Mark A. Kilmer (the weblog)

The left credited Colin Powell with the entire Bush program in Africa. The former Secretary, we were told, had to harp constantly, begging the President for every nickel.

It’s 2005, The General has moved on, and today brought us news… of $1.2-Billion to the continent to reduce malaria by 50-percent in five years, $400-million to educate African girls, and he wants an additional $55-million to bolster legal protection for women against domestic violence and abuse.

It seems meant to jumpstart the G-8, which is meeting in Scotland next week.

Britain’s Tony Blair is on board:

“We welcome the president’s focus both on governance and democracy as well as on the key issues of girls’ education and malaria,” the [Blair] statement said. “We want the G-8 to sign up to providing universal access to malaria prevention and treatment and to train millions of new teachers for Africa.”

Now if he’d only have offered Africa, say, $250-million for DDT. Kill the mosquitoes, stop the spread of malaria. It’s what the Africans want from us.

Rachel Carson’s 1962 tome Silent Spring, which created the false notion that DDT harms the Earth’s environment, is responsible for more deaths, perhaps, than any other single book. And the thing is unhidden garbage!

‘T was another merciful night off. Tomorrow night in Detroit, Unit vrs. Bonderman, had better be the start of the REAL season. The Sox are returning Schilling, possibly next week, and it’s not going to get any prettier.

Our regulatory power-toting federal government will one day force weblogs to carry Public Service Announcements. As my small effort to stave off this day, I will post a daily PSA.

This is my second:

JenBen/BenJen is reborn, albeit in a different form. And it has nothing to do with that psychopath Scientologist.

I got this one from a friend, Mike Snell, The Wine Commonsewar. (Click the picture for the Souter story on his weblog.)

.

The awful Kelo vrs. New London — and I’m still waiting for them to tell us that they were teasing — has put the wheels in motion to purchase the land and finance the building of a profitable, tax-paying, revenue-generating hotel at the site of Souter’s current New Hampshire home.

I’ve three new columns on the RSN web site:

Christopher G. Adamo: Supreme Court Eradicates Constitutional Principles.

Dustin Hawkins: Supreme Court Abolishes Constitution.

and

Isaiah Z. Sterrett: Liberals and Terrorists Fume over Gitmo.

Enjoy!

And when you’re through, subscribe FREE to the twice-weekly Rightsided Newsletter. (You can subscribe by sending a blank e-mail to rsn-subscribe [AT] topica.com. We ask for no other information, and you will receive no e-mail other than the newsletter by doing this. For more info and the latest RSN, check out the RSN site.)

The Democratic National Committee had scheduled a Chairman Howard Dean fundraiser for Wednesday night in Columbia, South Carolina, but Dean didn’t bother to show up, citing bad weather in Philly. The State’s DNC executive director, Lachlan McIntosh, said that the party had already raked in $5,000 in ticket sales and they expected to get $10,000 more by the time bread was broken.

They’ve promised to return the $5,000.

That being said, Dean’s fund raising skills went to work, in an imitation sense, for the other side of the aisle last night. The State GOP held a “Dean Scream contest” and raised $22,000.

“YEAAARRRRGH!”

Why?

From the AP:

The Michigan House has voted to ban hunting on the Internet, something a Texas company says it’s exploring. The House voted 95-8 to prevent anyone from setting up a hunting Web site in Michigan.

The practice involves shooting real animals controlling a firearm via the Internet.

State Representative Glenn Steil introduced the bill [HB 4465], which now goes to the Michigan Senate. The Kent County Republican says Michigan lawmakers can’t control what people do in other states but says he doesn’t want that type of business based in Michigan.

Internet shooting already exists in Texas, and the site offering it says it’s looking into adding Internet hunting.

The Michigan Senate had passed the thing, 57-0. (Text, of the Senate bill (SB 373) and the House Bill (HB 4465).)

The measure passed because (paraphrase) “we don’t want none of that ’round these parts,” which is fine. A State senator harrumphed that the measure “will help to protect the integrity of our sport from such a senseless activity.” That’s fine for Michigan, which reelects Carl Levin every six years.

I could understand such a ban from a public safety standpoint, but that does not seem to have been the argument in favor of the thing. As is stands, it sounds a lot like burning witches.

That being said, and Levin aside, I admire the way the State of Michigan gets the text of these measures on the internet.

Our MSM is feeding us a line of absolute crap.

From Omar at Iraq the Model:

It’s visible to everyone that debates over the war in Iraq, war on terror, invasion or occupation or whatever you may name it are at peak levels right now.
The process is being questioned, criticized and discussed more profoundly than at any time in the last two years but you know what?
That’s not happening in Iraq; you can find such discussions and accusations in America but you can’t find them in Iraq.

As a matter of fact there are some similar debates here in Iraq but at very limited levels; in the National Assembly there are 83 members [Sadrists and Fadhela party members as well as some other Islamists] who signed a declaration where they accused the government of treason because it asked the multinational troops to remain for another year in Iraq and they said that the government ought to demand a timetable for withdrawal and they’re also planning to organize protests and rallies to put more pressure on the government.

However, on the streets, such demands are not popular among everyday Iraqis who are more concerned about finding solutions for their daily life problems whether the solutions came form the government, the Americans or from Martians.
As for the other 192 members of the Assembly, they find such demands irrational and inconvenient at least for the time being.

Get it? They don’t care about the American press screaming QUAGMIRE, QUAGMIRE, DATE CERTAIN!

Yesterday, I told you of the Baghdad business owner who told the AP that “[t]errorism and rebellion in Iraq are now in their last throes.”

Perhaps the Joe Biden and the MSM should send a representative to address the nation, “come clean with the American people” about the situation in Iraq.

For those who want to try to do the end-around the free market and purchase government-subsidized drugs from Canada, Canada’s Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh has proposed banning the export of such drugs.

“Canada cannot be a drug store for the United States of America; 280 million people cannot expect us to supply drugs to them on a continuous, uncontrolled basis,” Dosanjh said at a news conference.

After all, it is the Canadians who are paying immorally high taxes to subsidize these things, not those of us in the less socialized United States.

I’ll say it again, because it bears repeating. As you know, I cover the Sunday Morning Talk Shows, and for the past several weeks, one of the main topics of conversation has been the false allegation that the Bush Administration is painting a rosy picture of the situation in Iraq. As evidence, they repeat and repeat again a comment which Vice President Cheney made to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the Iraqi insurgency was in its “last throes.”

The MSM leapt on that, berating the both Cheney and the President. Everyone from General Abizaid to Joe Biden was asked about the “last throes” comment, and it was given as proof that the Administration was out-of-touch.

From Associated Press, Wednesday [emphasis mine]:

Mohammed Qassem Mohammed, 37, the owner of a Baghdad clothes store, agreed that American forces should stay in Iraq until the insurgency is quashed.

“I think the presence of the American forces is necessary, but they should not stay permanently. Terrorism and rebellion in Iraq are now in their last throes,’’ he said.

That was an Iraq small business owner.

Are Tim Russert and Joe Biden going to call that Iraqi a liar/Halliburton?

ppd

A Christian alternative music event called Live from Creation East. My wife, who’s big into this stuff, got a laptop a few months ago and has finally discovered streaming audio. She found this live concert, and she’s having me listen as well.

No, it’s not hip, Irish U2 stuff, but I’d argue that those cats should have quit after 1983’s Boy. Bono’s found a nice gig as a spokesman for the African cause. He praises President Bush, but more importantly, he blames the repressive African governments. That’s something the real left would never do.

“A uniter, not a divider.” I’m writing, of course, about Joe Biden. According to Joe Biden.

The Delaware Dem plans to win red states and rural voters, says The Hill, and he’s set up a PAC to that end: Unite Our States. (Visit the site, and Joe Biden starts yapping without cue from you.)

Joe Biden is running for President, and he thinks he has what JF Kerry did not possess last year: electability. It’s what Senator Clinton lacks, and here’s what the paper reports on Dem strategists:

Democratic strategists’ conventional wisdom says the 2008 primary will boil down to a contest between Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), the front-runner, and a “not Hillary” candidate. A strategy emerging among those vying to be the alternative to Clinton, particularly Biden and Bayh, is to emphasize their ability to unite Americans. The implication is that Clinton is a divider.

We’ve been through that. Remember “Dean vs. Anti-Dean”?

Here’s the key, I think, for Biden. From his website:

As the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden is respected at home and abroad for his well-informed, common sense approach to the complexities of American foreign policy. Senator Richard Lugar, who currently chairs the committee, said: “Senator Biden has a very strong commitment to a bipartisan foreign policy and serves as a good example for everyone in Congress. He has a very broad, comprehensive view of the world. He’s a good listener, but he’s also a strong and effective advocate of his position.”

Joe Biden is the foreign policy guru, official or unofficial, for most Senate Dems, quite a few House Dems, and some Senate Republicans (McCain, Hagel). He’s been called “the smartest man in the Senate,” and I’d put him very near, if not at the top amongst Dems. (We’re talking about intellect, not foundation.)

Biden’s image, at least to most who have observed him closely, is that of an outspoken man who must like to irritate people who aren’t in the room. I’ve seen him cut countless people down to size, so to speak, but never when they are in the room.

A recent example is Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld, who can also be dismissive. Biden has attacked Rumsfeld for months, and when Rumsfeld appeared on the Sunday Shows last weekend,he cut Biden apart as clueless.

The Hill:

Biden’s aides and allies say his penchant for straight talking, like Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.), and his middle-class background will help him connect with rural voters, especially white men whose disenchantment with the Democrats has put Southern states carried by Bill Clinton 1992 - Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana and Kentucky - seemingly out of the party’s reach.

So he’ll be riding McCain’s bus, not Al Gore’s Love Train.

Don’t dismiss Joe Biden just yet. The plagiarism bit is yesterday’s news and not that serious. It is likely that the MSM will fall in love with his straight-talk derision of the President and his Administration, his part-impatient, part-condescending critique of the Iraq effort.

Of course, he could lose it if provoked, as he did in 1987 when confronted with the Neil Kinnock speech he was delivering. I recall a reporter asking him about this, a simple question, and Biden went off and challenged the poor guy to an IQ Test. It was one of the funniest political moments I’d seen, and I wish I had taken notes.

(posted earlier for RedState.org)

Look what the AP reports (via The Guardian):

Mohammed Qassem Mohammed, 37, the owner of a Baghdad clothes store, agreed that American forces should stay in Iraq until the insurgency is quashed.

“I think the presence of the American forces is necessary, but they should not stay permanently. Terrorism and rebellion in Iraq are now in their last throes,'’ he said.

Last throes, eh? We need Tim Russert and Joe Biden to call that Iraq a liar and/or Halliburton.

I think all blogs should run at least one PSA a day. Here’s mine for this day:

Tom Cruise, an insane Hollywood actor, believes in space aliens.

Here’s one from the French (AFP):

“USFK (US Forces Korea) believes the North has one to two nuclear weapons at a minimum,” said [General Leon LaPorte,} the commander of 32,500 US soldiers based in South Korea.

“North Korea continues to develop its Taepodong-II intercontinental ballistic missiles. This missile could deliver a nuclear warhead to parts of the United States if a third stage was added,” he said.

And South Korea, the French report, don’t want us to provoke Pyongyang while they are so close to peace in our time.

One of the tales I’ve absorbed has the nomination to replace Rhenquist being between Judges John Roberts (DC circuit) and Mike Luttig (4th), with Ted Olson and Harvie Wllkinson (also 4th) too old enter POTUS’s calculus. Neither is likely for O’Connor, though, because she is a lady; likely Edith Brown Clement (5th), notably more conservative that Justice Sandra.

(Cue Grease.)

RedState’s Erick Erickson, whose work with his source is getting a lot of attention, reports today (Wednesday) that he’s heard that Rehnquist is definitely out “on or about [Tuesday], July 5.”

POTUS is leaning toward Luttig.

If, however, O’Connor beats CJ to the White House (though POTUS & Co., Inc. does not expect her till Labor Day), we go with [5th circuit Judge Emilio] Garza first and Luttig second.

If Luttig doesn’t want it, we go with John Roberts next — Rehnquist is pushing Roberts. Roberts is a Rehnquist protege.

If O’Connor does go at Labor Day and women are not back on board GWB’s bus (a current POTUS & Co., Inc. concern), he scraps Garza and goes with Edith Brown Clements, an under the radar conservative from the 5th Circuit.

If any other spot opens, he goes with (a) Gonzales or (b) a sitting United States Senator from a state that currently has a Republican governor. Oh, and there just might be a third spot opening, but not until after January 1. Your guess is as good as mine on that one. Until then people in New York and Chicago will be speculating.

Erick’s source is someone he considers to be “very credible.” He adds, “[G]iven the source’s job and place of employment, I’d say the source, like the shadow, knows.”

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid Tuesday “selected” the next Supreme Court nominee, narrowing his short list down to four: Republican Senators Lindsey Graham of Florida, Mel Martinez of Florida, Mike DeWine of Ohio. and Mike Crapo of Idaho.

Reid, who met with Supreme Court justices last week, recounted what he says he was told:

Reid recounted their message: “They thought what would be a good idea is to start calling people from outside the judicial system. I think that’s something that we should listen to.”

This looks like Reid, though, looking to strengthen ties to Republican Senators he considers more likely to buck the Republican agenda. The selection of Crapo, however, is a riddle. Mike Crapo is solidly pro-life, given a 0% rating by NARAL.

Good morning!

The old gray drunk lady still doesn’t get it.

From today’s editorial:

“[W]e had hoped he would resist the temptation to raise the bloody flag of 9/11 over and over again to justify a war in a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks.

As I described twice last night, countless times in the past, the war has everything to do with 9-11. It is myopic and dangerous to look at 9-11 merely as an attack by Osama bin Laden on the United States. It was the attack by people of a dangerous, jihadists mindset. People who feel that America must be destroyed.

That which drove those involved with the 9-11 attacks also pushes Zarqawi and his band to sever heads, explode cars, and attempt to sabotage Iraq. The two are one, and the American people must be helped to understand that.

And it seems the addled editors at the Times are either incapable of conceptual thinking or in an ugly attack mode. It could well be either, probably both.

Also, the assertion that Iraq “had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorists attacks” is incorrect. It has not been proven that this is the case, and it is impossible to prove a negative in any case. The Times has again lied for political purposes.

Much of the criticism of the President’s speech from the left has been that he linked the attacks of September 11 to the war on Iraq. They argue that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks, something which is arguably true but has never been proven. (One cannot prove a negative, anyway.)

The mutants who attacked America on September 11 shared a mindset, an ethos, and a set of goals with all Islamic terrorists: America is evil and must be destroyed, and the world must be run according to 12th century Islamic law. Destroying bin Laden and even al Qaeda will not remove that mindset; rather, the President believes, with a lot of us, that a free Middle East will remove the conditions in which the mindset breeds, protecting America from future 9-11s or worse.

Those opposed to the war in Iraq believe that we should punish someone for what happened on -11 and get back to our business, doing nothing about the conditions which bred the attack. Such thinking is fatally dangerous, and it is reprehensible when it is foisted on our less intelligent brothers and sisters for political purposes.

The Yanks and the Orioles are knotted at 4 in the 10th. The Yankees bats are dead. …

Scratch that. Brian Roberts just hit a walkoff in the bottom of the 10th. Ballgame over. Orioles win.

They Yankees gave this game away.

J.S. Bach. A Musical Invention.

President George W. Bush addressed the nation from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, this evening at 8p, as thunder rumbled outside my window.

He laid everything out nicely, talking of the problem, the enemy, and the stakes. He gave no “date certain,” which would have been necessary to please some.

He said that the enemy started this effort on September 11, so he rightly put the Iraq war in that context. He described the enemy in Iraq exactly as he described the enemy on 9-11. This has been a sticking point with some of the slower pundits, who demanded proof that Saddam flew one of the planes that awful morning. This goes deeper than any one event, and that is the most important thing we were told tonight.

In Iraq, we are fighting the war on terror.

He praised the troops and those who would serve. He praised the Iraqis.

His timetable: “We will stay in the fight until the fight is won.” This was the first applause line of the speech.

Below the fold are the notes I took while watching:

(more…)

I’ll do my usual with the President’s speech on Iraq, the same thing as I’ve done for the Rightsided Newsletter. I’ll watch the speech, typing my observations and reactions into my word processor, and sent it out to the RSN subscribers and posting it here in this weblog. Expect it shortly after he finishes.

This is, of course, weather permitting. (There’s rumbling in the distance…)

The President has to tell us what we’ve done so far and what we have yet to do. He has to tell us how he is doing or plans to do it. We need to hear how dangerous the insurgency is and what we need to do to get the Iraqis ready to fight it themselves. This last is the most important thing of which he can speak. We need to hear that the insurgency will one day be an Iraqi problem, jihadists attacking peace-loving Iraqis.

And what will we do if Iraq lags in its timetable in the process of drafting a constitution and electing a government? Carl Levin says he wants to have us abandon them.

All networks.

The Senates version of the Energy Bill passed through the body, 85-12 today. AP (linked) reports that Teddy Kennedy voted for it (better than the House version) and JF Kerry voted for it (reduces dependency on foreign oil).

Voting against the bill were Lautenberg and Corzine of New Jersey, Feingold of Wisconsin, Gregg and Sununu of New Hampshire, Kyl of Arizona, Martinez and Nelson of Florida, McCain of Arizona, Reed of Rhode Island, Wyden of Oregon, and Schumer of New York.

Dodd and Lieberman on Connecticut and Jeff Sessions of Alabama were not on hand to vote.

We’ll see what happens in Congress, where the House, where the leadership is said to be very committed.

I got this from today’s Daily Fix, off the Wall Street Journal online:

His team has won two games in a row and are just five and a half games out of first place, but of course that didn’t suffice for New York Yankees boss George Steinbrenner. He issued a press release calling out the players for not wanting to win — a missive written while pumping weights, according to his publicist. “We have to trust the veracity of the report, just as we can imagine the objects Steinbrenner might have been lifting as he bellowed into the phone,” Lisa Olson writes in the New York Daily News. “Maybe it was Jason Giambi’s massive contract. Maybe it was Brian Cashman’s liver, served with fava beans and a nice Chianti.”

But the Yankees aren’t done, in part because the Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles — who lost to the Yankees last night — have failed to finish them off. “It may be to the rest of the division’s everlasting regret that no one stepped on a pinstriped neck while the chance was there,” Mike Vaccaro writes in the New York Post.

Well, well, well.

Vaccaro writes:

Yes, somehow, this is a season with some vitality left in it. In the fabled season of 1978, the Yankees were 43-32 after 75 games — five full games better than this year’s edition — and woke up the morning of July 1 nine games behind the Red Sox.

They overcame that. These Yankees can do that. Anyone who believes the Yankees are as dead, literally, as they’ve looked metaphorically the past few weeks is fooling themselves. In other years, they may be right. In this year, it’s Gary Sheffield who’s right.

Oh, man. The 1978 World Champions. Billy Martin. Ron Guidry, Catfish Hunter, Goose Gossage, Sparky Lyle, Munson, Chambliss, Dent, Nettles, Randolph, Chicken Stanley, Sweet Lou Pinella, Mickey Rivers, Roy White, and REGGIE!… REGGIE!… REGGIE!… REGGIE!…

There is hope, right?

This year’s amalgam of freaks is no 1978 Yankees.

Fire Torre and hire Sojo. Then hope that the Captain and A-Rod can wake these folks up.

There is hope, and like when I was a kid, I want to believe. I survived the late ’80s…

This is a little old (July 16), but I like it. It’s from the Shakespeare’s Sister blog, wherein a nameless blogger writes of Dick Durbin, in a post headlined “I Like Dick”:

If we were smart, we’d quit worrying about Barack Obama and make this guy the household name by ‘08.

This was in reaction to Durbin accusing our troops and leaders of perpetrating the crimes of the Nazis, Khmer Rouge, and Stalin’s Soviets. And methinks the blogger has his/her wish, in that the RNC will probably keep Durbin’s name active until ‘08.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), just returned from the detention facility at Guantimo Bay with a group of Senators and speaking at yesterday’s Dem press conference on the matter, made a point nearly identical to my own:

“It is my opinion that closing the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay would result in less accountability in the treatment of prisoners, not more,” Wyden said. “The question we have to ask is who do we trust more to treat these prisoners humanely — Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt or the United States?”

He made this statement, of course, only after find the conditions at the Guantanamo Bay to be nothing like Dick Durbin’s Soviet gulags, Cambodian killing fields, or Nazi death camps.

My point, addressed to Durbin and his ilk, was that these same people objected to the United States outsourcing interrogations to country’s with no compunction concerning torture. Close Gitmo and send the prisoners to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or Egypt? (The Saudis might release them, but that wasn’t my point.)

The United States holds itself to a more human standard, to the frustration of some, and to suggest otherwise for political reasons is cheap. Dick Durbin.

There is a fascinating post at the Iraqi site Friends of Democracy site, dealing with the very real problems, challenges, and process of writing the Iraqi Constitution. (Remember, Carl Levin demanded on CNN’s Late Edition Sunday that they write it on time or he’s going to hold his breath and stomp his feet until we withdraw all troops.)

The writer, Iraqi blogger Bassim Al-Sa’eedi, posits, in part:

We Iraqis differ in regards to the relation between Islamic Law (Sharia) and the constitution we need to write. So we must engage in a discussion independently from the Constitutional Drafting Committee, assuming they can still hear our voices at all.

The most important part, in my opinion, is the role of Islam. We are compelled to adhere to Islam as a divine legislation. But this will only plant mines in front of the wheels of democracy and human rights. It will not heal our wounds. It will rub salt into them instead of serving as a salve.

I recently read a document written by a group of Iraqi intellectuals which had been distributed to National Assembly members and Iraqi politicians in order to bring some points to their attention before they drew up the general outlines of the constitution. What astonished me was the following: “Islam is to be the sole source of legislation.”

Now personally, as a Muslim, I do not intend to take a stand against Islamic legislation. But I believe it is a matter of utmost gravity that we put limits on it. This is not an attempt to belittle Islam. Islam in general is agreed upon by Muslims. But the details and the implementation of Islamic Law will provoke a great deal of disagreement and alienation - even violence - between Islamists themselves, not to mention the liberals, secularists, and atheists.

He is concerned, though, that the constitutions framers will “insist on blindly following slogans.”

Read his post as partial background before the President’s speech this evening.

Good morning!

Amid media-genearated accusations that the President has been too optimistic on Iraq, that he is telling the country that the violent insurgency is coughing up blood when it is not, the President will address the American people this evening at 8p.

Joe Biden has called it a “credibility gap,” suggesting that the President has to “come clean” with the American people. To an extent, I think Biden is on to something. I’d like to hear him tell us what we are accomplishing and the price we are paying and can be expected to pay.

No matter what he says, the Democrat leadership will fault him. That’s part of the game with them, and I do not want to be a pawn in a game over a war. It’s one of the drawbacks of living in a multiple-party system in a polling age, but it is better than the alternative.

The President has to have faith in his supporters to be just as vociferous as his media detractors. We’ve broken their monopoly, and they are becoming increasingly irrelevant as opinion-shapers.

So let’s hear it, Mr. President. The cards will be on the table, we’ll have the confidence which comes from knowing the truth sans varnish, and Joe Biden can shut his yap about this.

I’m ready to rumble, Mr. President.

As reported last night, from bloggers who’ve heard from sources, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez is said to be helping the President to select a Supreme Court nominee to fill an impending vacancy; but A.G.A.G. himself is not on that list.

One David Souter is enough. Despite the politics involved, our country deserves better than this non-stop slouch towards mediocrity.

I had avoided Dennis “BTK” Rader’s confession footage today, but I caught part of it when I flicked over quickly to the Dan Abrams program on MSNBC.

He explained carefully what he did.

Example:

“I proceeded to tie the kids up and they started crying and got real upset, so I said, oh, this is not going to work. So we moved them to the bathroom. She helped me. … And then I proceeded to tie her up. She got sick and threw up. I got her a glass of water, comforted her a little bit and then I went ahead and tied her up and put a bag over her head and strangled her.”

It sounded almost as if he were retracing his steps to find something he’d lost.

I assume Jack the Ripper was something like this fellow.

Kansas can’t kill him.

Yankees beat Baltimore, 6-4. Boston was creamed in Cleveland and Toronto got beat as well.

Someone sell George a pitcher, and this team will win the division.

Some Jean Sibelius, Symphony no 5 right now.

Okay, maybe has come and gone. Neither Rehnquist nor O’Connor has bailed, and the President has not irritated movement conservatives and evangelicals by nominating A.G. A.G. (Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez)..

Here’s some “insider stuff.” Take it, of course, with many or several gains of salt, as the writers recommend.

The first is Erick Erickson at RedState:

My “Deep-Throat” source appeared this evening. Here’s what I’m hearing.

The President is upset about it, but realizes the reality of a Gonzales nomination and he will not make that play. That is not to say he won’t in the future, but contemplating either O’Connor or Rehnquist, Gonzales was asked to participate in compiling the list and he is not on it.

The rumblings from the base were too great. I am also told that, for the same reason, McConnell is now out. He would have been a perfect fit, but several of the movers and shakers have gotten cold feet about him.

Source still says to pay very close attention over the next ten days.

This one is from Feddle at ConfirmThem.com

An extremely reliable source informs me that Alberto Gonzales will not be nominated by the president to the Supreme Court. According to Quasi-”Deep Throat”:

POTUS is upset about it, but has been told and understands Gonzales is a deal breaker with conservatives. Gonzales has participated in forming a list without his name on it.

There’s a great deal more that I wish could say, but I am sworn to secrecy. I will say this though, conservatives will NOT be disappointed with who the president has in mind to replace Rehnquist and O’Connor. Dubya is going to come through for us on his Supreme Court picks, folks, so get ready to rumble.

My own source in the West Wing, the same girl who released Valerie Plame’s name and told Michael Isikoff that we flush Korans, informed me that she is a composite, I told her that I was married, and that ended that conversation.

The leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, John Howard, has decided that his party must stand for more than tax cuts:

Turning to tax, Mr Howard argued: “I do not believe that tax cuts are the silver bullet - the panacea to the party’s problems.

“They cannot be all that we stand for - all that defines us. We need to reach out - we need a broad appeal, a programme that meets the many different challenges we face in modern Britain.

“I am a Conservative, I believe in lower taxes.

“But I believe there is more to Conservatism than just tax cuts.”

And there is more to conservatism than simply opposing Tony Blair, no matter how reckless some of his policies might be.

I had read this somewhere else, but the Philadelphia Inquirer tells us of the death of CNN’s Capitol Gang TV series.

The Gang lineup: syndicated columnists Robert Novak and Mark Shields, Time magazine’s Margaret Carlson, Kate O’Beirne of the National Review, and Bloomberg News’ Al Hunt.

Lone survivor is Novak, host of the Saturday Novak Zone and soon-to-be contributor to Wolf Blitzer’s forthcoming Situation Room. The rest “will move on. They all have real jobs,” [CNN/U.S. chief Jon] Klein says.

Bob Novak is the insider’s insider, and I met Kate on National Review’s pre-internet chat/bulletin board service back in ‘91. (They were Townhall long before Townhall.com was Townhall.)

Goodbye, Shields and Hunt, two of the most unhappy and snide people I’ve heard commenting on anything. I hadn’t watched the show in years, and it follows another I had long since ceased watching: Crossfire. (I watched back in the ’80s, when it was Tom Braden vrs. Bob Novak.)

CNN has to do something, as no one is watching the network. If Klein plays his cards right, I think CNN could regain a respectable market share from FNC, but it’s going to take a lot more than a few minor program changes. CNN had better change its ethos.

No, this isn’t 1976. Representative Birch Bayh (D-Indiana) is not challenging to be the first Democrat Presidential nominee post-Watergate. We’re talking about Senator Evan Bayh (D-Indiana), and his real given name is Birch (Birch Evans Bayh III).

This Bayh is seriously considering a run for his party’s 2008 Presidential nominee:

According to Steve Bouchard, director of Bayh’s All-America PAC, the Hoosier Democrat is “doing the preliminary things one needs to do if they’re going to make that decision.”

In other words, Bayh is running while keeping his options open and trying to decide whether he has a decent shot at a successful bid for the White House.

“He doesn’t want to do anything to rule out that option,” said Bouchard, adding that Bayh also wants to make sure the option is a viable one.

Is Bayh running for Vice President? I had him pegged as that on a potential Edwards ‘04 ticket, and that might happen again. The question, though, is where does tepidly temp’ed Evan Bayh fit with the Howard Dean/MoveOn.org/dKos Democrat Party?

[I cross-posted this one at RedState.org.]

In McCreary County v. ACLU (”The Kentucky Case”), the Court ruled that the federal judiciary should review each individual case of a Ten Commandments display to determine whether or not its purpose is the promotion of religion. It this Kentucky case, Justice Souter wrote the 5-4 split decision’s opinion, determining that the Kentucky county had been trying to promote Christianity with the Commandments in the Courthouse, so it had to go or the foundations of the republic would crumble.

In Van Orden v. Perry (”The Texas Case”), Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote that a Ten Commandments monument could stay on the capitol grounds in Austin: “Of course, the Ten Commandments are religious _ they were so viewed at their inception and so remain. The monument therefore has religious significance… [but] simply having religious content or promoting a message consistent with a religious doctrine does not run afoul of the Establishment clause.”

As a casual aside, The Texas Case proves that the homeless do have access to the Supreme Court. Thomas van Orden, the plaintiff, is described by the Washington Post as “a former lawyer who is now homeless.”

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports that Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida) wants to chair the House International Relations Committee when Chairman Henry Hyde retires after this congress.

To get the chairmanship, she’d have to leap over the more senior Dan Barton of Indiana, and others, but it’s doable if the GOP thinks it will help party support in Florida’s famous Cuban-American community.

“I don’t know that my ethnicity or my nationality would be a factor,” Ros-Lehtinen said. “I think the leadership just looks at your ability to chair the committee. If you get along with the members, you’re going to get along with the team and not just your personal agenda.”

The personal agenda of which she speaks is decidedly anti-Castro, which might cause of few intestinal quakes amongst pro-Castro Democrats and Rrepublicans.

It will be interesting to see how hard Barton pursues the position and what he brings to the table.

Good morning!

The Washington Post has conducted a poll in which Americans were told that the Bush Administration thinks the insurgency in Iraq is almost finished. Do we agree?

Naturally, only 22% feel it is “on its last legs,” perhaps because the MSM has led them to believe that this is strictly a military battle.

The Bush Administration never claimed that the insurgency was on its last legs. Dick Cheney has once used the expression “last throes” to describe the insurgency for Wolf Blitzer, but his meaning was more nuanced than the press seems able to grasp.

The MSM, the Post especially, have a vested interest in promulgating the falsehood that the Bush Administration has painted too rosy a picture of the situation in Iraq. It contradicts their “ALL GONNA DIE!” reporting and chides them for their hysterics.

We are being lied to. Do I detect any surprise? No. This is standard fare from an intellectually bankrupt group of scandal-mongers.

So I’ve started the week off by lambasting the press. The Yankees won last night, and that’s something. This is the second time all year they have come back to win while trailing this late, and last night was an odd story.

They scored two runs to trail 4-3 going into the 8th, but then they didn’t score in the next inning. I looked up, and it was the bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, no outs, and the formerly steroid-laden Jason Giambi at the plate. A long fly ball would tie it, but Giambi delivered a basehit into the rightfield gap. Two runs score: YANKEES WIN! They avoided being swept at home by the Mets, and they kept pace with the streaking Red Sox.

I’ve seen a lot of bloggers joke that Joe Biden has no chance to win the Democrat nomination should he run, and a few people with memories make cracks about Neil Kinnock. I’ll write more later, but I don’t know that these folks know much about Joe Biden.

As far as sheer intellect, Biden is possibly the top Democrat in the Senate. As far as sounding so smart he can dismiss people at will, Biden is tops. He’s the foreign policy guru for almost the entire Senate Democrat caucus, many House Democrats, and a few House Republicans (McCain, Hagel). He’s a seasoned campaigner, and it would be best not to write the man off. A Biden Presidency would be, in my opinion, a disaster.

They’re losing to the Mets, 4-1, in the bottom of the 7th. I don’t trust them to mount a comeback.

Earlier this evening, I listened to some Oscar Bystrom, and all-but-ignored, brilliant 19th century Swedish composer.

An 104-year-old French murderer named Charles Brunier is telling folks that he’s the real Papillon, and some of the French MSM are buying into it. Another French murderer, Henri Charrière, said it was him. He even wrote the book about it, which became a 1973 Steve McQueen flick.

It’s all about an escape from Devil’s Island.

Isabelle Mesureur-Cadenel, the French director of Brunier’s French old age home, tells us:

“Under French law, he cannot vote or get married. He was freed as a war hero but he never succeeded in having his civic rights restored. He seems happy and alert for a man of his age.”

A South African paper quotes Cadenal as claiming that Brunier has the butterfly tattoo in his right arm.

What does it all mean? Not a damn thing.

On the RSN web site, we’ve the latest column by Justin Darr: Karl Rove Should Apologize. He Went Way to Easy on Them..

And when you’re through, subscribe FREE to the twice-weekly Rightsided Newsletter. (You can subscribe by sending a blank e-mail to rsn-subscribe [AT] topica.com. We ask for no other information, and you will receive no e-mail other than the newsletter by doing this. For more info and the latest RSN, check out the RSN site.)

Speaking from Amman, Jordan, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abul Ghait expressed his country’s fear that if the United States pulled from Iraq, the country could “explode to an armed confrontation among our brothers, which we should not allow to happen.”

A Democrat timetable would, he said, would create a situation in which “the different parties will seek to take control the situation.”

Look, add this to your list of why this mission is nothing like Vietnam. Any comparison is cheap and historically as ignorant as referring to a opposing politician as a Nazi out of spite or to score political points.

Euan Blair, son of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, about to graduate from Britain’s Bristol University, is coming to the United States to intern on Capitol Hill with Republicans on the House Rules Committee. Committee Chairman David Dreier(R-California) is said to be the lawmaker who will work most closely with the young Mr. Blair.

That can be considered a snub for the Democrat Party, which has always considered itself a natural ally of the elder Blair’s Labour Party. Then again, today’s Democrats are lost in left field while President Bush has hardly been a devoted conservative.

STEPHANOPOULOS AND RUMSFELD. On ABC’s This Week, host George Stephanopoulos spoke to Don Rumfeld. He opened the interview with the “anxiety in the American public” about the war.

Rumsfeld said that war is a “terrible thing.” He said that such a disconnect has occurred in every war, and that if all the people believe is what they see in the media looked bad. The secretary specifically did not blame the media. Steph argued that the MSM did cover the election and the new government. He blamed Cheney for “LAST THROES.” Rumsfeld explained that last throes could be either violent or not. Steph protested that Rummy knows what he meant.

“They are losers, and they are going to lose,” Rumsfeld said of the insurgents. He said that there was no contradiction between Cheney’s statement and Abizaid’s, though people can try to create one, “like you’re doing.”

Rummy said that what the insurgents are doing is not difficult and it does not mean that there is a plan.

Steph said that “as I’m sure you know, Senator Biden does not agree with you…”

Rumsfeld chuckled and said that “he never agrees.”

Steph played a clip of Biden calling the Secretary a liar and asserting a number of ready Iraqi troops. Rumsfeld snapped, “Biden’s wrong.” The number of ready Iraqi troops, he insisted, was 168,500 of different kinds: police, border patrol, army, etc.

Steph reported that Biden had said that it would be two years before the Iraqis would be ready for us to leave. Rumself said it was hard to tell, but that there are some people “thinking they know things they cannot know.”

He said that Biden is getting the data that they give him, “and he is characterizing it negatively. I am characterizing it accurately.”

Steph asked Rumsfeld about the low recruiting numbers, would that ruin us. Rumsfeld said that only the Army recruiting numbers are low, and that they recruiting goals were higher than expected because we want to increase the size of the Army. Steph pointed out that because we need a larger Army, we still have to meet the goals, and he asked if the Army were “broken.”

Rumsfeld replied, “This is not a broken army.” He briefly suggested that suggesting it is can’t be helping the recruiting numbers.

Steph broached the Times of London story, stating that it said that the U.S. had met with Iraq insurgents north of Baghdad to fit them into the process. Rumsfeld replied, “How would I know?… I get reports on dozens of meetings.” Steph asked why the U.S. would meet with the insurgents instead of allowing the Iraq government to talk to them, and Rumsfeld replied that we are always working to help the Iraqis.

He added that the Sunnis “know they made a mistake by not participating” in the election.
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Read the rest of the Sunday Show review in today’s Rightsided Newsletter, or catch the entire thing at RedState.prg.

Sunday’s Rightsided Newsletter, the review of the Sunday shows, has been sent to the sundry global Inboxes. If you do not yet subscribe, you can read the RSN at it web site: here.

Look for the review of ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos in this space momentarily, and look for the entire thing with interactive capability at Redstate.org later this afternoon.

Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld, answering Tim Russert to agree that Karl Rove had called liberals soft on terror, on this morning’s edition of NBC’s Meet the Press:

“My information was that he was talking about an organization called Moveon.org and said so.”

Good morning!

Wisconsin’s Fond Du Lace Reporter reports this morning of an interview with their Democrat Senator Russ Feingold.

The resolution does not set up a time frame for troop withdrawal. Feingold said that’s something for the military commanders to decide. It does, however, call for a commitment by Bush to set a tentative schedule for withdrawal within 30 days of its passage.

The senator said he returns to Wisconsin almost every weekend. When he meets with his constituents, he has noticed the number of people who approach him asking when the U.S. government can bring their sons and daughters home has been on the rise.

“Soldiers are dying, the pace is increasing, and the people of Iraq are dying daily,” Feingold said. “Our defense is being weakened.”

With five more Wisconsin soldiers killed in Iraq in recent months, he said it’s time to give people a vision of a plan for U.S. troops coming home.

For whatever reason, he is asking precisely for the President to admit defeat and quit Iraq.

A lot is riding on this mornings talk show appearances of Donald Rumsfeld and General George Abizaid, and especially the President’s Tuesday evening speech.

The latest Saddam novel, Get Out, You Damned, will not be published in Jordan. It could be a best seller here in the States, but publisher’s need the king’s permission before they publish in the little Hashemite kingdom.

I think I’ll purchase it, read it, and give you an objective review.