Large Light Rumored to Appear in Eastern Sky Tommrow

So we in looking around at the AP wire, we see Ted Kennedy has made his pronouncement:

“I therefore intend to oppose this nomination,” Kennedy said in remarks prepared for the Senate floor. “Judge Mukasey appears to be a careful, conscientious and intelligent lawyer, and he has served our country honorably for many years. But those qualities are not enough for this critical position at this critical time.”

Oooohh… big news. I’m sure we’ve been waiting a long time to find out Teddy’s position on this.

Look, cut to the chase, guys… when was the last time Kennedy DIDN’T oppose… loudly… ANY Republican nominee?

(Sticky Post for 11/02/07)

Always wanted to do something like this, and draining the swamp that Nancy Pelosi promised she’d fix seems a reasonable goal, since all it involves is simply highlighting how despite all the promises, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in BOTH houses of Congress simply are not getting the work of the American people done.

So, with this post, I’m announcing and starting the Swamp Stomper blog ring.

Membership is free, and is open to a select group of blogs. Simply send an Email note to [email protected]. Give us your Email address, the name and URL of your blog, and we’ll go from there. You’ll be asked to post this graphic in your blogroll column, along with a list of blogs, which I’ll be updating once per week, via mail.

(I know I could use Blogrolling.com for the purpose, but I don’t want to get into the slowdowns that usually causes.)

I’ll also be getting a e-mail ring going, for the purpose of keeping each other updated. This whole thing is timed, of course, so as to be on the ground and running as we ramp up into the election cycle.

I’ll be looking forward to your notes.

LET’S DRAIN THE PELOSI SWAMP .

Update:(Bit)

Holy cow…. Not 15 minutes up, and we’ve already got The Dread Pundit Bluto on board with us. A major score, this one. Proud to have him.

By way of the Conservative Grapevine, we see Hewitt has an interview up with Huckabee.

Huckabee has some serious problems, particularly with his insisting on raising gasoline taxes… like that’s what the American family needs is more taxes… over and about the $3.20 we’re already paying.  And that’s not the only tax he’s raised, of course.  There’s a list of all of it you can get…(PDF)

Here’s a little:

Governor Huckabee touts himself as an economic conservative, writing in his biography that he “pushed through the Arkansas legislature the first major, broad-based tax cuts in state history” and “led efforts to establish a Property Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights” early on as governor (Arkansas Times 09/22/05), but he only offers a small piece of the picture. It is true that Governor Huckabee fought for an $80 million tax cut package in 1997 that was passed by the Arkansas legislature (Cato Policy Analysis No. 315, 09/03/98); cut the state capital gains tax in 1999 (The Commercial Appeal 02/29/99); and passed the Property Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights in the same year, limiting the increase in property taxes to 10% a year for individuals and 5% per taxing unit (AP 03/16/99). However, his record over the rest of his ten-year tenure tells a starkly different story.

• Immediately upon taking office, Governor Huckabee signed a sales tax hike in 1996 to fund the Games and Fishing Commission and the Department of Parks and Tourism (Cato Policy Analysis No. 315, 09/03/98).
• He supported an internet sales tax in 2001 (Americans for Tax Reform 01/07/07).
• He publicly opposed the repeal of a sales tax on groceries and medicine in 2002 (Arkansas News Bureau 08/30/02).
• He signed bills raising taxes on gasoline (1999), cigarettes (2003) (Americans for Tax Reform 01/07/07), and a $5.25 per day bed-tax on private nursing home patients in 2001 (Arkansas New Bureau 03/01/01).
• He proposed another sales take hike in 2002 to fund education improvements (Arkansas News Bureau 12/05/02).
• He opposed a congressional measure to ban internet taxes in 2003 (Arkansas News Bureau 11/21/03).
• In 2004, he allowed a 17% sales tax increase to become law (The Gurdon Times 03/02/04).

By the end of his ten-year tenure, Governor Huckabee was responsible for a 37% higher sales tax in Arkansas, 16% higher motor fuel taxes, and 103% higher cigarette taxes according to Americans for Tax Reform (01/07/07), garnering a lifetime grade of D from the free-market Cato Institute.

Not my first choice for the job… and no, I don’t care what his excuse is. He’s still better than any of the Democrats, but not much.

Gotta love it:

From: The Dread Pundit Bluto
To: Glenn Greenwald
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 12:52 PM

Glenn,

All fun and kidding aside (and this has been fun, at least for me), do you, for the record, categorically deny creating, causing to be created, or encouraging the creation of the alleged Boylan email?

If you do deny it, do you have any knowledge or evidence that would point to its creation by a third party, or any hitherto undisclosed direct, non-conjectural evidence that Colonel Boylan himself created the email?

Et maintenant, au revoir,

Al Brown
The Dread Pundit Bluto
The Jawa Report
Stop the ACLU

Greenwald’s response was bizzare… and I’ll have you run to Bluto’s place for the whole thing, but I do want to pick out a bit of the response:

It’s easy to make accusations, or cast innuendo (or cheerlead for wars) when there are no consequences to the person.

Gee, Glenn… that’s pretty much how I described YOUR situation when you first started this nonsense.

Ya know, considering Greenwald’s history, having at least a smidge of proof he wasn’t responsible might have been helpful…

 By way of the Conservative Grapevine…  The Superficial reports, not unexpectedly, that Britney Spears continues to circle the drain:

Jive Records is officially giving up on trying to get Britney Spears to promote her new album. They’re not even planning a tour despite her single “Gimme More” topping the charts. The label realizes that Britney doesn’t care and is apparently becoming fed up with her antics. NY Daily News reports:

“They can’t get Britney to do anything!” said a source close to the label and Spears. “They did get her to do one photo-shoot for some promotional materials, but beyond that, they can’t trust her to even show up. This album could’ve been so much bigger with Britney involved. This is the one opportunity they have to try and sell a million records. They were forced to [go on with] their marketing plan.”

Britney may not even care about the money as her estimated worth this year is near $100 million. Her activities in the press seem to emphasize a detachment with reality:

But her bizarre behavior was evident as recently as Sunday, when our spy found her looking confused as she wandered around the locker room of the Four Seasons Hotel in L.A. — wearing just a bikini bottom. When another woman asked her where the hotel pool was, Brit replied, “Oh, is there a pool here?”

Forget the pool, Brit. Where the hell are YOU?

John Harris over at the Politico:

Congressional Democrats certainly know the power of a throw-the-bums-out message. It vaulted them to power a year ago this week. Little wonder anxiety is boiling over inside the new majority as lawmakers ponder a succession of polls and reach an inescapable conclusion: Lots of people think they are bums, too.

The anti-Washington mood in the country — aimed at both a Republican president and a Democrat-controlled Congress — has reached breathtaking levels. One has to reach back almost 30 years, to the low points of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, to find a time when there was such simultaneous disdain for both the executive and the legislative branches, as measured by Gallup approval ratings.

What John doesn’t mention, however, is the idea that those angry with the President are only angry with Congress because they didn’t work hard enough to defeat the President. Do a by-party breakdown and the message is clear; this will be a partisan election, as there has seldom been in the last 100 years.

Predictions of the result of that anger are going to be murky at best, given the current struggle for control within the Democrat party… part of which we’ve blogged here the last few months, and which John alludes to, here:

 Mellman said that Democrats in part are confronting disappointment from their own backers, who are hoping for more immediate results from the new majority, particularly on Iraq.

Interestingly, the Democrats at this point are arguing, unwittingly, the same points I was making years ago, about the Republicans. Last June, for example:

 What it’s time for, is for the Republicans to start acting like, well, Republicans. The undeniable change that has occurred between the time that Newt Gingrich garnered 46% approval ratings and now is that the Republicans as a party and as individuals have tilted left in dramatic fashion. This has culminated with President Bush, offering us this monstrosity of an immigration bill. Bush himself, is not a rightist, but a centrist , often leaving left of center. (Which is why I so often find the Democrats attempt to label him as the next Adolph Hitler so amusing…)
The extreme disgust being expressed by the American people for the current state of affairs is directly linked to how far left our politicians lean. The disgust for the Democrats, was already there. The disgust for the Republicans, only increased in the last 20 years or so, when the two started leaning toward leftist politics.

Interesting that the left is rasing similar complaints about it’s own.

The problem for both sides, of course is the perception on the part of pols and pundits and elections wonks that to win office one has to reach the theoretical ‘center”.  This is a concept that was pushed to it’s limit with the Clintons… and one way to show how disenchanted with the middle the American people have become is the spectacle of  Mrs Clinton  trying to find that middle just now. She is finding the clothesline balance act an impossible one to pull off.

I would also argue that one major problem Mr. Bush (no conservative, he) has from HIS own party is where he’s been trying for the middle… as I indicated in the quote above.

All this bottom lines here: This next election is not going to be won by a ‘moderate’. There is no ‘center’ anymore… and claiming it is no refuge. The American people, whatever else might be said about them, are not inclined to go with a centrist from either party.

The winner of this next election will be someone who consistently and loudly stands up for the principles of the party they claim.

As a canidate, Mrs. Clinton keeps repeating how tough she is.    Yet every time Mrs. Clinton is attacted, her campaign whines like a little girl.   Case in point, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign response to her debacle in Philly.   Hat tip:  Jim Gerhagrty,  National Review.

Note while Mrs. Clinton moans about the Politics of Pile-On, she piles on President Bush every chance she get, video via Hot Air.   Somehow if Congress can not, or will not, pass a border security act, then that is President Bush’s fault.

The always worthwhile Michael Yon

“Al Qaeda in Iraq is defeated,” according to Sheik Omar Jabouri, spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party and a member of the widespread and influential Jabouri Tribe. Speaking through an interpreter at a 31 October meeting at the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters in downtown Baghdad, Sheik Omar said that al Qaeda had been “defeated mentally, and therefore is defeated physically,” referring to how clear it has become that the terrorist group’s tactics have backfired. Operatives who could once disappear back into the crowd after committing an increasingly atrocious attack no longer find safe haven among the Iraqis who live in the southern part of Baghdad.  They are being hunted down and killed.  Or, if they are lucky, captured by Americans.

Now THIS is certainly the kind of report the mainstream press will avoid like flat beer. Consider the implications of the last line, as a starter:

They are being hunted down and killed.  Or, if they are lucky, captured by Americans.

Translation: The Americans will give captured al Qaeda better treatment… regardless what the anti-war nuts have to say on the point.

As to the rest, go ahead, and argue with me that no progress is being made, there.  Nor does it look like that progress is going to backslide anytime soon:

During the meeting, another member of the Iraqi Islamic Party said that al Qaeda has changed its strategy now that fomenting civil war between Sunni and Shia has backfired. Al Qaeda has shifted targets, now trying to generate friction between tribes. This time, however, the tribes are onto the game early, and they are not playing.

From the mainstream press, silence. Ask yourself; Why would that be?

Nod: Memeorandum 

And of course (big shocker that this is) BitsBlog isn’t on it. But here’s the list for what it’s worth.

And by the way, I’m with Jules on this one… How in the world is Ballon Juice by ANY measure a ‘conservative blog’? Cole’s not being a Republican anymore isn’t the cause of him not being a conservative, but rather the result of it.

And by the way, the same goes for Sullivan, and for the same reason.

Father of slain Marine wins court judgment against Fred Phelps. Michelle Malkin has the background:

Father of slain Marine wins case against foul Phelps family

The normally rational Ed Morrissey, Captain’s Quarters, leads a long list of bloggers who condon using the power of the state to suppress speech they deem offensive:

Free speech doesn’t absolve people of responsibility for the damage they do, and most reasonable people would consider what Westboro’s minstrels of misery do very painful and completely inappropriate. Perhaps this might convince a few other victims to follow suit, pun intended, and ensure that Phelps’ moral bankruptcy gets matched by his financial bankruptcy.

Ed’s comments as usual are very articulate, but sadly reflect the seeming dominate view of the media and bloggers that it is permissble to use the power of the state to surpress offesnive free speech. And nobody does offensive better than Fred Phelps.

Other bloggings, Memeorandum.

Kudos, to Pam, Pam’s House Blend, for the only voice of sanity I found on the Web this morning:

I have doubts that this will hold up; the question is whether picketing outside a funeral is free speech, and I can’t see how it isn’t — the hatemongers have a right to picket if they are in a public space.

The Reverend Phelps has no less of a right than any other citizen to express his beliefs in public. It is a principle on which we should all stand tall.

Addendum I: (Bit)

I was going to put this in comments, but then I noted the traffic we’re getting.
David, I’m a little concerned about Ed’s comments, as well. But I’m a little concerned you’re missing something kinda crucial. Give the man credit for drawing the fine line. This is not, Ed is contending, a free speech issue. Given the source of the suit, I tend to agree with Ed. Follow my logic, here. Ed Says:

Free speech doesn’t absolve people of responsibility for the damage they do, and most reasonable people would consider what Westboro’s minstrels of misery do very painful and completely inappropriate. Perhaps this might convince a few other victims to follow suit, pun intended, and ensure that Phelps’ moral bankruptcy gets matched by his financial bankruptcy.

Understand clearly, please, the line being drawn.. I share your concern for free speech rights… and I also share Becky Lourey’s point in voting against a law that makes Phelpsian style funeral protests illegal. Ed, again:

However, as Minnesota’s Becky Lourey insisted last year, Phelps has the right to engage in political speech in public venues. Lourey, who lost a son in Iraq in 2005 and had supported Cindy Sheehan in her summer protest in the same year, considers Phelps as detestable as anyone else — but she voted against a law that made funeral protests illegal. In fact, she cast the only vote against the law, telling the state Senate that it went against the Constitution for which her son sacrificed his life.

The fact is, nobody is preventing Fred Phelps from speaking his mindless. That is as it should be. However, I think I ought to point out, that free speech, as a concept was never intended by the founders to remove all consequences from speech, but rather to remove governmental consequences from it. By definition, Albert Snyder is not acting as an agent of the government, but on his own. As such Phelps, et al, v Snyder is not a free speech issue.

As such, I suspect and suppose the ruling will lose if it’s appealed on free speech grounds.

Addendum II: (David L)

Granted Fred Phelps et a made Albert Snyder’s life a living Hell.  But the State does not get to invoke an Albert Snyder exception to persecute Phelps.  The court is an agent of the State and has no power not granted to the State.

Even thou this is a civil action, it is the oppressive power of the State, and not Snyder, which will provide the heavy hand to enforce the court’s judgement.

I am sympathetic to the compensatory damages.  However punitive damages are beyond the pale.  It is one thing to compensate Snyder for pain inflicted by Phelps et al.  It is quite another to use the Court to punish Phelps et al for their unpopular views.

It’s as I said yesterday… the left… and this of course includes the press, is truly worried about Hillary Clinton getting the Democratic Party nod. How else would something like this appear in anything to do with the New York Times?

A day after she appeared to struggle to give her views on the subject, Hillary Rodham Clinton offered support today for Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s effort to award New York driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, as her campaign sought to contain potentially damaging fallout from what her own supporters saw as a tense and listless debate performance.

Mrs. Clinton’s statement affirming her support of Mr. Spitzer in his office came less than a day after she offered a muddled and hesitant position on the bill, prompting a round of denunciations by her opponents. It signaled the extent to which her advisers viewed that moment as the biggest misstep she made in the debate, and one with long-term potential to undermine her candidacy.

Tense she may well have been, but listless she was decidedly not. More scared to death, if I’m any judge of what people do when the Kleig lights go on.

And here’s another thing; Spitzer, as we have discussed, here, has been subjected to a lot of heat and smoke over the New York driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants thing. And now, Hillary Clinton has reached out with both hands, and grabbed the rails, hitting the third rail with her tounge.

That said, the big news here is the New York Times even making mention of all of this. After years of tossing the woman softballs, and getting very quiet whenever Mrs Clinton put on her pink estrogen light (Thereby declaring herself off limits to the tough questions men must face) paragrahs like this are astounding:

“The Politics of Pile-On,” Mrs. Clintons’ Web site announced this morning. “What happens when the ‘politics of pile-on’ replaces the ‘politics of hope.'” The campaign later released a video that featured Mrs. Clinton’s Democratic rivals saying her name repeatedly. A headline on the Drudge Report, which said it was reflecting thinking in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, read, “Scorn: As the Men Gang Up.”

Perhaps even the New York Times has decided they’ve done all they can in offering apologetics for the woman. Or, perhaps they recognize what I said already yesterday:

…what we have here is a left conflicted. They know the Republicans are salivating at the idea of having Hillary Clinton being the Democrat nominee.  And they recognize she represents a threat to the Democrats actually taking the WH.

We note with a nod of welcome and approval, the Conservative Grapevine, John Hawkins’ new venture. Looks like a great addition to my daily read… a great resource.

By the way, John, thanks for the linkage.  Let’s just say we noticed.

Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat calls women wearing provocative clothing in publc “emotional abuse” of men.   Abuse me please.

Hat tip:  article,  Allah Pundit, Hot Air;  photo, Baby Phat.

Roy Pearson Jr. is unemployed and I am happy about it.   Keith L. Alexander, Washington Post

Roy L. Pearson Jr., the administrative law judge who lost his $54 million lawsuit against a Northeast Washington dry cleaner, lost his job yesterday and was ordered to vacate his office, sources said.

Pearson, 57, who had served as a judge for two years, was up for a 10-year term at the Office of Administrative Hearings, but a judicial committee last week voted against reappointing him.

You probably never heard of Pearson. but you likely heard of the lawsuit Pearson filed    He sued a DC dry cleaner, for fifty-fuur millions dollars over a lost pair of pants.    While Soo Chung, the dry cleaner, prevailed in court, she was still saddled with her legal fees.

Roger Simon, Poltico, has the background on Mrs. Clinton’s debate debacle in Phidelphiia:

PHILADELPHIA — We now know something that we did not know before: When Hillary Clinton has a bad night, she really has a bad night.

In a debate against six Democratic opponents at Drexel University here Tuesday, Clinton gave the worst performance of her entire campaign 

Memeorandum has tons of commentary.    Mrs. Clinton’s problem is simple.   The Clintons do not have core beliefs.  Rather they have positions, set by triangulation based on polling data.   Absent a poll, a Clinton does not know what to think.