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According to CNN, “Cindy Sheehan was arrested Tuesday in the House gallery after refusing to cover up a T-shirt bearing an anti-war slogan before President Bush’s State of the Union address.”
If we lived in the dictatorship that Ms. Sheehan and her ilk say we do, she would now be “disappeared.” But according to the Capitol Police, she’ll be “out sometime tonight,” and I’m sure we’ll be hearing from her mouth sometime tomorrow.
ADDED — Here’s the photo from Reuters:
I thought the speech was calm, sincere, resolute, optimistic — and completely forgettable. I don’t think it’s possible to underestimate the political significance of State of the Union addresses. They are predictable, “inside the Beltway” events.
Confirmed 58-42.
ADDED —
From Democratic Underground:
Well, all specualtion [sic] aside … Bush kicked our ass yet again. Is their a comforting excuse or talking point that will change that?
What does it feel like, I wonder, to have your ass repeatedly handed to you by a “moron”?
ADDED II —
It is done: Alito has been sworn-in.
George F. Will, ever the superb writer, has an especially trenchant column today:
On Sunday, on ABC’s “This Week,” Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said: “My hope is that as a consequence of now being responsible for electricity and picking up garbage and basic services to the Palestinian people, that they [Hamas] recognize it’s time to moderate their stance.” Perhaps. But their stance — Israel must die — is, they say, the will of God, who has not authorized moderation in the name of sanitation.
The piece isn’t about the Middle East, though; it’s about us, and I think you’ll want to read it all.
… they are not happy today. (Warning: graphic content.)
MULTIPLE UPDATES BELOW
Although the vote is still open, it’s apparent the U.S. Senate will invoke cloture on the nomination of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court. The Democratic filibuster has failed.
More shortly.
UPDATE —
The vote was 72-25 in support of ending debate. The Senate will tomorrow take an up-or-down vote on the nomination itself. Sam Alito is going to the Supreme Court.
UPDATE II —
Bonus round! Associated Press now reporting that the number of Republicans in the U.S. Senate has risen to 72:
WASHINGTON - With a vote that broke largely along party lines, the Senate voted Monday to end debate on the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to be the next associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, scuttling the eleventh-hour attempt of some Democrats to block Alito’s confirmation.
UPDATE III —
Here’s your cue to be elated: the left-wing outfit People for the American Way finds today’s vote “excruciatingly disappointing” …
UPDATE IV —
The official roll call is here.
UPDATE V —
We’re on a roller coaster! Associated Press has “revised and extended” its remarks and now puts the number of Republicans in the Senate back to 55:
WASHINGTON — The Senate all but guaranteed Samuel Alito’s confirmation as the nation’s 110th Supreme Court justice Monday, shutting down a last-minute attempt by liberals to block the conservative judge’s nomination with a filibuster.
Republican and Democratic senators on a 72-25 vote agreed to end their debate, setting up a Tuesday morning vote on his confirmation to replace retiring moderate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
With at least 57 votes committed to Alito — 53 Republicans and four Democrats — approval by majority vote in the 100-member Senate is now seemingly assured.
A bloc of Democrats, led by Massachusetts Sens. Edward Kennedy and John Kerry, unsuccessfully tried over the weekend and Monday to persuade other senators to use a vote-delaying filibuster to stop Alito, a 15-year veteran of the U.S. Appeals Court and a former lawyer for the Reagan administration.
I called my Republican congressman this morning and asked him to support John Shadegg for House majority leader. If the GOP is serious about reforming itself and getting back to its roots, John Shadegg is the man for the job.
If you haven’t already done so, please call your Republican representative and urge him or her to vote for John Shadegg for majority leader. You can reach the House switchboard at (202) 224-3121.
Says Red State:
More and more, John Shadegg gathers steam. While Blunt is stuck in a holding pattern and privately support shifts away from him, both Shadegg and Boehner are growing in strength. If Shadegg can make it to the second ballot — something that is more and more likely — he can win this.
This is a vote for the heart and future of our party. Please call.
When the U.S. Senate tommorrow takes up the confirmation of Samuel Alito as an associate justice of the Supreme Court, the vote will be 61 “yeas” and 39 “nays.”
When the Senate today takes up cloture — a motion to end debate on the nomination — the vote will be 67 “ayes” and 33 “nays.” The cloture vote will come at 3:30 p.m. CST; the Democrats need at least 41 “nays” to sustain a filibuster.
I’m confident about the precision of the first prediction. In the case of the second, the 67 “ayes” is a floor, not a ceiling. The number might be higher; it will not be lower.
ADDED —
Liberal Walter Shapiro despairs:
Personally, I would be militantly in favor of these don’t-stop-talking-until-tomorrow obstruction tactics if someone could explain the difference between the Senate voting to confirm Alito on Monday afternoon (without a filibuster) or Tuesday morning (after more than 60 senators vote to shut off debate). During the 18 extra hours that Sandra Day O’Connor would remain on the bench with an attempted filibuster, is the Supreme Court set to rule on the limits on a president’s wartime powers? Is a legal case somehow hanging fire that would ban the teaching of evolution in the nation’s schools? Because, if not, I fail to see the point. This is not about sending a message, since the only detail that has made it through the fog this week is that Kerry was flying back from Davos when the desperation ploy was announced. With a filibuster, the Alito roll-call vote that will be remembered by the White House and the political community is the margin by which the Senate cuts off debate — and collecting more than 60 votes from Republicans and moderate Democrats will only embolden the president in making future judicial appointments.
Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities offers several stunning outfits from which you can choose.
Washington Post:
More than a dozen states are considering new laws to protect health workers who do not want to provide care that conflicts with their personal beliefs, a surge of legislation that reflects the intensifying tension between asserting individual religious values and defending patients’ rights.
About half of the proposals would shield pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control and “morning-after” pills because they believe the drugs cause abortions. But many are far broader measures that would shelter a doctor, nurse, aide, technician or other employee who objects to any therapy. That might include in-vitro fertilization, physician-assisted suicide, embryonic stem cells and perhaps even providing treatment to gays and lesbians. (Link)
The legal, political and ethical questions aside, here’s my own bottom line: as both a nurse and a gay man, I’m telling you I don’t want health care services from physicians or nurses who don’t want to provide them. And whether you know it or not, neither do you.
It’s not difficult, especially if you live in the city, to find a physician who’ll provide any service you may need. And if you’re a woman who thinks you may need a “morning after” pill, call around now and find a pharmacist who’ll fill your prescription. Don’t wait until you’re stuck with Mary Magdalen looking at you like you have two heads.
Gay.com:
A condominium complex aimed at gay and lesbian homeowners will break ground in Toronto next year, according to an announcement on Wednesday from the developers.
The Vivat Group, which is one of the financial backers for the 200-unit project, said the building will be the first of its kind in Canada. Named The Bohemian, the building will be marketed to gays and lesbians, but other interested buyers will be considered, Reuters reported.
“Each resident will know that they are part of a community that cares about them and supports them,” said Vivat Group president Gordon Davies.
The cost of a 601-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment will be $185,000 Canadian, or $161,000 U.S., according to Reuters. (Link)
The Canadians are behind the curve here. I’ve been in an overwhelmingly gay condo complex for four years now, and I live in dark red Texas.
A word of warning to my 30- or 40-something gay peers in Canada who might think of buying into a gay condo complex: since I bought my property, on only a dozen occasions have beautiful, 20-something “boyz” actually knocked on my door to inquire whether I wanted to have sex. So it’s not like it’s an everyday thing …
Senate Republican leader Bill Frist has an epiphany:
Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if he had any regrets regarding the Schiavo case, Frist said: “Well, I’ll tell you what I learned from it, which is obvious. The American people don’t want you involved in these decisions.”
Do I understand you to say, senator, that Americans don’t want Congress making end-of-life decisions for them? Wow. Without a political debacle, who would have ever guessed it?
(Thanks to Say Anything.)
I suppose we could find ourselves in a freak situation where we have to keep our guns trained on target as the patrolmen arrive, forcing us to decide whether to die at the hands of our assailant or at the hands of the police. But the odds of that are long, aren’t they? Accordingly, whether we’re licensed civilians or off-duty cops, we really ought to drop our firearms when the uniforms appear; otherwise, they’re going to shoot us:
NEW YORK — In a tragic case of mistaken identity, police shot and critically wounded an off-duty officer as he pointed a gun at a suspect outside a fast food restaurant early Saturday, authorities said.
Eric Hernandez, 24, was hit three times and was hospitalized in extremely critical condition, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
The officer who pulled the trigger, identified only as a 20-year veteran of the force, was being treated for trauma at another hospital.
[…]
[Hernandez] apparently subdued one of the suspects, and when a patrol car arrived, was pointing his gun at a man on the ground.
One of the two officers in the car, apparently believing Hernandez was about to shoot, opened fire, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
The patrolmen don’t know us. They don’t know we’re supposed to have our guns. And they don’t know what’s going on. All they know is what they see.
I hope Officer Hernandez and the unidentified officer who shot him will both be okay.
Dale Carpenter, law professor at the University of Minnesota and my erstwhile Log Cabin collaborator when he lived in Houston, on the gay lobby and the Alito nomination:
The national gay groups all oppose Alito, and did so even before his confirmation hearings. But they have pretty much taken themselves out of any serious debate about President Bush’s judicial nominees. Their position is basically this: “We have a specific pro-gay agenda, which we understand to include the right to abortion without restrictions. We want to advance this agenda, to the extent possible, through the courts. We oppose any nominee for whom there is no affirmative evidence that he fully supports our agenda and is willing to advance it judicially.”
Since no Republican judicial nominee is going to meet this test, national gay groups might as well announce that they will oppose any and all judicial nominees for the remainder of the Bush presidency and be done with the matter. Their opposition will be ineffectual, as it has been on all of Bush’s nominees. But at least we could dispense with the charade that they actually care about, and have “analyzed,” an individual nominee’s record.
If you search Google for “gay Texan,” guess what comes up first?
Umm, hmm.
From the U.S. Dept. of Justice:
Myth: The NSA program is illegal.
Reality: The President’s authority to authorize the terrorist surveillance program is firmly based both in his constitutional authority as Commander-in-Chief, and in the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress after the September 11 attacks.
• As Commander-in-Chief and Chief Executive, the President has legal authority under the Constitution to authorize the NSA terrorist surveillance program.
• It has long been recognized that the President has inherent authority to conduct warrantless surveillance to gather foreign intelligence even in peacetime. Every federal appellate court to rule on the question has concluded that the President has this authority and that it is consistent with the Constitution.
• Congress confirmed and supplemented the President’s constitutional authority to authorize this program when it passed the AUMF.
• In its Hamdi decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the AUMF also authorizes the “fundamental incident[s] of waging war.” The history of warfare makes clear that electronic surveillance of the enemy is a fundamental incident to the use of military force.
Myth: The NSA program is a domestic eavesdropping program used to spy on innocent Americans.
Reality: The NSA program is narrowly focused, aimed only at international calls and targeted at al Qaeda and related groups. Safeguards are in place to protect the civil liberties of ordinary Americans.
• The program only applies to communications where one party is located outside of the United States.
• The NSA terrorist surveillance program described by the President is only focused on members of Al Qaeda and affiliated groups. Communications are only intercepted if there is a reasonable basis to believe that one party to the communication is a member of al Qaeda, affiliated with al Qaeda, or a member of an organization affiliated with al Qaeda.
Myth: The NSA activities violate the Fourth Amendment.
Reality: The NSA program is consistent with the Constitution’s protections of civil liberties, including the protections of the Fourth Amendment.
• The Supreme Court has long held that the Fourth Amendment allows warrantless searches where “special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement,” exist. Foreign intelligence collection, especially in a time of war when catastrophic attacks have already been launched inside the United States, falls within the special needs context.
• As the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review has observed, the nature of the “emergency” posed by al Qaeda “takes the matter out of the realm of ordinary crime control.”
Myth: The Administration could have used FISA but simply chose not to.
Reality: In the war on terrorism, it is sometimes imperative to detect — reliably, immediately, and without delay — whether an al Qaeda member or affiliate is in contact with someone in the United States. FISA is an extremely valuable tool in the war on terrorism, but it was passed in 1978 and there have been tremendous advances in technology since then.
• The NSA program is an “early warning system” with only one purpose: to detect and prevent the next attack on the United States from foreign agents hiding in our midst. It is a program with a military nature that requires speed and agility.
• The FISA process, by design, moves more slowly. It requires numerous lawyers, the preparation of legal briefs, approval from a Cabinet-level officer, certification from the National Security Advisor or another Senate-confirmed officer, and finally, the approval of an Article III judge. This is a good process for traditional domestic foreign intelligence monitoring, but when even 24 hours can make the difference between success and failure in preventing a terrorist attack, a faster process is needed.
Myth: FISA has “emergency authorizations” to allow 72-hour surveillance without a court order that the Administration could easily utilize.
Reality: There is a serious misconception about so-called “emergency authorizations” under FISA, which allow 72 hours of surveillance without a court order. FISA requires the Attorney General to determine in advance that a FISA application for that particular intercept will be fully supported and will be approved by the court before an emergency authorization can be granted, and the review process itself can and does take precious time.
• A typical FISA application involves a substantial process in its own right: The work of several lawyers; the preparation of a legal brief and supporting declarations; the approval of a Cabinet-level officer; a certification from the National Security Advisor, the Director of the FBI, or another designated Senate-confirmed officer; and, finally the approval of an Article III judge.
• … the terrorist surveillance program operated by the NSA requires maximum speed and agility to achieve early warning, and even a very brief delay may make the difference between success and failure in detecting and preventing the next attack. [Italics added.]
You often hear people refer to FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 50 U.S.C. §1801 et seq.) as a “check” on the president. That’s one way of looking at it. But another way of looking at it is to see the president’s insistence on his constitutional authority as a check on legislative encroachment of executive power. Or do “checks and balances” operate in only one direction?
I redacted here the Justice Department’s unpersuasive claim that the NSA’s surveillance program is consistent with FISA. I’ve read FISA; the NSA’s program is not consistent with it. This is why you hear liberals say the president is violating the law. But the answer to that is, “So what?” Congress may not by statute circumscribe the president’s constitutional powers.
Here’s an analogy. If you have gay sex in Texas, you’re in violation of §21.06 of the state’s penal code. Read it for yourself. But, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, that statute is violative of the Federal Constitution. The Texas Legislature has nevertheless declined to repeal §21.06. Question: is the statute good law?
We know the answer, don’t we? No legislative body may do what the Constitution does not permit. And if it does it anyway, we are liberty to ignore it.
Jeffrey Bell:
Reports out of Iran suggest Ahmadinejad may see himself as a central actor in an Islamic apocalypse. A man with this mindset might see provoking the United States as forwarding the end game of Allah. And he might not fear provoking Israel into an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities that could trigger convulsions throughout the Middle East and beyond.
Much depends on how far Iran is from putting together its first nuclear warhead. Some reports, particularly those traced to Israeli intelligence, point to the very near future. Even if the ominous date turns out to be much further away, Ahmadinejad shows little sign of pausing for breath. Indeed, the Hamas sweep of the Palestinian parliamentary elections is no doubt being seen in Tehran as a vindication of Ahmadinejad’s Damascus terror summit days earlier.
If the Bush administration is developing a military option to deal with Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons — a form of preemption — it is doing so very quietly. On the pure military level, this is, of course, appropriate. If you had to pick one flaw in the superbly organized U.S. invasion of Iraq, as Jed Babbin recently pointed out, it would be the lack of an element of surprise.
But what is starting to become clear is that Ahmadinejad’s seemingly reckless challenge will extract, and is meant to extract, a cost in U.S. standing among our friends and allies, in Iraq and across the globe. A war president who can be portrayed as having given up on the core of his own war strategy will be seen as a leader considerably less capable of deterring our terrorist enemies, wherever they are and whatever it is they are plotting.
Steady, boys: the link is to the news of the porn …
I can say why his gun “went off.” He had his gawd damn finger on the trigger:
Salvatore J. Culosi Sr. still can’t believe his son, a 37-year-old optometrist, was a suspected sports bookie. He can’t believe a heavily armed SWAT team fatally shot his unarmed son, Salvatore J. Culosi Jr., outside his Fair Oaks home Tuesday night.
And Culosi can’t believe that the SWAT team’s sudden descent on his son, apparently causing one officer to accidentally fire a .45-caliber handgun once into his son’s chest, is standard procedure for Fairfax County police conducting a search.
[…]
A Fairfax police detective had been making sports bets with Culosi for three months, court records show, and on Tuesday night police planned to arrest Culosi and search his townhouse on Cavalier Landing Court. But Fairfax Police Chief David M. Rohrer said a 17-year police veteran with long experience in the tactical unit accidentally fired his gun, killing Culosi.
[…]
Although police and firearms authorities were divided yesterday on whether SWAT teams are needed for most search warrants, as is Fairfax’s practice, they agreed on another point: Officers carrying guns should not aim directly at anyone or have their fingers on the trigger until they are absolutely ready to fire.
This unnamed officer should be fired and then prosecuted for criminally negligent homicide. No excuses. No “if, and or but.” He’s a killer. He belongs in prison.
If you place your finger on the trigger and point your firearm at an unarmed human being, you are responsible when the gun “goes off.” It is not an accident.
“Democrats squabble over Alito filibuster” — headline, AP via Yahoo News
Just breaks your heart, doesn’t it?
Of course, Republicans occasionally get their freak on with one another as well. You’ll recall, for example, the internecine bloodletting over the Harriet Miers nomination. But that fight — as we now know — signified. The Democrats, on the other hand, are fighting over how to lose.
ADDED —
From the link:
Democrats have been arguing for several days whether to attempt a filibuster designed to keep Alito off the bench, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.
These officials said both [minority leader Harry] Reid and [Sen. Chuck] Schumer of New York, who heads the party’s effort to gain Senate seats in 2006, have stressed the drawbacks [of a filibuster]. Among them were the certainty of defeat, the impression of political weakness that would convey and the potential impact on candidates on the ballot in 2006 in Republican-leaning states.
[…]
In an interview, [Sen. Kent] Conrad [of North Dakota] said that in remarks to fellow Democrats at the caucus, he outlined several factors. These included Alito’s strong backing from the American Bar Association, his uncontested confirmation 15 years ago to the appeals court, public opinion polls and the fact that Republicans had voted overwhelmingly to confirm Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer when President Clinton nominated them.
“So I put that all together and I find it makes it hard to justify a filibuster,” Conrad said.
For the most part, Republicans were content to stand aside while Democrats aired their internal differences. But White House spokesman Scott McClellan couldn’t resist a jab at Kerry, Bush’s vanquished campaign rival from 2004.
“I think even for a senator, it takes some pretty serious yodeling to call for a filibuster from a five-star ski resort in the Swiss Alps,” he said.
These are the “moderates:”
A mob of up to 2,000 furious Fatah supporters took to the streets Friday, burning cars, firing guns and demanding the resignation of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas after the militant group Hamas trounced their party in parliamentary elections.
Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, was in the West Bank, where he called on Hamas to form a new government after its election landslide snatched power this week from Fatah’s ruling old guard.
Waving yellow Fatah flags in the flickering light of flaming bonfires, protesters swarmed around Abbas’ home in Gaza City, where they shot in the air and accused him of being a “collaborator” with Israel.
CNN has the video.
In a post titled “Learning to lose well,” the lefty blogger ‘digby’ doesn’t offer a plan for how Democrats can win; instead, he suggests that they learn to lose with their chin up. I like it. After all, it’s not absolutely necessary that Democrats lose sadly. It’s only necessary that they lose.
Gerard Baker explains why:
If Iran gets safely and unmolested to nuclear status, it will be a threshold moment in the history of the world, up there with the Bolshevik Revolution and the coming of Hitler. What the country itself may do with those weapons, given its pledges, its recent history and its strategic objectives with regard to the US, Israel and their allies, is well known. We can reasonably assume that the refusal of the current Iranian leadership to accept the Holocaust as historical fact is simply a recognition of their own plans to redefine the notion as soon as they get a chance (“Now this is what we call a holocaust”). But this threat is only, incredibly, a relatively small part of the problem.
If Iran goes nuclear, it will demonstrate conclusively that even the world’s greatest superpower, unrivalled militarily, under a leadership of proven willingness to take bold military steps, could not stop a country as destabilising as Iran from achieving its nuclear ambitions.
No country in a region that is so riven by religious and ethnic hatreds will feel safe from the new regional superpower. No country in the region will be confident that the US and its allies will be able or willing to protect them from a nuclear strike by Iran. Nor will any regional power fear that the US and its allies will act to prevent them from emulating Iran. Say hello to a nuclear Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia.
Iran, of course, secure now behind its nuclear wall, will surely step up its campaign of terror around the world. It will become even more of a magnet and haven for terrorists. The terror training grounds of Afghanistan were always vulnerable if the West had the resolve. Protected by a nuclear-missile-owning state, Iranian camps will become impregnable.
And the kind of society we live in and cherish in the West, a long way from Tehran or Damascus, will change beyond recognition. We balk now at intrusive government measures to tap our phones or stop us saying incendiary things in mosques. Imagine how much more our freedoms will be curtailed if our governments fear we are just one telephone call or e-mail, one plane journey or truckload away from another Hiroshima.
UPDATE BELOW
… many Republicans have relished the idea of a Democratic-led filibuster, saying it helps them portray the minority party as obstructionist and beholden to left-leaning groups.
[…]
[Democratic] Party sources said [Senate minority leader Harry] Reid and others worry that a filibuster, while likely to fail, will nonetheless detract voters’ attention from issues that Democratic leaders consider more promising. They include Bush’s controversial domestic surveillance program, the indictments of a top White House official and a congressional leader, and the unfolding scandal centered on former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Party leaders especially worry about forcing a filibuster decision on Democrats seeking reelection this fall in GOP-leaning states, including [Ben] Nelson [of Nebraska] and Kent Conrad [of North Dakota].
While Reid hoped to avoid a filibuster, Democratic Whip Richard J. Durbin (Ill.) supports it. But at a midday session with reporters, Durbin acknowledged the likely futility.
“Having made a count,” he said, “I have come to the conclusion it is highly unlikely that a filibuster would succeed.”
As I noted yesterday, a Democratic filibuster of Judge Alito’s nomination would be a godsend for Republicans. But I guess it’s not to be. Damn!
ADDED —
So if even Dick Durbin (D-Guantanamo Cell Blocks) says a filibuster is “highly unlikely” to succeed, why is John Kerry calling for one? Jeff Goldstein has the answer:
… this Kerry statement is less “news” than it is a rather predictable and cynical fundraising appeal aimed at the liberal-left activist crowd and those special interest lobbyists who have opposed Alito from the get go. It is, not to put too fine a point on it, an exercise in branding, a marketing campaign that is eminating, unsurprisingly, from the Mass Democratic camp, and from Senator Kerry in particular—a pure political animal who still believes he has an olive’s chance in Teddy Kennedy’s martini pitcher to win the 2008 presidency if he can Kos(t) past Hillary and her formidable cankles in the primaries. And to do so, he realizes he must stroke the hard left base.
Link requires (and launches) Quicktime. You’ll see it soon on Fox.
UPDATE BELOW
I say it all the time, do I not? Just when you think the GOP is down for the count, some Democrat rides to the rescue:
Sen. John Kerry has decided to support a filibuster to block the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, CNN’s Congressional Correspondent Ed Henry reported Thursday.
Kerry, in Davos, Switzerland, to attend the World Economic Forum, was marshaling support in phone calls during the day, Henry said.
He announced his decision Wednesday to a group of Democratic senators, urging they join him, Henry said. Kerry also has the support of his fellow Massachusetts senator, Democrat Edward Kennedy.
This will drive a wedge between Democrats — already Tim Johnson and Robert Bryd have joined Ben Nelson in breaking ranks — as it puts tremendous pressure on vulnerable Democratic senators in the red states; it will energize the GOP’s base while doing wonders for Republican fundraising; and it will prove futile, thus dispiriting rank and file liberals with a reminder of their powerlessness.
Sweet.
UPDATE —
Crap. It appears the Republican leadership plans to choke it off:
Republicans have already said they’ll have the 60 votes needed in the Senate to break a filibuster and end the debate, so such a threat probably won’t have an impact.
[…]
A cloture vote, which would end a potential filibuster, is scheduled for Monday at 4:30 p.m. EST; if cloture is approved, the final vote would be scheduled for Tuesday at 11 a.m EST.
Gawd damn it, guys. Give John Kerry at least a week’s worth of rope. I know we’re all anxious to have this over, but let the man filibuster for some days! And I mean, make him do it right. None of this, “Oh, we’ll table the matter until we’re ready to invoke cloture.” No, no. Keep the Senate in session around the clock. Have Kerry in the well at 2 a.m. ranting and raving and get it on tape.
You can reach Bill Frist, majority leader, at (202) 224-3344. Tell him this is a gift and you don’t think it’s very gracious to reject it out of hand.
Says Boston Globe diva Cathy Young: it was “not a proud moment for America.”
• In six to twelve months, Iran will finish construction on its enrichment facilities.
• In three years, Iran will have its first bomb.
• Iran already has Shahab-3 missiles capable of reaching Israel (and U.S. forces in Iraq).
• She’s working on Shahab-4 and Shahab-5, capable of reaching Western Europe and the United States, respectively.
Max Boot:
What might stop Iran at this late date? Some conservatives have pinned their hopes on another Iranian revolution. The CIA and other agencies should do everything possible to encourage such an uprising. But the chances of regime change in the near term are not high. Even less likely is a U.S. invasion; the U.S. military is overstretched as it is.
That leaves only one serious option — air strikes by Israel or the U.S., possibly accompanied by commando raids. It is doubtful that bombs could eradicate Iran’s nuclear program, but they could set it back for years, possibly long enough for the regime to implode.
Mr. Boot is correct. There will be no sanctions. (To hell with the Chinese: you and I don’t want oil at $100 a barrel.) And there will be no air strikes or raids either — at least not until after the mid-terms.
10-8:
… there are no signs now of any Republican opposition and confirmation is likely.
Yes, in a body controlled by Republicans, lack of any Republican opposition generally signals victory. Funny how that works, huh?
But this is just wrong:
“This is not just any nomination,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.). “This is going to tip the balance.”
No, unfortunately, Justice Alito will not “tip the balance” on the Court. Even if we assume — and it’s a big, big assumption — that both Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito will vote to overturn Roe, that still gives us only four votes for scrapping it. 9-4=5. So Roe is in no immediate danger.
Moreover, if you’ve followed Justice Anthony Kennedy’s career on the Court, you know he’s shown a debilitating interest in the adulation of the liberal media. He is to the Court as John McCain is to the Senate. And he will now step-in to fill the “swing” role played by Justice O’Connor. In “culture war” battles, watch and see: we’ll continue to get a series of 5-4 votes with Justice Kennedy at the pivot.
I hope it hasn’t come to this. That would be bad for the quality and integrity of our judiciary and for the rule of law. But if Polipundit is right, the Democrats will indeed find themselves hoisted by their own petard.
E.J. Dionne Jr. on Karl Rove:
Rove went on: “Republicans have a post-9/11 worldview, and many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview. That doesn’t make them unpatriotic — not at all. But it does make them wrong — deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong.”
Oh, no, those Dems aren’t unpatriotic, just security idiots. [Emphasis added.]
Correct.
And what does Mr. Dionne prescribe for fixing Democratic idiocy? More idiocy:
What Democrats should have learned is that they cannot evade the security debate. They must challenge the terms under which Rove and Bush would conduct it. Imagine, for example, directly taking on that line about Sept. 11. Does having a “post-9/11 worldview” mean allowing Bush to do absolutely anything he wants, any time he wants, without having to answer to the courts, Congress or the public? Most Americans — including a lot of libertarian-leaning Republicans — reject such an anti-constitutional view of presidential power. If Democrats aren’t willing to take on this issue, what’s the point of being an opposition party?
In other words, Mr. Dionne would have the Democrats engage the security debate with no affirmative vision of their own and only a straw caricature of the GOP’s views. Here’s how it might go:
Democrats: Does having a “post-9/11 worldview” mean allowing Bush to do absolutely anything he wants, any time he wants, without having to answer to the courts, Congress or the public?
Republicans: No.
Democrats:
Republicans: We are at war against foreign terrorists who want to kill you and your society and we’ll do what it takes to stop it and the Democrats won’t; we will cut your taxes and give you money and Democrats won’t.
Pause for elections.
Republicans: The House will be in order …
After the Sept. 11 attacks, no communications were more important to track for the safety of Americans than those involving al Qaeda and a participant in the United States, [Michael] Hayden, [deputy director of national intelligence], said. He said the FISA system was not agile enough to deal with such communications in an era of proliferating new technology.
“The president’s authorization allows us to track this kind of call more comprehensively and more efficiently,” Hayden said. “The trigger is quicker and a bit softer than it is for a FISA warrant, but the intrusion into privacy is also limited: only international calls and only those we have a reasonable basis to believe involve al Qaeda or one of its affiliates.”
[…]
He said, “The purpose of all of this is not to collect reams of intelligence, but to detect and prevent attacks. The intelligence community has neither the time, the resources nor the legal authority to read communications that aren’t likely to protect us. And NSA has no interest in doing so.”
Hayden stressed that the program “is not a drift net over Dearborn or Lackawanna or Freemont, grabbing conversations that we then sort out by these alleged keyword searches or data-mining tools or other devices that so-called experts keep talking about. This is targeted and focused.”
So why not just get a FISA warrant, Mr. Haden? Answer:
“Under the FISA statute, NSA cannot put someone on coverage and go ahead and play for 72 hours while it gets a note saying it was okay,” he said. “The attorney general is the one who approves emergency FISA coverage. And the attorney general’s standard for approving FISA coverage is a body of evidence equal to that which he would present to the court.”
FISA does not give the NSA the same “operational effect” that the presidential authorization does, Hayden said. The latter is “much more effective” in achieving the main goal — to “detect and prevent” terrorist plots, he said.
So why didn’t you just ask Congress to change FISA, Mr. Haden? Answer:
[Before the program was leaked, a public discussion of changing the law] could “betray to the enemy the tactics, techniques and procedures that we are now using to detect them.”
Hayden insisted that “public discussion of how we determine al Qaeda intentions” cannot help but “harm the security of the nation.” He dismissed the idea that the terrorists already know their communications can be recorded.
“Well, you know, they don’t always act like they know they’re being monitored,” he said. “But if you want to shove it in their face constantly, it’s bound to have an effect.”
Meanwhile, the Democrats just insist on digging themselves deeper:
Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement that “Americans of all backgrounds and political parties are concerned about the NSA’s domestic spying program.” He called on the administration to “level with the American people and participate fully and openly in upcoming Congressional hearings.”
Yes, senator, we certainly know how helpful congressional hearings have been lately to the Democrats. By all means, hold some more.
Don’t miss Shelby Steele’s column in today’s Opinion Journal. Mr. Steele is one of the most gifted political writers of our time, and his piece today is a true must-read.
Condi Rice is not going to run for president. (No, Dick, she’s not going to be drafted either.) But I agree with Mr. Steele that “history is calling her, or someone like her.”
As of the date and time of this post, it’s still the most talked about movie in the blogosphere.
(Thanks to Cox & Forkum.)
ADDED —
Here’s the most optimistic assessment of the situation I’ve yet heard. (Link launches your media player.)
Associated Press (via CNN):
ROME — Lawyers for a small-town parish priest have been ordered to appear in court next week after the Roman Catholic cleric was accused of unlawfully asserting what many people take for granted: that Jesus Christ existed.
The Rev. Enrico Righi was named in a 2002 complaint filed by Luigi Cascioli after Righi wrote in a parish bulletin that Jesus did indeed exist, and that he was born of a couple named Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth.
Cascioli, a lifelong atheist, claims that Righi violated two Italian laws by making the assertion: so-called “abuse of popular belief” in which someone fraudulently deceives people; and “impersonation” in which someone gains by attributing a false name to someone. (Link)
Doesn’t it seem as if atheists are often possessed of a … well … religious zeal?
Yep:
In sum: Iran is mountainous, full of hardened underground sites. Surgical anything is out. Conventional would be bad/really bad. Nuclear would be really really bad. Doing nothing would also be really really bad.
Take your pick …
We’ve dawdled and now no good options are open to us. Mr. Bush says a nuclear Iran is unacceptable, which would seem to put war in the offing. But he’s not prepared the American people for that — while tied down in Iraq, can we even mount a second conventional war? — and in any case, the window of opportunity is closing.
I’m increasingly persuaded that we will do nothing substantive about Iran’s drive to acquire the bomb. She’s going to get it — and the missiles to deliver it. And then you and I and our neighbors, to say nothing of the Israelis, will spend sleepless nights waiting to learn whether the people of Iran are suicidal.
ADDED —
I should note that the Israelis hope to avoid sleepless nights. But it’s doubtful that they can succeed, and any preemptive Israeli strike will bring its own set of problems, won’t it?
I’m not saying they’re wrong to try. Indeed, their security is more directly threatened by a nuclear Iran this is America’s. But mighty people that they are, the Israelis just can’t do what’s really required here, namely a full-on land invasion to find and destroy the sites.
First, to be clear: this is an uncompensated endorsement. I do not know Nick Bradbury, creator of FeedDemon; I’ve never even seen him, talked to him or exchanged e-mail with him. I just love his software. And the more I use it, the more I love it.
FeedDemon is a news aggregator, or, if you prefer, a news reader; it “aggregates,” or collects, RSS and Atom feeds. If you don’t know what an RSS or Atom feed is, you simply must learn. Go here and here. It’s not hard.
If you’re a blogger, an RSS reader is indispensable. For without one, you’re working a lot harder than necessary to find items to blog about.
If you’re a blog reader, an RSS aggregator allows you to collect and organize efficiently the plethora of news and commentary available to you. It will radically simplify your online experience. You’ll no longer have to go to the news; the news will come to you.
Of all the commercially available RSS readers — you can get a lightweight for free — FeedDemon is far and away the best. It is software without a flaw. At $29.95, it’s also a steal.
You’ll find a description of FeedDemon’s features here; screen shots are here; and a free trial version available for download is here. (Requires Microsoft Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP or 2003, and IE 6 for integrated browsing.) Try it. If you don’t like it, delete it. But I’m betting you’ll like i