The Victorious Opposition

Let’s talk about the future.  I think we should throw out our best predictions of future events and then check back six months from now to see how we all do.  It’s all open for divination: Politics, Sports, Foreign Policy, Economy, Celebrity Encounters with the Criminal Justice System, etc.

Who’s in?  We’ll be a bunch of regular Nostradumbasses.

Here are my predictions of the world to come within the next six months:

Democrats lose the House, hang on to a shrunken majority in the Senate.

Obama remains defiant; won’t move to the center but does start to lay off the Bush bashing.

AG Holder will announce his upcoming resignation.

The lame duck Democrat Congress will rapidly renew the Bush tax cuts except for those they deem to benefit the “super-rich.”  GOP will grudgingly go along with it.

Nobody will militarily interfere with Iran’s nuclear weapons development.

Consumer spending will be weak during this Christmas season and the double-dip recession will have arrived.  Obama will still gleefully announce that unemployment is down, knowing full well that his Labor Department is counting seasonal workers.

There will be a successful terrorist attack on US soil probably on the scale of the Ft Hood shooting.

This Winter will be milder, less harsh than the 2009-2010 season.

There you go.  It’s time to prophesize.  Shake the Magic 8-Ball and tell me where you see us in 6 months.

UPDATE: Another one just came to me in a vision: The Cordoba House developers will back down and announce that they are not going to build their Victory Mosque.  The usual suspects will attribute it to American Islamophobia.

A buzz I’m starting to notice more and more on the Internet is the notion that Obama won’t run in 2012.  I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ve suspected since he got elected that he would pull a Dave Chappelle at some point and simply not keep being President.  Some even speculate that he may be better off not running in 2012 since he’ll have this solid legacy of…I don’t know what…and second terms are where things tend to get messy for Presidents’ legacies.

I suppose if things continue on like they have been where unemployment will not go down, public support continues to sour against the war, his own poll numbers continue to drop, and most of the electorate becomes convinced that he really does have a prayer rug in the Oval Office; it’s possible that he might figure out that he’s going to head for certain defeat if he runs.  By letting Hillary Clinton take the nomination in 2012, she could keep his most important but unpopular legislation from being repealed under a Republican president.

I can’t say for sure.  My own estimation of Barack Obama has always been that he is in over his head and was only running in the Democratic primaries as a test run for when he was really ready, maybe in 2016.  I think he was more suprised than Hillary when it started to become apparent that he was actually going to win.  Now that he is President, he has done little besides cramming partisan and expensive legislation through Congress and dodging resolving the issues that Americans care about (jobs!) by simply whining about Bush.  Oh, and let’s not forget the vacations.  Assloads of vacations and golf.  Truthfully, I don’t think Obama is really serious about being President of the United States and I’m seeing more and more acts and statements that confirm it.  He’s done all he can do for his special interests.  What’s left?

I think he wants out of this job now or he is at least waiting for a major disaster to occur that will give him a suitable pretext for dropping out.  Still, can the World’s Biggest Narcissist walk away from the World’s Top Job? 

Such is how the world’s most well-armed Third World nation justifies its inability to handle natural disasters: by blaming America like most other countries do:

As Muscovites suffer record high temperatures this summer, a Russian political scientist has claimed the United States may be using climate-change weapons to alter the temperatures and crop yields of Russia and other Central Asian countries.

In a recent article, Andrei Areshev, deputy director of the Strategic Culture Foundation, wrote, “At the moment, climate weapons may be reaching their target capacity and may be used to provoke droughts, erase crops, and induce various anomalous phenomena in certain countries.”

One theory I’ve seen floating around is that we tried to stabilize weather over the Gulf to assist in cleanup efforts and it somehow resulted in the dry heat that roasted Russia.

Well, OF COURSE WE’RE CONTROLLING THE WEATHER!  We’ve been working on the technology for years and it wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that it can be done.  Hell, Obama even claimed his intention to willfully alter the climate in his nomination acceptance speech, plain as day:

...this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal…

Naturally, like everything else Obama gets his hands on, he ends up harming people lots of people while ostensibly trying to help others.  Generally, the harm is not deliberate, although the benefits work for his political pals. On that basis, I have every reason to believe that the Obama-led military is somehow behind this.  More than likely, the Pentagon was trying to ensure optimal golfing conditions at Martha’s Vineyard and shit just got out of hand.

Seriously, though, this isn’t about the wheat harvest or anything else.  Russia, like the Soviet Union before it, is simply incapable of keeping its shit together regardless of how tough and controlled they present themselves being.  Their wheat harvest became a toast harvest, a naval base burned with 200 aircraft left sitting on the ground, and nuke sites were threatened because they don’t have the acumen to respond to challenges.  All of this is a reflection of their institutional weaknesses, not an indication of some supernatural American weapons program against them.  If even a Russian intellectual thinks that we’re behind this, we ought to be pressuring them to do other things:

“OOOOOH!!! Stop selling surface-to-air missiles to Iran or we’ll unleash a plague o’ frogs on St. Petersburg!  OOOOOOOOOHHHH!

Last fall we discussed whether the legislation that defunded ACORN was an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder. ACORN was granted a preliminary injunction in District court, and the DoJ appealed. Yesterday the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against ACORN (PDF file). T. David Kopel at The Volokh Conspiracy wrote a really good summary of the decision; I’m recommending you go read it rather than trying to do my own summary.

One interesting point was the government trying to argue that ACORN didn’t have standing (we’ve debated the issue of standing on more than one occasion). The Circuit Court appears to me to have said “the bloody law names them explicitly; in what context do you think that doesn’t grant standing in and of itself?”, which seems eminently logical (so it’s probably wrong ).

The analysis of the issues related to Bill of Attainder seems quite thorough to me, distinguishing this case from the precedent cited by the District Court.

At this point, the case is being remanded back to the District Court for proceedings on ACORN’s First Amendment and Due Process claims, but the Bill of Attainder issue appears to be dead, unless ACORN tries for an en banc appeal or certiorari to the SCOTUS.

This may make my top three list of Most Convoluted Lunatic Theories ever:

State Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, was on CNN last night talking about a plot involving pregnant women from other countries traveling to America as tourists to give birth, and then raising the babies as terrorists.

First of all, I think that any theoretical terror tots would be pretty well indoctrinated by our public schools and Sesame Street in P.C. garbage long before they became operational.

Next, it’s safe to say that there’s no reason for terrorist women to go to all the trouble of raising little warrior children like so many Muslim Sarah Connors when adult terrorists don’t seem to have that much trouble coming in on visas (Abulmullatab, 9/11 hijackers), becoming citizens (Shazhad), and even joining the US military (Hasan).  Clearly, birthright citizenship may not be the most pressing concern if terrorism is being cited as a justification for reforming immigration law.  In fact, why don’t we first just focus on, I don’t know, not allowing the jihad mommies in?

This is yet another right-wing wingnut conspiracy theory, up there with the Truthers and Birthers. However, the fact that this is posted by an organization calling itself “Accuracy In Media”, with a subtag of “for Fairness, Balance and Accuracy in News Reporting”, made this humorous enough to warrant posting. AIM’s mission statement is:

Accuracy In Media is a non-profit, grassroots citizens watchdog of the news media that critiques botched and bungled news stories and sets the record straight on important issues that have received slanted coverage.

And with that setup, I give you The Real Story of the Oklahoma City Bombing:

While liberal news outlets such as MSNBC were cynically exploiting the April 19 anniversary of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by attempting to tie the terrorist attack to the anti-government sentiments of the modern-day Tea Party movement, investigative reporter Jayna Davis was setting the record straight in an exclusive interview on the AIM radio show, Take AIM. The Oklahoma City bombing was an Arab/Muslim terrorist attack on the United States, she says.

Davis, author of a blockbuster book on the attack, The Third Terrorist, has examined and presented the evidence showing that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was in fact a front man for Middle Eastern terrorists. The third terrorist, in addition to the two, McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who were convicted, was an Arab. This was the mysterious “John Doe” who was never found. But other members of an Arab terrorist network were involved, she says.

She says the evidence was ignored and dismissed because the Clinton Administration didn’t want to go to war with Iraq, the likely culprit, and wanted to blame the attack on domestic right-wingers for political reasons. 

...

One of the problems with the MSNBC narrative is that Davis makes a convincing case that in fact McVeigh “was a handpicked dupe, set up to take the fall in order to save his Islamic collaborators from prosecution.” She documents that he had expressed a desire to be a mercenary for Middle Eastern terrorists, and that the trail of evidence that both he and his accomplice Terry Nichols left behind points in the direction of an Arab/Muslim connection to the attack.

Oh, my. This screed goes on and on, including inviting readers to contact that Oklahoma City DA and ask that he act on her “evidence” to bring these “Arab suspects” to justice (interesting to note that apparently a criminal investigation/trial is OK in this context).

Where do these fruit-loops come from?

On Monday, the Arizona House of Representatives passed a bill that would empower its Secretary of State to require Presidential candidates to prove their eligibility before being allowed on the ballot:

The so-called “birther bill” won initial approval from the House of Representatives on Monday, advancing legislation that would require presidential candidates to produce a birth certificate before they can make the ballot in Arizona.

The whole birther question of whether President Obama is eligible for office is pretty much a non-issue with me.  His eligibility is attested to by Hawaiian authorities, so I have no real basis to question it.  But the birther movement itself does raise some intriguing questions, as noted by AllahPundit:

What I will say in the Birthers’ semi-defense is that I think there are actually two camps inside the movement. One is the group that simply wants Obama out of office as soon as possible and has latched onto this thin, exceedingly lame reed as a way of making it happen. The other is a group that’s grown curious about the fact that … no official enforcement mechanism for the Constitution’s natural-born requirement seems to exist, even though it’s a baseline requisite for the presidency.

I would suspect that amending this apparent oversight is a primary rationale for the Arizona bill.  A plain reading of the Constitution indicates that determining eligibility for office is a Federal responsibility, but allows for the states to make their own rules on the subject.

Article 2, Section 1 provides the eligibility requirements, thus establishing such requirements would be an implied power: 

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Article 1, Section 8 grants Congress the power to make law on the subject: 

The Congress shall have Power…To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

The 10th Amendment allows the states to retain powers if they are not prohibited by the Federal Government: 

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

So basically, Congress and the President could act to establish a uniform law for establishing eligibility for office.  But since, to my knowledge, establishing such laws has not been prohibited, a state like Arizona is free to enact its own.  I think Congress should do this, as a way of keeping simpler the process for determining eligibility, as well as reducing the the complications that might result if a legitimate candidate is prohibited from running in a state because of a rogue Secretary of State.  It’s clearly a power the Congress has, so why not?

Senator Lindsey Graham has been working with Senator Chuck Schumer on immigration reform:

Our immigration system is badly broken. Although our borders have become far more secure in recent years, too many people seeking illegal entry get through. We have no way to track whether the millions who enter the United States on valid visas each year leave when they are supposed to. And employers are burdened by a complicated system for verifying workers’ immigration status.

Last week we met with President Obama to discuss our draft framework for action on immigration. We expressed our belief that America’s security and economic well-being depend on enacting sensible immigration policies.

I’ve mentioned that I give Sen Graham’s opinions a goodly amount of weight on defense issues, based largely on his work with Sen. Warner (the recently retired one, not the current one) and Sen. McCain on DTA and MCA. His comments on McCain’s recent interrogation and detention bill gave me pause and caused me to read deeper (and intensely dislike it).

What I really don’t like in what I’m hearing about this proposed immigration bill is the “national ID” part of it:

We would require all U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who want jobs to obtain a high-tech, fraud-proof Social Security card. Each card’s unique biometric identifier would be stored only on the card; no government database would house everyone’s information. The cards would not contain any private information, medical information or tracking devices. The card would be a high-tech version of the Social Security card that citizens already have.

I need to see a lot more information on this system. Implemented as described, maybe not too horrible. But I expect it to become a more egregious form of REAL ID. We shall see. Graham’s involvement with this will cause me to give it more credence than I might otherwise. There’s more to this immigration initiative, including various concepts of some form of amnesty (which I’m reserving judgment until I see more) that really have anti-immigration types up in arms.

To the point that at least one group is convinced that Sen. Graham is a closeted homosexual and being blackmailed by the Democrats. They are calling for him to come out of the closet to remove the blackmail issue:

Now he’s targeting Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), saying the longtime Washington politician should acknowledge that he’s gay. “The national border security organization known as Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) [Gheen’s group] is officially calling for [Graham] to make his homosexual lifestyle public knowledge in the interest of political integrity and national security,” Gheen wrote in a news release today.

Graham, a 54-year-old bachelor, has previously denied rumors that he’s gay. Though it’s difficult to see how his sexual orientation relates to national border security, Gheen claims the link is perfectly clear: Graham could be collaborating with Democrats on immigration reform because they’re using his sexuality to blackmail him. “Graham is gay and while many people in South Carolina and Washington D.C. know that, the general public and Graham’s constituents do not,” he wrote. “I personally do not care about Graham’s private life, but in this situation his desire to keep this a secret may explain why he is doing a lot of political dirty work for others who have the power to reveal his secrets. Sen. Graham needs to come out of the closet inside that log cabin so that the public can rest assured he is not being manipulated with his secret.”

Now, Sen. Graham may well be a closeted gay man. Finding a (admitted) gay Republican in Congress is like finding Sasquatch or the Loch Ness Monster. But the idea that he’d be blackmailed over it? Come on now…

Update: Colbert’s take on this “conspiracy”:

I feel rather silly now. The other day I posted on a plot from those more idea challenged (those that got nothing positive to rally to their cause so they stoop to sabotaging the other side) loosely termed “progressives” to crash some of the Tea Party demonstrations with boorish, obscene, racist and crude behavior (like this doesn’t come naturally for them) in a weak attempt to discredit them. I have to admit, it sounded pretty nefarious, dressing up like lunatics and going tasteless for the day. Especially when the founder, some douchebag school teacher from Beaverton Oregon (I know, right out of a script) decided to pull out all the stops.

He’s on record saying that you might see some of his team in Nazi uniforms at your local tea party pretending to be racists and other offensive characters.

And he has your kids for 7 hours a day.

I had to admit, all these Nixion dirty trick tactics seemed like they might stir the pot a bit. If I had thought about it more, and realized the all around lack of originality, creativity, and shear brain power of most of these numb nuts, it now seems even comical, exhibit A:

Bwahahahahahahahahaha, what a good job of infiltration, he doesn’t stand out one bit, does he? Egg, meet face.

I guess it is more like putting a bunch of monkeys in a room with some some nuts, bolts and some tools and expect them to build an automobile, maybe in another million years of evolution.

But it did give the Tea Party people a laugh, and to reveal what side has the sense of humor:

If there is any real infiltrating to be done, I think these guys got a better shot at it. Considering all the pics I posted last week of the flag burning DC rally, which revealed all the truthers, code pinkers and Jew haters that fit right in (and the Tea Party’ers have an image problem, what a hoot) it is clear where the socially repugnant would feel more at home.

Panic is still the order of the day if you are the party of power.

According to the source, who sought anonymity for fear of reprisals, the Dems’ last minute scramble reflects a growing obsession among party leaders that they need to discredit the tea party movement soon or it will overwhelm them come the November election.

Ah, too late there sweetheart.

Unless the actual Tea Party leaders start barking at the moon on stage, peel off their attire to reveal a swastika tattooed on their backs, or parade their children on stage dressed in hooded white KKK garb, nothing those pretenders in the crowd could do is going to diminish the impact, especially today, in showing the world the growing dissatisfaction normal people feel in where the current leaders are taking the country. I heard numbers today (unsubstantiated, of course) of between 10 and 20 million people who consider themselves party of the Tea Party movement, that is one big tent.

H:T/ iowntheworld

Politics is getting lazier and lazier. Last month I smacked the NH GOPer’s around for embarrassing themselves with their quick “racist” trigger finger and for exposing themselves as bereft of any ideas themselves so in an effort to elevate themselves, they smeared the opposition. I know, I should not be so cynical. This seems to be the MO for both parties lately, but I always thought that the objective was to present and articulate appealing ideas and principles to further increase the size of your tent, not just firebomb the other guy’s tent.

Today I will be smacking around those clowns who label themselves as progressives, ya know, the people smart enough to know that the word “liberal” leaves such a bad taste in your mouth that they are basically done like dinner, so presto chango, they will rebrand the name, if not the ideology behind it.

So when you have nothing appealing to present that will increase the size of your base and influence, the next best thing to to sabotage the other side. Their objective is to infiltrate the movement, pretend that they are part of the movement, then do anything they can to embarrass or marginalize the movement.

Funny, but if the tea party people were as bad, racist, homophobic, redneck, stupid as being portrayed here, why do they need to be infiltrated at all? If they are indeed cutting their own throat by their own prejudices, wouldn’t the prudent thing be to just stand idly by and watch? Nope, these guys know that no throat cutting is happening so they will take matters into their own hands, bring out their own knife, and do some throat cutting themselves.

You might have heard about the Breitbart challenge, where Andrew Breitbart offered anybody with any tangible evidence of racism directed towards Congressman John Lewis, as been alleged by those progressive types, to come forward and some nice coin will be donated to the UNCF, needless to say, he still has his money.

Those tea party types are just too damned polite, patriotic, well behaved, and law abiding so some drastic action is called for. So, since racism, homophobia and general all around bad behavior is not going on at the tea party rallies,  these “tea party crashers” will now provide the bad behavior themselves. They will make sure that that lovely word “Ni—er” gets used a lot, after all, how else will mainstream America figure out what these people really are. They are going to behave like pigs, all the while pretending to be part of the tea party’ers themselves. Nice form.

Yesterday stories were going around on the tech blogs about a suburban Philadelphia school district that was being sued after disciplining a student for “improper behavior at home”, for which the evidence was images obtained by remotely accessing a camera in the student’s school-supplied laptop computer. Today the same sites are reporting that the school has admitted the capability, but denies the alleged abuse, in a letter to parents:

The Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania was recently sued after allegedly spying on a student using a school-owned laptop via the laptop’s built-in Web cam.

In this note to parents, sent Thursday night, which we obtained, the school says it was a security feature, and that it was only used “for the narrow purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop” and that the district “never activated the security feature for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever.”

If true, this sounds more reasonable, but it’s still a bit creepy. The district has disabled the feature.

They posted the letter on their website:

Upon a report of a suspected lost, stolen or missing laptop, the feature would be activated by the District’s security and technology departments. The security feature’s capabilities were limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator’s screen. This feature was only used for the narrow purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop. The District never activated the security feature for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever.

Which begs the question about how the evidence of “improper behavior at home” was obtained from the computer in the first place. Not to mention the basic question of why a school is disciplining a student for behavior at home in the first place.

Update: Some thoughts on this case from The Volokh Conspiracy:

I’ll assume the school’s statement as to what happened is accurate, and the computer’s camera was turned on and a still photo was taken only when the school believed the laptop had been stolen or was missing. (To be clear, I’m not sure that statements is true, but I need to assume something to get a sense of how the law applies: That seems a reasonable starting point.)

My tentative bottom line: The schools violated the Fourth Amendment rights of students when they actually turned the cameras on when the computers were at home. On the other hand, the schools did not violate the federal statutory surveillance laws.

More analysis in the linked post.

This kind of crap really makes you wonder just how astonishingly stupid people in politics are:

The House of Delegates is scheduled to vote Wednesday on a bill that would protect Virginians from attempts by employers or insurance companies to implant microchips in their bodies against their will.

(the vote happened today: 89 in favor, 9 opposed)

Now, even at just this first sentence, I have to wonder what the point of this bill is. Implanting anything by anyone, sans informed consent, is assault & battery in every jurisdiction I’ve ever heard of, and hence such additional legislation seems quite unnecessary. However, it looks like what they actually voted on was a bill to make it a crime for an insurer or employer to require a covered person/employee to get such an implant. Which also seems unnecessary.

But you really have to wonder about people like this:

Del. Mark L. Cole (R-Fredericksburg), the bill’s sponsor, said that privacy issues are the chief concern behind his attempt to criminalize the involuntary implantation of microchips. But he also said he shared concerns that the devices could someday be used as the “mark of the beast” described in the Book of Revelation.

“My understanding—I’m not a theologian—but there’s a prophecy in the Bible that says you’ll have to receive a mark, or you can neither buy nor sell things in end times,” Cole said. “Some people think these computer chips might be that mark.”

Cole said that the growing use of microchips could allow employers, insurers or the government to track people against their will and that implanting a foreign object into a human being could also have adverse health effects.

“I just think you should have the right to control your own body,” Cole said.

Now, ignoring the whole Establishment Clause aspect of this “mark of the beast” nonsense, is this really something our government officials should be worrying about?

Del. Robert H. Brink (D-Arlington) said on the House floor that he did not find many voters demanding microchip legislation when he was campaigning last fall: “I didn’t hear anything about the danger of asteroids striking the Earth, about the threat posed by giant alligators in our cities’ sewer systems or about the menace of forced implantation of microchips in human beings.”

(Brink voted against the legislation; my Delegate voted for it /sigh).

But just in case you think this is just one wingnut worried about Revelations:

Virginia Del. Charles W. Carrico Sr. (R-Grayson) said that he would probably back the bill because his rural community is leery of government intrusions. But Carrico said he also gives credence to biblical teachings on the importance of being vigilant against an antichrist.

“As a Christian, I believe there is a time that Christ will come back to receive his people home, and that’s just the basis of what the Bible shows, and that there will be an antichrist that arises during that time, and those that remain, to buy or sell anything, they will have to take on this mark,” Carrico said. “I don’t know that it’s a microchip.”

I am so glad that I live in a state that just elected dyed-in-the-wool theocrats as Governor, Lt. Governor and Attorney General…

It should be no wonder to anyone on the planet that America was Johnnny on the spot and first in line, the bestest with the mostest, with regard to Haitian relief. Not only first on the ground with rescue dogs, but with doctors, nurses, and relief teams from a thousand different private organizations. Obama has not only mobilized the military (for strictly humanitarian reasons) but also promised $100 million in aid (China is ponying up $1 million, God bless the chicoms), and he has been criticized for it which will be discussed later.

But there are those out there that just can’t help themselves, kinda like that Emmanuel quote about never letting a disaster go to waste, so those with no off position on their “stupid” switch have made some really bonehead comments, to wit:

Bill Clinton: If We Elect Scott Brown, the Earthquake Wins

Coackley will fund Haitian rebuilding, Brown won’t, wow, that should energize the voters.

But it gets better. I know we got a “God is not happy” quote here somewhere:

Those pacts with the devil can be costly.

So we heard from a knucklehead televangelist, and I hear you ,“How about a good Hollywood quote, those guys are even more boneheaded”, OK

“A new partnership, not one that extracts pain from the Haitian people”...........what!!!!!!!  “What we did at the climate summit, this is the response”, Oh, so now it’s our fault.

Dear Pat and Danny:

Over at mediamatters they have provided us with a link to Rush inserting foot into mouth over the earthquake. I think Rush is off the mark on this one, I’m not real big on scrutinizing charity or viewing magnanimity through the prism of skepticism.

And for those are not aware of what mediamatters actually does, I give you Greg Gutfeld (the thinking man’s Jon Stewart):

One thing about old politicians with young (relatively) wives, they don’t get to spend leisurely days on the golf course or puttering around in the garden, resting on laurels just don’t cut it, and “what have you done lately?” gets used like a shot of Viagra in spurring old bones into visions of greatness once again. Even when life is good, when people pay you for your opinion and you get to walk around Foxnews like a big man on campus, you get flattered to the point of being delusional, hence, we get this.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Wednesday he considers himself among the top Republican prospects for the 2012 presidential election, adding that he believes there will be plenty of GOP options for voters to consider.

“I think I’m probably on a list of seven or eight possible candidates at this stage,” Gingrich said. “We have a lot of people around the country who would like to have somebody who represents a commitment to replace the current failed programs and to develop a set of solutions that are practical and workable.”

Fortunately, he did not say he was the leading candidate, or the prospect best equipped to derail Obama, no doubt this is what Calista is whispering in his ear.

Is it to early to talk about possible challengers? hell yes it is, and for some this would be viewed as a desperate attempt to grab a little notoriety or relevancy, but Newt has all of this in spades already, so the only logical explanation for this is to ceremoniously announce the official turning on of the money spickets.

For my own threshold of exuberance, this is not blowing up my skirt. As much as I like Newt, he is totally unelectable, his negatives are too high and putting some years between his deeds and his run does not mitigate them, nor will it deflect the tsunami of critics that are already breaking out their long knives.

I know the GOP can do better and some possibles were mentioned in this article, although I believe the real nominee is at this point flying under everybody’s radar. There are some strong governors out there, guys that have the executive bone fides and know how to balance budgets, and there are some young up and comers, guys like Senator Thune, or Rep.s Cantor and Ryan.

The 2010 races are more timely, these will cast the dye with regards to the sentiment of the people but for those like Newt and the rest of the potential saviors, even with a deterring economy, unemployment and real suffering, many people will still vote for Obama, and for some of the stupidest reasons imaginable.

I expected to the DoJ to let the ACORN Bill of Attainder ruling stand without argument. However, they’re taking an interesting tack:

While a federal judge previously ordered a preliminary injunction on that ban, the Justice Department this afternoon asked a New York District Court to revisit that ruling in light of new facts unearthed from ACORN’s own internal review.

Those details, wrote the department, “might reasonably be expected to alter the Court’s previous conclusions, and the Court should reconsider its injunction as a result.”

In other words, instead appealing the decision, they are asking the District Court judge to reconsider her ruling using ACORN’s own internal investigation against them. This is intriguing at a number of levels. ACORN clearly paid for a mostly-favorable pseudo-analysis to demonstrate “hey, just some bad actors, nothing systemic to see here.” Yet the DoJ is elevating the severity of the conclusions of that whitewash, contending that this is enough to provide the basis for the Congressional action.

I’m speculating, but my guess is that the DoJ is going this route because taking this to appeal is likely a complete lose. The case for a Bill of Attainder is made pretty well in the decision discussed in my previous post. The government winning on appeal is probably fairly unlikely. But if they can get the District Court to reconsider the ruling, using this new information as a basis to modify the decision, then they can skate around the Bill of Attainder question and win indirectly.

I wonder why they’re not just letting this go, or taking it to a no-win appeal. ACORN must have really peed on some peoples’ cornflakes or something.

H/T: The Volokh Conspiracy