Mark A. Kilmer (the weblog)

Eric Lindholm at Viking Pundit relates that the Dems are going to attempt to do to the GOP with Social Security next year what the Republicans (read: Joe Gaylord) did to the Dems in 1994 with Hillarycare.

He concludes:

[I]f they think opposition to Social Security reform presents the image that they’re fighting for working Americans, they’re even more deluded than I thought. From Howard Dean on down, the Democrats have serious problems indeed.

The Dems are coughing up blood, running on fumes which double as hot air. They are leaderless and agendaless, powerless to do much more than throw little rocks at Tom DeLay and have their buddies in the press write about how awful the Republicans must be feeling.

Bulldogpundit has an interesting observation over at Ankle Biting Pundits, re: North Dakota Governor Jim Hoeven’s decision not to challenge Democrat Senator Kent Conrad next year. It is because he feared a challenge from Hoeven that Conrad voted to confirm Chief Justice John Roberts on Thursday.

Says Bulldogpundit:

Look for Conrad to ask to have his Roberts “Aye” vote back, and now be free to fight like hell against the President’s next SCOTUS nominee. Had Hoeven run, Conrad would not have supported the inevitable filibuster.

He is banking on a Dem filibuster of Nominee X. We’ll wait on that one, though even some in the MSM are predicting it, and polls show that people surveyed think the opposition to Roberts was pure politics.

It might backfire.

In the New York Post today, Page 6 columnist reveals that former Massachusetts Governor William Weld has at last seen the light: he will be pulling for the New York Yankees to beat the Boston Red Sox this weekend.

Weld grew up a Brooklyn Dodger fan, switched to being a Sox fan when he moved there, and now has moved to the Yankees “a few days ago.” This makes sense. He was a Dodger fan when he and they were in the city, paid lip service to the Sox when he was their governor, and switched back to the Yankees now that he’s a New Yorker again. (The Dodgers have long since moved to Los Angeles.)

Does this mean Weld will run for governor of the Empire State next year? Nope. If he chose the Yankees only a few days ago while they are about to clinch the AL East, instead of enduring a painful season with the rest of us, that doesn’t make him a particularly convincing Yankees fan, either. But what the heck. Welcome aboard, Gov.

Blogger Taegan Goddard whines: “the biggest flip-flopper in politics today.” One can’t be sure what crawled into his pants.

Go Yanks.

The WashPost’s Dan Froomkin has a question:

So what was Miller doing in jail? Was it all just a misunderstanding? The most charitable explanation for Miller is that she somehow concluded that Libby wanted her to keep quiet, even while he was publicly — and privately — saying otherwise. The least charitable explanation is that going to jail was Miller’s way of transforming herself from a journalistic outcast (based on her gullible pre-war reporting) into a much-celebrated hero of press freedom.

Think so, Dan? Really?

Karl Rove had said she could talk. Wasn’t him. Scooter Libby had said she could talk, but he evidently did not do so with sugar on top.

Judith Miller wants to be hip with her colleagues. So does everyone else with theirs, right? Well, this didn’t sell the goods Froomkin, bute’s not a reporter/journalist anyway. I doubt she’s convinced Jeff Gannon/Guckert either, but he’s no more a reporter/journalist than is Froomkin.

Me? I’m not a journalist/reporter. If Scooter Libby had told me that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA, I’d go to jail rather than tell a grand jury. That’s not a journalist/reporter thaang with me; rather, it’s a question of my word, my honor.

Would I take a bullet for the blogosophere, putting on a show by going to prison even if Libby had told me I could talk? No.

I also count on the rule of law.

Judy?

Erick at RedState.org writes this morning:

“Shell shocked,” “confused,” “stumbling,” “full of doubt.” These are all words I have heard used to describe the current White House effort to find Sandra Day O’Connor’s replacement. Batchelder, Williams, and Owen have all been interviewed, but the process continues to sputter along.

I think it will be Attorney General Gonzalez. The President is convinced that AGAG. The President is convinced that his buddy is a conservative, and someone is trying to convince the President that the Court’s docket will allow AGAG to prove that he is a conservative by next year’s midterms, thus assuring that those in the activist base need not take up golfing.

Note that the left is preparing for this contingency, providing new Abu Ghraib material of a sudden. Back in 2002, Gonzalez, of course, wrote a memo regarding the Geneva Convention and interrogation techniques which the left will use to portray the nominee as an architect of unspeakable horrors and (cue Dick Durbin) death camps and killing fields.

I don’t think there is another John Roberts. I think that if there were another John Roberts, he would not be pounced upon by a minority which smells blood. With Gonzalez, they smell blood.

With some Chafee-Collins-Snow, the minority could amount to something. With a Specter, the minority could both stop Gonzalez and end Arlen’s term as Judiciary Committee chairman.

Good Morning! TGIF.

I posted two notes at Rathergate.com today which bear repeating here. They deal with Tom DeLay and his harasser, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earl.

The first deals with a Ralph Blumenthal piece in the New York Times, a defense of Earl by Ralph Blumenthal. It follows, and below the fold is a look at three pieces found today at the MRC’s NewsBusters blog.

Ronnie Earle: Ralph Blumenthal’s martyr

Ronnie Earle, the partisan zealot who indicted House Majority Leader for… whatever, is a bit of a martyr. So sez Ralph Blumenthal at the New York Times, anyway:

Mr. Earle has long shrugged off his critics, saying his record of putting crooked officials and violent criminals in jail speaks for itself. But he once told Texas Monthly that he did not want to be buried in the State Cemetery in Austin, but instead wished to be cremated. He had made so many people angry, he said, that they would be lining up to desecrate his grave.

When the charges he filed against Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in 1993 were thrown out of court, Blumenthal writes, it was only because the noble prosecutor was “unwilling to risk a precedent that could erase the wall between politics and state business.” The judge thought this asinine and order an acquittal of the senator, one which Blumenthal deems a product of an “angry” judge.

After Earle’s fundraising speech I mentioned yesterday, the one in which he admitted that his operation was designed to nail Republicans, the state GOP reacted. Blumenthal reports:

But the chairwoman of the Texas Republican Party, Tina Benkiser, called for his resignation. “This proves once and for all that Ronnie Earle is a hypocrite on a political witch hunt,” she said.

Then he moved on to the ennobled Ronnie Earle shrugging off his critics.

Of course. just last November, Ralph Blumenthal was describing Earle as a “onetime Eagle Scout” who “put off dreams of retirement” to do his civic duty and remove the corrupt Tom DeLay.

If Earle is finally discredited and disgraced, which seems at the very least possible, he will not take Blumenthal with him. Few journalists achieve “discredited and disgraced” status. Dan Rather springs first to mind.

[next post below the fold]
(more…)

Representative Zach Wamp (R-Tennessee) wants to be whip, and he’s going to call for elections next year no matter what happens to the Hammer. He’ll seek the #3 whip post whether or not Eric Cantor (currently deputy whip) enters the contest.

Roy Blunt’s the whip, so we’d assume he’d have something to say about this if DeLay returns.

Blunt thinks he will soon.

If he doesn’t, Blunt might run for the job permanently. Who else? John Boehner of Ohio)and Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana.

Does the Hammer know that his own caucus smells blood?

Three new columns on the RSN site:

Christopher G. Adamo - Wyoming’s Democrat Governor Renounces His Party.

Doug Hagin - The Assault of Self-Defense!.

Barbara J. Stock - Things that Offend Islam.

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.)

When the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee conducted another of their steroids inquisitions, this time grilling Don Fehr, Bud Selig, and several former star baseball players (Hank Aaron, Robin Roberts, Lou Brock, Ryne Sanberg, Phil Niekro). Aaron holds the MLB career record for home runs with 756, though there is an outside chance that it could be broken by Barry “Steroids” Bonds. Of this possibility, Senator George Allen (R-Virginia) said:

“As far as Hank Aaron is concerned, if a certain player breaks his home run record, it’s not a question of an asterisk. . . . There probably ought to be an ‘RX’ next to it.”

FOXSports’ Ken Rosenthal called Allen’s comment a case of “perpetuating the witch-hunt frenzy.” No, Ken, that would be wigging out over Mike Brown’s recent testimony. He attacks Allen for making that remark when “the only fact we have is that Bonds used substances thought to be steroids.”

Excuse me? Ken, if we know that he used steroids, what’s your problem? Give Bonds his RX, and as Aaron tacitly suggested to the committee, give Roger Maris back his single-season record. Or would you have Mark McGuire let off the hook when all we know is that he used steroids?

All Republicans voted Aye.

Joining them were Democrats The Democrats Max Baucus of Montana, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, Bobby Byrd of West Virginia, Tom Carper of Delaware, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Carl Levin of Michigan, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Patty Murray of Washington, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, Ken Salazar of Colorado, and Ron Wyden or Oregon.

Jim Jeffords of Vermont also voted in the affirmative, perhaps doing his thing for the big boss, his senior Senator Leahy.

Someone swear the man in, and the nation will again have a Chief Justice. A hurricane struck when Chief Justice Rehnquist died. (A blaze of glory, indeed!) Let us hope the transition is less remarkable and that the vote stays against Roe.

Judge John Robers was confirmed by the United States Senate, seconds ago, to be the next Chief Justice of the United States.

The vote was 78-22.

Oyez, oyez, oyez.

Good morning!

Yesterday, the New York Times examined an old report — “a blistering 30-page critique of the case [New York Times v. Sullivan] that he [Supreme Court nominee John Roberts] wrote as a White House lawyer in the Reagan administration in the early 1980’s.”

The case required public officials, in libel cases, to prove that a media source used “actual malice” when publishing a falsehood.

The paper contrasted Roberts’s mild answer to Chuckie Schumer regarding the case with a memo he wrote for the Reagan Administration, entitled: “New York Times v. Sullivan: A Blight on Enlightened Public Discourse and Government Responsiveness to the People.”

[more below the fold]
(more…)

New Jersey has a gubernatorial election this November, and it is now a real race. Senator Jon Corzine was clobbering Republican Doug Forrester by as much as 18-percent earlier this month, but three new polls have it suddenly close. In the Quinnipiac poll of 874 likely voters, released Wednesday, Corzine leads by only 4 points, 48% to 44%.

Corzine has “been on the defensive for about a month,” said Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll. “He can’t seem to get out from under that little cloud that has been shadowing his campaign.”

The Senate Ethics Committee is looking into a complaint that Corzine failed to report a half-million-dollar loan to a former girlfriend who heads New Jersey’s largest state workers union. The senator eventually forgave the loan.

The Corzine babe, Carla Katz, snagged $615,000 from Corzine. The union she heads, the Communications Workers of America, endorsed him in his last election.

In Texas, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, an elected Democrat, will be prosecuting House Majority Leader Tom DeLay for conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme.

In a May 12 speech delivered to the lefty Texas Values in Action Coalition PAC, Ronnie Earle said:

This case is not just about Tom DeLay. If it isn’t this Tom DeLay, it’ll be another one, just like one bully replaces the one before.

This is a structural problem involving the combination of money and power. Money brings power and power corrupts.

The 80-100 Dems listening donated their money. Tom DeLay was just indicted by a man who sometimes acts as a Democrat PAC fundraiser.

Partisan. Corrupt. Did I say Partisan?

Jokers? (see post below)

From the AP:

His lawyer says House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has been indicted by a Texas grand jury.

The grand jury indicted DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme. The indictment could force DeLay to step down as House majority leader.

This was the last day of the GJ, so it was nearly now or never.

DeLay has stepped aside:

“I have notified the speaker that I will temporarily step aside from my position as majority leader pursuant to rules of the House Republican Conference and the actions of the Travis County district attorney today,” DeLay said.

According to CNN, Speaker Hastert will recommend to the House GOP caucus that Representative David Dreier (R-California) take over the majority leader duties for the time being, while Major Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri may also take some.

They will decide on Tuesday.

The Philippines Senate locked up their National Security Advisor, Norberto Gonzales, after he refused to disclose the private donors who paid for the contract with US lobby firm Venable LLP. Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita last week wrote to Philippine Senator Joker Arroyo demanding that Gonzalez be set free for national security and executive privilege reasons.

Senator Joker Arroyo laid down the law:

In reply, Senator Arroyo said the Senate would “forsake the inherent and explicit powers granted to it under the Constitution to enable it to perform its legislative duties effectively” if it released Gonzales.

“Asking for the names of donors for a lobby group that would ask US Congress for grants” does not pose danger to national security, Arroyo said.

He added that seeking foreign funds “to influence amendments to our Constitution is contrary to law, policy and public interest.”

So the entire thing is based on who gets to ask for what from U.S. taxpayers. Since I am a U.S. taxpayer, I think I have a little something to say about this.

In Pennsylvania, where I live, there has been a retrograde populist flap about how much money our State lawmakers spend. Joker Arroyo evidently doesn’t pay his staff very much, so perhaps we need a few Jokers in PA.

Holy Pay Increase, Batman.

Yeah.

Good morning.

The Los Angeles Times sticks one in the MSM, re: Katrina coverage: Katrina Takes a Toll on Truth, News Accuracy.

The subhead: “Rumors supplanted accurate information and media magnified the problem. Rapes, violence and estimates of the dead were wrong.”

The New Orleans Times-Picayune on Monday described inflated body counts, unverified “rapes,” and unconfirmed sniper attacks as among examples of “scores of myths about the dome and Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the media and even some of New Orleans’ top officials.”

Indeed, Mayor C. Ray Nagin told a national television audience on “Oprah” three weeks ago of people “in that frickin’ Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people.”

Journalists and officials who have reviewed the Katrina disaster blamed the inaccurate reporting in large measure on the breakdown of telephone service, which prevented dissemination of accurate reports to those most in need of the information. Race may have also played a factor.

[more beneath the fold]
(more…)

Judge Karen Williams. That’s the new name on the SCOTUS nomination front, with Erick Erickson at RedState reporting:

I have begun receiving word that we should start focusing on Orangeburg, South Carolina, the home of Judge Karen Williams. The buzz is incredibly strong, but I dare say the buzz matches that of the Joy Clement buzz (and we all know what happened to her).

What happened to Clement? Word is that she was the nominee until word filtered up that she had little personal issue. (Speculation was speculation, so we don’t know what.)

Who is Judge Karen Williams? Word is that she’s a solid judicial conservative, Kewl. She’s served on the Court of the Appeals for the 4th circuit since she was nominated a week after and confirmed five weeks after the election of President Bush the elder.

William at Southern Appeal wrote last July:

I can vouch that Judge Williams would be an excellent choice. She is one of the most thoughtful judges on the court and is not afraid to upset the apple cart by doing the right thing. Her name should have been on the short list long ago. She is probably best known for her Dickerson [Dickerson v. United States, 2000], opinion which held that Miranda warnings are not requirements under the Constitution but are instead procedural safeguards to be applied with rules of evidence and procedure. The Supreme Court ultimately overruled her in that case, with Justices Scalia and Thomas voting to affirm Judge Williams.

Judge Williams is 54-years old.

Former FEMA Michael Brown should have accepted the blame and thrown himself at the mercy of the Associated Press House Homeland Security Committee. After all, he is the one the mainstream media, and their friends, have blamed since the storm hit.

We have: “Former FEMA director Michael Brown blamed others for most government failures in responding…”

The Associated Press tells us:

His efforts to shift blame drew sharp criticism from Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike.

But the blame was put on Brown in a hasty and irrational game of “FIND THE MAN TO BLAME.” His responses, unless accepting whatever was heaped upon him, would have to put the blame elsewhere. It has all been placed on him.

Sharp criticism from Democrat lawmakers? Most of them boycotting the hearings because they want a 9-11 Commission to investigate and find fault. Sharp criticism from Republican lawmakers? The list Connecticut’s Chris Shays, not the most loyal Republican in the House, and Texas’ Kay Granger. When she first ran for Congress in 1996, she was recruited by both the Democrats and the Republicans. And I am passing judgments on neither Shays nor Granger; rather, I am characterizing the AP’s assertion of universal bipartisan Brown-bashing as misleading.

Brown admitted to two mistakes. From Reuters:

“My biggest mistake was not recognizing, by Saturday (before the storm made landfall), that Louisiana was dysfunctional,” Michael Brown told a House of Representatives panel looking into the aftermath of the catastrophic storm.

“I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade (Louisiana) Governor (Kathleen) Blanco and (New Orleans) Mayor (Ray) Nagin to sit down, get over their differences and work together,” he said. “I just couldn’t pull that off.”

The AP characterized this as blame-shifting. Reuters merely quoted the former FEMA director and conceded that he had become “the lightning rod for media and political allegations that the federal government, including President George W. Bush, reacted slowly.”

And Reuters reports:

The inquiry has been marked by partisan bickering. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California has refused to name members to the Republican-led panel saying it would not undertake an honest investigation of the Republican White House.

Pelosi on Tuesday said Brown’s testimony underscored the need for a non-partisan independent commission investigation of the federal response to the hurricane.

“Surprise, surprise, surprise. The administration sends over their crony to testify and whitewash the committee that it wasn’t their (the Bush administration’s) fault,” she told reporters.

The AP is stuck in blame-Brownie mode.

(cross-posted at Rathergate.com)

As the nomination approaches, Erick Erickson at RedState is all over the SCOTUS situation. He sees the Washington Prowler suggested that AGAG is campaigning for the job.

He also looks at the collection of names being dropped (from the AP):

Widely mentioned candidates include federal appellate judges Janice Rogers Brown, Edith Brown Clement, Edith Hollan Jones, Emilio Garza, Alice Batchelder, Karen Williams, J. Michael Luttig, J. Harvie Wilkinson, Michael McConnell and Samuel Alito. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [AGAG], former deputy attorney general Larry Thompson, lawyer Miguel Estrada and Maura Corrigan, a member of the Michigan Supreme Court, are also considered possibilities.

The good info, from Erick and others, is at Confirm Them.

Bill Frist’s chief budget aid, Bill Hoagland, has warned Congress to chill from throwing money at Katrina relief. He says Katrina may end up costing the Federal government half the $200-billion figure that has been thrown hither and yon for weeks.

Landrieu and friends want $250-billion.

[more below the fold!}

(more…)

The leftist group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government (CREW) has named its THE 13 MOST CORRUPT MEMBERS OF CONGRESS.

Over the past year, the issue of Congressional ethics has taken on new resonance. Where questionable conduct was once shrugged off as “business as usual,” now both the public and the press are demanding greater accountability from Members of Congress. Leader Tom DeLay’s ethics transgressions are just the tip of the iceberg.

DeLay is not on the list. In no particular order, the “progressive” group , of course, lists 11 Republican, including Bill Frist, Roy Blunt, and Duke Cunningham.

Surprise, surprise: two Democrats made the list: Representatives Maxine Waters (D-California) and William Jefferson (D-Louisiana).

According to the individual reports (click on the name), Ms. Waters’s “ethical problems arise from her exercise of this power to financially benefit her daughter, husband and son.”

Mr. Jefferson’s troubles “stem from his business dealings and a misuse of federal resources.”

Last year, Jefferson scored a 17 out of 100 in the ACU’s conservative rating, while Ms. Waters pulled in a 4. It’s not because these folks aren’t “progressive” enough.

This quote is from the Reverend Jesse Jackson, speaking at Camp Cindy IV

Saturday:

“You can be against the war and win re-election now. You can be against the war and get elected. We have Republicans who are starting to turn on Bush. That was not true a year ago, before Cindy Sheehan and before Katrina.”

To Jackson, this is not about the war, the bloodshed, Cindy, whatever; this is about “turning on President Bush.” The Old Guard left has their new tool.

Well, he’d lose the first AG.

Erick Erickson at RedState.org hears from sources that Karl Rove wants the SCOTUS pick to be Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez (AGAG). Legal circles are screaming Priscilla Owen.

A direct quote from Erick’s WH source is that Rove believes AGAG “is conservative and, given the current docket, will have time to prove it before midterm elections.” Meanwhile, the report goes, conservatives in the White House believe they are not being heard by those in positions.

About Owens. She’s often considered a candidate for destruction, someone for the Democrats to waste their chits rejecting so the President can go with one of the two Mikes, Luttig or McConnell.

Think Thursday, ‘k?

According to MSNBC.msn.com, the President’s performance during Hurrican Rita did not compensate for what they’ve determined was his poor performance in

reaction to Hurricane Katrina:

[T]he CW in Washington has already gelled that Rita did not give President Bush a “do-over.” All levels of government, from the Administration on

down, showed in their words and actions during Rita they learned lessons from Katrina. But because Rita’s circumstances didn’t mimic the particular circumstances of

Katrina that wrought political damage on Bush and his Administration, namely the problem of the poor and minorities being unable to evacuate, fairly or unfairly, they

are not being judged by the inside-the-Beltway crowd as having recovered.

The “CW in Washington” could be the “common wisdom” of a bunch of reporters or simply of the reporters who put the bit together (Elizabeth Wilner, Mark Murray,

Huma Zaidi, and Ryann Gastwirth).

Truth is, if the media say the President did not recover, that his entire Rita act was politcally scripted, that they’re still angry about Bush and Katrina (as portrayed by the media), the polls will reflect this. The public wants what the public gets.

The President did not recover. He could not recover. He has a lot more from which to recover than just some malicious press over his reaction to Hurricane Katrina. He dig himself from the PR mess of the war — which is his own fault, as we’re winning that war — and the bad press he’s getting on the booming economy.

Media reports were wrong. From the usually histrionic New Orleans Times-Picayne comes this almost-hidden report about what really happened, or did not occur, in the infamous New Orleans Superdome:

Following days of internationally reported killings, rapes and gang violence inside the Dome, the doctor from FEMA - Beron doesn’t remember his name - came prepared for a grisly scene: He brought a refrigerated 18-wheeler and three doctors to process bodies.

“I’ve got a report of 200 bodies in the Dome,” Beron recalls the doctor saying.

The real total was six, Beron said.

Of those, four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide, said Beron, who personally oversaw the turning over of bodies from a Dome freezer, where they lay atop melting bags of ice. State health department officials in charge of body recovery put the official death count at the Dome at 10, but Beron said the other four bodies were found in the street near the Dome, not inside it. Both sources said no one had been killed inside.

The SuperDome, we were told, was the prime example of Bush/Brownie/Halliburton raping the underclass while Aaron Broussard wept to the sound of a sobbing violin.

“I think 99 percent of it is bulls—,” said Sgt. 1st Class Jason Lachney, who played a key role in security and humanitarian work inside the Dome. “Don’t get me wrong, bad things happened, but I didn’t see any killing and raping and cutting of throats or anything. … Ninety-nine percent of the people in the Dome were very well-behaved.”

But the MSM loves a story. So they create big ones.

Four weeks after the storm, few of the widely reported atrocities have been backed with evidence. The piles of bodies never materialized, and soldiers, police officers and rescue personnel on the front lines say that although anarchy reigned at times and people suffered unimaginable indignities, most of the worst crimes reported at the time never happened.

But the story is out there, widely circulated, “internationally reported.” I wish there were a prison for these reporters who, in effect, are “shouting fire in a crowded theater.” The whole thing could be a lie.

Good morning!