I'm not saying there's a causal relationship but clearly these two things foretell something pretty obvious...Charlie Crist is likely to run for the Senate as an independent candidate.

First the poll.

Marco Rubio has opened up an elephant-sized 56 – 33 percent lead over Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida’s U.S. Senate Republican primary, but in a three-way general election with Rubio on the GOP line, Crist as an independent and Democratic U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, Crist has a razor-thin edge, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Gov. Crist leads Meek 48 – 34 percent in a general election matchup, while Rubio’s margin over the Democrat is just 42 – 38 percent, the independent Quinnipiac University survey finds.

If Crist were to file as an independent for the general election, he would get 32 percent of the vote, compared to RubioÂ’s 30 percent and MeekÂ’s 24 percent.

Now the teacher bill.

Republican Gov. Charlie Crist announced shortly after noon he is vetoing the controversial bill that would end tenure for public school teachers and base future pay raises mostly on student test scores.

"This bill is contrary to my firmly held principle to act in the best interest of the people of Florida," Crist said. "It is the right thing to do."

...

Florida Senate Majority Leader Alex Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, said in a statement that Crist had joined the naysayers who "object, obfuscate and imperil our children's future."

He rejected Crist's claim that "the process" of crafting SB 6 was flawed.

"In fact, SB 6 included months of work with stakeholders, and at every step of the way, the Senate invited participation and public testimony, Diaz de la Portilla said. "Teachers, parents and students were all participants. Our colleagues in the Florida House had unprecedented deliberations that included days of public debate."

Crist has also fallen well behind Rubio in fundraising.

Crist is denying that he'll run as an independent but everyone who has switched teams, like Arlen Specter and Joe Lieberman say that right up until they do.

He can't stay Governor and he's not going to win the GOP nomination for Senate, so what else does Crist have to do? I can't wait for Crist's announcement and David Frum's explanation of how this is all our fault.

Heh: Early Crist backer and head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, John Cornyn confirms that the Republicans will work against Crist if he runs as an independent. That's a relief.

"I would think that would be the end of his political career as a Republican," Cornyn, chairman of the NRSC, told POLITICO. "So I doubt that will happen. My hope is that this is all resolved in the Republican primary by Florida voters."

Cornyn said that Crist would be a "man without a party" if he decided to mount a three-way race against Rubio and Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek, who is pursuing his party's nomination in the state.

"And I think heÂ’s got other potential and aspirations, so I think from that standpoint, it would be a bad decision," Cornyn said.

Asked if that meant the NRSC would work to defeat Crist, Cornyn warned: "Our job is to elect Republicans so that’s what we’ll do – and I don’t care who it is."

I like Cornyn in general but the early endorsement of Crist was a mistake at the time and Rubio's success has only made it worse.

Heck of a job Senator, heck of a job!

More: Via Twitter "Bannon007" says Crist has until April 30th to decide on an independent bid. According to Florida law, Crist would have to bail on the Republican primary by then to run in November. It won't be like Lieberman who lost and then decided to run as an independent.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:29 AM | Comments (130)
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About time.

A former senior executive at the National Security Agency was charged Thursday with lying and obstruction of justice in an investigation of leaks of classified information to a newspaper.

Federal prosecutors said Thomas Drake, 52, served as a source for many articles about the NSA in an unidentified newspaper, including articles that contained classified information.

A federal indictment filed in Maryland charges that Drake used a non-government e-mail account to transmit classified and unclassified information. Authorities also charge that Drake lied to federal agents about what he'd done.

The indictment does not identify the reporter, the newspaper, or the subject matter of the stories. It says the stories were published between February 2006 and November 2007.

I always found it interesting that liberals assume the intelligence apparatus is a bunch of right wing nut jobs dying to institute some conservative police state. That seems an unlikely goal for people who thought it was 'funny'to leak information designed to hurt George Bush's electoral prospects.

Add to that the absurdly politicized NIE on Iran that no one thought was accurate and was clearly designed to tie the hands of the last administration, you start to wonder where the idea that the intelligence services were Bush's pawns came from.

Hopefully this guy will get a fair trial followed by the long prison sentence he seems to have merited.

More: Mainjustice.com takes a look at the indictment and has interesting information on Drake's relationship with the reporter and a congressional staffer.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:38 AM | Comments (94)
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That's the only conclusion to be drawn by these two stories.

First, Volcano!

All UK flights have been grounded until tomorrow morning as a spreading cloud of volcanic ash heads south from Iceland towards continental Europe.

In the first extended closure of British air space in living memory, millions of airline passengers face travel chaos as National Air Traffic Services (Nats) said no civilian planes would fly until at least 7am on Friday morning because of the eruption in Iceland.

"The cloud of volcanic ash is now spread across the UK and continuing to travel south. In line with international civil aviation policy, no flights other than agreed emergencies are currently permitted in UK controlled airspace," a spokesman from Nats said.

...

The plume of almost Biblical proportions was hurled into the sky above Iceland following an eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which surged back into life on Tuesday. The cloud severely limits visibility but could also endanger the aircraft if flown through, clogging the engines with molten glass. No flights are reported to have been caught in the cloud itself.

You'd think the enviro nuts would be thrilled with the grounding of planes, what will all the carbon not being spewed into the air and all. Problem is, I'd bet the volcano is releasing a hell of a lot more carbon than those planes ever will.

Meanwhile, the planet almost let a meteor hit the ground.

Oh sure you can say it happens all the time and yeah it's spectacular to look at but I think it's clearly a warning from Gaia..."start showing me some respect or I'll let this stuff through and then we'll see who is so tough."

Posted by: DrewM at 07:33 AM | Comments (194)
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Oh....my bad, did I say "economy"? I meant to say foreclosures.

A record number of U.S. homes were lost to foreclosure in the first three months of this year...

...the number of U.S. homes taken over by banks jumped 35 percent in the first quarter from a year ago. In addition, households facing foreclosure grew 16 percent in the same period and 7 percent from the last three months of 2009...

..."We're right now on pace to see more than 1 million bank repossessions this year,"...In all, more than 900,000 households, or one in every 138 homes, received a foreclosure-related notice...

~1,000,000 foreclosures in the pipeline, right?

If the banks take say a 20% haircut blowing them out into an already soft market (I think this is very conservative figure), and they had maybe $150,000 left on the loans on average (also probably conservative), then someone gets clipped for $30,000+/unit.

That's a $30,000,000,000 (30 billion) kick in the balls to a bunch of institutions that aren't exactly a paragon of rock sold stability right now.

In reality, I suspect the losses can be doubled to tripled from my crude estimate in some markets. Many of those joints will be trashed/stripped needing major wiring/plumbing work to replace what was removed and scrapped and won't sell anywhere near a "modest" 20% loss. more...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 06:30 AM | Comments (206)
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Oh dear God, it's not a joke?

I wanted to blog about this last night but things got in the way. Still, I think it's worth covering today.

Pataki, as you may recall started out as a fairly conservative governor of NY who won on the strength of the Al D'Amato- Bill Powers machine and Cuomo fatigue. Not long after that he became quite the liberal.

Look at it this way, he's Rudy Giuliani without the colorful personality and actual accomplishments.

Does Pataki really think there's a clamor for a big spending, pro-choice candidate in the Republican Party. Don't think he's a big spender? Take a look at what he did to Medicare in New York and the deal he cut with the local SEIU crew.

Medicaid thus came to dictate spending priorities in Albany. The most recent (and glaring) example is the career of Republican governor George Pataki, who arrived in office in 1995 railing against Medicaid overspending but then blasted it even higher by cutting politically expedient deals. In 1999, Pataki added billions to Medicaid with funds from cigarette taxes and the statesÂ’ share of revenues from the national Master Tobacco Settlement. The next year, he signed the Health Care Reform Act, which used Medicaid dollars to offer a new plan, Family Health Plus, that extended coverage to adults who earned too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid. And in 2002, to help cement his reelection bid, Pataki helped funnel an additional $1.8 billion in Medicaid funds into raises for SEIU 1199Â’s private-sector home-care workers; a few months after the bill passed, the union endorsed Pataki in the general election. Pataki won, but New York paid a steep price: by the time he left office in 2006, Medicaid spending had nearly doubled since 1995.

The New York Times had the details of the Patiki-Joe Bruno (then the Republican leader of the NY State Senate and now convicted on federal corruption charges) deal with SEIU.

I get Pataki not wanting to run for the Senate. It's a special election for the last two years of Hillary's term which means the winner will be running again in '12. That means 3 years of fundraising and campaigning across God forsaken places in NY. And if you're lucky and win...you get to be a Senator. Yeah, I don't blame him for not wanting that.

But President, George? No. I think we've had our fill of big spending, socially liberal candidates for President.

As for NY this year...forget it. The GOP had to recruit a Democrat to flip parties to run for Governor. He's now running a nasty campaign against Rick Lazio who has Rudy's support and that's about it. Neither has a chance against Andrew Cuomo. Oh, there's another guy running who is either a Republican or a tea party type, it's not really clear. He's been caught forwarding racist and sexually explicit emails around. So....

There are some no names lining up to run against Gillibrand but none have a shot. They are local gadfly types as far as I can tell. Too bad, Pataki or Rudy could have beaten her easily but they didn't want to make the run.

Chuck Schumer is up this year as well but he and his $20 million war chest are likely running unopposed.

The Republican wave may reach unexpected places across the country like California but when it comes to statewide races, NY will likely be a breakwater for Democrats. Do expect to see a few House seats go Republican (Massa's district, the 23rd where Doug Hoffman is running again and NY 20 look like good opportunities for pick ups).

Posted by: DrewM at 06:17 AM | Comments (39)
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I am ANGRY! Raaar!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:42 AM | Comments (131)
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Yes. I'm doing my taxes. I am one of those procrastinators, because a) I hate it and b) the past several years I'm writing a check.

Tonight is no exception.

Other notable things about April 14. 98 years ago tonight they were filling lifeboats in the north Atlantic. Of the 2200 aboard, fifteen hundred perished.

On April 14, 1986 President Ronald Reagan ordered Operation El Dorado Canyon, a series of air-strikes against ground targets in Libya in response to Gaddafi's sponsorship of terrorism.

But April 14 isn't all heavy. That same morning my eldest kid was born. Happy birthday punk.

...

I kinda miss the deduction though.

UPDATED: crap, I forgot Lincoln's assassination. ErikW reminded me.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:29 PM | Comments (104)
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Good evening and happy Hump Day all.

Lindsey Graham: Hey Now Would Be A Good Time To Raise Gas Taxes!

Okay WTF is wrong with this guy. After looking at his biography I doubt he's being blackmailed by the Democrats, I think he's really just a DiC (Democrat in the Closet). Because he essentially acts like a Democrat albeit a conservative one. Well actually what a conservative Democrat would have looked like back when they still existed. So his ACU rating of 88 notwithstanding, it's a fair question which party his heart really belongs to. So I guess it's no surprise that he's sponsoring this bill with Lieberman and Kerry.

Celebrities With and Without Makeup
What a difference a thin layer of cosmetics makes.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:54 PM | Comments (964)
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Big Journalism reports:

I have just received word that the New York Times is preparing to go public with a list of names of Americans covertly working in Afghanistan providing force protection for our troops, as well as the rest of our Coalition Forces.

The writer frames this as a kind of payback/pissing match scenario, with CIA and the NYT ganging up on DoD. Frankly, it's the first I've heard of it.

If anyone can put me some f'in knowledge, I'll try to update this post.

Hit the link for the full article.

Oh, and call the NYT and tell them not to do this. (Yeah, like they care.)

Update! Here, here for some background on CIA's efforts at undermining DoD operations.

NB: Please do note that at this time, AFAIK, the main post is single-sourced, and the supporting material is all by the same writer (although multiply-sourced, appears.)

Background on the eminence grise at CIA who might be causing the ruckus here.

Revenge of Update! Eminence Grise, Greased. Well, retired. Last night, apparently. Absolutely, positively nothing to see here.

Commenter The Q puts knowledge, per request, below the jump. Thank you, The Q. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:05 PM | Comments (247)
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Congress has delegated so much power to the Executive Branch that this type of power grab is not only possible, it's legal and it's common:

That's from Americans for Prosperity, an advocacy group. The group's vice president for policy had an opinion piece at Fox News over the weekend.

A taste:

While Congress considers sweeping new legislation to permanently institutionalize the bailouts and federal control of our financial system (right on the heels of their health care takeover, of course) several other sweeping power grabs are going on outside the spotlight of legislative debate. Indeed President Obama seems to believe that most of his sweeping agenda to transform the country can be accomplished without even a vote of Congress.

It's short; go read the whole thing.

Thanks to Mike S.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:03 PM | Comments (148)
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