Nancy Pelosi is a World Class Idiot
With a tip of the hat to Ramesh Ponnuru, behold the brilliance of the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives and would be Speaker of the House.
Q Could you talk about [the Kelo] decision? What you think of it?Ms. Pelosi. It is a decision of the Supreme Court. If Congress wants to change it, it will require legislation of a level of a constitutional amendment. So this is almost as if God has spoken. It’s an elementary discussion now. They have made the decision.
[Emphasis added]
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p> The whole press conference, available here, is stunning in her shallowness, vanity, and ignorance. But, she just digs her hole deeper. When asked if she’d support efforts to pass a law that would prevent money from being used to fund condemnations for economic developement in favor of private developers, Pelosi, babbling, responds
Again, without focusing on the actual decision, just to say that when you withhold funds from enforcing a decision of the Supreme Court you are, in fact, nullifying a decision of the Supreme Court. This is in violation of the respect for separation of church — powers in our Constitution, church and state as well. Sometimes the Republicans have a problem with that as well. But forgive my digression.
In addition to not understanding the issue (she was asked with clarification more than once), she clearly has decided to cede the power of the purse strings. And what the heck does church and state have to do with it? Is Scientology condemning land in Marin County with her help?
Macon Recall Effort Recalled
The Macon Recall Effort collapsed this evening, though most likely temporarily, after having secured the 100 names needed to file an application. It turned out that the Chairman of the Recall effort, and named sponsor of the petition, was not registered in 2003 for the mayoral election. The recall law requires that the sponsors and signatories of the petition all be registered to vote in the last election of the person to be recalled. As the Chair is the “named Chairman” under the recall law, the application was null and void.
The effort to collect signatures must be restarted. However, considering it took the recall effort just one weekend to collect the necessary signatures, that should not be a problem. The real problem comes from the possible demoralization of the overall effort.
Supreme Gossip
Some of what I have is speculation. Some of what I have comes from my source. Some of what I have comes from others in the know. Most of what I have is from my source, which is why I’ll run with it all.
First, a caveat (and a homage to the Note’s notiness). Everyone seems to be getting in line with the information that I’ve been given from someone I consider extremely credible. But, now the “inside the beltway” chatter has begun among the Gang of 500TM. How much now of what I have and what other news sources have and what other talking heads have and what the Gang has is the same information, circulated between us, parroting what each of us has obtained from each other without realizing it? Even my source admits to keeping up with the chatter. But given the source’s job and place of employment, I’d say the source, like the shadow, knows and the Gang of 500 is on to something.
So, drumroll for today’s edition of speculation, which is actually Monday night’s speculation, but I could not release it until permission was obtained via Instant Message a short while ago.
Rehnquist is out. It’ll happen on July 5 [Ed. -- but why not do it earlier so the Gang can have a 3 day weekend to mull the implications and feel out the Senate before announcing a replacement on Tuesday?!] POTUS is leaning toward Luttig.
If, however, O’Connor beats CJ to the White House (though POTUS & Co., Inc. does not expect her till Labor Day), we go with Garza first and Luttig second.
If Luttig doesn’t want it, we go with John Roberts next — Rehnquist is pushing Roberts. Roberts is a Rehnquist protege.
If O’Connor does go at Labor Day and women are not back on board GWB’s bus (a current POTUS & Co., Inc. concern), he scraps Garza and goes with Edith Brown Clements, an under the radar conservative from the 5th Circuit.
If any other spot opens, he goes with (a) Gonzales or (b) a sitting United States Senator from a state that currently has a Republican governor. Oh, and there just might be a third spot opening, but not until after January 1. Your guess is as good as mine on that one. Until then people in New York and Chicago will be speculating.
Source does tell me that POTUS1 really, really, really wants Gonzales and “POTUS is POTUS” but knows the political calculus of a Gonzales nomination would be devastating to the base and to the 14 who have to either vote for a possible Souter or vote against the first Hispanic nominee and then go on and try to get re-elected next year.
1Did people really start talking like that until the West Wing came on air? Or can we blame Mark Halperin?
Democratic Suicide
The American people have made the same connection that the President has to 9/11 and Iraq. The Dems have failed to make that connection.
Congressional Democrats said President Bush’s repeated attempts last night to link the war in Iraq to the September 11 terrorist attacks rang hollow and did not constitute the plan to win the war that they said Mr. Bush needed to deliver. ”They only served to remind the American people that our most dangerous enemy, namely Osama bin Laden, is still on the loose and al Qaeda remains capable of doing this nation great harm nearly four years after it attacked America,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat. Democrats spent the afternoon calling on Mr. Bush to acknowledge mistakes that he made both in the run-up to war and during the war as a way of reclaiming credibility on Iraq. After his half-hour speech at Fort Bragg, N.C., most Democrats said the president fell short. Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, said Mr. Bush’s rationale for fighting terrorists in Iraq was the third different reason he has given for going to war. ”The first, of course, was weapons of mass destruction. The second was democracy. And now tonight, it’s to combat the hotbed of terrorism,” Mr. Kerry said on “Larry King Live.” And Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Mr. Bush’s speech showcased “the darkness of divisiveness, attempting to garner support for his failed policies by pandering to fear, rather than inspiring us with a plan for hope.”
All POTUS said was this:
The war reached our shores on September the 11th, 2001. The terrorists who attacked us — and the terrorists we face — murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance, and despises all dissent. Their aim is to remake the Middle East in their own grim image of tyranny and oppression — by toppling governments, by driving us out of the region, and by exporting terror. To achieve these aims, they have continued to kill — in Madrid, Istanbul, Jakarta, Casablanca, Riyadh, Bali, and elsewhere. The terrorists believe that free societies are essentially corrupt and decadent, and with a few hard blows they can force us to retreat. They are mistaken. After September the 11th, I made a commitment to the American people: This nation will not wait to be attacked again. We will defend our freedom. We will take the fight to the enemy. Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women, and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, in Washington, and Pennsylvania. There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home.
We all realize that. As long as the Dems do not, look for them to stay outside the majority.
Sore Loser
I understand it is on principle, but Linda Poole should drop this. Ms. Poole, who has contributed comments here, is well meaning by this suit. But it crosses into the bounds of sore loserdome. She makes very good points and this action puts her as risk of not being taken seriously.
Linda Poole wants the recent SPLOST election thrown out. Tuesday morning, she filed a petition in Bibb County Superior Court to contest the special purpose local optional sales tax election held June 21. Her petition accuses county commissioners of false advertising to influence voters to approve the SPLOST and Bibb County Elections Board Supervisor Elaine Carr of misconduct for publicly supporting the SPLOST’s passage. Poole, a Bibb County Republican, ran an unsuccessful campaign last year to unseat Bibb County Commissioner Bert Bivins. This spring, she and Libertarian David Corr held a joint news conference to announce their opposition to the SPLOST. A Superior Court judge will decide whether there are grounds for her challenge to proceed.
It Is Done
Macon City Council on Tuesday night officially adopted a fiscal ‘06 budget, one that was tweaked earlier in the day and added several initiatives that the mayor had eliminated when he first presented it. Ending weeks of review and debate about the proposed spending plan, the council in a 12-3 vote approved a plan that will restore the public safety officer incentive pay plan, keep the police and fire pension plan funded at its current level and not increase health insurance premiums for city employees.
What’s a shame is it almost, only almost, puts me in a position of agreeing with the mayor on these cuts. The museums, etc. should be forced to compete in the private sector instead of living off my forcibly taken tax contribution.
Coke launches Iraq comeback
All becomes right with the world.
Despite ongoing violence in Iraq, Coca-Cola is getting back into the bottling business in the war-torn country for the first time in 37 years.In the latest step by the Atlanta-based beverage giant to bolster its presence in a region dominated by archrival Pepsi, Coke is forging its first bottling agreement in Iraq since it pulled out in 1968.The deal — announced Tuesday in Istanbul, Turkey — involves a Turkish company that bottles Coca-Cola products and an Iraqi partner.
YOU MUST READ THIS
This is a class Jonah column. You have got to read it.
About a month ago, I helped a Muslim woman with her groceries in a supermarket parking lot. She was dealing with her kids and her shopping cart started to roll away from her car with the groceries still inside. As it rolled, I saw a decent society of tolerance and kindness rolling away. The cart%u2019s one wobbly wheel %u2014 going chapocketa, chapocketa, chapocketa %u2014 was onomatopoetically tapping out a small drumbeat for the forced march to oblivion of all we hold dear. Thank goodness I was there. Thank goodness this country produces heroes like me.
Now, go read the whole thing.
Family Crisis
Just a note, as I know friends and family read this.
Christy’s father was traveling to Tennessee yesterday and, while on the Interstate west of Birmingham a car passed him and proceeded to lose its rear axle. The car swerved and hit the rear driver’s side of Thomas’s Explorer. Thomas recovered from the fish tail, but was hit again and fliped front over end several times in the air before sliding a good ways on the hood of his Explorer.
He was smart enough to lay down in the car and, as a result, suffered some cracked vertebrae, but no spinal cord or alignment injury. There were no other broken or cracked bones. Christy went up to be with him, but has come home now at his insistence. God was truly with him.
As a result, however, blogging has been light.
The Reformers’ Trojan Horse
Krempasky earlier made reference to a possible concession by the “reformers” in campaign finance reform. He retracted a bit realizing “that the current regs accept some unspecified amount of use – as long as it doesn’t affect an employee’s normal workload.” The reformers know that and like the wording of the current regs allowing “occasional, isolated, and incidental” use of corporate facilities.
With respect, the reformers know they have a trojan horse on their hands that will, despite their denials, serve as a prophylactic to bloggers blogging from the office.
As I pointed out here, the “occasional, isolated, and incidental use of facilities”, 11 C.F.R. 114.9(a), means one hour per week or four hours per month.
“Nuh-uh,” say the reformers. To their denial, let me call bull.
The reformers premise their argument on the full text of the regulation.
As used in this paragraph, occasional, isolated, or incidental use generally means–
(i) When used by employees during working hours, an amount of activity during any particular work period which does not prevent the employee from completing the normal amount of work which that employee usually carries out during such work period; or
(ii) When used by stockholders other than employees during the working period, such use does not interfere with the corporation in carrying out its normal activities; but
(iii) Any such activity which does not exceed one hour per week or four hours per month, regardless of whether the activity is undertaken during or after normal working hours, shall be considered as occasional, isolated, or incidental use of the corporate facilities.
Well, here is why I say that is a trojan horse.
The reformers rely on 11 C.F.R. 114.9(a)(i), “When used by employees during working hours, an amount of activity during any particular work period which does not prevent the employee from completing the normal amount of work which that employee usually carries out during such work period.” But, to say that will protect bloggers is disingenuous at best.
You know and I know there are many do-gooder groups out there that love to file FEC complaints. Notice that that between (ii) and (iii) there is that little three letter word “but.” That “but” means “caveat.” 11 C.F.R. 114.9(a)(iii) is a “safe harbor.” As long as a blogger does not exceed one hour per week or four hours per month, they will be safe. But, what about two hours per week?
The reformers will tell you that as long as those two hours “[do] not prevent the employee from completing the normal amount of work which the employee usually carries out during such work period” the employee will be okay. Well, the next step then will be for the professional complaint filers, i.e. do-gooders a/k/a reformers, to speculate that the employer might just be cutting the employee slack on “the normal amount of work” because the employer agrees with the political views of the employee.
Not fair you say? Too big a leap? Well, consider this — blogs usually have time stamped posts. A complaint filer can easily see that a blogger has spent more than one hour a week blogging during normal business hours — thus reasonably probable that the blogger was blogging during work hours. The blogger then falls outside the safe harbor.
Even without the leap I might have made, if the blogger falls outside the safe harbor provision and a complaint is filed against the blogger, the burden will be on the blogger to show that (1) he was not prevented “from completing the normal amount of work” that he usually does during business hours and (2) will still most likely have to prove that his employer was not being lenient, which could get the business into trouble if it is a corporation.
For the blogger to answer this complaint, the blogger would need money to hire a lawyer. The blogger would probably also need a source of funds because his company would most likely fire him in an effort to show the company had no culpability for the blogger’s actions.
The reformers can say they are open to blogging from the office. But their written words give lie to that. Unless “occasional, isolated,and incidental” is changed to unlimited, as Toner posited, bloggers will face the reformers’ trojan horse and we will all be hurt because of it.