About
Captain Ed is a father and grandfather living in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, a native Californian who moved to the North Star State because of the weather. He lives with his wife Marcia, also known as the First Mate, their two dogs, and frequently watch their granddaughter Kayla, whom Captain Ed calls The Little Admiral.
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The Crows Nest
Would Early Primaries Allow More Donations?
Jim Geraghty at The Campaign Spot believes that candidates will benefit if primaries and caucuses get pushed into 2007. A loophole in campaign finance regulation appears to allow an extra $2,300 per donor for candidates if those elections are held this year. Be sure to check out Jim's analysis, and the surprising candidate that may benefit the most.
When Tom Met Jeralyn
One of the interesting aspects of politics is finding out that opponents are people, too. Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft met Rep. Tom Tancredo backstage at NBC's studios, and found him more likable than she had anticipated. Perhaps it was their mutual interest in Dog, The Bounty Hunter ...
Joe Lieberman A Right-Wing Nut?
That's what CAIR says, according to Joe Kaufman. He has a link to a CAIR official's blog post that calls Lieberman, along with John Bolton, former CIA director James Woolsey, and the Heritage Foundation's Peter Brookes as "extremists". Affad Shaikh also calls Dick Cheney a "fat bastard of a liar," apparently not meant as a pop-culture reference to the Austin Powers movies. (via Let Freedom Ring)
Broadband Homelessness
The Japanese have made homelessness more efficient, and more Net-friendly, too. Their Internet cafés have become homeless shelters for the struggling manual-labor sector. The problem has grown into such a problem that government intervention will shortly become a political priority.
Found My Law Firm
Power Line links twice to this story regarding an attorney at Faegre & Benson who refused to become a victim and helped capture a very dangerous man. Keith Radtke is a partner in the firm as is Power Line's John Hinderaker. Radtke is listed in satisfactory condition after getting shot in the back, but that didn't keep him from locking up his attacker in a wrestling grip until police could arrive. I don't know about you, but that's the kind of man I'd want as my counsel ....
Don't Click That YouTube E-mail
The latest in spam seems to be redirections from YouTube links in e-mail to IP addresses without domain names. They attempt to entice people by making it seem that they have been inadvertently YouTubed. I'm sure most people can see through this scam, but just in case, you've been warned ....
Rick Moran Escapes The Floods
Rick Moran has kept us up to date on his travails along the Algonquin River. Yesterday, the police showed up to get him evacuated before the river flooded his home -- but today, Rick finds that a minor miracle has taken place, and that his house survives ... at least for now. Keep Rick in your prayers, and keep checking in at Right Wing Nut House for updates.
Rule 1: Drag The Corpse On Over First
If I've learned anything in four years of blogging, don't try to be out in front of the death rumors, especially with the villains of the world. Saddam died a hundred deaths before we caught him alive in his spider hole, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi almost as many before his demise last year. Osama may or may not be alive, but everyone's avoided speculating on his fate for a while now. Maybe Val at Babalu Blog will get luckier with his "Castro Is Dead" story. We all hope so. I'll wait for the announcement ....
Hobbs Choice
Volunteer Voters is holding its annual "Best of Nashville" on-line polls, and one of the categories is for the best political writer. Our friend Bill Hobbs, now posting at Newsbusters, and he'd like his on-line fans to cast their votes. Drop by and put one in for Bill if you get a chance!
Murtha Getting Backlogged On Apologies
Gary Gross of Let Freedom Ring sees another case collapsing on the Haditha charges. He's called for Murtha to apologize earlier, and adds another reason to the tally.
No Such Thing As 'Moderate' Islam?
Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan told a television interviewer that he finds the label "moderate Islam" offensive. Shrink Wrapped has a lot more on this, but at least in the same interview Erdogan acknowledged that "radical Islam" exists, and that it's been a catastrophe. Be sure to read the whole post.
MS-NBC Gets Punk'd
Power Line has a great post on a lack of journalistic effort on the part of MS-NBC. In covering the Michael Vick story, they reported on what they thought was Al Sharpton's website proclaiming Vick's innocence. I guess Alex Johnson and two other MS-NBC reporters couldn't bother to read the title bar of the site, which proudly proclaims it as a "parody site".
New Instapundit Podcast On Pharmaceuticals
I just caught this e-mail from Glenn Reynolds about his new podcast with Richard Epstein, the author of Overdose: How Excessive Government Regulation Stifles Pharmaceutical Innovation. Haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but the topic is important enough to make sure I carve out time for it tomorrow. Get their first and tell me what I'm missing ....
Fed Trying A 'Stealth Easing'?
The Federal Reserve seems to have conducted a quiet campaign to steady markets that started spinning out of control, according to King Banaian at SCSU Scholars. He thinks that the Fed has conducted a "stealth easing". Be sure to read his explanation and follow his lnks.
A Shameless Bit Of Sel-Promotion
Gateway Pundit and Val at Babalu Blog note a crass PR move by Hugo Chavez. Venezuela has responded to Peru's eathquake disaster with food shipments -- and with Hugo's smiling picture on the cans. He also uses the tuna-can label to undermine President Garcia of Peru, who narrowly defeated Chavez' pal Ollanto Humalla, whom the labels extol for his "solidarity" with Chavez.
Tacky beyond belief.
Comments (8)
Posted by the fly-man | August 3, 2007 10:28 AM
Quote: "Congress has little business demanding access to Presidential advisors." I hope that you will remember you said this when the Democrats take the White House and flip the GOP the bird when they get interested in what's behind the green curtain. I certainly will.
Posted by hunter | August 3, 2007 11:57 AM
the difference between properly executed search warrants for documents relating to a crime and fishing for priveleged information from lawyers will be lost on democrats. But i do hope whenthe dust settles that your take on this is correct, and that criminals in all branches of government and society will find they are under the same rule of law.
Posted by NavyspyII | August 3, 2007 11:58 AM
If this ruling holds, and it will likely go to the SC before it's all said and done, I have one rather pointed question.
WHO vets the legislator's papers, and determines if they're legislative or not?
By this ruling, only the affected body could do so, as this court objected even to a group disassociated from the investigation looking at the papers.
So, if only the affected party can tell you if the document is legislative, and therefore off limits, doesn't that allow him to declare anything incriminating off limits?
Kinda destroys the whole concept, don'tcha think?
Out of approx 500 members of Congress, 400+ need to be gone.
Posted by Jazz | August 3, 2007 12:50 PM
If any papers seized are strictly legislative in nature, then I would like to bring up two points. First, there is nothing stopping Justice from simply returning the papers on their own after their proper investigation shows that they have nothing to do with the investigation at hand.
Second, documents which are strictly related to legislation should not only be fair game for the Justice Department, but for the American people as well except in rare cases where "super double secret probation" legislation or matters of national security are concerned. (And in those cases, if we can't trust the Justice Department to handle sensitive documents properly and return them after determining their nature, we have bigger problems to worry about.)
What the legislative and executive branch are up to at any given time (again, unless it's a true matter of national security requiring secrecy at that level) is always the business of the people electing them to office an paying their salaries. Executive prevelidge, legislative privelidge, etc. humbug. Mold and rot grow in the dark. A little daylight is generally good for every system.
The guy had a freezer full of cash wrapped in tin foil. Yes, he gets his fair share of due process and his day in court, but that's more than enough for me to say that the investigating officials and the American people all have a right to know what he's up to on our dime. And then ship him off for a nice round of vollyball with Duke Cunningham.
Posted by Del Dolemonte | August 3, 2007 3:25 PM
The DNC spin on this has already begun-ABC Radio News this afternoon dishonestly reported that ALL of Ice-Box's documents that were seized had to be returned to him...no mention made that the actual ruling was that only SOME of the docs had to be returned.
Posted by Barnestormer | August 3, 2007 3:59 PM
Just to amplify hunter's post, the search warrant; as in issued by the judicial branch .
Posted by Wookie22 | August 3, 2007 6:03 PM
If anyone is going to appeal here, it will probably be Jefferson and not the DOJ. While the Court held (in Jefferson's favor) that the search violated the Speech and Debate Clause, it rejected his proposed remedy (a return of all documents, privileged or otherwise).
So despite the violation, the incriminating documents will not be shielded so long as they are not privileged. I don't see the DOJ fighting this ruling, because they don't care about -- and did not intend to retain -- privileged documents; indeed, the search warrant specifically established a procedure for the return to Jefferson of any documents that DOJ and FBI officials deemed subject to the privilege. The Court simply held that this after-the-fact protection did not suffice given the established "absolute" nature of the Speech and Debate privilege.
So if anyone will appeal, I bet it will be Jefferson, and he'll urge the Supremes to apply a broader protection where a search violates the clause, much like an exclusionary remedy under the Fourth Amendment (which wasn't at issue here).
Posted by Rose | August 4, 2007 12:21 AM
Is it even POSSIBLE for such deep corruption to be healed and repaired?
GOOD GRIEF!