Senator Russ Feingold is in George Will's sights today. Will is angry about Feingold's gutting of the First Amendment in 2002. He also has a reply for Feingold's newest bright idea to amend the Constitution to remove from the States the power to decide how to fill Senate vacancies:

Although liberals give lip service to "diversity," they often treat federalism as an annoying impediment to their drive for uniformity. Feingold, who is proud that Wisconsin is one of only four states that clearly require special elections of replacement senators in all circumstances, wants to impose Wisconsin's preference on the other 46. Yes, he acknowledges, they could each choose to pass laws like Wisconsin's, but doing this "state by state would be a long and difficult process." Pluralism is so tediously time-consuming. [...]

Now Feingold proposes to traduce federalism and nudge the Senate still further away from the nature and function the Framers favored. He is, as the saying goes, an unapologetic progressive, but one with more and more for which to apologize.

Will gets in several other shots at Feingold, including analogising him unfavorably to Joe McCarthy.

Will goes a step beyond merely defending the States' constitutional authority to choose how to fill vacancies. He wants to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment and return to the original method of selecting Senators: vote by state legislators.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 10:17 AM | Comments (80)
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Okay, now I'm really back.

I wasn't actually back on Thursday -- I blogged a bit as if I was, but in fact I was still in Beirut due to the hotel not giving me a wakeup call. I had originally mentioned this, but then deleted it, because Hezballah has surveillance at the airports (that's what the fighting was about last year -- they wanted to get Hezballah out of the airports, because they monitored people coming in and sometimes killed them).

So even though I'm hardly a big fish for Hezballah, I didn't want to tip them as to when I'd be leaving.

I spent 22 1/2 hours traveling on Friday -- I left Beirut at 7:30 am, Beirut time, and didn't get to not_steve_in_hb's, who was hosting a reunion of sorts, until after midnight New York time. Saturday I spent mostly napping.

But now, officially, I'm back in America. Still traveling (CPAC is coming up on Thursday), but now actually blogging again.

Sorry I was gone for so long. Since I started this blog, I've never taken more than 2-3 days off, ever. This was the first time I've ever been away from posting for a week.

Thank God [Gabe]: Thank God you're back, Ace. Your mother and I were so worried.

Posted by: Ace at 09:15 AM | Comments (59)
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I'm not sure if laughing or crying is more appropriate.

President Obama is putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget that seeks to cut the federal deficit in half over the next four years, primarily by raising taxes on businesses and the wealthy and by slashing spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration officials said.

In addition to tackling a deficit swollen by the $787 billion stimulus package and other efforts to ease the nation's economic crisis, the budget blueprint will press aggressively for progress on the domestic agenda Obama outlined during the presidential campaign. This would include key changes to environmental policies and a major expansion of health coverage that he hopes to enact later this year.

A summary of Obama's budget request for the fiscal year that begins in October will be delivered to Congress on Thursday, with the complete, multi-hundred-page document to follow in April. But Obama plans to unveil his goals for scaling back record deficits and rebuilding the nation's costly and inefficient health care system tomorrow, when he addresses lawmakers and budget experts at a White House summit on restoring "fiscal responsibility" to Washington.

Yesterday in his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama said he is determined to "get exploding deficits under control" and said his budget request is "sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don't, and restoring fiscal discipline."

Reducing the deficit, he said, is critical: "We can't generate sustained growth without getting our deficits under control.

Perhaps he should have thought of that before demanding a gigantic 'stimulus' bill that won't actually stimulate the economy but will insure that federal spending will soar in future years as many programs will have seen a large increase in their baseline budget number. Once that number goes up, it never, never goes down.

When reached for comment on Obama's budget plan, "Atlas" simply shrugged and walked away.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:55 AM | Comments (257)
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In sporting news, we get the following report from WTNH (Hartford, Conn.) about a little post-game tussle between Univ. of Connecticut Men’s basketball coach Jim Calhoun and testosterone-starved “feelance journalist” Ken Kreyeske, apparently working for “The Hartford News,” which I guess is a new start-up blog or something. (video of the smackdown available at the link)

Mr. Kreyeske was apparently concerned/shocked/protesting about the coach’s “exhorbitant” salary and how much it was costing Uconn. Coach tried his best to school this blithering idiot on economics, though it’s unclear if the message took.

But itÂ’s not the first time Mr. Kreyeske has been in the news for being a dickhead journalist.

: “The man asking the questions which got the Hall of Fame Coach fired-up, has made headlines in the past. “

“The 35-year-old Kreyeske was arrested on a breach of peace charge in January 2007 after trying to take a picture of Governor Rell during her inaugural parade. “

“The arrest report said that Kreyeske was recognized from a watch list as a potential danger to the Governor.”

“The charges ended up being dropped.”

Follow-up interview below the fold.
more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 01:43 AM | Comments (50)
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At last, our long national nightmare is over and we can get back to important topics, such as Chandra LevyÂ’s tragic murder. (Oh, and shark attacksÂ…relentless shark attacks). As you may recall, this was the top issue that gripped our nation up through September 10th, 2001. But as you also may recall, the Bush Regime, along with the Saudis, CIA, Illuminati, Bilderbergers, Freemasons and Skull and Bones orchestrated an event on September 11th, 2001 which would sweep that story off the front pages for eight years. But now, with a new administration in control, we can get back to the important issues at hand. ItÂ’s like weÂ’ve returned to normalcy finally.

Thank God that Greta and Nancy Grace have something to talk about again. So thereÂ’s that, or anything else thatÂ’s on your mind tonight.

(might be an actual link or two tacked on later)

(PS: If you're having trouble accessing the comments tonight, you're not alone. Best advice I can give is to be patient. Or go torment the Kos Kidz for a bit and check back often. Give 'em the thread equivalent of wedgies and titty-twisters. It'll remind 'em of all the good times they had back in junior high.)

About the Comments [Gabe]: Sorry for the outage. Pixy is on it.

Update from Pixy: Sory about that. We had a server blow up today - it took out Protein Wisdom (which is why they're currently running on a backup from December) and wreaked havoc throughout the munusphere. Comments are back now, which is more than I can say for the system disk in that server.
Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC. Please e-mail overnight open thread tips to xgenghisx@gmail.com. Otherwise send tips to Ace.

Posted by: Open Blog at 08:24 PM | Comments (60)
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Tonight the film “Taking Chance” premiers on HBO (8pm est). The film tells the story of two Marines who never met in life but whose lives became forever connected after one of them fell in battle in Iraq.

The movie is based on LtCol Michael R. StroblÂ’s story of escorting the body of Lance Corporal Chance Phelps home to his final rest.

LtCol StroblÂ’s story beginsÂ…

Chance Phelps was wearing his Saint Christopher medal when he was killed on Good Friday. Eight days later, I handed the medallion to his mother. I didnÂ’t know Chance before he died. Today, I miss him.

If you havenÂ’t read the letter that began it all, you owe it to yourself to do so. Naturally Blackfive has more on the story, including a note from the corpsman who was with Chance when he was killed.

Despite fears that the movie would take a political turn people who have seen the film donÂ’t seem to think it has in anyway. My DVR is set.

As for the second part of the story, the media and the left (but I repeat myself) have been agitating for years to show the return of soldiers KIA at Dover Air Force Base. Right now the policy, which dates back to the Bush 41Â’s term, is under review.

While the press claims they have a right to be there (they donÂ’t) itÂ’s clear thereÂ’s another group, members of the military, who seem to be ignored by those who have a ghoulish fascination for flag draped coffins.

MCQ (again at Blackfive) makes this point well.

What the military does at Dover isn't something just prescribed by some regulation or manual. It is something done because it is the right and honorable thing to do. It's is the last private and intimate act the military community as a whole renders its lost family member before it turns them over to the public at large. It is, in reality, the final goodbye, a ceremonial relinquishment of their fallen comrade to the nation at large. From that point onward, the affair is public - as public as the family and news media wants to make it.

And that's what has me puzzled about this media demand to intrude on these intense and intimately private moments at Dover. The argument is that filming and photographing the flag covered transfer cases as they arrive in Dover will drive home the real cost of war, and Americans have a right to know that. Of course there are plenty of pictures which are now in the public domain, shot and smuggled out of Dover which will make that point, if necessary. There's really not any necessity to have more of what will look precisely like the photos already in existence. They make the point about the cost of war as well as any new pictures might.

“Some Soldiers Mom” also makes this point through the retelling of her son’s experience escorting his friend home after he was KIA in Iraq. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 11:59 AM | Comments (50)
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Once again, Iowa is leading the nation. No, this time we're not nominating inexperienced Marxists or smooth talking populists as the nominees of the two main political parties. And this isn't a post about Iowa's pork (the delicious kind you eat, not the expensive kind your grandkids have to pay for) production, which still leads the nation.

No, dear friends; we're talking about the first step in the UN's gradual takeover of the Sovereign US of A. We're talking black helicopters, the mark of the beast, fiat currency and door-to-door gun confiscation all rolled into one!

Well, at least that's what the Konspiracy Kids think: more...

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 11:33 AM | Comments (66)
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Some of their ideas for which pilots have been ordered:

FOX's Two Dollar Beer: Comedy revolves around a group of young adults in Detroit as they weather the worsening economy but refuse to move away from their hometown.

CBS's Waiting To Die: Comedy about two simple guys who are happy with their lives - no matter how bad it might look from the outside.

ABC's Canned: Comedy about a group of friends who all get fired on the same day.

FOX's Living With Abandon: Comedy about members of an abandonment support group who suffer a blow when their therapist commits suicide and must band together to solve each other's issues.

FOX's Sons of Tucson: Comedy centers on a charming but misguided hustler hired by three rich young brothers to act as their "father" while their real one serves time for a white-collar crime.

As usual, lawyer and cop shows have a large chunk of the pilots. There are also quite a few about thirty-somethings dealing with life's challenges (read: somebody's pregnant or wants to get pregnant). If you're interested, a full list of comedies ordered to pilot is here.

Update: This comment by regular moron Rocks gets a front-page promotion:

I had one but it didn't get picked up:

Humble PI: After losing his job when the newspaper he runs is forced to fold due to poor sales and he is unable to get a job in pr with any Democratic politician a Seattle editor must take a job as a part time professor teaching English at a community college. Hilarity ensues when he has to deal with reality and he actually comes face to face with the plebeian masses he has claimed to represent for so many years. Title of the first episode is No Habla.

I'd watch!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:17 AM | Comments (128)
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Try not to spend it all in one place!

In his weekly address on radio and Youtube, President Obama heralded the "Making Work Pay" tax cut in the stimulus packaged he signed Tuesday, which he says is beginning this morning and will go to more Americans more quickly than any tax cut in history.

After heralding some of the stimulative measures in the bill, the President says he's "pleased to announce that this morning, the Treasury Department began directing employers to reduce the amount of taxes withheld from paychecks – meaning that by April 1st, a typical family will begin taking home at least $65 more every month. Never before in our history has a tax cut taken effect faster or gone to so many hardworking Americans."

This is barely going to cover my monthly Unicorn-chow bill. Of course, I do make some of that back in all the free Skittles it shits. Or will shit when I get mine. Why is taking so long to get my unicorn or is this it?

How are you going to spend your new found wealth?

Below the fold, I wonder how this Obamabot is feeling about her $65 a month grant from the Dear Leader. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 08:32 AM | Comments (136)
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One is beginning to get the sense that a lot of the outrage from then candidate Obama about the Bush administration's War on Terror policies was less than honest and brave dissent. Based on the actions of the now President Obama, you might even call his campaign rhetoric shameless opportunism and playing politics with war and national security.

The Justice Department told a federal court Friday that it shouldn’t consider legal challenges filed by prisoners being held in Afghanistan by the U.S. military — another example of the Obama administration hewing to one of President Bush’s war-on-terror stances.

In a short legal filing, Justice Department lawyers said they planned to maintain the Bush administration’s claim that the roughly 600 prisoners held in Afghaninstan have no right to contest their detention in the courts. “The Government adheres to its previously articulated position,” the attorneys said.

Candidate Obama was pretty happy that the detainees at Gitmo were given constitutional protections in the Boumediene decision. Now, he says detainees held at Bagram in Afghanistan shouldn't get them.

What exactly is the philosophical distinction Obama is making now? Damned if I know. I'm sure Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Greenwald and Rick Ellensburg will explain it all to us shortly.

In the end we'll only know if there's any difference between Gitmo and Bagram when His Most Serene And Wise Majesty, The Honorable Giver of Justice And Shower of the One True Way, Anthony Kennedy flips his magic coin and we find out if it's heads or tales.

Also [Gabe]: A copy of the very, very short filing is here (PDF). Nothing exciting except that one of the parties has the unfortunate name "Haji Wazir", which might have been a bit too "on the nose."

Also, watch out for this case. This is only the government's filing. The judge, John D. Bates, gave the impression during oral arguments that he believes that some of the Bagram detainees should be allowed to bring habeas actions in federal courts. He may change that opinion before issuing a decision, but it's equally possible we're in for another Boumediene-like judicial creation of law.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:16 AM | Comments (30)
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