Stone cold - Jules Witcover joins the Coalition of the Chillin’: “The seven Democrats had better hope the president names a chicken thief or a corporate extortionist. It may take someone of that ilk to enable them to slip from the straitjacket they so willingly strapped on in agreeing to the terms negotiated by the Gang of 14.”

No principle, all politics - Gallup Poll: “More than 8 in 10 Americans say it is very (58%) or somewhat (28%) likely that the Democrats in the Senate would attempt to block Bush's nominee for inappropriate political reasons.”

It’s going to get ugly

I was looking over the final predictions for the Hedgehog Report Supreme Court Challenge and noticed that two people had picked Solicitor General Ted Olsen as the nominee. Now if you were, say, Karl Rove and looking at an extremely contentious confirmation process, would you put forward a nominee who lost his wife on 9/11? That would be some serious Machiavellian voodoo there.

Just a reminder

President Bush did not give a recess appointment to John Bolton (although the Fourth of July break isn’t over yet).
And William Rehnquist did not resign today, as some have speculated.

The Man without Qualities asks: "Could The Senate Filibuster Deal Really Be THAT Big A Democratic Loss?"

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result

Now that the Live 8 stage/soapbox has been taken down, we don’t need to pay any mind to the band of economists known as Green Day. The putative purpose of Live 8 was to – somehow – bring political pressure on the G8 group meeting in Scotland this week to forgive debt in Africa. Since the end of colonization, Africa has been on a yo-yo of foreign aid and debt that has stifled economic and political development. Finally, the conventional wisdom is forming that the cycle of dependency must be broken. Here’s John O’Sullivan with a powerful article titled “Anti-poverty campaign gets it almost all wrong”:

In short, [Make Poverty History] ignores almost all the valuable work done in development economics since the 1960s, which established that when private property is legally protected, pettifogging regulations reduced to a minimum, and producers allowed free access to domestic and foreign markets, the poor lift themselves up by their own bootstraps.

That anti-poverty campaigners should pass over these well-known findings is sinister rather than merely foolish because aid agencies benefit from having the poor not as active agents in their own success, but as grateful recipients of their largess. So they have an interest in keeping aid flowing and the poor dependent. Aid should be made conditional not merely on ending corruption in government, as Bush as rightly seen, but also on protecting the property rights of the poor, cutting the red tape that holds their "informal sector" businesses back, and going to local organizations rather than central government.

“Sinister” may be a bit strong, but the Economist echoes much of O’Sullivan’s argument and forcefully proposes that enhancing trade with Africa would work best to lift the continent out of poverty:

Givers of aid have (so far fruitlessly) sought ways to keep recipient governments on the straight and narrow. But even well-meaning governments need a helping hand in figuring out ways to maximise the poverty-fighting potential of economic growth. The World Bank report suggests that while growth alone is good, policies like trade liberalisation, as well as things like improving infrastructure and access to capital, can greatly boost the speed at which the lives of the poor improve.

We can’t keep throwing money at institutionalized poverty in Africa. Change must start with open trade policies to give African economies a chance for self-reliance.

The Quote of the Day comes to us from the American Spectator’s Washington Prowler: “Even after the press remarks, [House minority leader Nancy] Pelosi, according to other Democratic staffers, didn't seem to understand what the fuss was all about [on the Kelo Supreme Court ruling]. "She was oblivious. She really thought she had a handle on some basic ideas about the Supreme Court, the way Congress works with the rulings of the court," says a Democratic leadership staffer. "A generation of 'Schoolhouse Rock' gets this and she doesn't? Her staff should be ashamed of itself for putting her out there."”

Hurry before the lawyers are dispatched - Tom Cruise is Nuts

Drunk Ted launches a pre-emptive judicial filibuster

Dennis Prager: “Why Democrats will smear any conservative Court nominee”
Michael Barone: “This means that Democrats will filibuster any Bush nominee, while the left groups attempt to tar them with any charge they can dream up.”
Matt Hoy: “On a slightly more serious note, I fully expect whomever is nominated to be filibustered. The Washington Post has already revealed that no one Bush might nominate would be acceptable.”

And now this just in: “Kennedy Slams Unnamed Supreme Court Nominee”

(2005-07-02) -- Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-MA, today criticized President George Bush's as-yet-unnamed replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as a "brutal, Bible-thumping, right-wing ideologue who hates minorities, women and cocker spaniels."

"He or she is clearly outside the mainstream of American values," said Sen. Kennedy. "President Bush has again ignored the Senate's 'advice and consent' role, forcing Democrats to filibuster this outrageous nominee."

Is it real or is it satire? You make the call.

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

Well, I watered the lawn, fixed the screen door, put up the flag and washed the dog. So now it’s time to relax, listen to some CDs and have a couple Sam Adams. As a bonus, here’s the Declaration of Independence, courtesy of Real Clear Politics.

Congressional Democrats glare at Dean, kick him under the table – “Dean slam at GOP puts Democrats in a tricky spot”

The ball’s in our Court

The Coalition of the Chillin’ wins again. From the WashPost: “Filibuster deal puts Democrats in a bind – Pact may hinder efforts to block high court nominee”

The pact, signed by seven Democrats and seven Republicans, says a judicial nominee will be filibustered only under "extraordinary circumstances." Key members of the group said yesterday that a nominee's philosophical views cannot amount to "extraordinary circumstances" and that therefore a filibuster can be justified only on questions of personal ethics or character.

The distinction is crucial because Democrats want to force Bush to pick a centrist, not a staunch conservative as many activist groups on the political right desire. Holding only 44 of the Senate's 100 seats, Democrats have no way to block a Republican-backed nominee without employing a filibuster, which takes 60 votes to stop.

Not that their word means anything: “Senators won’t rule out filibuster” The peril here is that if the Democrats back out on the agreement, it will provide cover for the moderate Republicans (some call them RINOs) to support the nuclear option. Sweet.

Let’s chill!

Cool! - Born in the USA but playing songs for the night shift in Iceland (HT: Fark)

Cue the organ music, thunder, evil laughter

From the WashPost: “The Right’s moment, years in the making”

With the Supreme Court vacancy left by the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the conservative movement has within its grasp the prize it has sought for more than 40 years: the control of all levers of the federal government.

From the ashes of Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign, conservatives have built an enduring governing majority, with Republicans winning seven of 10 presidential contests and holding unified control of Congress for 11 years.

Meanwhile Fox News and the bloggers are changing the face of the Fourth Estate. Soon it will all be ours. Bwahahahaha!!!

War on Terror - Al-Qaeda chief of Saudi Arabia killed in clash: “Security forces killed Al Qaeda's leader in Saudi Arabia, who topped the nation's list of most-wanted militants, during a fierce gunbattle Sunday, an Interior Ministry official said.”

Like an Indiana Jones movie - A British obituary to die for

For the record, my prediction for the next Supreme Court justice is Emilio Garza (for those of you keeping score)

Follow-up - Tradesports has Garza and Gonzales way out in front for the SC race. So a lot of people think the next justice will be Hispanic. But it won't be Gonzales, no way.

The new national pastime? NASCAR

As I’m sitting here waiting for the Pepsi 400 to start (rain delay) I was reminded of this book review from the NY Times a couple weeks back:

''Sunday Money'' is, for my money, the first (and maybe only) book that nonfans or casual fans or just the mildly curious should crack in order to understand the ''noise and speed and glory and death'' that is Nascar. (Staten Islanders, take note.) In 2002, inspired by the outpouring of grief that greeted the death of Dale Earnhardt Sr. at Daytona one year earlier, MacGregor, a writer for Sports Illustrated, and his wife, the photographer Olya Evanitsky, bought a motor home and drove 47,649 miles in search of Nascar's grease-stained soul. They followed the 36-week racing circuit from Daytona to Bristol to Talladega to Indianapolis to Phoenix and to every paved oval in between, exploring the raucous infields and hivelike garages while sizing up the fans, drivers, owners and crewmen alike. MacGregor is neither fan nor antifan -- he views Nascar through the semi-jaundiced, media-savvy lens of a New York writer, though without undue snark -- but he's never dispassionate about what he calls, unequivocally, America's new national pastime. As for that other national pastime, the one with gloves and bats and balls? That one, he writes, has ''crawled up under the house to die.''

Baseball? Is that 19th century game still around? Huh.

Harrison Ford’s cinematic finger (hat tip: Ace)

What’s good for General Motors is good for America – “G.M. Sales Surge 41% on Offer to Sell at Employee Price”