Florida House Dems: We Don’t Want a Revote

Ben Smith is saying that Florida’s congressional delegation is standing up against a revote of any kind in their state.

OK, NOW what?

I can’t imagine that’s going to go over well with about half of Florida Democrats.

Ya know, I’ve seen an awful lot of people labeling the Spitzer crime a ‘tragedy’. I found one such idiot last night, just a few hundred miles down the road from me here. .  and another, here. And , no, sorry, I have no kinder words for such nonsense. It’s pure idiocy.

Think;  Where were such people when Larry Craig was arrested? Did they label that a tragedy? Did they label David Vitter a tragedy? No? Then why this? Is it because until yesterday, he was a LIBERAL hero? Well, hold the phone… wasn’t Bill Clinton a liberal hero, too? I seem to recall something about a blue dress. I also recall so many defending Bill Clinton who are now calling Spitzer a ‘tragedy’.

Face it, folks… If Spitzer was a Republican, the drive-by media… and such people as I linked, Democrats one and all… would be screaming about the hypocrisy surrounding him, as they did in Vitter’s case, and in Larry Craig’s.  Him being a Democrat, we get offered the misguided notion that all this is so very tragic… and hardly a mention that he IS a Democrat.

It’s as Master Po used to say: “Time for you to leave”.

Let me be clear. Spitzer should resign. Today. Now, in fact.

However, He should not be offered any kind of reduced prosecution  for doing so. He should be sent up for the max. After all, isn’t that what Spitzer the hero would have insisted on? Or are these values… these law and order values that supposedly made him such a hero among some, not to be applied to a  Democrat?

Or perhaps what made him a hero is what one of his predecessors, Mario Cuomo once said: He was a hero because he’s a Democrat ad he won the election… however he did it?

And as for the people who consider this such a tragedy… please don’t vote next cycle. Or ever, until you grow a few more brain cells.

• Rumor control: McCain doesn’t have cancer. The Times, of course is making lots of noise about not being given McCain’s medical records, yet. The funny part of the story is, they’re still waiting for the health records of Bill Clinton, and they’ve not said word one about that. How about at least trying to be objective, New York Times? Heh. Roger Kimball wonders:
  

  Why is John McCain’s non-affair with a lobbyist 8 years ago worth a front-page story while a possible link between a Colombia warlord and B.H. Obama is not even worth a mention on page B27? Isn’t that news that’s “fit to print”? Just asking.

  Yeah, really. I guess what this boils down to is never saying anything negative about he who shall not be middle-named.

• Noted at the Greg Mankiw’s place; links to here (PDF) and here. Both sources… one of them, the CBO… report clearly that the Bush tax cuts were NOT ‘Tax cuts for the rich”. The rich are paying quite a bit more in percentage, and in total. They also caused income to the federal coffers to rise, not fall. So why are the Democrats wanting to eliminate them? Most certainly not for their stated reasons.
• And so why on earth would the press want to finger Steven Hafill? Seems simple enough to me… it matches their defeatist narrative. It’s easier to finger someone involved with our defense rather than admit we’re under attack.

• Scenes we’d like to see:

• Teagan Goddard:
  

  It’s clear that for either Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic presidential nomination, they’ll have to win the majority of superdelegates at the convention. But what if the superdelegates split right down the middle like Democrats across the nation?

  Well, I wouldn’t worry about that much; they seem tilted toward Obama. But, pray you, continue…

  Talk of a joint ticket — Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama — might be an elegant solution to the problem. But what if Clinton wins the popular vote and Obama wins the majority of delegates? What if the next two months of campaigning turns so ugly they can’t stand each other? Would either candidate willingly step aside to take the number two spot?The answer might be for someone else entirely to step into the race at the convention. The most likely candidate would be Al Gore.

  Ya know, we keep seeing this kind of chatter. But I have to tell you, folks… which Gore being increasingly exposed as an outright fraud on this global warming nonsense of his, a Gore candidacy would be the best boost possible for John McCain’s presidency. Assuming of course we can get McCain to denounce the people pushing AGW as a crisis. IN any event, I don’t see a Clinton Obama ticket happening. As I’ve said here previously, both their egos are far too big to give such a thing serious consideration.

I keep hearing rumors around the web that Hillary Clinton’s people are behind the prostitution bust on Eliot Spitzer.

 Now, I will say up front that there may be nothing to these rumors, but they’re not going away.

One of the ideas backing this is that business with Spiter’s insistence on driver’s licenses for illegals here in the Vampire state. Certainly, a pivotal point in Clinton’s demise… she came down on all sides of that one. Embarrassingly so.  Recall, too, that Spitzer, while he’s endorsed Clinton,  had to be dragged aboard the Clinton express, according to The Nation at the time. So, while he’s a super delegate, and ostensibly promised to Clinton, he’s a less than full- willing supporter, and she has a bit of an axe to grind with him, or so goes the rumor.

Now, mind, I don’t give much to this rumor. There’s not a whole bunch of solid evidence backing it, yet. That the rumor surfaces now, strikes me as interesting, though. Who would gain by such a move? Certainly revenge is a factor, and Clinton is known as being vindiictive as hell. Would Obama be spreading such a rumor? I tend to doubt it. He’d have little to directly gain by it.  There’s a lot of cloud in this picture, and not much solid.

All that said, none of this should shock anyone, even if true.  The troubling thing to my mind is that Clinton has a reputation for making the most of an opponents known weaknesses. Note the word “known’.  This stuff with Spitzer, then, would have been going on for quite a while, and would have been an established pattern, for Clinton to know to take advantage of it.

Perhaps most disturbing at all, is not that the rumors of Clinton’s involvement here are true… or false… they may or may not be… but that they are believable.

Addendum:  (David L)

Color me skeptical.  The Clintons are not noted for political ethics.   Yet  unless this is some strange attempt to get sympathy which I completely fail to understand, I don’t see how the further association of adultery with the Clntons’ helps her campaign.   The IRS notification route seems pausible

.

Ray Gustini, Radar, is reporting that Mrs. Clinton has purged her campaign website of all deferences to Eliot Spitzer:

Either way, Hillary Clinton has already delivered the first of many “You’re dead to me, Eliot”-moments, sponging her campaign website clean of all mentions of Spitzer’s endorsement last May. Spitzer’s name was gone from the website less than an hour after the Times story broke-impressive timing when you consider it took Mitt Romney nearly an entire day to decide to throw Larry Craig under a bus last August.
   

Why?   Eliot Spitzer, a.k.a. Client 9.  appears to be an adulterer.   Since when did adultery become a significant matter to Mrs. Clinton?   B.J. Clinton has been an adulterer for the Clintons’ entire marriage.   Yet aside from professing, or feigning, some personal hurt feelings, Mrs. Clinton has never made any attempt to disassociate herself politically from B.J. Clinton.   It was only Mrs Clinton’s endorsement of B.J. on Sixty Minutes in face of his affair with Gennifer Flowers which the Clintons to get elected in ‘Ninety-Two.

Or is Mrs. Clinton’s objection more nuanced.  like former Clinton adviser Dick Morris, Spitzer has been accused for paying for sex.   So far as I know, none of B.J.’s numerous trysts were of the professional variety, provided you discount James Carville’s remarks about trailer parks and one hundred dollar bills.

So why does Mrs. Clinton accept endorsement from some adulterers, but not others?

Bruce makes mention of a Reuters article:

A majority of Americans do not read political blogs, the online commentaries that have proliferated in the race for the U.S. presidency, according to a poll released on Monday.

Only 22 percent of people responding to the poll said they read blogs regularly, meaning several times a month or more, according to the survey conducted by Harris Interactive.

He then goes on to point out that 22%  is quite a pile of personage.

Yeah, I’ll agree to that. But more, how does that fare in comparison to the other forms of news? Let’s see. From Pew Research:

 Note the numbers of people reading newspapers dropping to a low in 2006 of 40%… not particularly impressive, by Reuters own lights.And, here’s the thing… it’s not where you’re at, but rather, where you’re going… that 40% is trending dramatically down, whereas Blog readership is trending dramatically up.

I’ve changed (Manually) to daylight savings on the server.

 I had thought it was automatic. My error.

There’s a number of people in the sphere saying if the sex is the extent of the crime, that Spitzer shouldn’t resign. However that may be, it’s not just the sex. Apparently the feds were looking at many, many investments of less than $10,000 ea, put into dummy corporations. This is something known as ‘structuring’ and something that Spitzer himself prosecuted others for.

I gather it’s possible that this was a payment method for the call girls (as for example in this story)  but that’s not confirmed yet. If that’s the case, he has a serious sexual addiction, that much is certain. Given the number of transactions involved, I think it safe to consider the idea that there was far more involved here than simple payments for sex.
Now, of course Spitzer has his defenders….   but I think we can take this with a grain of salt, given if it’s a Democrat, that crowd will defend them.  If this involved, say, Dick Cheney, (Yeah, fat chance) would  Kos be defending him? (Again, yeah, fat chance)

Addendum:  (David L)

Eliot Spitzer has his defenders, the likes of Glenn Greenwald.  Ace, Ace of Spades Hq, is clearly enjoying himself as rips into Greenwald.:

Could it be that Glenn Greenwald is just making shit up as usual? Casting himself as the sane voice of reason in a world gone mad?

Yes Spitzer has his defenders, but he also retains all his old enemies. like, via Michelle Malkin, the Wall Street Journal:

One might call it Shakespearian if there were a shred of nobleness in the story of Eliot Spitzer’s fall. There is none. Governor Spitzer, who made his career by specializing in not just the prosecution, but the ruin, of other men, is himself almost certainly ruined.

And his new enemies via Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review, like the New York Times:

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer could not have been more wrong in his brief public appearance after the world learned that he was suspected of patronizing a prostitution ring. He did not just betray his family in a private matter. He betrayed the public, and it is hard to see how he will recover from this mess and go on to lead the reformist agenda on which he was elected to office.

Spitzer’s defenders are too few.  He old and new enemies too numerous and too powerful.

Bluto asks:

I wonder if Time magazine now regrets slobbering all over Spitzer to help him get elected?

Ya know, Bluto, that might have been a valid question if Time hadn’t spent 10 years licking the hindquarters of one Bill Clinton.

• Well, over the weekend we got up to two feet of snow in places, mostly west of here. There’s a foot and a half in my front yard, and in my driveway.  We shovel it out, but since the yard is west of the drive, and the prevailing wind is form the west, the drive fills in about as fast as we shovel Better to just hit the four wheel drive button.It never ceases to amaze me how frightened of their own equipment most drivers are. I had one woman, obviously driving her hubby’s cherished truck… a 4Runner, fully set up for offroad, at 10 mph down a plowed street here on Saturday morning. Scared to death, that’s what she was. My Rainier performed brilliantly in the deep stuff, surpassing my wildest expectations. Nice to know if I have to get there, snow it’s an issue.What is an issue around here is the PLOWED snow… which tends to pack it into ice… great for driving… or the salted stuff, which is easier than standing water to hydroplane on.  I wish they’d just leave the roads alone when this stuff comes along. Plow, sure, but leave the salt out of it, unless you’ve got enough to get rid of the slush, too. And they don’t.You can imagine that this storm slowed things down around here a bit, but as it stands, we’re back up to sub-par. Here’s a pic from a NYSDOT camera, about 2 miles from my house, here. You’re looking east toward Rochester, along I490, at Mt Read Blvd. Notice that the onramp from Mt Read is still snow-covered.  My guess is this is the last serous winter storm of the year, though I do recall the one about 10 years back where I totaled my van, (yes, slush and hydroplaned tires)… so you never know.

• Am I alone in my amusement about how the left is making a political issue out of every change in the weather, as I sit here, up to my pipicks in snow? I doubt it.

• In case you hadn’t heard and you actually cared, Obama won in Wyoming, over the weekend. Not that it’s all that important, the state has been voting overwhelmingly Republican since 1968. The whole state contains only a half million people. Democrats are a small portion of that total. Yet, the MSM is on it like a wet T-shirt on curves. Never figure that one out, I think.

• Ya know, when the documents surrounding Bill Clinton’s pardons finally do come out, assuming they ever do, there’s going to be a lot of people wondering why we didn’t demand they were released previously. Think about it; If they hide nothing that would end Hillary Clinton‘s presidential bid, she’d not be expending energy to hide them from view now.
• Or, maybe it’s now the VICE-presidential bid. Word on the street… unconfirmed… has been that Hillary would be willing to take the number 2 slot on an Obama ticket. Mona Charen confirmed this one last night, by way of Chuck Todd. Such is the degree of desperation to attain power that is within Hillary Clinton. But I suspect that this would be the worst deal for both of them. As I said previously in these spaces, the ego of each is too big. If you’re Obama, do you want Billary hanging around your neck? And given Vince Foster, do you really think you’ll last long enough to complete your first term?

• Gas prices? $4/gal?  No.  The only way that’s going to happen is if the Democrats manage to raise our pump taxes at the state and federal levels again. The only way the gas prices are going that high, other than that, is if oil goes to $200/bbl.  That’s simply not going to happen.  My read is this bubble is it’s own undoing. Matter of fact, I wouldn’t be shocked to find prices o crude going back to $70/bbl in the near future, (say, inside the next three years) with the associated price drops at the pump. It’s the speculators, you see, that are pumping all these higher prices in, not the oil companies, and not the Arabs. I suspect a lot of this is investments directed at weakening the dollar by people like George Soros, for example…. money leaving the dollar and going to commodities. The reality is the stockpiles and oil resources on hand do not match the per bbl price being anywhere near what it is now, much less higher. And here’s a clue; When the per bbl price of oil comes down, it’ll come down FAST. We’re likley to see $70/bbl by june, says Kiplinger .  Kudlow, too.

• Gee, sounds like a great double date, doesn’t it? Yeeesh.

• The girl in the Clinton 3am ad turns out to be a rather vocal Obama supporter. How’d THAT happen?

• Interesting article in the Toronto Sun, a few days ago, that someone sent me over the weekend from Salim Mansur. He makes an argument that I’ve been making for as long as I’ve been blogging: Multiculturalism cannot survive.
  

  Future historians of the phenomenon known as “multiculturalism” that the West bone-headedly adopted towards the end of the second millennium will note the precise time when it was dealt a mortal wound. It was at 8:46 on Tuesday morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when the first of the four commercial airliners hijacked by Islamist terrorists — all of Arab origin — struck the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.
  …
  Multiculturalism institutionalized as a policy, run by self-perpetuating bureaucracies and sustained by entrepreneurs of a growing multicultural industry, became an easy ride for its proponents and clients.

  Immigrants were not required to embrace the West’s culture and complex history; and the West did not have to strain itself in instructing immigrants on the need or importance of embracing it, warts and all.

  Multiculturalism worked so long as the illusion of cultural harmony could be maintained.

  But once the sham of equality got exposed by the heat of Islamist violence — once it became undeniable that a culture in which a woman, for instance, can assert her individual freedom without fear is not at par with a culture where a woman’s worth is less than that of a man — multiculturalism as an idea was dead.

  Indeed, yes, and it’s about time this chant got picked up. But you know, I wonder how the Human rights commission up there’s going to take all of this. I can’t help but think we’re going to see some backlash from the Canadian government… and soon.

• Finally, you’re right, Mark, it IS high comedy. But given the puppy-dog devotion and the long term blindness to what the Clintons represent, it was not unpredictable. We predicted this day of reckoning for nigh on a decade, now.  The pettiness and fear mongering they now decry is exactly what they were defending 9 years ago, though they will only tacitly admit it now. Which leads us to the question of how stupid one has to be to ignore it for so very long. Yeah, I want these morons running my healthcare. Right.

Eliot Spitzer, a.k.a. the Sheriff  of Wall Street,  has reportedly been linked, AP, video. New York Times,  to  involvement in a prostitution ring.

Hat tip:  Michelle Malkin.

Bye-bye Eliot.

Addendum I: (Bit)

And there it is, Gang… The scandal that will likely throw New York over to the Republicans in November, since the criminal aspects of this will be coming up just about at that time. Between that, and the roughly 60% of New Yorkers who disapproved of Spitzer and the way he performed his job, I’d say that the chances are good that the Democrats are going to be hurting, state wide.

Clearly, the hurried way Spitzer is withdrawing from office suggests he’s trying to minimize the investigation. I would speculate that he and his will say this is to avoid getting the family publicity they don’t want, but I would suggest that the real reason is to minimize the political fallout here in the Vampire state.

More political fallout:  I point out that Spitzer is a super-delegate promised to Clinton.

Addendum II: (Bit) 

Jon Henke says the law surrounding prostitution should be changed.

I tell him over there:

Change the law if you think you’ve got the votes for it, Jon, but I submit to you there’s a bigger problem being exposed here. That being, a profound disrespect for the law… any law… not just ones surrounding sex for money… except insofar as it served his purposes.

There’s this, also: If Spitzer had arrived in his current position by any other means than by way of the AG’s position, it might not mean so much. But the impact on any Democrat wanting to run on a law and order platform in this state is now lessened and damaged.  And you know, that’s a larger impact than you might expect. In a lot of ways, he and Obama are a lot alike… implicitly and explicitly promising miracles. Spitzer was elected by a huge margin, with all the great expectations attached to it.

Perhaps the hero-worship aspect of Spitzer’s election, and the failure of the candidate, will lessen the attachment to another rather messianic…. Obama.

I mean, are we really supposed to believe that this is the first extra legal activity Mr. Law and Order’s partaken in?

If I’m Joe Bruno, I’m laughing, today.

Addendum III:  (David L)

Eliot Spitzer should not worry about Joesph Bruno.   All Bruno wants to do is to keep his job.?
Spitzer should worry about Andrew Cuomo, who wants Spitzer’s  job.

I don’t think sex outside of marriage is necessarily fatal to a politician. However Spitzer is not most politicians. Most politicians did attain fame and office by running a holier than thou campaign, video:

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According to Spitzer there is right and there wrong.   Spitzer is on the wrong side of his own line.

Hat tip video:  Christopher Beam, Slate.

Comes a point in nearly every discussion about man and his endevors, where there is no room for compromise. This over-reach of governmental power is one such  Hume:

California parents who home school their children are reeling from a court decision earlier this week that all students must be taught by credentialed teachers. The San Francisco Chronicle reports many home schooling parents avoid truancy laws by forming private schools and enrolling their children – but the parents are not certified teachers. The president of The Home School Legal Defense Association says the ruling effectively bans home schooling in California.

The head of the state’s largest teachers union applauds the decision – which means parents who disobey could be subject to criminal prosecution. One home schooling parent says she is ready for a fight – “I’m kind of hoping some truancy officer shows up on my doorstep. I’m ready. I have damn good arguments.”

It’s interesting to note who is in support of this nonsense:

Now, if you make a religious claim, i.e., you require home or private schooling for religious reasons, then you can make a rights claim under Wisconsin v. Yoder (406 U.S. 205)

In terms of California law, the state supreme court held in 1953 in People v. Turner (121 Cal.App.2d Supp. 861, 865 et seq.)-a case in which the US Supreme Court denied certiorari-that there is no right under the California constitution to home school either, in a decision that follows closely the reasoning of the Court in Pierce.

Under §48220 children may be home schooled as long as the home “tutor or other person shall hold a valid state credential for the grade taught.”

So, I’m not sure what all the uproar is about, at least in terms of the legal issues. The Supreme Court made this determination in 1925. California did so at the state level in 1953, and this court merely applied the 55 year-old precedent in Turner.

Well, that’s fine, if you hold the law to be the highest arbitor of rights. I hasten to add, that this is something the federal Constitution does not do, and the DOI leaves quite clear where the founders held rights to come from… and it most certainly was not the law. That’s an interesting position, though, for a self-proclaimed libertairan to take. Particualrly gauling, though, is this:

Q: “Oh, and by the way, which constitutional amendment says that parents have a right to home school their kids?”A: “Which constitutional amendment says that you have a right to cultivate begonias?What’s your point?”Since children are not property for parents to dispose of as they wish, what’s yours?

So, if not the responsiblity…(With all that the word imparts) of the parents, are these children, then, the property of the state, to dispose of as they wish? That, in reality is the argument being made, here.

And, look, man…forget the matter of the law, for the moment and ask the fundimental question:  Which has the responsibility and the rights attached to it… the state, or the parent?

An an extension, then;Should the state have the right to dictate education of a sort which the parent does not want their child exposed to? Which has the greater right, here? The government, unsurpisingly thinks they do. What interests me is a self-described libertarian seemingly supporting that notion.

As a practical matter, this uproar is really a function of the fact that no one has really challenged the law for the past 50 years. It required a) a school district to push the issue, and b) a set of parents to object.

Well, that’s right enough, but the problem here is with the framework you’ve just laid out, that is, the government having the final say, under what pretext would such a challange ever be mounted? These kids are the property of the state, after all. It’s the ‘village’ that needs to raise them, by the lights you’ve shown us, not the parents.

 The big deal, here of course, is the state usurping the rights of the parents to raise their own kids. Think about it; can you imagine such a ruling coming down in any state in the union, in 1860? this is something the founders never envisioned. Interesting, also, taht so much is being made of the idea that this is under the State constitution, and those supporting it include big government liberals… who are not usually the people you’d anticipate arguing for states rights… but do so in this case since it serves the leaning toward big government power.

Thing there is too, that with the increased role of the federal government in the education of every child in every state, the little ‘states rights’ trap door isn’t so little anymore. The interaction of the state and the federal government will get a little dicey, if this case ever goes to the USSC.

Finally, consider this: If the state has the larger right within the law’s definition, what of religious instruction? Can such instruction of children be outlawed on that basis? I mean granted, that there’s the matter of Wisconsin vs Yoder. But on what basis can this be upheld, if the state has the bigger claim on the child?

 But again, this falls down to the most basic of questions: Which has the larger right? The parent, or the state? The basis of the ruling in question is that the state has the larger right. That’s not what the founders intended. It’s certainly not a minimalist government, and it comes nowhere near freedom. The law may say one thing, but morality says something very different.

Now, before you start, I am by no means minimiizing the idea that a good education provdies the best future.  But who gets to influence the child’s future? The state, or the parent? If the state, at what point did that transition get made?

Let’s see… since their tilt left, MSNBC has become a rolling joke. Who what do they cancel for ratings? Tucker Carlson.

Yeah, that makes sense. Cancel the only show on their air that had any hope of generating an actual thought.

Aside from the mess we described here last week for ANY kind of action as regards Florida and Michigan,  the Democrats are now willing to add to that a mail-in scheme.

WASHINGTON -(Fox)  A consensus began to emerge Sunday that the best way to give Florida’s Democrats a voice in electing a candidate for president lies with the U.S. Postal Service. The Democratic National Committee stripped Florida and Michigan of all their convention delegates – a total of 313 – for holding their primaries too early, making both contests meaningless. New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won both states, but no delegates. Her rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, did not appear on Michigan’s ballot.But the disqualification of Florida and Michigan has created a headache for the Democratic party due to the unexpected closeness of the race between Obama and Clinton. Officials from both states are trying to figure out how best to resolve the issue before the national convention in August.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean said a mail-in primary is “actually a very good process.”

Ummm… is this the same group who was complaining not so long ago about the security of voting machines, which experts spent years developing? Amazing what these Democrats will sacrifice to expediency.

The Times Online, yesterday, puts some fresh light on plastic bags and those who want them banned:

 Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims.

The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times. They pose only a minimal threat to most marine species, including seals, whales, dolphins and seabirds.

Gordon Brown announced last month that he would force supermarkets to charge for the bags, saying that they were “one of the most visible symbols of environmental waste”. Retailers and some pressure groups, including the Campaign to Protect Rural England, threw their support behind him.

But scientists, politicians and marine experts attacked the Government for joining a “bandwagon” based on poor science.

Lord Taverne, the chairman of Sense about Science, said: “The Government is irresponsible to jump on a bandwagon that has no base in scientific evidence.

   And this is just another example of how ol’ Gordo was never the brightest bulb in the string anyway. The problem now is how to debunk the myths about plastic bags once the myth has become a consensus, and thereby government policy?  Heh. Global warming, anyone?