It's no secret that some of this pleases me. I was anti-75 (unnecessary, already required) and DEFINITELY anti-74 (extending tenure won't solve the problem. Ask a teacher. More on that another time, perhaps)

But the COMPLETE AND UTTER REJECTION of ALL of Ahnuld's propositions shocked me.

When I went to bed, 75 and 73 were passing. And I was hoping 77 would pass.

Here's the final tallies from the SecState's page:

The maps are very telling. Go to the returns page, and click the map link for each individual proposition....

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This Fitzgerald guy is pretty good. Nominate him for SCOTUS (assumning his politics are in the right place).

He's been on for 45 minutes and has come across as a fair and competent attorney whose only interest is completing his investigation fairly.

I'm glad this is coming down the way it is. Clearly there was no crime in revealing her name, but the coverup will get you every time, right Martha?

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Three weeks ago

Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination after coming under all kinds of fire for being a mediocre choice.

Now all Bush has to do is find someone with the right resume, and their politics won't matter. He can line up a hard-core conservative "in the mold of Thomas and Scalia" with a strong background in constitutional scholarship, and the Dems will have to capitulate.

What a great plan. Too bad he had to sacrifice his buddy Harriet. The man really is dumb like a fox.

It looks bad for him, but I suspect this was the idea all along.

The usual suspects weigh in:
HWNNL
Power Line
Michelle M
INDC
XRLQ
Patterico(with a tasteless gloating headline, courtesy of the Clam). Patterico did some judicious editing. His own response is here.

and of course Hugh Hewitt has much to say, just keep scrolling.

I have to agree with Michelle, actually. Although I was firmly agnostic on this nomination (I was looking forward to hearing Ms. Miers defend herself in the hearings), I too am relieved. But not in a happy-gloating-dancing-like-a-Clam way.

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Goldstein asks, "What would the Democrats have to do to get your vote in '06 and '08??"

His answer:

"In 2000 I didnÂ’t care who won, though I disliked Gore, who seemed impossibly artificial.

But now, after 5 years of listening to Dems, there is absolutely nothing they can do to win me back short of purging their entire leadership and nuking their base from orbit.

ItÂ’s the only way to be sure."

I'm not so drastic. Sure, I'd like to see them nuke their base and point out the hypocrisy rampant in the leftist whiner victim movement. But I might consider voting for one if they put Joe Lieberman up for President. And meant it.

I've long said that the problem with the Left in this country is that in an effort to distance themselves from the hot-button issues of the Right (family, economy, safety) they've excluded themselves from the majority of national discourse and focused on currying support from far-left politicos who were leaving the party in droves in 2000. Choosing Whacko Howie as their chair is a great example of this attitude.

That is, rather than recognizing that to run a successful campaign you have to reach across the aisle, the democrats have focused on what they see as past mistakes and party losses.

Even more simply: They should be going for purple, rather than teal.

It wasn't Clinton's centrist policies that lost the election for Gore. It was Gore who lost his own election. By being a boor. There was no need to run to the Green defectors as if the victim whiner movement would save the world from the evil thug republicans.

If the left wants to be taken seriously, they need to drop the hemineglect act and recognize the right side of the political spectrum is a legitimate section of the electorate, not merely ignorant, country, sheeple who love guns and NASCAR and can't be trusted to make reasonable, objective decisions for the country.

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It's been a while since I've weighed in on a political issue. I just haven't had the motivation. Admittedly, I've avoided paying too much attention to any of the foaming-at-the-mouth folks who are completely against this nom. I'm going to try to look at her background and get to know who Harriet Miers is before I decide whether I think she's a good choice or not. Sure, on the surface, I'm a little disappointed, but that's no reason to fly off the handle right away.

Here's my initial thoughts: Is it possible that Harriet Miers is the sacrificial lamb to go before Congress, make the dems look stupid and waste their political capital on the battle? Perhaps Evil Darth Rove has planned this to get her Borked back into her cushy WH job and then he can put up a more well-known, well-qualified conservative jurist who WILL get confirmed.

And who cares if the woman has never been a judge? Three weeks ago you were all singing the praises of a man whose first stint on the bench EVER was as an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, and whose second was as the Chief. That's right, Rehnquist was never a sitting judge prior to his nomination to SCOTUS, so the no bench argument is a non-starter for me.

I would have liked to see Bush nominate someone from a "diversity" background, to show that he recognizes diversity, but without putting a "Ladies Room" sign on the back of the chair about to be vacated by Sandra Day O'Connor. By nominating another woman, he has all but painted the chair pink.

The Usual Suspects weigh in. Some eloquently, some not. You decide.
Patterico and the Angry Clam
OTB
Scott Kirwin at Dean's World
Gay Patriot
SCOTUS blog
Powerline
Captain Ed
Llamas
TMV

Got a link? Leave it in the comments or drop me a trackback. I'll take opinions from all sides.

Update: FrankJ agrees. Why all the fuss? He has some interesting little-known facts about Ms. Miers.....

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John Roberts was confirmed today as the nation's youngest Chief Justice in 200 years by a vote of 78-22.

Now we move on to the next nominee.... This ought to be interesting...

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Not a member of some inferior alien race.

The proof? He needs to pee too!

REUTERS/Rick Wilking/Yahoo!

U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005.

The text of the message reads "I think I may need a bathroom break? Is this possible? Whe..."

I can just see the response from the Chimpy McSmirk crowd......

And yes, I'm sure he is potty trained and does in fact KNOW whether he needs to go or not.
(h/t Kevin at Wizbang!)

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Judge rules Pledge unconstitutional (again.....)

GOP-controlled House passes landmark anti-discrimination Hate Crime legislation

Car bombs kill over 150 and injure nearly 600 in Iraq today.

John Roberts eats Chuck Schumer's lunch and explains why the Ginsberg rule applies to him even though Schumer thinks he's ahead in the game.

Bet me money that the MAJORITY of tonight's news will be about the Katrina aftermath instead.....

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Two straight men are pushing the limits of Canada's same-sex marriage act. According to this Toronto Sun article:

Bill Dalrymple, 56, and best friend Bryan Pinn, 65, have decided to take the plunge and try out the new same-sex marriage legislation with a twist -- they're straight men.

"I think it's a hoot," Pinn said.

The proposal came last Monday on the patio of a Toronto bar amid shock and laughter from their friends. But the two -- both of whom were previously married and both of whom are still looking for a good woman to love -- insist that after the humour subsided, a real issue lies at the heart of it all.

"There are significant tax implications that we don't think the government has thought through," Pinn said.

Dalrymple has been to see a lawyer already and there are no laws in marriage that define sexual preference.

Ever since this debate started several years ago, this exact situation has been the pink elephant in the room. Will legislators seek to ban "marriages" that have nothing to do with sex or sexual orientation, but that simply seek the various tax and legal advantages that the estate of matrimony provides? How could these opportunistic unions be fairly blocked?

I can just see the Gay Elite blowing a gasket over this one, can't you? Same-sex marriage is an advantage for the gay community, after all. An equality step, if you will. And the "Breeders" are taking advantage of it. "That's not fair!" some will whine. I hate to say it, but you all set up this mess. It's your catch-22. Unless you let the government into people's bedrooms there's no way to tell if Bryan and Bill are lovers or just friends. Hell, I'd suspect that a lot of marriages, gay and straight would look more like friends than lovers in the bedroom...

You can't say that a same-sex marriage is null if one of the parties was previously married, a lot of gay folks have been married because of societal pressure. You can't say that if someone has parented a child the marriage is null, either, because gays of both genders participate genetically in the conception of their children.

I don't think there's a way to allow same-sex marriage without allowing Bryan and Bill to wed too.

A personal example: I have two good friends that I will refer to as A and B. A and B are the best of friends and were roomies all through college and through much of graduate school. During the 6 or so years that they shared accomodations, they acquired a number of joint things, including Costco cards and a shared phone plan. But I digress. It was a frequent joke that their families thought they were "together" since neither had much luck with guys at the time and well, they were pretty inseperable. How hard would it have been for A and B to get some nice tax breaks during the years they shared an address and a phone number but not a bed?

Although I suppose there might have been a fair bit of paperwork to deal with when one of them got married last spring.....

The reaction has already started. The article also quotes a gay activist who says:

"Generally speaking, marriage should be for love," he said. "People who don't marry for love will find themselves in trouble."

Straight people don't even get married for love all the time. What makes this guy think that same-sex marriage should be held to a higher standard????

So, what's your take? Do you think that a significant number of people are going to take advantage of this "loophole" in Canada's law? What about here in the US, where registered domestic partners have certain rights in some states?

Oh, and BTW, I'm all for same-sex marriage. I just don't like what I expect will be the hypocritical response of the gay movement to this....

(h/t Kate posting at OTB)

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1 Extend marriage to same-sex straight couples??? Hell, it needn't stop there: perhaps the Berlin Wall also qualifies for all the benefits of marriage. :-)

Posted by: Paul Burgess at August 06, 2005 07:59 PM (7EVyU)

2 this seems like a new spin on an old story... i remember back in the day gay guys marrying straight female friends to make a point. and we've all heard of marriages of convinence - the one's where people stay married or get married for much the same reason. the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Posted by: KG at August 06, 2005 08:10 PM (s8D3V)

3 These two guys want to get married for the tax advantage. To my mind this is indicative of the callousness with which straights have traditionally viewed marriage. Let's not forget that some fifty percent of straight marriages end in divorce -- the rate is higher in the red states. And, whose fault is that? Please bear in mind that this is a sham wedding between two heterosexuals. No gay person is getting married here. The homophobes need to grow up and take responsibility for their own marriage woes. Stop blaming everybody else for your adultery and divorce rates. The lack of sanctity in your own marriages has nothing whatsoever to do with gays. In fact I'll bet you anything that gays will make a better go of marriage than your lot has.

Posted by: Noah at August 07, 2005 06:26 PM (TOeri)

4 Ain't no way on this little blue planet I'll take Noah's bet (and I say this as a gay male). Me personally, I've been rather amused at the whole situation. Just goes to show that where there's a law, there's an exploitable loophole. The joys of the human condition...

Posted by: Doug McKay at August 07, 2005 10:42 PM (KEkhY)

5 ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

Posted by: bob at August 08, 2005 10:28 AM (0ZQYM)

6 You've included some very good points. Well done. Even still, the biggest issue for me is the family. All the stats show the families with a man-woman team leading perform better than the rest. It's what is best for the children (our future) that matters most. That, and the whole "God said we should" thing.

Posted by: Paladin at August 08, 2005 01:11 PM (UYKlh)

7 They are exploiting a loophole in marriage laws, not gay-marriage laws. I don't say this to condemn anybody. I wish it were true that all marriages were conceived in love, with the result of building a family, HYDI (however you define it). What house were you in? I haven't come across many Techers in the blogosphere (euphemism, meaning none). Ruddock here. Nice blog.

Posted by: AbbaGav at August 11, 2005 04:39 AM (D6RFs)

8 Marriage is - as always - a legal arrangement. These guys are just making the point for everyone (whether intended or not) that there are potential legal niceties if you are married. So, buyer beware, good luck guys. The gay activist quote seems a little out of context. He didn't say " marriage should be for love" or " People who don't..." In fact the article goes on to say "Walker isn't personally insulted by the planned Pinn-Dalrymple union because he believes in personal freedoms and rights." I guess these guys got their 15 minutes of fame. SG

Posted by: Super G at August 12, 2005 03:36 PM (EeQUM)

9 That should of read he didn't say "Gay marriage should be for love" or "Gay people who don't..."

Posted by: Super G at August 12, 2005 03:37 PM (EeQUM)

10 The Gay "Moral Majority"? Preaching that gay marriage should be for love, only? ::: removes rose-colored glasses ::: ::: blinks ::: Wow. Impressive. I do believe I've seen everything.

Posted by: Margi at August 16, 2005 02:57 AM (nwEQH)

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It's not a joke!
From NABR (the National Association for Biomedical Research):

In a stunning development that is fast becoming national news, PETA employees Andrew Benjamin Cook and Adria Joy Hinkle have each been charged by Ahoskie, North Carolina police with 31 counts of animal cruelty and 8 misdemeanor counts of illegal disposal of dead animals.

During a month long investigation, law enforcement officials observed the two individuals in a white van, allegedly registered to PETA, toss several trash bags into a commercial dumpster behind a shopping mall.

Police confirmed the bags contained 18 dead dogs, including one bag containing seven puppies. An additional 13 dead dogs were found in the van. Both the investigation and surveillance of the shopping center were prompted by four other similar incidents. According to police the animals were from two North Carolina animal shelters approximately 30 miles away, where Cook and Hinkle had identified themselves to shelter staff as PETA representatives from Norfolk, VA. According to the local Animal Control Officer, the two had made claims for the past two months "they were picking up dogs to take them back to Norfolk where they would find them good homes". Cook and Hinkle have been released on $35,000 bond each. Two of the 31 dogs have been kept for an autopsy.

According to accounts just coming to light, PETA may have been picking up dogs and cats from animal control facilities in North Carolina for months or even years and bringing them back to PETA headquarters in Norfolk with the stated purpose of "attempting to find them good homes" when, in fact, they may have been killing and dumping them before they ever crossed the North Carolina state line. The purpose for this particular exercise; how many animals have been exterminated and why they were just dumped in parking lot dumpsters is still unclear. NABR will provide more details as they become available.

The VA Pilot (local to the arrests) story is here.

The AP story is here.

This is frigging sick. Taking poor, helpless animals from shelters or rescue groups that have a good chance of finding homes for them and just killing and dumping them. The poor things never had a chance.

And these people are AGAINST cruelty to animals, huh? Makes you wonder what the really cruel people are like.

It's unbelievably difficult for me to contain my rage right now. These people have the balls to come into MY workplace, look at MY animals and trump up a story about MY colleagues being "cruel" because they didn't euthanize animals properly or some such, all the while their OWN people are killing dogs and dumping them in ditches and dumpsters.

DITCHES!!!

If you support PETA, I hope you look into these charges and seriously reconsider your contributions.

They talk a good game, anti-fur, meat is bad for you and all that, but at the core, they're a group of thugs who terrorize innocent animals. This is simply another example of PETA sponsored animal cruelty, to go along with their previous attempts to set free animals that have no ability to survive outside a controlled laboratory environment. I mean, how in the hell do you expect a BLIND ALBINO rabbit to survive in an open field????

I don't know about you, but I think an organization against animal cruelty ought to REALLY practice what they preach.

UPDATE: DogSnot and Acidman are all over this too

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Kos has crossed the the line, saying, "The torture
that was so bad under Saddam, is EQUALLY bad under U.S. command."

Rusty Shackelford fights back, with a graphic reminder of why Kos is just so wrong.

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The Queen asks the following:

1. Can you name two Democrats and two Republicans that you could really vote for in 2008? Basically, pick the ticket.

2. If you voted FOR Kerry, name one Democrat, a viable candidate for president, that you could never support in 2008.

3. If you voted FOR Bush, name one Republican, a viable candidate for president, that you could never support in 2008.

I said:
1. Joe Lieberman (a class act) and ABH (anyone but Hillary); Condi Rice and TBA.

Honestly I hadn't thought about running mates. And I would LOVE to see the reaction of the MSM and certain traditionally democratic constituencies if a BLACK WOMAN ran for President on the GOP ticket.... Maybe throw in Liddy Dole as a VP candidate just for the hell of it. No, wait, Senior senators from NC don't have a great track record in running for Veep....

2. N/A. Duh. I voted for Bush.

3. John McCain

Six to twelve months ago he was on my short list for "the guy after Bush" but he has run his course. Waving your schlong around in public (even metaphorically) too much is bound to get you in trouble..... Especially if you start playing both sides against each other.

So what do you all think?

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Not surprisingly, the group of bright, once-young men who once made up Nixon's staff and have manged to stay alive and out of jail were making the rounds, talking about Mark Felt (how's that for a pRon name????) and the legacy of Deep Throat and the end of the Nixon presidency.

Pat Buchanan was on Imus this morning, and he and Charles Colson have been all over MSNBC declaring that Deep Throat is not an American hero, but rather a misguided, if not vengeful schemer who violated the ethics of his position, something he would later be tried for in another matter, and brought down a presidency that had the potential to continue to do good.

Ben Stein echoes this theme in today's American Spectator, asking why Deep Throat is Nixon's legacy, rather than opening the door to China and building peace in Vietnam and elsewhere.

Former Nixon chief of staff, Al Haig told The Australian and FoxNews that it was good to "finally be off the list" of suspects.
(h/t Dr. Mental)

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What you probably know is that Venezuela is inching closer and closer to communism. What you may not know is that Venezuela's state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. is the owner of a little company here in the US known as Citgo.

Well, PDVSA has made a bold step embracing communism, this week they moved their corporate headquarters for South America and the Caribbean to Havana. As in Cuba.

Fausta at Bad Hair Blog has the details, including this juicy tidbit:

Venezuela's sending Cuba over 50,000 barrels per day, and that the PDVSA office in Habana will be in charge of commerce, storage, and transport. Venezuela's also opening a branch of the state-owned Banco Industrial de Venezuela in Habana.

It doesn't really take a rocket scientist to realize that, since Venezuela's a Caribbean country and already has the necessary infrastructure to carry out all its commercial activity, opening this office and the bank in Havana is simply a means to further merge Venezuela's rapid descent into communism and finance Castro's goverment while avoiding those pesky investigations on corruption scandals and the subsequent calls for financial transparency at PDVSA.

As I mentioned before, Citgo, which has eight refineries and some 13,000 service stations across the U.S., is owned by Petróleos de Venezuela SA. What Venezuela does concerns us directly.

Additionally, Chávez has gone on the record saying that “oil is a geopolitical weapon”.

Read the rest!

Do we really want castro in charge of ANYTHING that has to do with our oil supply? Remember that the majority of our foreign oil imports come from Venezuela.....

Think about that the next time you stop at a Citgo to fill up.... Whose pockets are you really lining?

(h/t: Babalu)

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Rusty Shackelford has the story of the American hostage you've probably never heard of. In an exclusive interview, Rusty interviews the family of Roy Hallums to discuss his situation and what has and hasn't been done to secure his release. Part one of his interview with Roy's family is here. Part 2 tomorrow, and 3 and 4 to follow.

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But now it's been proven.

John Kerry is in fact the World's Biggest Douchebag!

"The Web is abuzz today with discussion of John Kerry's crass call for military hardship stories he can use for his political advantage.

I share Instapundit's, Anklebitingpundits', Polipundit's, Vodkapundits', Ace's, and others' contempt for Kerry's cynical manipulation of personal hardships.

Kerry has sunk so low with this latest ploy that my first thought this morning was "What an unbelievable douchebag!" This spurred me to some serious scientific research. I had to find out: is John Kerry the biggest douchebag in the world?

Google finds 13,000,000 hits for a search on John Kerry. This gives us our baseline Kerry identification level. Then, by searching John Kerry douchebag, we find how many mentions associate John Kerry with a douchebag. The result is 17,500. By dividing this number by the 13 million baseline Kerry identification level and multiplying by 1000, we arrive at the Douchebag Identification Per Thousand(TM) quotient (DBIPT). Kerry's DBIPT score is 1.35, a truly phenomenal rating."

Read the rest to find out how other people scored!

(h/t: Ken)

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