Keeton’s position.

Christians should be more than a little troubled by the University’s bias.

I hope Georgia’s legislators are paying attention. Augusta State’s position seems to be that a bias against Christians is preferable to Christians holding on to orthodox teachings of their faith.

You can call President Bloodworth over at August State at 706-737-1440 and let him know what you think.

[UPDATE:] In Michigan, a federal judge has upheld the expulsion of a graduate school student for believing homosexuality is morally wrong.

As Congressman Deal explained Monday night:

Politicians who vote to give your money to abortion providers can spin it anyway they like, but taxpayer dollars for one service frees up money elsewhere to provide abortion services”

Buried in the comments from Deal about this is not just an admission against interest that his vote for funding offset tax dollars to free up money for abortion, but also an attempt to play dumb on what Planned Parenthood was all about.

Explaining his 1993 vote, Deal initially said “a lot of us were not fully convinced of where … Planned Parenthood was and what they were doing with their money.”

Really? Seriously?

Back in the 1984 Planned Parenthood very publicly refused to comply with Ronald Reagan’s Mexico City Protocol. In fact, the organization went to court and obtained a court order allowing it to ignore the Mexico City Protocol. (SOURCE)

Planned Parenthood also vigorously opposed the nomination of Robert Bork.

During the George H. W. Bush administration, Planned Parenthood actively opposed the nomination of Georgia native Clarence Thomas. (SOURCE)

In 1992, the year the media famously dubbed the “Year of the [Liberal] Woman, Planned Parenthood was active around the country funding pro-abortion candidates. This is the same year Deal ran for office. (SOURCE)

Nathan Deal says he had no clue what Planned Parenthood was really all about. He either didn’t pay attention or is just playing dumb.

It is an actual fact that the oil spill did not start until after the oil platform sunk.

There is a growing body of evidence that the Coast Guard and fire team handling the blaze on the platform made a series of mistakes that contributed to the oil spill. In fact, in one of the first lawsuits filed, the plaintiffs aren’t even going after British Petroleum, but are instead going after the fire crew alleging the crews should have ignored orders from the Coast Guard.

“It was the flooding of the Deepwater Horizon and the resulting sinking of the rig that directly caused the piping to break and begin spewing millions of gallons of oil into the ocean,” Lloyd Frischhertz and Gerald Maples, lawyers for the spill victims, said in a complaint filed in federal court in New Orleans.

The lawsuit doesn’t seek damages from BP, rig-owner Transocean Ltd. or the U.S. Coast Guard, which helped direct the firefighting effort. The plaintiffs claim the fireboats violated industry standard procedures that warn against using water cannons to attack pressurized oil fires aboard marine vessels.

The Center for Public Integrity has an investigative report out that backs this up, but implicates the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard has gathered evidence it failed to follow its own firefighting policy during the Deepwater Horizon disaster and is investigating whether the chaotic spraying of tons of salt water by private boats contributed to sinking the ill-fated oil rig, according to interviews and documents.

Coast Guard officials told the Center for Public Integrity that the service does not have the expertise to fight an oil rig fire and that its response to the April 20 explosion may have broken the service’s own rules by failing to ensure a firefighting expert supervised the half-dozen private boats that answered the Deepwater Horizon’s distress call to fight the blaze.

More troubling, it appears that the chaos and lack of Coast Guard supervision may have directly contributed to measures that altered the ballast of the oil rig causing it to list then sink.

There is a lot more to be determined here, but it seems more and more the Coast Guard did not follow its own procedures. This might also explain why the Obama Administration has not been as hard on BP as many on the left would like.

What did the President know about the Coast Guard’s handling of fire? More importantly, why has the White House withheld the fact that the Coast Guard did not follow its own rules and take charge of the firefighting efforts?

Then, of course, we have to ask another question: if the Coast Guard’s actions caused the rig to sink and we already know the oil leaking didn’t start significantly until after the rig sank, is the federal government complicit in the damage?

We cannot and should not avoid blaming British Petroleum. We know from what happened prior to the fire, BP has a lot to answer for. But it seems the federal government’s initial response potentially magnified the problem.

“Requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully-present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked,” Bolton, a Clinton appointee, said in her decision.

I just can’t stop myself…I feel like that kid in church that just loses it when his big brother does something goofy in the middle of the sermon…

So, if I have this right, what this “Judge” has just told us is that the time spent while we wait for Law Enforcement to “run” our licenses and plate numbers is time during which our liberties are being restricted. Please let me be the next white guy to get pulled over so I can tell a State Trooper he is not allowed to run my numbers because it would be a burden on me, and it would restrict my liberty…that right there is made of teh awesome…but wait! There’s more:

Gisela and Eduardo Diaz went to the Mexican consulate in Phoenix on Wednesday seeking advice because they were worried about what would happen to their 3-year-old granddaughter if they were pulled over by police and taken to a detention center.

“I knew the judge would say that part of the law was just not right,” said Diaz, a 50-year-old from Mexico City who came to Arizona on a since-expired tourist visa in 1989. “It’s the part we were worried about. This is a big relief for us.”e-expired tourist visa…hunh-nothing wrong with THAT now, is there?

You do the math there folks? Here since 1989 on a since-expired tourist visa…hunh-nothing wrong with THAT now, is there? And of course, Judge Bolton steps in it even deeper by suggesting:

“There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens under the new (law),” Bolton ruled. She added that a requirement of the law that police determine the immigration status of all arrested people will prompt legal immigrants to be “swept up by this requirement.”

Just how will we wrongfully arrest legal aliens? Never mind; I’m running out of popcorn.

Don’t miss the hilarious sideshow via the LA Times about Union thugs and pro-Federal-law-violation-by-non-Americans activists…caravaning to AZ to protest the law that never made it to the streets of AZ because of this so-called federal Judge.

Check the calendars folks, and wait for the date to be published for the appeals process…I take cash and credit cards… I BET the appeals will be delayed until that magical and mysterious date of November 3, 2010…a day AFTER all those illegal votes can be cast to keep Democrats in office for two MORE years of doing nothing about the problem they created in the first place.

Of course, Ron Paul wasn't the top choice of liberal Republicans in New Hampshire. That honor went to the winner of the New Hampshire primary and the eventual 2008 GOP nominee: John McCain. (Incidentally, I think Mitt Romney's lead in the early New Hampshire polls probably reflects his roots as a New England governor and McCain's absence from the race more than it says anything about his perceived economic competence, though there could be some data that proves me wrong.)

Three thoughts on what Angle ought to do . . .

Appeal to Independents: Angle is one of the most conservative lawmakers in the state, and while Nevada is souring on Obama and has plenty of Tea Party activity, it is not a classic red state. It's a more purple one, and so Angle needs to offer something to the voters who are sour on both Reid and traditional Republicans.

One of the issues I thought might give her trouble was her past enthusiasm for that drug-treatment program with ties to Scientology. But most people don't give a moment's thought to how authorities can help imprisoned criminals overcome their additions. You don't seek out effective prison drug-treatment programs unless you have a deep vein of compassion for the condemned and a desire to help those who have fallen about as far down as they can get. Angle could/should "play against type" and talk, in depth, about what drove her to want to help those whom society has dismissed as hopeless, and provide a serious second chance for those who have made bad decisions with terrible consequences for their lives and loved ones.

I'm picking this as an example. Angle would do well to demonstrate some area where her past stands and votes contradict the right-wing caricature of her that Reid is trying to paint.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs: This anecdote made me just lay my head on the desk for a while:

A local actress named Dee Drenta asked Angle what she would do to help people find work. But instead of seizing what seemed like an easy chance to explain her jobs plan, the candidate revealed that she didn't have one.

"It really comes from the statehouse to incentivize that kind of stuff in our state," Angle said. "Truly, the lieutenant governor, Brian Krolicki, you should have this conversation with him. That's his job, to make sure that we get business into this state. My job is to create the climate so that everybody wants to come."

The woman gave her a puzzled look. "I'm sure you're probably planning on working with these people to do these things," Drenta said, hopefully. "Because it's the end result that matters, whether it's specifically in the job description or not."

Unemployment in Nevada is 14.2 percent. Angle is going to get variations of this question over and over again between now and November, so she had better have a kick-butt answer to that question. I don't care if she prefers a payroll-tax suspension, deferring or eliminating capital-gains taxes on new start-ups, domestic oil and natural-gas drilling, or getting some of these stalled trade deals passed, but she must have something to tout as a jobs-creating idea.

Jujitsu: One problem with Angle is that, according to Rasmussen, Nevadans think she's extreme. What's the opposite of extreme? Mush, evasiveness, slipperiness, opacity. One big reason Reid is in trouble is that the agenda he's working to enact in Washington is the opposite of what Nevadans want. I suspect Nevadans don't think Angle will ever lie to them, nor will they ever doubt where she stands on anything. She may have some opportunity for a variation of the Kerry vs. Bush dynamic, contrasting a flip-flopper or lawmaker who misleads his constituents on his true views and agenda with a lawmaker who is always clear and never equivocates, and whose values are indisputable.

• The portion of the law that requires an officer make a reasonable attempt to determine the immigration status of a person stopped, detained or arrested if there's reasonable suspicion they're in the country illegally.

• The portion that creates a crime of failure to apply for or carry "alien-registration papers."

• The portion that makes it a crime for illegal immigrants to solicit, apply for or perform work. (This does not include the section on day laborers.)

• The portion that allows for a warrantless arrest of a person where there is probable cause to believe they have committed a public offense that makes them removable from the United States.

The Obama administration has filed a federal lawsuit to have the Arizona statute overturned, at least partly on preemption grounds. They had hoped to win this injunction to keep it from being implemented first.

In the first six months of 2010, every state in regular session considered laws related to immigrants or immigration. . . . As of June 30, 2010, 44 state legislatures passed 191 laws and adopted 128 resolutions. Five bills were vetoed, for a total of 314 enacted laws and resolutions.

Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, and Texas are not in regular session in 2010.

Speaker Pelosi just sent this message to DCCC supporters:

Friend --Thank you for helping Democrats surpass our grassroots goal for the crucial 100 Days Deadline. Your generous support has enabled us to begin the final 100 days of this election from a position of strength. I cannot thank you enough.However, just as soon as word came of the contribution that put us over the top, we received news of a disturbing surge in Republican fundraising. House Republicans are now claiming to have had their strongest fundraising in five years.

Then again, this is Nancy Pelosi. She doesn't like any kind of surge.

Wiki-Leaked War Files Expose Identities of Afghan Informants

Hundreds of Afghan lives have been put at risk by the leaking of 90,000 intelligence documents to WikiLeaks because the files identify informants working with NATO forces.

In just two hours of searching the WikiLeaks archive, The Times of London found the names of dozens of Afghans credited with providing detailed intelligence to U.S. forces. Their villages are given for identification and also, in many cases, their fathers’ names.

Oh, well done, sir.

So, here’s a question: when is the world finally going to see this sanctimonious bastard for what he is? Remember when he “leaked” his #outrageous and #totallyundoctoredandcompletelylegitimate video of
US soldiers glorying in the violent destruction of poor innocent civilians who may or may not have been less innocent than the MSM would have liked to believe? That “leak” wasn’t at all irresponsible or anything. That, on top of this newest travesty, should solidify any and all theories that Assagne is among the worst of men.

Julian Assange is not a “whistleblower;” Julian Assange is an irresponsible, traitorous twit, and his life’s work is to put people in danger for the sole purpose of damaging the mission and credibility of the US military.

Consider what he has done: Assange claims his joke of an organization “checked” everything for names of informants, and was even gracious enough to withhold around 15,000 documents from publication. Yet, in a serendipitous (at least for Assange) twist of fate, dozens of names managed to find their way into the public eye, putting informants in danger of discovery and execution by Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

I don’t believe this was an oversight; in fact, I believe that this was done on purpose. People like Julian Assange do not make mistakes like this. No, people like Julian Assange weigh the costs of releasing information like this with the potential benefits of the same…then set their whole analysis on fire and do whatever will most fully serve their purpose.

In this case, Assange’s purpose was to do whatever it takes to further impugn our mission in Afghanistan–at the expense of the very people progressive “activists” purport to protect and defend.

There were great talks from our online superstars like Erick Erickson and Ed Morrissey, stirring red meat from politicians like Mike Pence and Michelle Bachmann. Stephen Kruiser brought down the house one night, and made the blind to be deaf on another. And of course, we had that rare chance to mix and mingle with other right wing nutjobs in a friendly, non-union atmosphere.

There are a lot of slideshows and video clips floating around the blogoverse, which you can find on teh Twitter or with Bing (because screw you Google). I think we all learned a lot too. There were Facebook and Twitter analysis sessions, the energy policy panel was absolutely fantastic. We even learned you better NOT bring Robert Stacy McCain beer in a glass. That class alone was over 45 minutes long.

But the one video I absolutely insist that you watch features the incomparable Ann McElhinney, director of Not Evil Just Wrong. Unfortunately it is still not online and I really can’t wait any longer to post my post-game. McElhinney is an amazing speaker and she absolutely destroys leftist tropes in just a few hilarious remarks. Since I couldn’t get the Right Online video, click on Read More to see her CPAC speech.

Under one of the provisions of ObamaCare, before the new health insurance exchanges are set up in 2014, the federal government is funding state-based high risk pools to help cover those with pre-existing conditions.

But according to the CRS, the abortion restrictions contained in the new law "would not appear to apply specifically to the funds made available for high risk pools by section 1101."

The report says that President Obama's executive order on abortion "does not specifically address high risk pools and the funds provided under section 1101 of (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act)."

The Department of Health and Human Services sets the guidelines for the operation of the high-risk pools, but according to CRS, those guidelines "neither explicitly provide the authority to cover elective abortions with federal funds, nor do they specifically prohibit the use of federal funds."

In response, 13 Republican Senators have sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, urging her to issue regulations that would prohibit federal tax dollars from covering abortion through the high risk pools. You can view the PDFs of the CRS report and the letter below.

King Salim Khalfani of the NAACP's Virginia Conference asked Webb in a letter if he was "pandering to the divisive, conservative, Tea Bagger types whose votes you will need in 2012" and told the Virginia senator that he and Rand Paul are "kith and kin." Though Webb is greeted as a "fellow member of the NAACP," Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Bill O'Reilly were also thrown into the mix to keep Webb company.

As I said yesterday, this probably is indeed about 2012. But it could nevertheless get interesting.

• Rep. Mary Fallin won her gubernatorial primary and is well on track to flip the governorship from Democrat to Republican this fall.  The voters apparently decided to forgive her for TARP; it doesn’t look like they’re quite ready to forgive Lt. Governor Jari Askins for being a Democrat.  It’s that kind of year.
• Rep. Dan Boren (D-no-seriously, OK-02) likewise demonstrated that voting against the health care bill is not precisely a deal-killer; he easily crushed his primary opponent, darn it.
• In OK-05, it’s Club For Growth (Kevin Calvey) vs. the Tea Parties (James Lankford)… and whoever wins gets the seat, essentially.
• Tom Coburn had a primary.  It went about as you’d expect; I really do wish that there was some way to convince the DSCC to potlatch some money on Coburn’s Democratic opponent, but that would require actual mind control rays to accomplish.

The most important lesson there seems to be coming from the gubernatorial race, which is easily the most competitive of the ones mentioned. Essentially, this isn’t a Democratic year, despite the hopes of the Democrats that this would be just an anti-incumbent one; when you’re an incumbent Lt. Governor and 40% is your ceiling, you are officially in trouble.  Democrats are, of course, more than welcome to ask themselves “What’s the matter with Oklahoma?”, particularly if it means that they don’t worry about the problem generally…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Karen is in a nasty runoff fight with a man who has been both a Democrat and a Republican in Washington for twenty years.

Today word comes that Karen’s runoff opponent, former Congressman Nathan Deal, is under a federal investigation for his attempts to force the State of Georgia to keep business contracts with Deal’s business. It’s just another reason why supporting Karen Handel makes sense.

Georgia is expected to pick up a congressional seat in redistricting. There is a lot at stake. Republicans need to pick the best candidate for their gubernatorial nominee in Georgia.

Sarah Palin and RedState both believe that person is Karen Handel. Please support her today. She needs a lot of money for this runoff.

Karen can win. But we must help.

The firm now classifies the seat as "Leans Democrat."

I've talked to Nevada Republicans who aren't giving up. Some of them say that Angle is getting a bit better at message discipline, focusing on emphasizing her message instead of getting drawn into what Reid and his allies want to talk about. She's bringing in new staffers, and she still has an easier task, of simply convincing Nevadans she's better than an incumbent whom they have decided they don't like.

But this is an appalling poll result when Rasmussen finds 49 percent of Nevadans "strongly disapprove" of Obama's job performance, and 48 percent "strongly disapprove" of Reid's job performance, and 55 percent describe their financial situation as "getting worse."

What's hurting the Republican? For starters, an astounding 58 percent find Angle's positions "extreme."

If only someone had foreseen Angle's challenges in the general election.

Obviously, balancing the federal budget is a worthy goal - an extremely important one, in fact. Congress has massively increased spending, to the point that the United States is projected to run inordinately high deficits for years to come. The problem is one of historic proportions. It would be a welcome change if this Congress were to consider a package of spending cuts before the election, designed to restore the nation’s long-term fiscal balance.

But Congressional leaders and the White House recognize that it might be unpopular to push for spending cuts or tax increases before an election. They are deeply worried about the political impact of a controversial vote - one that might lead to catastrophic losses for the majority party. So rather than doing something gutsy, they are shifting responsibility to an unelected commission, and deferring a vote until a lame duck session of Congress:

Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad says a legislative session after the Nov. 2 election and before the new Congress is sworn in could be “one of the most significant lame-duck sessions in the history of the United States.”

In an interview with CongressDaily, Conrad referred specifically to the prospect of votes on the recommendations of President Obama’s bipartisan deficit commission, which is due to report on Dec. 1. Conrad, who is on the panel, believes it could help lead the country to a sounder fiscal path.

That sentiment is echoed by Senate Budget ranking member Judd Gregg, also a commission member. Gregg even suggests the lame duck could trump the historic vote on healthcare reform, which he opposed, if the commission’s recommendations are meaningful and Congress embraces them.

The American people are expected to deliver a stinging rebuke to the current leadership on election day. If Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid suddenly become convinced that spending has gotten out of hand, they might take action before election day to change the disastrous course that the nation is on.

One action that should not be taken is to vote on a massive package of tax increases and spending cuts once a new Congress has been elected, but before that new Congress is sworn in. Some reports suggest that the debt commission recommendations could total $100 trillion in new taxing and spending decisions. These decisions should not be decide by an unaccountable body filled with dozens of retiring and defeated Members of Congress. If Congress lacks the will to make difficult decisions before an election, they should leave such decisions to the new Congress to tackle.

And besides the risk of allowing a lame duck Congress to vote on these recommendations with little public debate, a lame duck session would also be an occasion for plenty of other mischief. According to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, cap and trade could be passed in a lame duck session. And Harry Reid himself is considering votes on amnesty, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and ENDA as well. We need to put an end to plans for a lame duck session.

SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT (Skip to the next item if you don't want surprise twists revealed!)

The main argument to my theory that what we see as reality is actually reality is the main character's children. We see the two young children from behind in a flashback that occurs some time ago (long enough for them to miss their father a great deal, not long enough for them to forget him); at the end, he sees them in the same pose and, some readers argue, the same clothes. Thus, he's in a dream, where he is reunited with his children and in fact hasn't missed a moment of their lives.

Yet according to IMDB, different actors were cast to represent the children in the two scenes, suggesting that about two years have passed:

Claire Geare . . . Phillipa (3 years)

Magnus Nolan . . . James (20 months)

Taylor Geare . . . Phillipa (5 years)

Johnathan Geare . . . James (3 years)

I concur that the children look similar, and there is a dreamlike quality to the way that they're playing in the backyard in the precise spot he last saw them. But by casting different children (including a bit of nepotism!), it seems clear that writer/director Nolan intended to show that time has passed since that flashback.

From Unlikely Voter: We’re now at three polls in a row, counting the new Rasmussen, that show Chris Dudley ahead of John Kitzhaber in Oregon.

Even without a third party candidate mucking up the poll, the Democrat just can’t pull ahead.

So yes, Dudley still isn’t ahead by much (I show by this poll a 37% chance Kitzhaber is ahead), but I’m sure Oregon Republicans will take the 47-44 lead (MoE 4.5), which unlike the SUSA poll requires no successful third party candidate to engineer that lead.

What may be the key stat though isn’t in the poll. It’s from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Oregon unemployment is at 10.5%, putting the state worse off than 42 others in that statistic. And John Kitzhaber is a member of the party that holds the offices of Governor of Oregon, President of the Oregon Senate, Speaker of the Oregon House, and of course controls the White House and the US Congress. He may be taking party blame for the economy.

Most people agree that [California Sen. Barbara] Boxer, despite her fundraising prowess and deep network of donors, will require an infusion of DSCC cash. Her rival, Republican Carly Fiorina, is another partial self-funder, but she won’t have the same level of cash to throw around as her ticketmate, gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman. Still, the polls suggest the race is tight, and a long-serving incumbent is at risk. “They don’t want to lose Boxer, and they don’t want to lose California,” Sheinkopf said, noting how expensive it is to win back a lost seat in the Golden State because its media costs are so prohibitive.

Boxer has $11 million on hand, and has an 11-to-1 cash-on-hand advantage over Fiorina. (Keep in mind, Fiorina can at least partially self-finance.) By comparison, in Ohio, Democrat Lee Fisher is faces a 9-to-1 disadvantage to Republican Rob Portman, and in Pennsylvania, Pat Toomey has $4.5 million to Joe Sestak's $2 million on hand. In other words, there are other Democrats who will really, really need DSCC funds this cycle; you have to wonder how they'll feel about the national committee pumping funds to a candidate sitting on so much cash.

According to the report:

The Coast Guard has gathered evidence it failed to follow its own firefighting policy during the Deepwater Horizon disaster and is investigating whether the chaotic spraying of tons of salt water by private boats contributed to sinking the ill-fated oil rig, according to interviews and documents.

The Senate will continue work on H.R.5297, Small Business Jobs bill.  The House is scheduled to vote on H.R. 5822, the Mil Con - VA appropriations bill.  The House is also expected to vote on 20 bills on the Suspension calendar. 

Is it possible that errors by the federal government caused the leak of oil?  According to the report, this is possible:

While investigators have zeroed in on a series of missteps and ignored safety warnings aboard the rig that preceded the fiery explosion April 20, the question of what caused the platform to collapse into the Gulf two days later remains unanswered and could prove vital to ongoing legal proceedings and congressional investigations. That is because the riser pipe from which the majority of BP’s oil spewed did not start leaking until after the rig sank. Experts and some lawsuits have openly tied the sinking of the drilling vessel to the severity of the leak.

At a minimum, Congress needs to investigate these new allegations to see if they are true.  We all remember the President declaring “plug the damn hole.”  The issue has now been raised as to whether actions, or inaction, by federal officials lead to a collapse of the oil rig and the spewing of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.  These are serious allegations that deserve an in depth investigation.

Klein isn’t alone.  The drumbeat from the left against the filibuster is a coordinated effort and has most likely been the subject of action items circulated on Klein’s Journolist.  The left believes that if they can change the Senate’s rules before the next election, they can jam through other elements of the progressive agenda to expand government and circumvent the consent of the governed.

Ezra Klein’s piece for the Washington Post is titled, “How to end the filibuster with 51 votes.”  The piece explains to liberals how Senators can get around the explicit rules of the Senate and terminate the filibuster.  The piece is in direct opposition to Klein’s view of 2005 where he argued in The American Prospect that this same tactic was wrong.

In 2005 Senate Republicans were ready to pull the trigger for a tactic that was termed the “Nuclear Option” and the “Constitutional Option.”  The debate was over a handful of Bush Administration nominees to the Courts and Democrats were blocking these nominations.  The so called “Constitutional Option” was a trick thought up by a Republican leadership staffer in an effort to force through these nominees.  This is a tactic that rids the Senate of an explicit rule with a simple majority.

The rules that allow Senators to end debate is in Rule XXII of the Senate’s rules.  These rules are adopted by a 2/3rds vote and can only be changed by a 2/3rds vote.  The Senate official web site describes the Cloture Rule as follows:

The cloture rule–Rule 22–is the only formal procedure that Senate rules provide for breaking a filibuster. A filibuster is an attempt to block or delay Senate action on a bill or other matter. Under cloture, the Senate may limit consideration of a pending matter to 30 additional hours of debate

What happens is that the Majority Leader collects 16 signatures on a cloture petition starting the process of shutting down debate.  2 days after the petition is submitted to the Senate, a vote occurs on the ending of debate on a matter.  If 60 Senators agree to shut down debate, then 30 hours of debate ensue then a vote on the underlying bill or nomination is supposed to occur.  The rule is explicit and detailed.

In 2005, a bipartisan team of 7 Democrats and 7 Republicans, the Gang of 14, cut a deal that averted the abolition of this Senate rule.  What Republicans were planning on doing was to have a Republican in the Chair of the Senate who would declare that the filibuster is unconstitutional.  Democrats would have appealed the ruling of the Chair and that ruling could be sustained by a majority of Senators.  The Republicans also had another argument that the filibuster was unconstitutional for judges.

Klein said of that deal in 2005, “it seems like we got what we wanted — the preservation of the filibuster for the Supreme Court nominee.”  Klein was for the filibuster before he was against it - for purely partisan reasons.  Klein bragged that ”we can still hang this power grab on the Republicans’ neck come 2006. As part of a wider argument about their abuses of power, it’ll make perfect sense, and the fact that seven Republicans signed on to stop it will only strengthen our case.”  You would think that Klein would remember that he called this tactic a “power grab” and evidence of Republicans long list of “abuses of power.”

In the Klein 2010 piece he explained that a Senator needs 67 votes to change the rules of the Senate and 60 to overcome a filibuster.  It is virtually impossible to change the Senate’s rules to abolish the filibuster when the Democrats only have 59 Senators in the caucus.  Klein then argues for “Constitutional Option.”  This misnamed trick allows the Senate to set a 51 vote precedent that abolishes the filibuster with a mere majority.  Klein 2010 wrote:

But in practice, there’s another path open to the Senate’s growing ranks of reformers: The so-called “constitutional option,” which is being pushed particularly hard by Sen. Tom Udall, but is increasingly being seen as a viable path forward by his colleagues.

The reason why desperate liberals want to abolish the filibuster ASAP, is because they are about lose seats in the Senate.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, if he is even around next year, will have much more power if he rids the Senate of the filibuster rule as a means to deal with legislation coming over from the House.  Also, this empowers Reid to pass nominees and Treaties in the face of Republican opposition.  All the Democrats would need would be a simple majority to get a Supreme Court nominee on the High Court, if another opening occurs, with this tactic.  This is nothing more than a power grab by Democrats in the Senate.

Klein 2010 explains the procedural trick this way:

The constitutional option gets its name from Article I, Section V of the Constitution, which states that “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings.” In order to fulfill this constitutional order, the Senate must be able to, well, determine its rules. A filibuster, technically, is a way to stop the Senate from determining something by refusing to allow it to move to a vote. Because stopping the Senate from considering its own rules would be unconstitutional, the chair can rule against the filibuster, and the Senate could then move to change its rules on a majority vote.

This rule was explained by Marty Gold, former Floor Advisor to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), in an Law Review article.  Gold points to Rule 5 of the Senate that declares the rules are perpetual.  He then points to Senator Robert Byrd who years ago argued that Article 1, Section V of the Constitution supersedes Rule 5.  Under this reasoning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in January could attempt to adopt one of the many reforms of the filibuster rule in a new Congress, by claiming that a new Senate has not adopted the old Senate’s rules.  Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) would object.

Reid would merely set a precedent that Klein 2010 further argues:

One caveat: Many people, including Udall himself, believe this has to happen at the beginning of a new Congress. If it doesn’t happen at the beginning of a new Congress, then Congress is considered to have acquiesced to the previous Congress’s rules, and a filibuster against further rule changes wouldn’t interrupt the constitutional right to determine the rules.

The bottom line is that Ezra Klein knows in his heart that this tactic by Democrats is a “power grab.”  We have strong evidence from Klein’s Journolist that the left is willing to coordinate a message for the purposes to forwarding the Obama Agenda in an unethical manner.  One would hope that anybody who thinks Klein really believes in the “Constitutional Option” would read his writings from 2005 where the same Ezra Klein wrote some strong words against it.

UPDATE: 12:15 - After quite a few E-Mails between Ezra Klein and myself, I have agreed to post the below response to my blog post:

Well, I grant the disagreement, though I’m more just explaining my position to you. If we’re setting aside the question of how I got to my views, then my basic view is that it’s good for governing majorities to be accountable. If voters want to elect Republicans this year and then elect more of them, and kick out Obama, in 2012, then it shouldn’t be nearly impossible for them to repeal health-care reform. Or to use another example that liberals often worry about, if Republicans after winning the 2004 election, had been able to get majorities for Social Security reform, it should’ve been possible for them to do.

Right now, we have a system where the minority has both the ability and the incentive to see the majority fail. I don’t think that’s healthy. If nothing else, it leads to voters assessing records that are determined as much by the obstruction of the minority party — which most people pay no attention to — as by the majority party’s actual legislative program. I’d prefer, instead, that majorities could legislate, and then voters could clearly judge the job they’ve done, and if they don’t like it, elect some folks who would be able to reverse the damage. I’d prefer, in other words, the pitfalls of a majoritarian system to the pitfalls of a super-majoritarian system.

As for the damage done to the institution, the first place I’d look is the offloading of accountability onto independent or at least non-legislative actors like the Federal Reserve, the Independent Payment Advisory Board, the EPA, the Courts, etc. The beginning of my Newsweek piece, which I sent you, makes this argument in some detail.

I believe that it is good that we don’t live in a parliamentary system where on party rules the government with minimal dissent.  Allowing rights for the minority party in the Senate is good for Democracy.  It is also consistent with the idea of separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches government.  If the filibuster is abolished, you would have the following consequences:

• Less Transparency - There will be less time for the American people to participate in the process;
• More power for Elites - Leadership will have the power to load up appropriations and legislative items with other unrelated matters that may not have majority support; and,
• More Partisanship - I know this seems impossible, but if one party is removed of even the power to extend debate, then that party will have no power to participate in the process.

Efficiency in government is not necessarily a good thing for democracy.  For a longer discussion of this issue, check out my comprehensive defense of the filibuster.

UPDATE:  2:00 - Evidently Klein is a big fan of Red State, because he had one more E-Mail for me to post. I see that some Red Staters are mad that I am giving Klein a forum for his defense when the same courtesy is not extended to conservatives.  We are better than many on the left who fear opponents views. 

Many on the left, enabled by Klein, have spread hate and coordinated misinformation in an effort to disparage the conservative movement on the Journolist.  Klein would state that he explicitly ruled out message coordination on his list, yet the fact remains that the list was used for that purpose by others.  Members of the Journolist, have wished harm to Rush Limbaugh and urged left wing media elites to label all conservative opponents of President Obama “racists.”  This conservative does not fear giving the left an opportunity to respond, even though many of Klein’s allies would not extend the same courtesy to us.  Remind yourself of the treatment our own Erick Erickson received after he was given a forum on CNN by the lefties at Media Matters.  To his credit, Klein did engage in a give and take with me via E-Mail and the same can not be said of many others on the left.

Here is Klein’s latest defense:

I think what you chose to post is very odd: My disagreement wasn’t with whether I disapprove of the filibuster, but whether I was reversing myself by endorsing the constitutional option. I didn’t endorse the constitutional option. And to go to the direct claim, I also called Democratic efforts to reform the filibuster mid-Congress “a power grab.”

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/11/let_congress_be_congress_again.html

That’s what I’d like you to update on. I’m not annoyed to be shown as an opponent of the filibuster. Rather, I think you’re vastly overstating the hypocrisy of my views between 2005 and 2010.

Klein states that “I didn’t endorse the constitutional option.”  My implication, we can assume that he will be consistent and denounce Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid or Dick Durbin if they chose to pull the trigger in the next Congress.  Also we can expect consistency from Klein in denouncing any effort in the Lame Duck by Leadership to engage in an end of Congress “power grab” as wrong.  We now have a clear statement, I think, from Ezra Klein that he opposes the so called “Constitutional Option,” in this Congress or the next.  Please bookmark this page and be ready to call him out if he flip-flops. 

Klein also states, “I think you’re vastly overstating the hypocrisy of my views between 2005 and 2010.”  Am I to understand this as an admission of some hypocrisy?  I would say yes.  I E-Mailed Klein with the question “can we write a joint Op Ed trashing Reid or Durbin if the Maj Leader uses the Constitutional Option in January?”  His response was telling - listen here.

It doesn’t sound good.

The AJC reported in August 2009 that Deal personally intervened with [Georgia Revenue Commissioner Bart] Graham and other state leaders to protect an obscure state program that earned his company nearly $300,000 a year. The newspaper’s report led to a congressional ethics investigation that determined Deal possibly violated U.S. House rules. But Deal resigned from the U.S. House before any formal accusation against him was made.

Following the release of the report by the Office of Congressional Ethics in late March, a Washington-based watchdog group asked the U.S. Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation. It is unclear if the request by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington led to the current inquiry.

Bart Graham has now been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury.

Nathan Deal’s attorney says the congressman has no knowledge of the grand jury, which is not unusual. This is not a good thing. The Democrats will use this story to hound Deal across the state on the campaign trail should Deal win the runoff.

More details from the AJC:

The AJC reported last year that Deal on three occasions met with Graham to discuss the way Georgia inspects rebuilt salvaged vehicles. Deal’s chief of staff, Chris Riley, who is now working on his gubernatorial campaign, used his congressional e-mail account to contact Georgia Senate and Revenue Department staff to discuss the plans and to set up appointments for Deal with officials, including Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle.

Deal and Ken Cronan own and operate Recovery Services Inc., also known as Gainesville Salvage & Disposal, which for nearly 20 years enjoyed a lucrative agreement with the state. From 2004 through 2008, the agreement earned the company $1.5 million, according to state records. Deal personally earned up to $150,000 a year from the enterprise, according to reports he filed with the U.S. House.

Of note, an ethics complaint was filed in the House of Representatives against Nathan Deal, but before the House Ethics Committee released its conclusions, Deal resigned. Doing so avoided formal action by the House. Nonetheless, the House Ethics Committee found Deal had six ethical violations relating to the same situation now being investigated by the federal grand jury.

One of my regular correspondents, Number Cruncher, checks in on their latest numbers in New Hampshire:

They blame Palin for the reason why Kelly Ayotte, has lost, four of her seven point lead over Paul Hodes. However, in reading the poll I think a more obvious answer can be deduced once you read the cross-tabs.

First, I checked the "Who did you vote for last time", I always find this one interesting, because about 6% of people forgot they voted for Obama. This cross-tab is the one I read for my own amusement.

So next we go to Obama personal approvals: While Obama is slipping nationwide, somehow he has made a remarkable turnaround if you trust PPP's latest poll. In fact his Approve/Disapprove is at a far more respectable 49-47 (+2); in the prior poll it was 47-48 (-1). Could all those polls across the country be wrong? We have a three point turnaround to the positive -- hurray the recession is over! I wonder how that would play into Ayotte losing 4 points over April?

Next stops are Party ID and Political Philosophy, both trending more favorably for Democrats and Liberals since the April poll.

PPP Party ID in July: 35% Democrat, 29% Republican, 36% Other (D+6).

PPP Party ID in April: 32% Democrat, 30% Republican, 38% Independent (D+2).

That alone should pretty much tells you why Ayotte lost 4 points. For the record, the exits in 2008 indicated party ID to be Democrat 29%, Republican 27%, and Independent 45%. (D+2).

Next stop: What is your political Philosophy?

In April: 37% Conservative, 20% Liberal, and 43% Moderate

In July: 30% Conservative, 23% Liberal, and 47% Moderate.

So let me get this straight: Liberals have gained 3% and Conservatives lost 7% since April? For the record, the exits in 2008 showed 26% Liberal, 28%, Conservative, and 46% Moderate. In 2004 the exits indicated 30% Conservative, 21% Liberal, and 49% Moderate. Even if PPP argues that their more recent poll is more in line with past elections, it doesn't change the fact that the reason Ayotte's polling numbers decreased is that PPP samples 7% less Conservatives and 3% more Liberals. Simply put, its not Palin who caused Ayotte's polling numbers to go down, rather it's that PPP sampled more liberals and Democrats this time around than they did in April.

I guess when you're a partisan pollster you can take a poll and tell whatever story you want. PPP is a Democrat pollster. That being said: I find it interesting that a Democrat pollster is so interested in discrediting Palin from endorsing candidates. If she is truly so polarizing and thus a drain on Republican candidates, why not just keep your mouth shut?

PPP also has a new poll out in California, showing Democrat Jerry Brown leading Republican Meg Whitman in the governor's race, 46 percent to 40 percent, and Democrat Barbara Boxer leading Republican Carly Fiorina, 49 percent to 40 percent.

Their sample splits 46 percent Democrat, 34 percent Republican, 19 percent independent. The CNN exit poll of the state in 2008 was 42 percent Democrat, 30 percent Republican, 28 percent independent.

An electorate with fewer independents in it would normally be plausible as you change from a presidential election year to a midterm. But more voters are identifying as independents this year, and the economic hard times might mitigate the regular drop-off. It's not impossible that the California electorate will be more Democratic this year than it was in 2008, but I am skeptical.

UPDATE: A Republican operative well-versed in California politics emails in to contend that there’s a good chance PPP oversampled voters in two groups more likely to favor Democrats in its California poll: Hispanics and African-Americans: "In 2008, Latinos comprised 18 percent of those voting, but 20 percent of those surveyed by PPP were Hispanic. CNN’s exit numbers did show that 10 percent of California voters in 2008 were African-American, but without Barack Obama on the ballot, there’s a good chance that PPP’s 8 percent number could be off, too."

This individual says that the proportion of Hispanic, and African-American, voters is expected by many California political operatives to be lower than does PPP. I think that interpretation makes sense, but I'm not going to go nuts over a 2 percent shift. I think the party ID is the more troublesome factor in this sample.

I exaggerate, but only slightly:

Kari DeFalco thinks Wednesday will be an exciting day on Plainfield Avenue when the nation's commander-in-chief arrives at a nearby sub shop.

But her business, she said, will likely not be a beneficiary of President Barack Obama's visit.

"I think it's wonderful (that he's coming); it's extremely exciting," DeFalco said Tuesday inside DeFalco's Automobile Service Center, which she owns with her husband Bill. "But the problem is what it does to the businesses around here. It really makes it difficult."

Obama is slated to participate in a roundtable discussion inside Tastee Sub Shop to discuss the national economy and efforts to boost small businesses.

DeFalco voiced a concern shared by other business operators: With their part of Plainfield Avenue closed off, business will likely take a temporarily hit.

"They're going to prohibit us from being able to do any kind of business in and out with the trucking," DeFalco said.

As of midday Tuesday, some of Tastee Sub Shop's neighbors said they hadn't yet been told by authorities which roads would be closed and when.

Look, I realize the security of the president is a paramount concern; the last thing anybody wants is some nut getting near the commander-in-chief. But the necessary security apparatus and perimeter has now grown so large and controlling that the president is a mobile one-man negative enterprise zone, bringing all economic activity within a certain radius to a halt wherever he goes. I don't pretend to have a good solution; but it's particularly ironic that when the president does an event about helping small businesses, he ends up temporarily hindering local small businesses.

Besides, I'll bet Chris Christie has kept a lot of New Jersey sub shops in business all by himself.

Meanwhile, Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink makes a hard pitch for the support of Morning Jolt readers: “In interviews conducted along the coast, Florida Democrats accused the administration of largely ignoring their calls and letters and complained of a White House that’s out of touch. Alex Sink, Florida’s chief financial officer and the state’s presumptive Democratic gubernatorial nominee, even characterized Vice President Joe Biden’s recent visit to the state as 'a screw-up,' saying she was 'embarrassed' by his speech. 'It was just so off target and out of touch with the reality of what’s going on over there,' Sink said in an interview at the Florida Democratic Party headquarters in Tallahassee.”

They can join the frustrated Rust Belt Democrats.

According to the Maryland State Board of Elections Fisher registered to vote in Maryland in 1996 but has not voted in a single election in Maryland since registering. However, Fisher has been registered to vote in Virginia since 2006

Fisher’s Federal Election Commission candidate filing statement lists his address as 310 Park Lane Federalsburg, MD. The Maryland State Department of Taxation and Assessments shows that property is owned by his parents Robert Allan Fisher Sr. and Diane M. Fisher. Virginia records show Fisher and his current wife have paid property taxes on a home in Chantilly, VA since 2004.

These documents beg several questions:

Why is Fisher running for Congress in Maryland?

Is Fisher a Maryland resident? If yes, then why is a self-admitted millionaire —he told Politico he’s worth $5 million — living with his parents?

Fisher claims “deep roots” in the first congressional district. Why hasn’t he voted in a single election in Maryland in the last 14 years?

More documents and questions to come…

crossposted from RedMaryland

The Timeless Principles of American Prosperity by Peter Ferrara: This should be the central argument and theme for this fall's elections.

The Democrats' Redistricting Nightmare by David N. Bass: The most far-reaching effect of the 2010 midterm elections will be felt at the state level.

Employment School by RiShawn Biddle: Or call them permanent unemployment schools -- because those who attend won't ever acquire the skills work in a modern economy requires.

Buffett, the Times, and the Weeping Abortionist by Ken Blackwell: Proud billionaire sponsors of the culture of death.

Obama's Double-Down Gamble by James Srodes: The White House has served notice that it will continue to apply both monetary and fiscal stimulus through the rest of this year if not longer, the $2 trillion yearly federal overruns be damned.

Corn vs. Coronary Bypass Surgery by Daniel Oliver: All you can eat, according to the Obama socialist in residence, Dr. Ronald Werrbick, MD.

A Paean to the Printed Page by Lisa Fabrizio: What child will ever experience a love affair with Kindles?

What to Watch for:

Obama heads to New York for fundraising; will be interesting indicator of Obama's current clout with the financial community (WSJ) 

Pakistan plane crash kills 152 (BBC News) 

BP probe focuses on 3 firms and their ties to regulators (Wash Post)

DNC to promote "Republican Tea Party" plan to try and conflate Tea party with GOP agenda (DNC)  

Part of financial reform creates agency to enforce hiring of women and minorities (Politico) 

Clip of the Day:

Sen. John Thune talks to Van Susteren about 2012 presidential run exclusively on Fox News 

On any given day, out-of-work residents step off buses and walk past shuttered stores into the unemployment office to attend mandatory employment counseling sessions or prepare résumés for their latest job hunt. While there are more white-collar workers -- many from the surrounding suburbs in Virginia and Maryland -- than in previous years, the vast majority used to work in old-school blue-collar work, office jobs such as executive assistants, and service sector positions such as hospital cooks and hotel maids. Many of them came through here before, looking for work before the recession began three years ago -- and will likely be back here again because they are high school unqualified for all but the most-menial of labor.

Those are just the D.C. residents actually looking for work. There are at least 38,491 residents in D.C. -- more than a tenth of the workforce -- who are either chronically underemployed (or haven't had a steady full-time job) or have gone a year or more without a job. Many of them are either high school dropouts or barely graduated from D.C.'s woeful public schools. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, their lack of education and skills would have meant nothing; they would have easily found some kind of gainful middle-class employment. But in an age in which many blue-collar jobs require an apprenticeship or tech school degree, most dropouts are shut out altogether. And no amount of federal stimulus package will do more than keep them on the dole.

For all the sparring between Capitol Hill Democrats and Republicans this past month about extending federal unemployment subsidies beyond the current allotment of 99 weeks (that's a year and eleven months, if you're counting), little has been said about the long-term jobless -- who will likely be a drain on taxpayers for decades to come -- and one of the most-persistent underlying causes of this problem: The nation's woeful public school systems. With some 1.3 million teens dropping out of high school every year (and millions more graduating with inadequate reading and math skills), even more will either land in prison, on welfare, or engaged in some less-than-legal pursuits. This will further fuel the growth of big government that is draining the nation's long-term economic prospects.

Almost none of this has been solved with the $600 billion in unemployment subsidies and federal stimulus dollars -- including subsidies for job-training programs that cannot solve the problems of illiteracy and poor math skills plaguing the permanently underemployed -- nor will it be addressed through future entitlements. The best solution in the long run is the one part of President Barack Obama's agenda that has wide bipartisan support: The array of charter school expansion and school reform efforts -- including the $4.3 billion Race to the Top initiative -- now fiercely-opposed by the NEA, the AFT, and their allies among traditional public education and old-school civil rights groups. It will take an array of school choice measures, new curricula standards, an end of the system of seniority- and degree-based benefits and pensions, and a more-entrepreneurial culture within education to stir the future growth needed to overcome a $300 billion anchor on the nation's economy.

FOURTEEN PERCENT OF HIGH SCHOOL dropouts age 25 and over are unemployed, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, double the jobless rate for college graduates and four points higher than high school graduates. But that rate obscures the true level of unemployment. The employment participation rate for dropouts is a mere 45 percent versus 62 percent for high school grads and 70 percent for college grads; most dropouts aren't even working in the first place.

The problem is even worse for the newest generation of dropouts, who, unlike earlier generations, are coming into the workforce in an age in which old-school manufacturing jobs such as those in the auto industry are no longer plentiful. Fifty-five percent of high school dropouts age 16-to-24 are unemployed, according to the BLS' 2009 survey (the most-recent data available); this is double the unemployment rate for collegians and high school grads not attending college. Even worse, 52 percent of all dropouts aren't even working or seeking employment of any kind; since they aren't likely to be sitting in classrooms studying for a degree (and may not even be seeking a General Educational Development certificate), most are unlikely to be involved in any productive activity.

What kind of jobs can any of these dropouts get? Well, not many. They can't get any of the positions listed by Forbes last month as the top-paying blue-collar careers. This includes elevator installers-repairmen (average annual income of $67,950), who must spend four years gaining training for a job that combines electrical, structural and mechanical engineering skills; and electrical and electronics installers -- who work in power plants -- who earn an average income of $67,700 after earning an associate's degree and years of apprenticing with veterans. Save for commercial drivers (who must also attend technical school in order to drive big rigs), most of the jobs need the very kind of strong math and science skills required for high-tech white-collar gigs.

What else can't a dropout do? Well, there's welding in auto factories; gaining entry into an apprenticeship program requires strong knowledge of trigonometry (for bending metal into the right angles). Same for machine tool and die makers -- who craft the tools needed for every area of manufacturing -- who must also understand how to use computer-aided design software in their work. Since most dropouts struggled with basic reading and math while in school, it isn't as if they would get a handle on anything more complicated. The prospects are even dimmer outside of blue collar work.

Sixty-three percent of all jobs require some form of higher education (a wider array of learning than one traditionally thinks, since it includes colleges, technical schools, and even apprenticeship programs). This includes working in the auto industry, where 60 credit hours at a community college is the minimum requirement for gaining employment. Some will argue that the degree requirements are certainly just ways to screen out unqualified applicants (and note that they are waived for high school grads with years of experience). And that is the point. Save for the few who land in entertainment or bootstrap their way to entrepreneurial success, most dropouts are essentially out of luck.

For decades, federal and state officials have funded an array of job retraining programs to help get dropouts into gainful employment. In 1998, those programs were assembled under one roof through the Workforce Investment Act. Although this has made it easier for unemployed workers to seek out programs, it is unclear that this has helped make dropouts more employable.

The GED -- or "Good Enough Diploma," as comedian Chris Rock once called it -- was only marginally useful for dropouts of previous eras, as they earned less than either high school grads or collegians over time; it is even less-useful now. In June, a team led by Nobel Laureate James Heckman concluded that it has "minimal value of the certificate in terms of labor market outcomes." The most-recent effort at workforce retraining involves community colleges, the single-biggest destination for all college-bound students. But community colleges graduate just a fifth of freshmen in three years -- and most high school dropouts wouldn't even qualify to attend.

THE LONG-TERM PROBLEMS FOR DROPOUTS points out the single-biggest problem for the American economy -- and the single-biggest threat to the concept of small government most conservatives hold dear: A public education system that is hardly doing the job. Thirty-three percent of American third-graders -- and a quarter of all eighth-grade students -- read Below Basic proficiency on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Based on the high numbers of freshmen forced to take remedial math and English, it is clear that K-12 isn't doing much better with high school graduates either.

The fact that America's public schools were never really intended for actually providing an education, but for inculcating civic values (and to prevent the expansion of Catholic schools), is certainly part of the problem. But the other problems -- the low quality of instruction among America's teaching corps; the lack of high-quality school options for all but the wealthiest parents; and English and math curricula that would hardly match up to (often low) 19th-century standards -- can and should be fixed before more dropouts add stress to taxpayer's pockets.

Oddly enough, education reform is the one area where Obama may be on track. The $4.3 billion Race to the Top program has managed to spur states such as California and New York to eliminate (or modify) caps on charter schools -- the most-successful form of school choice -- and force efforts to bring private-sector performance management to evaluating the work of teachers (just 2.1 percent of them are ever dismissed currently). Although a clever form of unfunded mandate, it is at least one that can force education in the right direction. In D.C., for example, schools boss Michelle Rhee took a step in the right direction by sacking 241 teachers deemed unable to improve student achievement.

Some federal school reform money would be a lot better in the long run than another $750 million a week in federal spending that will only triple even if the Republicans take control of Congress next year.

That's not hyperbole. Given the country's closely divided electorate, the political fortunes of each party chiefly hinge on how redistricting pans out. That, in turn, hinges on how well Democrats and Republicans fare at the state level. The reason: in most states, legislators are responsible for creating, and governors responsible for signing into law, redistricting plans that reflect population shifts documented in the census. The party in command has enormous clout.

With about a dozen of the nation's state legislatures closely split along partisan lines and 18 governor's races in the "toss up" category this year, big changes could be in store. Factoring in the tenuous political atmosphere adds even more spice to the mix. So far, the ground game is shaping up nicely for the GOP, but there are still fundraising and organizational storm clouds on the horizon.

The Cook Political Report lists five governorships now held by Democrats as either "leaning" Republican or "likely" Republican. Of those five states, four of the legislatures are Republican and one is split between the parties, giving the GOP a good chance to control the redistricting process. Conversely, Cook lists only one governor's race -- for Republican Linda Lingle's office in Hawaii -- as leaning in the Democrats' favor, and none in the "likely" or "solid" Democrat category. There are no redistricting implications, though, because the Aloha State redraws political lines by independent commission, not legislative edict.

In 17 state legislatures, meanwhile, Democrats maintain a slim advantage in at least one chamber. In a good Republican year, several of those could flip. Even if a Democrat occupies the governor's office or controls one legislative chamber, the GOP could significantly influence the process and curtail partisan gerrymandering by capturing at least part of the state government. Both national parties understand the implications, which is why they're pouring $20 million apiece into competitive legislative races, with an eye toward strengthening their hand in redistricting.

Aside from the favorable lineup of races, the political trend is also in Republicans' favor. Even in the strongly anti-GOP election year of 2008, Republicans managed to defend all of their governorships up for grabs except one in Missouri. Since then, Republicans have been victorious in special elections in Virginia and New Jersey, states where Democrats had a nearly decade-long winning streak in gubernatorial elections.

Reapportionment is another factor upping the stakes. That process moves congressional seats from states that lost population to states that gained. Here again, Republicans have reason to be optimistic. The Washington, D.C., based firm Polidata predicts that 10 states will gain at least one congressional seat and 10 lose at least one after the 2010 census. Of those, all of the losing states except one are in the predominantly Democratic northeast and upper Midwest. On the other hand, all but one of the states gaining seats is in the Republican-friendly Sunbelt, including a projected four-seat pickup for Texas.

The hands that redraw district borders are some of the most powerful in politics. Aside from a handful of state and federal requirements, lawmakers can finagle district lines however they choose. Legislative and congressional districts must be contiguous -- meaning all parts touch and none are detached -- and each must have an equal number of residents. The federal Voting Rights Act also ties legislators' hands by requiring them to draw some districts to grant minorities greater electoral power.

Beyond that, the majority party has a wide degree of latitude and the capacity to shut out the minority from the process. To top it off, advances in technology have made it possible to secure almost foolproof partisan advantage by drawing lines down to the minutest detail. The result: gerrymandering such as North Carolina's 12th Congressional District, alternatively called the "lightning bolt" and "spaghetti" district and dubbed "political pornography" by the Wall Street Journal.

Despite the favorable political tides, however, Republicans should be cautious. Democrats appear to have a better redistricting apparatus on the ground to prime for inevitable legal challenges, and the party seems to be outpacing Republicans in the fundraising department as well. Liberals don't want a repeat of the last round of redistricting, which led the GOP to historic gains in the 2002 midterms.

In addition, a number of states, including Colorado and California, are weighing ballot measures that would ease partisanship in redistricting. Advocates have long called for independent commissions to handle this important job, but since the lawmakers who benefit from gerrymandering control the process, the cause often gets trampled underfoot.

In the end, though, the political dynamics this year should encourage conservatives. At worst, the GOP will make inroads and expand its influence over the process. And it's a good thing, too. When the history books are closed, state-level races could be the untold story of 2010 -- a story that will be felt for years to come.

 him on Twitter @thepundit1.

Moreover, as we will discuss next week, such booming economic growth is much more beneficial for working people and the poor than counterproductive, socialist redistribution to achieve equality of results. A booming market economy produces a much higher standard of living for working people and the poor. This is especially so when policies are structured to channel the flows of booming economic growth through working people and the poor, as we will explain. Economic experience, theory, and logic shows that outdated, throwback, socialist redistribution, by contrast, inevitably leads to lower standards of living, stagnation and decline.

America today once again desperately needs to return to the timeless principles of economic growth, to restore our traditional, world leading prosperity, and the American Dream. This should be the central argument and theme for this fall's elections.

A Hundred Years of Supply-Side Economics

Last year, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute produced a brilliant, overlooked book that recounted the history of supply-side economics -- Econoclasts: The Rebels Who Sparked the Supply-Side Revolution and Restored American Prosperity, by Brian Domitrovic. As explained in that book, the roots of supply-side economics go back to 1913, when the national income tax and the Fed were first adopted. "For restraining the institutions created that year -- the income tax and the Federal Reserve -- is the essence of supply-side thinking," Domitrovic writes.

It didn't take long for trouble to brew. The top tax rate of 7% soared to 77% by 1918. Moreover, the income tax, sold as a tax on the rich, began to apply at just $1,000 in income (equivalent to about $20,000 today). In addition, during World War I, the Fed essentially doubled the money supply relative to the economy. Inflation consequently soared by 84% over the 4 years from 1916 to 1919. The Fed then slammed on the brakes, draining 60% of the excess money, and throwing the economy into steep recession as a result. Unemployment soared to 12%, 50% higher than in any previous recession.

Warren Harding, newly elected President in 1920, appointed the enormously successful Pittsburgh banker Andrew Mellon Secretary of the Treasury, with the duty of fixing the economy. Mellon adopted what became the supply-side economic formula. He slashed the top income tax rate to 25%, and the bottom rate from 8% to 1%, increasing the income level to which it first applied by 50%. Moreover, Mellon led the Fed to stop the money supply drain, return interest rates to standard levels, and devote itself to stable prices. The Fed would look to market price levels, particularly commodities, including gold, for its guide.

The result was the Roaring '20s, the greatest boom in American history to that point, essentially beginning the modern American economy. Real output galloped, stock prices tripled, real wages advanced with productivity increases, and prices were stable. "It was in the twenties that Americans bought their first car, their first radio, made their first long distance telephone call, took their first vacation," as Domitrovic quotes Richard Vedder and Lowell Galloway.

Domitrovic explains, "The essence of supply-side economics lies in using the two levers of governmental economic leverage for the specific uses at which they are most adept. Monetary policy is capable of maintaining the price level. Tax policy is capable of spurring growth. The 'policy mix' of stable money plus tax cuts is the secret to escaping stagflation."

Tax policy spurs growth by reducing tax rates, as Mellon did. The lower rates spur incentives for productive activity, like savings, investment, work, business creation and expansion, and job creation, by allowing the productive to keep a higher proportion of what they produce. These incentives, moreover, apply to every economic decision with every dollar in the economy, at home and around the world in regard to the American economy, not just to the amount of any tax cut. Supposed tax cuts involving credits or rebates are just giveaways like welfare and other government spending, without the powerful incentive effects of rate cuts.

Monetary policy controls the price level because inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods, everywhere and always caused by printing up too much money in relation to the demand for money. The one and only solution to inflation is to restrain money supply growth to equal money demand. Maintaining stable prices means also avoiding deflation by maintaining money growth to keep pace with money demand. The Fed should follow this policy by monitoring market prices, particularly the most sensitive prices such as commodities, including gold.

Monetary policy cannot be used to stimulate the economy because in the long run it just washes out in affecting only the overall price level, and not the level of real output. In the short run, trying to control the economy by monetary policy just adds to instability, sometimes grievously, causing booms and busts, bubbles and crashes. Keynesian economics is even more inept, because economic prosperity is not caused by increasing government spending and deficits, which are at best a wash, and more likely a drag, as the private sector would use the resources more productively and efficiently than central-planning government bureaucracies lacking market incentives for guidance.

These are the timeless principles of economic growth and prosperity.

Going Off the Rails: The Depression Keynesian Blunder

The Depression arose and worsened as America departed from these pro-growth policies. Instead of maintaining stable prices, the Fed allowed the money supply to decline precipitously, even while dollar demand was soaring as the world sought a stable store of value. This created ruinous deflation. Mellon's tax rate policies were also ruinously reversed, with the top income tax rate raised first to 63%, and then to 79%, with the lower tax rates raised even more in percentage terms. The Smoot-Hawley tariff added another tax burden that killed international trade. President Roosevelt tried to restore prosperity with soaring Keynesian government spending and deficits, which failed miserably as the Depression dragged on for over 10 years. By 1933, unemployment was at 25%, and GDP was down 57% nominally, 22% in real terms.

The Bretton Woods global monetary regime agreed to in 1944 essentially took Mellon's monetary policy focus on stable prices worldwide. The dollar was convertible to gold at $35, and all other currencies were convertible to the dollar at fixed exchange rates. As long as that was maintained, prices would be stable, as they were until overly expansive U.S. monetary policy caused the system to break down completely in 1971. Bretton Woods also essentially nullified Keynesian stimulus policies, as sustained high deficits for any country were inconsistent with the fixed exchange rates and dollar gold convertibility.

This price stability augured a 25-year, postwar, worldwide economic boom. Domitrovic writes, "There can be no mistake that in the high years of the Bretton Woods system, roughly 1950-70, the world economy established incredible feats. European and Japanese growth was sustained at a nearly 7% rate, and the United States (which had started at a higher basis) enjoyed long booms over 4%." Supply-side, free market, policies produced in particular the postwar German "economic miracle."

Kennedy's Supply-Side Economics

But with recessions in 1953, 1957, and 1960, a true economic boom was not restored in America until the Kennedy tax cuts of the 1960s. Kennedy was surrounded by Keynesians who were willing to support some tax cuts focused on stimulating demand. But President Kennedy himself had a supply-side understanding focused on tax rates, saying, "It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today, and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the tax rates…. [A]n economy constrained by high tax rates will never produce enough revenue to balance the budget, just as it will never create enough jobs or enough profits."

Domitrovic explains that in 1958 a young Robert Mundell, destined to win the Nobel Prize in 1999, first began to explicitly advocate the supply-side policy mix, first from his perch at the IMF, then as a Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. Domitrovic quotes Mundell as explaining that President Kennedy overruled his Keynesian advisors and "reversed the policy mix to that of tax cuts to spur growth in combination with tight money to protect the balance of payments," the exact supply-side agenda Mundell had been advocating, though Mundell disclaims having influenced Kennedy directly. Mundell continues, "The result was the longest expansion ever [up to that time] in the history of the U.S. economy, unmatched until the Reagan expansion of the 1980s."

Kennedy's business tax cuts were adopted in 1962, and the personal rate cuts in 1964. The top income tax rate was slashed from 91% to 70%, with the lower rates reduced by similar proportions across the board. The next year, economic growth soared by 50%, and income tax revenues increased by 41%! By 1966, unemployment had fallen to its lowest peacetime level in almost 40 years. U.S. News and World Report exclaimed, "The unusual budget spectacle of sharply rising revenues following the biggest tax cut in history is beginning to astonish even those who pushed hardest for tax cuts in the first place." Arthur Okun, the administration's chief economic advisor, estimated that the tax cuts expanded the economy in just two years by 10% above where it would have been.

The 1970s: Return to Keynesian Fallacies

The postwar boom ended as the liberal Johnson Administration abandoned the hugely successful supply-side policy mix. Federal spending started to soar in 1965, and President Johnson demanded and got a loose monetary policy focused on supposedly maintaining growth rather than stable prices. The tax increases started in 1968 with the 10% income tax surcharge, the alternative minimum tax, and increased capital gains levies, followed by bracket creep once inflation kicked in.

By 1969, 6.2% inflation resulted, along with the 1969-70 recession, and the economic miracle of stagflation had arrived, supposedly impossible under the doctrine of Keynesian economics. For the rest of the decade, Keynesian monetary policy kept trying to boost the economy out of decline, only to have to reverse course when inflation soared, causing the economy to fall into recession again. This resulted in further recessions in 1973-75, 1980, and 1981-82.

It finally came to an end when President Reagan explicitly abandoned Keynesian economics, and openly embraced the supply-side. He adopted 25% across the board income tax rate cuts, and then tax reform in 1986 that reduced the top rate from 70% in 1981 to 28%, with only one other rate of 15%. He bravely endorsed tight money through the teeth of the recession to stop inflation, which worked spectacularly. While prices rose 25% in just two years from 1979-80, annual inflation collapsed by half to 6.2% by 1982, and half again to 3.2% by 1983.

Reagan added deregulation to the policy mix, which reduced the cost burden on production, further stimulating it. The Reaganomics formula also included domestic spending cuts, which even with the defense buildup that won the Cold War without firing a shot, reduced total federal spending as a percent of GDP by 10% by 1989.

The results were so spectacular they astonished and surprised everyone, from opponents who wouldn't admit it, to the architects of Reaganomics themselves. Besides slaying inflation which most thought by then couldn't be done without destroying the economy, by the end of 1982 the economy took off on the above mentioned, 25-year economic boom, what Reaganomics gurus Art Laffer and Steve Moore have rightly called "the greatest period of wealth creation in the history of the planet." These results have been recounted in this column several times in the past, and the complete story is too long to do it further justice here.

The Bush/Obama Great Recession

What needs to be recounted at this point is that the Great Reagan Boom ended when, again, the supply-side policy mix was abandoned. Soon after Bush was elected, the Fed returned to using monetary policy to stimulate and manage the economy rather than focusing on price stability. The loose monetary policy from 2001 to 2006 even kept real interest rates below zero for 2½ years during that period, which effectively subsidized excessive risk and leveraging. The result was the housing bubble, which created the financial crisis when it popped in 2008.

Equally promoting the bubble was the Clinton Administration/liberal Democrat "affordable housing" policies, creating the subprime mortgage market. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were dragooned to finance the bubble to its eventual scary dimensions. Reregulation forced banks to contribute more financing to subprime mortgages and the housing bubble as well, and further contributed to the crisis with mandatory mark to market accounting, and privileged status for the credit rating agencies that rated subprime mortgage backed securities AAA.

Spending also began to race out of control during those Bush years. Finally, when the crisis hit, instead of resorting to the supply-side tool of reducing tax rates to promote growth, the Bush Administration peculiarly reached back to the 1970s with a Keynesian government spending, tax rebate package in February 2008. Every one of the planks of Reaganomics had been abandoned at that point.

Barack Obama had personally supported every one of these steps leading to the financial crisis, going back to the Clinton era. Once elected President, he simply reupped every one of these disastrous policies multiple times. He led enactment in February 2009 of basically the same Bush/Keynesian stimulus of a year prior, only 6 times as large. He exploded government spending and deficits to record shattering levels. He embraced re-regulation with a vengeance. And starting next year he has scheduled sharp increases in every significant federal tax rate.

Following with such devotion the opposite of every plank of Reaganomics, we can only expect exactly the opposite results, as Art Laffer has so rightly predicted. The economic history of the 20th century as recounted above backs him up quite thoroughly.

Next week we will discuss in full detail how to avert this disaster, and restore for all traditional American prosperity and the American Dream that has drawn hundreds of millions to these shores over the last 400 years.

"Christine O'Donnell has established a reputation as a strong voice for conservative constitutionalist principles consistent with the ideals of the tea party movement," said Amy Kremer, Chairman of the Tea Party Express and one of the founding activists of the modern tea party movement.
In contrast, Mike Castle has proven himself to be one of the most liberal establishment Republicans who has repeatedly turned against conservatives and those in the tea party movement.
"We're so excited to see the strength behind Christine O'Donnell's campaign," said Joe Wierzbicki, Coordinator for the Tea Party Express.
"We long ago announced our intention to hold Mike Castle accountable for his failed record in Congress, and now we have an excellent shot to make sure he is defeated by a solid conservative candidate," Wierzbicki said. . . .

CNN notes that backing from the Tea Party Express helped Sharron Angle score a come-from-behind win in the Nevada GOP Senate primary. Meanwhile, O'Donnell's trip to Vegas for the Right Online conference definitely helped boost her name recognition among conservative bloggers, generating coverage by Hot Air and Gateway Pundit, as well as an interview with Tammy Bruce.

Mike Castle's Republican supporters -- including Delaware State GOP Chairman Mike Ross -- are dismissing O'Donnell as "unelectable," citing her 2008 challenge to Joe Biden, who ran simultaneously for Senate re-election while campaigning as Obama's running mate. The back story on that campaign, however, actually points toward O'Donnell's potential to upset Castle in the primary. Without significant financial backing from national Republicans, O'Donnell was outspent nearly 50-to-1 by Biden, yet she got more than 140,000 -- 35% of the vote in a high-tide year for Democrats. Turnout in this mid-term GOP primary is unlikely to exceed 30,000, so if O'Donnell can mobilize just one out of 10 of her 2008 voters to turn out Sept. 14, that might be enough to beat Castle.

Robert Costa at National Review mentions that Sen. Jim DeMint is keeping an eye on the Delaware primary, considering an endorsement of O'Donnell. Of course, many of O'Donnell's supporters are also hoping for Sarah Palin's endorsement, but notice how the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling is spinning last week's Palin endorsement of Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire as a detriment. Of course, this is outweighed by the hitherto decisive benefit of Palin's support in a Republican primary. If Ayotte wins the nomination -- like Delaware, New Hampshire's primary is Sept. 14 -- that momentum will carry over into the general election, and the "Palin Factor" can't be isolated and analyzed until the votes are counted on Election Day.

In a mid-term election year like this, it strikes me as foolish for Republicans to base decisions about Republican primaries on the hope of wooing moderates in the general election. It's exactly that kind of ill-considered "strategic" thinking that led to Newt Gingrich's embarrassing endorsement of Dede Scozzafava last year, and to John Cornyn's blunder in prematurely backing Charlie Crist in Florida.

The bottom line is that the longer we prolong dealing with our debt problem, the greater the risk of a fiscal crisis, and the more unattractive the options become for digging ourself out of the mess.

Some of the report undermines arguments that conservatives are trying to advance -- the CBO says, for instance, that largely extending the Bush tax cuts will significantly add to the deficit. But broadly speaking, the report presents a reality that is quite constistent with arguments conservatives have been trying to advance for years.

It outlines several consequences for growing debt, including crowding out of private investment and the need for higher taxes and/or spending cuts. Of higher taxes, however, it warns that, "To the extent that additional tax revenues were generated by increasing marginal tax rates, those rates would discourage work and saving, further reducing output and incomes."

The CBO also makes another point -- one which I constantly emphasize to conservative friends who say they're mainly interested in national security -- that a failure to address our fiscal situation will undercut military readiness.

"Having a small amount of debt outstanding gives policymakers the ability to borrow to address significant unexpected events such as recessions, financial crises, and wars," the CBO writes. "A large amount of debt could also harm national security by constraining military spending in times of crisis or limiting the ability to prepare for a crisis." It also notes that, "increased dependence on foreign investors that would accompany a rising debt could weaken the United States’ international leadership."

While the CBO notes that it's hard to predict with any degree of accuracy when or if the U.S. would encounter a fiscal crisis, it says that, "all else being equal, the higher the debt, the greater the risk of such a crisis."

Once a fiscal crisis actually occurs, the options get even worse. They include restructuring debt or causing inflation, both of which would run the risk of raising interest rates for government to brorrow money. Inflation would not only have negative economic consequences, but it would also increase future deficits. As an example: "if inflation was 1 percentage point higher over the next decade than the rate CBO has projected, budget deficits during those years would be roughly $700 billion larger."

The response to the fiscal crisis, the CBO anticipates, would likely include an austerity program with a mixture of tax increases and spending cuts. Yet those emergency measures will have to involve much more severe actions than what would be required if we were to address our debt problems now.

• In West Virginia, Gov. Joe Manchin, who is likely to be the Democrats' nominee in the race for the Senate, cannot use the $140,000 left in his gubernatorial campaign fund in a Senate campaign. So he's effectively starting from scratch. His most likely rival, Republican John Raese, ran against Robert Byrd in 2006 and spent $1.5 million of his own fortune. Manchin is still a favorite, but this is a complication.
• Andy Barr's House race in Kentucky will probably be the first one called on election night; polls in Kentucky close at 6 p.m. Eastern. If Barr beats three-term incumbent Ben Chandler, it will be an early indicator of a good night for the GOP.
• A sleeper issue in Arkansas's 1st congressional district: The Federal Emergency Management Agency is remapping flood zones, and dramatically expanding the number of counties in this district that are defined as within a flood zone. Homeowners in the expanded zone will have to purchase FEMA-approved flood insurance, at a cost of $2,000 per year. Republican Rick Crawford vehemently opposes the expansion; he accuses Democrat Chad Causey of not having a clear position on the FEMA plan.
• In Illinois, Randy Hultgren wonders where his opponent, incumbent Democrat Bill Foster, is. He says Foster events are rarely publicized ahead of time, and he rarely if ever does traditional "town hall" meetings. There's even speculation that Foster doesn't come back to the district that often; an entire 30 minutes from O'Hare, it's not like it's hard to get to from Washington. 
• Kristi Noem's early success running in South Dakota's at-large district against incumbent Stephanie Herseth Sandlin has prompted the DCCC to purchase $500,000 in air time in the final two weeks before Election Day. That's a phenomenal amount of money to spend on one of the least expensive states in the country; a half-million buys a lot of air time in South Dakota.
• Mick Mulvaney, running against John Spratt in South Carolina, just wants to keep the spending race reasonably close. "If I have enough resources to get my message out, it doesn't matter how much he has to get his message out."
• Plenty of Republicans from districts that McCain won handily -- like David McKinley in West Virginia's 1st district -- joked that they would love to see President Obama appear on behalf of their Democratic rivals. But Keith Fimian, running against Democrat Gerry Connolly in northern Virginia's suburban district, said the same thing. He noted that Obama won the district handily in 2008, but then the GOP's Bob McDonnell won 55 percent in this district in 2009. This year, Connolly won't have that helpful Obama wave or any top-of-the-ticket help; this year, he is the top of the ticket.

His lawyer, Kar Savuth, told the AFP news agency: "We will appeal against the decision."

A spokesman for the tribunal said the lawyer had indicated soon after the verdict was given that an appeal would be launched.

"He said he would have appealed a sentence of even one day," said Reach Sambath.

A far cry from what he said last August:

I am humble before the Cambodian people, I accept all of these crimes and would like the Cambodian people to condemn me to the strictest level of punishment."

"My life is just one life and cannot compare to those lives which were lost during the period," he added.

Duch's attitude changed last month when he fired his U.N. lawyer and he demanded his release. Nothing wrong with wanting to avoid incarceration, whether you're guilty or innocent, but a contradiction's a contradiction. And as I wrote today the "just following orders" defense doesn't apply, for Duch had his own enthusiasm for the Khmer Rouge cause.

An internal poll conducted by Republican firm the Tarrance Group for Mike Kelly's campaign and the NRCC shows the Butler car dealer well ahead of Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, D-Erie, 48-37. The survey of 305 likely voters has a margin of error of 5.8 percent.

Time for the caveats: It's a GOP poll, and similar surveys proved inaccurate in forecasting the Tim Burns-Mark Critz special election. Still, 11 points is a lot.

Some other notable numbers: Kelly, a former city councilman in Butler, carries an impressive 67 percent name recognition and 51 percent of voters think Dahlkemper does not deserve re-election.

The other polls are:

• NM-1: Barela 51, Heinrich 45.
• IL-17: Schilling 45, Hare 32. 
• VA-5: Hurt 58, Perriello 35.
• AZ-8: Paton 45, Giffords 44.
• PA-11: Barletta 56, Kanjorski 37.
• PA-7: Meehan 47, Lentz 26.*
• VA-2: Rigell 41, Nye 35.
• SD-AL: Noem 49, Herseth Sandlin 44.
• ND-AL: Berg 51, Pomeroy 44.
• AR-2 : Griffin 50, Elliott 34.*
• OH-13: Ganley 44, Sutton 41.
• MS-1: Nunnelee 50, Childers 42.

* Open-seat race in district currently represented by a Democrat.

All of the usual caveats stand, but if these polls are even close to accurate, we are on course for a November blowout of epic proportions.

On Sunday I went to the Hilton Head Democrats' picnic to educate myself. Very small turn out. Very HOT day. Maybe 100 people. [Gubernatorial candidate] Vincent Sheheen was the speaker. He got lost on HHI and showed up late. The head of the Democrats for Beaufort County said how proud he was of the whole Democratic ticket, but never made reference to their Senatorial candidate, American Hero Alvin Greene. Sheheen spoke like he was running against Mark Sanford instead of Nikki Haley.

In defense of Sheheen, those traffic circles in Hilton Head can be pretty maddening.

Confidence among U.S. consumers declined in July to a five-month low, a sign the lack of jobs will limit the economy’s recovery . . . Today’s figures showed income expectations at their lowest point in more than a year, posing a risk for consumer spending that accounts for 70 percent of the economy.

“Consumers’ faith in the economic recovery is failing,” said Guy LeBas, chief fixed-income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia, whose forecast of 50.3 was the closest among economists surveyed by Bloomberg. “The job market is slow and volatile, and it’ll be 2013 before we see any semblance of normality in the labor market. It means weaker purchases.” 

. . . The proportion who expect their incomes to rise over the next six months fell to 10 percent, the lowest since April 2009, from 10.6 percent. The percent of respondents expecting more jobs to become available in the next six months decreased to 14.3 from 16.2 the previous month. The share of consumers who said jobs are currently plentiful held at 4.3 percent. Those who said jobs are hard to get increased to 45.8 percent from 43.5 percent.

In other news, President Obama is the guest of honor for a $30,000-a-head DNC fundraising event at the four-story Sullivan Street townhouse of Vogue editor Anna Wintour. I guess those donors have some consumer confidence.

By the standard Jeff is employing here, Emmett Till was not lynched because he was murdered by only two men and he was not hanged. Nothing was hung around Till's neck until his murderers wanted to weigh down his dead body after dumping it in a river. (Though I realize we've gone from implying that a lynching must be by noose to quibbling about the number of people it takes to form a proper lynch mob.)

Similarly, according to this idiosyncratic definition James Byrd was not lynched because he was murdered by three men and dragged to his death while chained to the back of a pick-up truck. Both of these high-profile, racially motivated, 20th-century murders are widely and popularly described as lynchings. Shirley Sherrod said her fair share of crazy things in her full, unedited speech but I think most people would regard her use of the word "lynch" as reasonable.

Even if we adhere to Jeff's precise requirements for what constitutes a lynching, I cannot fathom how nit-picking over the proper terminology to describe the brutal beating death of a black man strikes a blow against the New Black Panther Party, the federal lawsuit against Arizona, and all the assorted misdeeds of the left mentioned in his post. Instead it is a distraction that will leave most people bewildered if not offended and an argument that does not meet Jeff's normally high standards.

While I was helping my 1-year-old son, Gunner, do his life-prolonging breathing treatment, his president betrayed him and others who suffer from cystic fibrosis. Obama appointed a man who advocates rationing of health care and praises the disastrous British National Health Service to head one of the most important positions in the entire U.S. health care system...

Looking at Berwick's project, British NHS, it looks like services for those who need it the most, the terminally ill and elderly, will be first to go.

Make no mistake about it, whatever Medicaid and Medicare decide to do, private health plans will follow their lead.

President Obama and Berwick's goal is to turn the U.S. health care system into a redistributive system. Berwick has stated, "Any health care plan that is just civilized and humane must, must redistribute wealth from the richer to the poorer."

For those like my son who need expensive, lifelong treatment, our only hope is that the U.S. system doesn't "redistribute" to the British NHS extreme, where they won't even let patients pay out of pocket for lifesaving treatments because it is unfair to those who can't afford them.

Too harsh, you say? There's no reason to think this administration's policies would ever short-shrift parents of special needs, right? Eh, wait:

The “Special Needs Kids Tax” takes effect Jan. 1, 2011:  This provision of Obamacare imposes a cap on flexible spending accounts (FSAs) of $2500 (Currently, there is no federal government limit).  There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children.  There are thousands of families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year.  Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education.  (Page 1999/Sec. 9005/$14 billion)

Well, I'm sure that's just a necessary evil to keep costs in line. It's not like medical experts cited by the administration openly write things like:

Services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia. A less obvious example is guaranteeing neuropsychological services to ensure children with learning disabilities can read and learn to reason.

Well, that's just some doctor writing in a medical journal, I'm sure that this guy has no real influence over the administration's thinking on this issue . . . oh, wait, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel. Brother of Rahm. Ah.

Well, look, it's not like the president has gone on national television and cracked jokes at the expense of special needs children. Oh, wait...

A story in today's Climate Wire trade press outlet opens:

Pressure for a renewable electricity standard is strengthening, with one Republican now promising to offer an amendment to the modest energy bill being introduced today by the Senate majority leader.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) will seek to include a national requirement on utilities that makes them buy or generate 15 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020, according to his office.

"He will be offering that amendment," said Brian Hart, a spokesman for Brownback. "Kansas is a big wind state."

It's not the first time. And yes, senators tend to "grow in office", as in becoming much more statist with each term, sometimes with each year, of service. But since that stuff in this case is energy, necessitating higher energy prices in parts of the country that have elected to not pursue such fashionable folly, there are slightly more considerations at play.

Also, with Sen. Brownback inescapably proposing a national energy tax, so much for the moral high ground. Gosh, we'll miss him.

UPDATE: From the life-is-timing file, this stunt comes just as the reliability watchdog North American Electric Reliability Corp. issues an assessment that this and related moves will pose grave challenges, urging us to ensure that the incorporation of intermittent renewable energy is feasible before Congress mandates it. Think before you act: What an idea! Let's all think before we vote, and possibly ask questions, like without using the term "do 'something'" in your answer -- although so using the term surely answers the question -- will you end up being reckless like this, too?

First, for the definition issue.

Random House Webster's College Dictionary defines lynching as: "to put to death, esp. hanging by mob action and without legal authority."

I have read the Court's decision. Three people are not a "mob." A mob is defined as a "large crowd." So there was no "mob action" because there was no mob. Second, the Supreme Court specifically said the Sheriff and his deputy and a local policeman acted "under color of law." Which means they had legal authority.

So to say that Bobby Hall was lynched is, factually, according to the Supreme Court and, if you prefer, Webster's, not true. No mob. Therefore no "mob action." And the three had "legal authority." So my new friend Radley "Boo" Balko over at Reason pounced…and got it wrong instantly.

Sorry.

Second. The larger point. My colleagues seem not to understand the connection between what they are seeing in the headlines everyday -- and history.  There is, I'm sorry to say, a direct connection between Southern racists of yore and, say, the Obama Administration policy in Arizona..  The Black Panther case. And what Ms. Sherrod was doing in her speech when she ever so casually linked criticism of health care  to racism, which is to say not supporting a (her words) "black President."

This is all of a piece. Intimately connected by philosophy, party, time, heritage and party culture.

So when Ms. Sherrod uses the highly inflammatory word "lynching" -- when it is quite specifically not so because of the above reasons -- what is she doing? Why is she doing it?  She was factually wrong. She was legally wrong. She did it anyway.

There's more. Later. 

Phil, I was thinking about…what..7,000 words? Eight? Maybe throw in a couple more thousand and bill to Quin and John's word count?

Seriously though, part of the privilege of dishing is taking. I dished. You dished back.  Not to get squishy on us, but that is generally considered dialogue.

Thanks.

Oh, And Boo Radley over there Reasoning away. When can I have a retraction for…how does one say…being "shameless" and "ignorant"?

Anytime.  Next time, Boo…read the dictionary AND the case. 

Your pal, Atticus Lord.

Really. This is going to be a defining moment?

There seem to be a lot of defining moments since Obama took office.

Obama, February 18, 2009: “Banks and lenders must be held accountable for ending the practices that got us into this crisis in the first place. Individuals must take responsibility for their own actions. And all of us must learn to live within our means again. These are the values that have defined this nation. These are values that have given substance to our faith in the American Dream. And these are the values that we must restore now at this defining moment.”

Obama, March 6, 2009: Now, there were those -- there were those who argued that our recovery plan was unwise and unnecessary. They opposed the necessary notion that government has a role in ending the cycle of job loss at the heart of this recession. There are those who believe that all we can do is repeat the very same policies that led us here in the first place. But I also know that this country has never responded to a crisis by sitting on the sidelines and hoping for the best. I know that, throughout our history, we have met every great challenge with bold action and big ideas. That's what's fueled a shared and lasting prosperity. I know that, at this defining moment for America, we have a responsibility to ourselves and to our children to do it once again.” 

Obama, July 10, 2009: “We've come to L'Aquila for a very simple reason: because the challenges of our time threaten the peace and prosperity of every single nation, and no one nation can meet these challenges alone. The threat of climate change can't be contained by borders on a map, and the theft of loose nuclear materials could lead to the extermination of any city on Earth. Reckless actions by a few have fueled a recession that spans the globe, and rising food prices means that 100 million of our fellow citizens are expected to fall into desperate poverty. So right now, at this defining moment, we face a choice. We can either shape our future or let events shape it for us.”

Obama, October 2, 2009: “It's the essence of the Olympic spirit. That's why we see so much of ourselves in these Games. That's why we want them in Chicago. That's why we want them in America. We stand at a moment in history when the fate of each nation is inextricably linked to the fate of all nations -- a time of common challenges that require common effort. And I ran for President because I believed deeply that at this defining moment, the United States of America has a responsibility to help in that effort, to forge new partnerships with the nations and the peoples of the world.”

Obama, February 4, 2010: “You staked your reputation on some guy that nobody had ever heard of -- couldn't pronounce my name. Some of you got involved in a campaign for the very first time. In some cases, you just got involved for the first time in a very long time, because you believed that we were at a defining moment in our nation's history; that your voice could make a difference. And not a single day goes by when I don't think of the time, the energy, the money, the undying faith that you put into a campaign that wasn't just about winning an election -- it was about changing a country.”

Obama, February 18, 2010: “We just came from the Fillmore Auditorium, where we had -- what did we have, a couple thousand people? Twenty-four hundred people. (Applause.) Not that he's counting. Because they understand that at this defining moment in our history, we've got to have people who are willing to fight on behalf of families all across America. And they know that Michael got into this business because he believes in that fight.”

Obama, February 22, 2010: “Now, if we can come together and do all this in Washington, in state houses, and across party and ideology, we're going to raise the quality of American education. We'll give our students, our workers, and our businesses every chance to succeed. And we are going to secure this next century as another American century. Let me just close by saying this. We've been trusted with the responsibility to lead at a defining moment in our history.”

Obama, May 18, 2010: “I ran for President, Youngstown, because I believe that we're at a defining moment in our history.”

 IT'S NOT JUST RANGEL

Senator John Kerry Is Avoiding Paying $500,000 In Taxes On His Yacht.

Obama's First Nominee For HHS Secretary, Tom Daschle, Failed To Pay $128,000 In Taxes.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner Failed To Pay $34,000 In Taxes.

HHS Secretary Sebelius And Her Husband Had To Pay $7,000 In Back Taxes.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis' Husband Had A Tax Lien On His Business For 16 Years.

Nancy Killefer, Slated To Be The White House Chief Performance Officer, Had A $900 Lien On Her House For Failing To Pay Unemployment Taxes For Household Help.

Lael Brainard, Obama's Nominee For Undersecretary Of The Treasury For International Affairs, Was Late In Paying Property Taxes.

Day 98 since the oil spill. There’s actually been some relatively good news in the past few days. There’s been no disaster with the current cap (knocking on wood). Work on the permanent seal could begin August 2. Of course, we’re not out of the woods yet; even if the well gets permanently shut down, oil could keep coming ashore for weeks and 241 people involved in the cleanup are reporting sickness. It’s been a rough road, but maybe this is a chance for the president to demonstrate that he understands the enormous consequences of all this, how the slow-moving federal bureaucracy has often hindered efforts as much or more than it helped. Maybe we’ll get a bipartisan push to ensure an all-hands-on-deck cleanup, instead of a reheated call for his same old global warming legislation. Maybe a response with seriousness, empathy, a slogan-free determination, finally free from the attitude that the spill was just another crisis not to be “wasted”  . . .

. . . Eh, nevermind: “On Thursday, President Obama will be the first sitting president to appear on The View. He will have an open discussion with the ladies: moderator Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck, which is anticipated to include the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.”

ADDENDA: I don’t think I expected to see this from the editors of the Denver Post: “Jobs have vanished faster than BP's credibility. And the oil leak has been a drain on the national psyche. Welcome to the summer of malaise. Welcome back, Carter. Even the talking heads at MSNBC have compared Obama's sudden lack of leadership, his summer spent adrift, to the uninspiring Jimmy Carter presidency after last month's remarkably lackluster national address about the Gulf oil leak.”

By the way, Monday was Day 98; today is Day 99.

But 13 months after that tough vote [on cap-and-trade], [Ohio Democrat John] Boccieri and dozens of other House Democrats along the Rust Belt are not at all happy with the way things have turned out. The White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had assured reluctant members that the Senate would take up the measure. Although Senate passage wasn't a sure thing, House Democrats hoped to go back home to voters with a great story to tell -- about reducing dependence on foreign oil, slowing climate change and creating jobs.

That didn't happen. Senate leaders, sensing political danger, repeatedly put off energy legislation, and the White House didn't lean on them very hard to make it a priority. In the aftermath of the gulf oil spill, the Senate is set to take up a stripped-down bill next week, but the controversial carbon-emissions cap is conspicuously missing.

This has left some House Democrats feeling badly served by their leaders. Although lawmakers are reluctant to say so publicly, their aides and campaign advisers privately complain that the speaker and the president left Democrats exposed on an unpopular issue that has little hope of being signed into law.

I'm sure the Rust Belt Democrats feel abandoned, but I hope they don't complain too loudly around the lawmakers from the Gulf Coast. Or perhaps the lawmakers on the southern border with Mexico; obviously many Democrats in Arizona are not happy with the Obama administration vilifying their state. Then again, Democratic lawmakers in California and Nevada probably feel neglected, with their states enduring unemployment rates significantly higher than the national average. As for Virginia Democrats . . . well, Obama couldn't help them very much last year, nor New Jersey and Massachusetts, for that matter. Democrats in Missouri and Pennsylvania can't be happy with how they're heading into tough midterm elections, with the president's approval rating at 41 percent and 46 percent, respectively.

So who doesn't feel neglected by the Obama administration?

In addition, Washington elites have a much higher opinion of those in power than the general public. Among the elites, Obama has a 66 percent favorability rating, while 34 percent view him unfavorably. Outside of Washington, only 48 percent of respondents view the president favorably, compared with 47 percent who view him unfavorably.

Eyewitness News 4’s exclusive Survey USA poll on the congressional race in New Mexico’s first district is a real shocker. It shows Republican challenger Jon Barela with a lead over incumbent Democratic congressman Martin Heinrich, 51% to 45% - with only 4% of the voters undecided.

Survey USA polled 559 likely voters from July 22-25, with a margin of error of 4.2%. Barela’s lead exceeds the margin of error and he is also over the “magic” 50% line that pollsters like to talk about.

Last week I noted eight polls in six weeks showing a GOP challenger ahead of an incumbent (or leading an open-seat race), and forgot Schilling's lead over Hare in Illinois. So this would be number ten in about seven weeks.