Thanksgiving roundup

hello there...sorry for not posting this week. I am at my in laws out of state and studying for the various finals I have in the coming weeks.

I was reading the Richmond Times-Dispatch this week and it was interesting to see how they talked about Gov.-elect Kaine, who is fulfilling at least one campaign promise by having town hall meetings about transportation around the state of VA. The writers seemed to suggest that the consensus of the Richmond meeting was that people didn't want higher taxes since no one mentioned it, yet that Kaine wanted higher taxes since he referenced the last time the state seriously addressed the issue and said it was solved with higher taxes.

Personally, I don't think Virginia can built its way out of the traffic mess with more freeways. They really just need to make their cities, especially near DC, more commuter friendly by expanding the Metro, Rapid Transit Buses, and VRE (the commuter rail lines that go all the way to Fredericksburg). It seems like everyone has a car and they all want to drive it on the roads right now.

My daily outrage is Justice Scalia's comments about Bush v. Gore. In typical GOPer fashion of late, he blames someone else for his mistake. "The election was dragged into the courts by the Gore people. We did not go looking for trouble." What was really at stake was not who won rather, "The issue was whether Florida's Supreme Court or the United States Supreme Court [would decide the election.] What did you expect us to do? Turn the case down because it wasn't important enough?" How about turn the case down because the Florida Supreme Court got it mostly right.

Gore's people should have challenged statewide and the FL court told them as much but I really don't know why a Federal court should decide state election law.

"I was for medicare before I was against it"

Late last night, those 20-odd GOP congress buckled under pressure and the budget passed, sans ANWAR. Like the 1993 budget, this was a completely partisan affair with no support from one party, which predicited dire results.

This time, the naysayers are right. Why does the GOP-controlled congress feel the need to screw poor people so openly, not to pay for Katrina, but to pay for $70 billion in tax cuts for the rich? There couldn't be a starker contrasts between the parties right now. I am ever so proud of Democrats, conservative and liberal sticking together on this one.

Especially Utahs most popular politican--Democrat US Rep. Jim Matheson! Well the poll isn't that great becuase the stats are suspect to a degree. The margin of error in each congressional district was 8 percent and the number polled was really low--130-145. So perhaps Governor Huntsman is more popular. But Matheson is much more popular than Chris Cannon or Rob Bishop, who hover around 50 percent. Of course, part of that is a high number of people who don't know who they are. Yet those morrons still get reelected because they are Republicans. Amazingly, Bush has a a disapproval rating of 36 in Utah, which is about his popularity rating in the rest of the county. Below is a more detailed run down.

Someday, I hope Jim runs for Senate, I would love to have him suceed Watergate waterbody Bob Bennett and horrific hypocrite Orin Hatch.

the corruption of fame

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

notes from a patriot

one of the would be 3Ls at my law school was called up to serve in Iraq. I believe he was Army ROTC in college and he kept telling people that he knew this was part of the deal when he signed up.

For veteran's day, the students have been trying to send out a care package to him. Here are portions of his reply, edits were made to keep him safe:

Fortunately, we don’t need much of anything here. So many people have sent care packages that we have toiletries to last us a decade. The amenities are great too. I’m fortunate enough to be based out of [redacted], a state of the art military camp that even has two swimming pools, a movie theater and [...a] basketball court [...]. Food is plentiful; we have stores; we have everything we need.

Don’t get me wrong. Frankly, Iraq sucks. I much rather take a civil procedure exam from [redacted] than convoy through some of the streets here. (1Ls, you will shortly find out what I mean). But this is a war, and for all its savagery, things aren’t so bad.

Instead of asking for something for himself, our student asked us to do something else:

First, Vote!!! Vote on any election you have the right or privilege to cast a ballot. Whether municipally or nationally, vote. For better or worse, we are here now and we are going to make the best out of it. But having seen the conditions under which most Soldiers are serving here, and having been through two years of Socratic grilling at the U, I can’t help but question whether we came for the right reasons at the right time. At bottom, we reason that the American citizenry voted in support of attacking. However superficial, this logic is the best we got. So vote!

Second, and more pragmatically, instead of sending us stuff, send small toys for us to distribute to the local kids. It’s amazing how far a toy goes. I’ve had the opportunity to travel along on many civil affairs missions and I can tell you that even if only for a minute a toy seems to take these kids away from this ravaged place. These missions have obvious tactical advantages too. But more importantly, they give us the opportunity to put a different face to the coalition. Animal beanie babies are the safest bet, given cultural sensitivities. Hard candy, pens and crayons are also helpful. UofU stickers will also help us broaden our fan base.

Well, I am sure that it is more likely that Sunni and Shia Muslims of Iraq can unite as Ute fans than Cougar fans.

Personally, I have a lot more respect for this student now than I ever did when he was at the law school whining about pens and bubble sheets every 5 emails.

flop of the times

It is the talk of the leftblogosphere: increasing numbers of 2008 Democrats and past staunchly pro-war candidates have said that if they knew then what they know now about pre-war intelligence, that they wouldn't have voted for the Iraq war resolution. The liberal blogs have made such a conversion a litmus test to any Democrat seeking the nomination in 2008, and so far John Edwards, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Dick Gephardt, and a few others have jumped at the command.

Or so it seems. These folks are not reacting to the online activists, rather, they are just politicans looking at the polls. They were in favor of the war when people approved of it 60-40 and now that people are against it 60-40, they are against it to. This latest stance is just a DC consultant correographed pivot.

This is not to say that many of them might actually believe in their stance both times, but their underlying motivation is to do what the masses want or what polls say they want.

Real test shouldn't be how you voted or would have voted in 2002, it should be what your plan is for solving the mess we are in right now. Many faulted Wesley Clark for being vague in his plan, but it was a heck of a lot clearer than George W. Bush's. If someone like Tom Daschle actually wins the nomination, we can count on at least 4 more losing years. But if we get someone like Clark or Warner out there, we at least have a good shot.

Strategery

As happy as I am that Virgina and New Jersey will continue to have competant leadership and hateful campaigning was trounced, I am puzzled about why Bush decided at the last minute to campaign for VA GOP candidate Jerry Kilgore.

I mean, a few months after 9/11, Bush decided not to campaign for Early, was running against Mark Warner. Warner eeks out a victory and Bush saves his political capital for more tax cuts and more war down the road. 4 Years and 2 months after 9/11, and Bush races home from a terrible reception at the summit of the americas to campaign for VA AG Jerry Kilgore in a hanger in Virginina. And yet Bush at this time is WAY more unpopular than he was in 9/11. And Kilgore loses by more than Early.

The math just doesn't add up from a political strategy standpoint. +90% approval, and you pass up getting more Republican governors, especially in states with 9/11 victims as residents commute to NYC and DC. 35-40% approval, and you do a one stop whistle stop campaign.

I guess the Bush team was hoping that Jerry would pull it off, and they could claim credit. And Jerry was glad that it was so close to election day that the majority of Virginians that don't approval of Bush wouldn't notice and those who did would come out and vote. I guess they both were wrong, since Tim Kane is governor elect.

No matter how much Kilgore tried to make it about the death penalty, gays, illegal immigrants, and other wedge issues, people voted for Kaine because they wanted 4 more years of Warner-eque competent government. If only the Virgians of 2005 were the voters of 2000 in swing states across the country, we would be talking about President Al Gore more.

Speaking of presidents, Mark Warner can now begin his presidential campaign. I would say he is my second choice behind Wesley Clark. And if the ticket were Clark/Warner or Warner/Clark, I would be happy.

newer isn't better

Today I walked to my local polling place and voted for Ms. House because "Eric!" failed to respond to an email I sent to his office last year about a problem I had with the trash/recycling. I had enough trouble figuring out the punch card balloting, and eriliy enough in 2000, when voting absentee, I thought to rip off my chad that might have made my vote not count.

But across the country, voters are having difficulties with the Diebolt voting machines. And it isn't just left-wing conspirators, in California, Gov. Schwarzenegger had to cast a provisional ballot for his own intiatives, voters in Virginia couldn't get the machine to let them vote for Democratic candidate for Governor LG Tim Kaine, and Ohio is always problematic. This time, they couldn't find the memory cards.

I think this is going to be a good year across the nation for Democrats: most of the California intiatives will fail (the redistricting scheme was flawed), Most of the reform Ohio Now ballot initiatives will suceeed (I pray that the redistricting one will pass), and we will have Gov. Corzine and Gov. Kaine soon. At least, those are my predictions.

Hot lesbian cheerleaders?

In a rare intersection between football, cheerleaders, and gay rights (and it is not a porn movie), two Carolina Panthers cheerleaders were kicked off for having sex with each other in a Tampa Bay bathroom.

A woman was getting upset that they were hogging the stalls and taking so long, and one of the cheerleader punched that woman in the face.

"The cheerleaders were kicked off the team Monday for violating a signed code of conduct, Panthers spokesman Charlie Dayton said. The two violated a rule that bans conduct that's embarrassing to the team or organization."

What was embarrassing? Engaging in gay sex? punching a woman? Doing it in a bathroom stall? If so, many players should be suspended...like the whole Minnesota Vikings team.

How much do you want to bet either a porn like this has already been made, and if not, will soon? It just goes to show how all those fantasies of players and cheerleaders are just that.

like Bush, like Huntsman

In Utah, this is a compliment still. Yet looking over the longer time range, it is a mistake to hire mostly corporate folks and pay them way more than most government empoyees. The Salt Lake Tribune discovered that

The average salary of a Huntsman staffer is about $10,000 more than what was offered by former Gov. Olene Walker and $13,000 more than the average pay in former Gov. Mike Leavitt's office. These average salaries only count employees paid by the Governor's Office or those who work for the lieutenant governor.

I would just like to think of all the great things these corporate types accomplished for Bush: record spending, record deficits, gross incompetence on matters of life and death, image over substance, etc. Not a good omen to be sure.

And as true fiscal conservatives point out, "The only way that this could be justified is if these new people generate some serious and quantifiable improvements in how the state operates," said Mike Jerman, vice president of the business-backed Utah Taxpayers Association. "Justifying salaries based on the size of government is a built-in incentive to grow government."

Ironic isn't it, that business is attacking its own. Huntsman is the CEO governor like Bush was the CEO governor and then CEO president. Look how well it worked out for Texas and the U.S. Both men's main claim to business fame is that they shared their rich and famous dad's name. Hopefully, Huntsman won't drive this state into the ground like Bush is did in Texas and now is working hard to do on a national scale.

Republican embarressment roundup

ex-FEMA head/current FEMA Consultant, was caught whining about being stuck in the mess Katrina (and he) created saying get me out of here. Not only was he incompetent, but he thought he was more important than the hundreds of thousands of others of people.

Andy Card's people in the white house are talking to the Post, saying Rove needs to go. If Card et al win and Rove is gone, there is no Lazerus left in George W. Bush, these people are too stupid to govern or to spin properly.

Oh and Libby was arraigned. And Karl isn't off the hook.

A belated Happy Halloween! I said bad stuff about Halloween in my prior post, but at least we learned our doorbell was broken. And the little kid I saw in an Elmo costume was pretty cute. But we bought too much candy. 

McConnell heart Scalito

I learned today that my professor worked with Alito at the Solicitor General's office back in the Reagan days. McConnell had many good things to say about Judge Sam, but you could tell he was a bit sad that it wasn't him.

How sad to see your chance come and be passed up three times. I think he would have been a good nominee in terms of getting the judge the right wanted, while getting an easy confirmation. It must be hard, one must wonder what opinion or article I wrote pissed the white house off. I wonder if he met with anyone at the White House.

I hope everyone will enjoy Holloween, becuase I think it is a dumb holiday for everyone over trick or treating age. It let's women dress like whores, men wear dresses, people get drunk and hook up, teens to scare children and destory property.

Is Scalito Radioactive?

Judge Sam Alito's lone dissent on Casey is about as obvious a signal about abortion as possible. This is really is the time to see just how moderate some Republicans really are. Will Specter vote against him based on "super precedent?" What about Chafee, Snowe, or a handfull of other moderate GOPers?

Some think we will be seeing the nuclear option evoked, some see this nominee losing on the floor of the Senate. For all of those Naderities who said there was no difference between Bush and Gore, I would like to make Scalito my exhibit A.

The mysterious 35%

No matter how bad things get for President Bush, he will seemingly always have a little over a third of the American people behind him.

He can lose one of America's greatest cities by doing nothing. He can surround himself with treasonous men who traffic in slime to accomplish political goals. Or corporate thieves and con men. He can repeatedly lie right to their face about the war in Iraq, the war against Al Qaida, etc. He can call himself a fiscal conservative and be the biggest spender since LBJ (and never veto a single bill). He can even drag us into an optional war with no plan for the aftermath and they will still support him.

Why? Is it that he is the President and the office commands at least 35% of Americans to respect him no matter what? Is it because he is to the far right on cultural issues like gay rights, abortion, creationism, etc.? Is that he is supposedly religious? Because he likes NASCAR and country music? Because he is "from" Texas?

Any time I talk to people from this mysterious 35%, they get so upset with me when I ask them why they support George W. Bush when I present them with the facts. They live in an alternate universe where the reality that we all have to deal with doesn't apply. Somehow, the cost of health care doesn't bother them, or stagnant wages, or unemployment, or the fact that their friends and relatives are being attacked in Iraq and Afghanistan every minute of the day, or the crippling deficit to our chief economic and future geopolitical rival...None of it seems to shake their illogical faith in Bush.

If he is a religious man, all he seems to believe in his political power. He will make any sacrifice to that shrine he can: a CIA agent, the lives 2,000 soldiers, moderate members of congress willing to work with him for the sake of the country, our budget...All of it is secondary to staying on top.

But the fact is 65-60% now believe that Bush is unethical, his people are not telling the truth, the war in Iraq is going poorly, the economy is in the tubes, and about 100% of moderates in Congress won't ever work with him again. His legislative agenda is all but dead. His personal choice for the swing seat of the supreme court was rejected by his own party. Bush is the lamest duck I have ever seen this early in his second term. Yet those 35% pretend otherwise. Please tell me, why?

an old Plame

tons has aready been said about this with far more elequent words and thoughts. But I might have one thing to add. All this talk on conservative blogs and cable talk seem to think that perjury and obstruction of justice are pretty lame charges for all this time, even though that was the main beef against President Clinton.

But the point is, Libby wasn't just saying one date or official he talked to in one appearance before the grand jury and then someone else saying something different. There was a clear pattern of Libby telling one complex lie to the grand jury, and have several reporters and white house officials all say something completely different. It is nearly impossible for someone who has made into the highest echelons of power like Libby to confuse Tim Russert with Dick Cheney as his source. Those 5 counts seem rock solid to me, after reading the entire indictment on the Smoking Gun.

And I would really love to see Bushies try to go after Fitzgerald, who is widely acclaimed as the most non-partisan, most fair, most thorough, best US Attorney out there. All of the people that know him have nothing but the highest praise for the man. The only beef I heard what that he was so into his work that he didn't have a life: he is not married, he hardly ever home, he forgets lasagna in his oven for three months etc. Everyone seems to agree, this is not a guy you want on your butt.

So it is over, or is Karl next? It seems Fitzgerald took the most conservative approach to the whole prosecution, nailing the most flagrant and obivous violator with tons of supporting evidence. Maybe Karl was too clever to have such obviously contradictory statements out there. I think it is probable, but not that likely, that there is more to come. It will not be the vast investigation into John Bolton, AIPAC, Doug Feith, and the Niger forgeries themselves that liberals had hoped for, but Libby could go to jail for a long time if he doesn't flip on his boss.

Although there is little hard facts to support it, in my gut I know that the Niger forgeries were cooked up inside the Rumsfeld-Cheney cabal. Maybe not by them directly, maybe without their direct knowledge or approval. But someone in the administration somewhere got the idea and ran with it. They were influenced by the approach to intelligence that Rumsfeld and Cheney took. And in typical Bush Administration fashion, they were terribly incompetent in the execution of the fraud.

After all, the official whose signature appears on the forgeries had been out of that post for a number of years. Anyone who googled the information would have found that out in a matter of seconds. Rather than disown those who did their dirty work, or the dirty work itself, Cheney et al pushed the evidence until not even neo-cons like Bill Kristol could support it. Then they slowly and quietly backed away, and no one was fired/"quit" until they were arrested/indicted.

That in itself is quite telling. And for all the hawkish liberals out there, this is a great time to say I was duped. The Bush administration gave Congress and the public false or at best incomplete information, and it seems pretty clear that they did so knowingly. The war was sold a lie, a lie Bushies believed or wanted to believe was true.

Saddam is a terrible excuse for a human being, and he behaved like he had WMDs. Hussein did himself no favors by playing tough, obstructing inspectors, and refusing to step down from power. If he really cared about Iraq, he wouldn't have done that. But all he and his sons cared about was raw power, complete control over everyone of his countrymen through fear and loyalty. I am sure he will be executed for his crimes, and although I wish he had been tried internationally and more Iraqis could come and tell the world about what he did to their families, I am glad Saddam will be executed. Few deserve the death penalty more than that man.

will I have class on Monday?

I ask you that because that is when Prof. 10th Cir. Appellate Judge Michael McConnell's class is held. The chattering class in DC seem to think he will be picked. The Center for American Progress, ABC's The Note, Hotline, etc.

Local conservative bloggers from South Dakota, Minnesota, and of course Utah are hoping it is my professor.

My empression? He is superduper smart, VERY conservative, but nice and respectible. He is like Scalia in that he is very clever and conservative, but unlike Scalia in that he is more intellectually honest.

another distraction

When I previously posted that the White House had run out of distractions and that it was dumb to name their Fed Chair pick prior to Fitzgerald's indictments, I plainly forgot that they could throw Harriet under the bus.

Poor Ms. Miers, she stumbled over and over with senators, with conservatives, with the press and came out looking worse than before she nominated. How she can go back to work as White House Counsel confounds me. I guess it is the best place to hide out when you are a laughing stock.

The White House got Sen. Brownback to blame her nomination withdrawl on the documents when anyone with half a brain knows she didn't stand a chance of getting confirmed on the merits. For once, Democrats suceeded by sitting back and shutting up. Something I know must have been hard for the likes of Joes Biden and Lieberman. Keep listening to Harry Reid, guys. After all, he conned Bush into this pick along with his inner delusional circle of yes-men.

Bush's only trouble now is that is seriously weakens him and the Democrat talking poitn of George being beholdant to the American Taliban seems to be sticking with the press. More immediately, Fitzgerald could foresall the indictments even longer by asking the judge for a new grand jury and seeking more indictments at a higher level (like Cheney himself). What a time to be a Democrat.

1 in ten

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted October 21-23 (with a sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points) said only ten percent of "said they believe Bush administration officials did nothing illegal or unethical in connection with the leaking of a CIA operative's identity". WOW. The old "politics as usual" talking point isn't working apparantly.

39% thought someone in the Administration did something illegal. I would like to see more a breakdown partisan wise and all the rest.

the smell of defeat

It looks like Bush is going to withdraw Miers and nominate a "real" conservative. If my professor Michael McConnell was female, I would say he would be the new nominee. I am betting it is a female judge from the 5th Circuit. Why do I say Bush has given up? Because law bloggers much smarter than me make a great argument based off of Bush's latest commentary on Miers. From Althouse:

Note that he did not express confidence that she would be confirmed or that she would make a fine Justice. He focused on her general excellence, unrelated to the position she's been nomited for, and on the Senate, stepping up the pressure to give her a fair hearing -- right after turning up the heat about the denial of the documents. It seems as though he wants the Democratic senators to make more of a stink about the documents so that he'll look more credible blaming them for forcing him to withdraw her name. I'll bet they are too smart to make that move, though. Let him twist in the wind while they hold their fire until the hearings. Or maybe even -- crazily riskily -- just go ahead and support her and leave Bush to solve his own problems, without using them for leverage.

And from Loyola LA Prof. Rick Hasen's electionlawblog:

The excuse for withdrawal appears to be a fight over executive privilege. The president won't turn over documents needed to show Ms. Miers' views on legal issues that arose in the White House. If that is indeed the basis for withdrawal, it is doubly good news for conservatives, because presumably it would take AG Gonzales out of the running too.

I am not the only one high on my Prof. McConnell, so is Hasen: "If Bush is smart and wants a strong conservative who will actually be confirmed, he should nominate Judge McConnell. But it is not clear whether Bush really wants a strong conservative on the Court." Like Hasen, I doubt Bush will risk losing the fight that conservatives want to wage with a Janice Rogers Brown, and would be more happy with a pick that would be friendly to him, especially after this Miers fiasco.

A key rule of politics: when rolling out something big, run it by your allies first and make them feel like they are involved/have a stake in its sucess. Just ask Hillary Clinton about her Health Care Plan.

website of the day

WithdawMiers.org check out the list of the supporters, a who's who of the conservative players, including 9 GOP senators.

Senator Rick Santorum
Senator Sam Brownback
Senator Trent Lott
Senator George Allen
Senator Lindsey Graham
Senator Jeff Sessions
Senator Tom Coburn
Senator David Vitter
Senator John Ensign

Lets see, two of these are on the judicary committee 2+8 Democrats= 10-8 loss in committee. Ed Kilgore sees this as the place to watch any signs of a trend.

This could be Fitzmas eve.