Month: August 2005

Europe To Radical Islamists: Bye-Atollah

Europe appears to finally have awakened to the threat of radical Islam within its own borders after the series of London bombings conducted by home-grown Islamist terrorists. Governments throughout the Continent have decided to start expelling radical imams glorifying jihad and inciting their congregations to violaence:

Countries across Europe are working to expel radical Islamic clerics who glorify and condone acts of terrorism, in hopes of stemming the tide of extremism among impressionable Muslim youth.
France deported an imam to his native Algeria on Friday for incendiary sermons at mosques in Paris, and at least eight more extremist clerics are expected to be banished in the coming weeks.
Italy expelled eight fundamentalist Palestinian preachers on Tuesday for not holding proper residency permits, Italian news agency ANSA reported.
The British Home Office announced recently that it will introduce an anti-terror bill that criminalizes “indirect incitement of terrorism,” and is creating a database to identify those who preach intolerance and run Web sites promoting jihad, or holy war.
The measures, adopted after the July 7 London transit bombings, are part of a campaign across Europe to root out extremist imams who help radicalize disenchanted Muslim youths and recruit them for violent causes.

We may finally witness the death of judgment-free multiculturalism in its most hidebound sanctuary. The moral relativism that allowed Europe to pretend that Islamist radicals calling the faithful to murder had the same value as the rabbi callng the congregation to pray appears to have suddenly disappeared as ‘regular’ Europeans find themselves targeted by the terrorists. When the victims remained in remote locations such as Tel Aviv or Jerusalem — or New York — the Europeans could comfort themselves by proclaiming their open policies towards the Palestinians and the free hand they gave their burgeoning Muslim populations.
Now, however, those policies have been shown to provide no protection from Islamist violence, and points up a fundamental misunderstanding of the enemy on the part of our European allies, as well as many here at home. Islamists do not attack Western nations because of our geopolitical goals. They murder us because we are not Muslims, and we still hold power. Their mission isn’t to teach Westerners manners, it’s to destroy Western civilization altogether and replace it with a worldwide Caliphate. And not just Western civilization, either, but also all infidel strains of Islam and any other basis of modern thought.
Tolerating this type of activity in the name of free speech doesn’t win anyone Brownie points among the terrorists, either. They see it as a tactical opening for them and a strategic weakness for us that they are all too delighted to exploit. Preaching murder and violence does not get protection from the law, even here with the First Amendment. That activity falls within one of the few legitimate exceptions to protected free speech and exercise of religion, and it’s high time that all governments recognize that and act to enforce it.
Deporting such vile hatemongers and masterminds of mass murder will not silence them, of course. They will relocate to the dwindling number of Islamist-friendly locations. It will help avoid them beguiling Western youth into transforming themselves into walking bombs, though, as we saw in London last month.

Is It 2008 Already?

Gallup has decided to get a head start on the next presidential election by beginning to build its polling data now to read trends and create projections for later in the cycle. However, one handicap presents itself — a lack of declared candidates. Instead of waiting for volunteers, Gallup simply picks the two likeliest candidates from each side, in its own humble opinion, and asks registered voters who they prefer.
Gallup predicts that John McCain and Rudy Giuliani will emerge as the GOP frontrunners. For the Democrats, Gallup predicts that Hillary Clinton will face John Kerry in the primaries as her biggest rival. In that, they must be the only people other than Kerry himself to take his remaining potential as a major candidate seriously. Their own polling shows that; for the first time ever, more voters disapprove of Kerry than approve of him (48-42). And Kerry hasn’t even begun campaigning!
Putting aside Kerry, Gallup may have selected the other candidates reasonably well, although Giuliani’s entry into the race is far from certain. Interestingly, Gallup picked two moderates and no conservatives for the GOP, while they picked two liberals and no moderates (like Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee) for the Democrats. I think it highly unlikely that Republicans will settle for a choice between two centrists in the primary, and even less likely that the conservatives will settle on McCain as their standard-bearer. He has spent too much of his political capital on press performances while turning his back on Republican goals in the Senate. Giuliani generates broader respect, even if his politics gives him the tinge of Nelson Rockefeller. More likely would be Giuliani against a conservative, possibly one of the governors or George Allen, who serves in the Senate now but has held executive office before.
Not surprisingly, both Giuliani and McCain score remarkably similar scores against Hillary Clinton, who almost everyone figures will win the Democratic nomination. Both GOP candidate beat her, 50-45. (They both cream Kerry, 54-41, meaning that Kerry without Bush-hatred has no standing except for the base, who would vote for Nixon if he ran as a Democrat.) All that tells us is that a moderate will beat a liberal in a general election — hardly a stunning outcome. Gallup could easily reverse that result by pitting Bredesen or Mark Warner against, say, Rick Santorum or Jeb Bush.
Gallup had the right idea in building a model that could be used for tracking electoral trends. They may have done better to poll for better frontrunners than the quartet they anointed for the first round, Hillary notwithstanding.

Summer Brings Few Changes In Canadian Politics

Now that Canadians have avoided the dreaded summer election, it appears that the tug-and-pull of electoral politics has also taken a seasonal break. According to a new poll from Environics, almost no change at all has taken place in support for the main parties since the pre-Gomery period:

This latest survey shows that, nationally, 34 percent of eligible and decided Canadian voters would support the Liberal Party if an election were held today, compared with 36 percent in the March-April period (this difference falls well within the margin of sampling error). The Conservative Party now has the support of 31 percent (versus 30%), while the New Democratic Party is also holding steady at 20 percent (versus 19%). One in ten (11%) Canadian voters remain undecided about which party might deserve their support (down from 13%).
Across the country, party preferences have moved modestly in some regions. The Liberals have lost some ground in Quebec and on the Prairies, and widened their lead in the Toronto area. The Conservatives have made gains across western Canada where they had been losing ground in previous surveys. The NDP has suffered some losses in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The BQ continues to hold a massive lead in the province of Quebec.

The movement in this poll from the early spring falls, as the report states, well within the margin of error. The effect of the Gomery inquiry and the explosive nature of the Brault testimony seems to have dissipated since the series of skillful Liberal manuevers kept control of the government in the hands of PM Paul Martin. The numbers also appear to underscore a lack of progress for Tory leader Stephen Harper in his outreach tour, but at least shows that he has not lost ground, either.
Taking a longer view, however, the Liberals should worry about their election prospects. They may have done better to hold the snap elections this summer, before Judge Gomery issues what might turn out to be a very difficult report. In the past five quarters, the Liberal position has eroded by five points, which falls outside the margin of error and demonstrates a long-term slippage. In April 2004, the Tories trailed the Grits by ten points; now the gap has shrunk to three — again, on the perimeter of the margin of error. Conservatives could have pulled even had they absorbed all of the Liberal loss, but the five points spread itself to the NDP and the undecideds.
The same trend shows itself among party leadership. Martin has dropped significantly, by a whopping nine points in fifteen months. Unfortunately, Harper only picked up two of those points, and actually now sits at his peak approval — which is the same as it was in the last poll. Jack Layton benefits the most from Martin’s drop, going up eight points over the same period, although it appears the April 2004 poll may have been an outlier.
Despite his steep losses, Martin still outpolls Harper by nine points and Layton by fourteen. Ironically, however, both Harper and Martin have lost a third of their approval ratings during that time, while Layton and BQ leader Giles Duceppe have seen theirs soar; the latter enjoys a 64% approval rating even though only 9% consider him the best choice for PM.
Odd results, no?
Canadians seem rather torn on the direction they want their nation to move. A new Liberal-driven minority government seems the most likely if elections get called, but Layton and the NDP will once again play kingmaker. BQ will probably fall short of pushing the NDP aside and allowing a Tory-BQ minority government to form.
The best possible result at this point would come after a damaging report from Judge Gomery, one that clearly reviews all of the testimony and evidence. Unfortunately, that won’t come until next winter, perhaps even the early spring of ’06. Unless Stephen Harper can capture the imagination of Canadians and change the electoral calculus significantly, an election may do the Tories little good at all.
Addendum: For readers unfamiliar with the mechanics of Canadian elections, the national preferences will not mirror the split of seats in Parliament. Anything above 40% will likely gain a party the majority in the Commons, due to multiple-candidate ballots in most ridings. BQ’s 11% will win them more seats than NDP’s 20%, or close to it, because BQ concentrates all of its support in Quebec, where NDP’s support comes from a spread across the nation. It’s similar to national polling numbers for American presidential elections — a good guidepost, but the state-by-state polls really tell the story here.

Terrorists Murder Author, Blogger Steven Vincent

The BBC reports this morning that author and blogger Steven Vincent was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists near Basra. His female Iraqi translator survived the kidnapping, but the terrorists dumped Vincent’s bullet-ridden body outside of the city within hours of his kidnapping:

The pair were kidnapped by five gunmen in a police car as they left a currency exchange shop, Lt Col Karim al-Zaidi said.
“Both were later shot, but Vincent was killed, while the girl [translator] is alive,” said Mr Zaidi.
Mr Vincent was shot several times in the head and body, said Mr Zaidi. The translator, Nour Weidi, was seriously wounded.

This death hits closer to home for me. Steven had appeared on our radio show several months ago when his book In The Red Zone first came out. While Steven supported the general war effort in Iraq, his writings did not fall into the category of cheerleading for Bush or every part of the American strategy. He wrote and spoke movingly about the tragedy of the Iraqi people — the tragedy of the long oppression of Saddam Hussein, and the tragedy of their liberation and difficulty in adjusting to their new status. His book was personal, gripping, and brilliant — a must-read for anyone wanting to know about Iraq and the war.
Lately, the BBC says, Vincent had written about the issues in the British sector around Basra. He had told people about Shi’a radicals infiltrating the local police in the area, taking advantage of their position to assassinate former Ba’ath party members. His kidnappers may come from that group, rather than a Zarqawi faction; one would suppose that the latter would have taken advantage of Vincent’s notoriety in the West for a ransom demand or at least a videotaped execution and statement. His business relationship with Nour Weidi could also have offended locals — he wrote about that danger in his book, and it could explain why she got shot as well as Vincent.
Unfortunately, we will likely never know the full circumstances.
This is quite a blow for everyone who cares about the Iraq issue, the blogosphere, journalism — but most of all, for those of us whom Steven touched in one small way or another. He knew the risks and went to Iraq anyway because he felt that the stories and voices of the Iraqi people must be heard. That kind of courage will be missed most of all.
Godspeed and farewell, Steven.
UPDATE and BUMP: Smash has a great suggestion on how to best show your condolences for the Vincent family. Mark Tapscott has a great suggestion as to how to remember Vincent for his work: add him to the Freedom Forum’s journalist memorial.
Other reactions from the blogosphere:
Michelle Malkin (with links)
Marc Landers
Lorie Byrd
Arthur Chrenkoff
Publius Pundit
Mark Tapscott
La Shawn Barber
Cori Dauber
James Joyner
Jim Henley
Danny Glover (National Journal)
NARN links:
Power Line
Mitch Berg
King Banaian
Fraters Libertas

Report Says Dems Intimidated Voters Far More Than GOP In 2004 (Updates!!)

UPDATE II: I still haven’t seen much about where ACVR gets its funding. I have seen plenty about how Mark F. “Thor” Hearne worked on the Bush/Cheney campaign in 2000 and 2004. But the other signatory to the report is Brian A. Lunde, who by this description hardly appears to be a right-wing idealogue:

Please be sure to read the update at the end.
Be sure to read UPDATE II as well. The trolls may have overstated the issues with ACVR as a front.
I missed this when it first came out in yesterday’s Arizona Central Bizwire, but an independent report from the new American Center for Voting Rights Legislative Fund identifies far more incidents of voter intimidation and fraud on behalf of Democrats and their candidates than it did on behalf of their opponents. Their report, available here on their website, makes it clear that Democrat complaints about Republican conspiracies consist of little more than a classic case of projection:

While Democrats routinely accuse Republicans of voter intimidation and suppression, neither party has a clean record on the issue. Instead, the evidence shows that Democrats waged aggressive intimidation and suppression campaigns against Republican voters and volunteers in 2004. Republicans have not been exempt from similar criticism in this area, as alleged voter intimidation and suppression activity by GOP operatives led the Republican National Committee to sign a consent decree repudiating such tactics in 1982. However, a careful review of the facts shows that in 2004, paid Democrat operatives were far more involved in voter intimidation and suppression efforts than their Republican counterparts. Examples include:
* Paid Democrat operatives charged with slashing tires of 25 Republican get-out-the-vote vans in Milwaukee on the morning of Election Day.
* Misleading telephone calls made by Democrat operatives targeting Republican voters in Ohio with the wrong date for the election and faulty polling place information.
* Intimidating and deceiving mailings and telephone calls paid for by the DNC threatening Republican volunteers in Florida with legal action.
* Union-coordinated intimidation and violence campaign targeting Republican campaign offices and volunteers resulting in a broken arm for a GOP volunteer in Florida.

Most of these incidents have received plenty of attention in the blogosphere, but have received little systematic analysis in the Exempt Media. The complaints of the Democrats have received plenty of media play, and they have formed the basis of some embarrassing grandstanding by leading Democratic politicians, notably Barbara Boxer’s efforts to decertify Ohio’s electors in January which held up the certification of Bush’s victory for two hours. However, the ACVR report shows almost all of their claims to have no merit whatsoever.
Be sure to read through all the details of the report. It takes a comprehensive view of all the so-called “irregularities” of the 2004 election and makes minced meat of Democratic claims of victimhood. It will not change any minds among the True Believers, but the rational moderates will have this much more information with which to judge the vanishing credibility of Democratic leadership.
UPDATE: Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice says that the ACVL has some controversial and potentially partisan financing. He’s checking into it now. It’s worth maintaining some skepticism on this report until more is known about the organization, which came into existence this past February and describes itself as a non-partisan effort to ensure clean elections. I’d consider Joe to be a pretty solid resource on this type of issue. I don’t think all the mea culpas he issued on his post were warranted — after all, we could get most of the information in this report from media accounts — but he does have a point about ensuring that the group isn’t acting as a front.
UPDATE II: I still haven’t seen much about where ACVR gets its funding. I have seen plenty about how Mark F. “Thor” Hearne worked on the Bush/Cheney campaign in 2000 and 2004. But the other signatory to the report is Brian A. Lunde, who by this description hardly appears to be a right-wing idealogue:

Brian A. Lunde (1976) served as national field director for Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign, as executive director of the Kentucky Democratic Party and as executive director for the Democratic National Committee before becoming a partner in Lunde & Burger, a political consulting and government relations firm in McLean, Va.

This description also includes Lunde’s former DNC board membership as his background. Also here. Here, too. Lunde shows up attached to Helping Americans Vote on this site. His only campaign contribution in the past four years went to Congressman Mike Ross (D-AR). And for those wondering if Lunde went from Ted Kennedy to Pat Buchanan, here’s a tidbit from this past May:

Meanwhile, a federal grand jury reportedly has subpoenaed the records of two other lobbyists — Brian Lunde and George Burger — hired for $50,000 by Scanlon to win Democratic support for the amendment. Proponents of the amendment had wanted it attached to an election-revision bill that Dodd had sponsored in the Senate.
The two Democrats, Brian Lunde and George Burger, in turn are said to have paid $10,000 to a third lobbyist linked to Dodd, Lottie Shackelford, to secure the senator’s support for the single-sentence rider that would have unshuttered the casino closed by Texas authorities.

It appears that the report, at least, has some bipartisan credentials, even if the Democrat has some lobbying baggage. (More on Lunde can be found on this Google search.) It doesn’t mean that it’s completely unbiased, but it doesn’t appear to be the fraud that some commenters claim it to be, either. (h/t: John R.)
UPDATE III: Joe Gandelman, ever the gentleman, updated his post to note my findings on Brian Lunde. Joe still maintains that he regrets getting involved in the story and thinks the Arizona Republic did a poor job in its coverage by not mentioning the controversy surrounding the group’s status. I agree with that, too; the Republic pulled the story from its website rather than address the issues. My feeling is that the partnership between a Democratic activist and a GOP activist makes this report bipartisan — but doesn’t guarantee anything else other than that. It does negate the allegations of fraud (at least relating to the bipartisanship of this report) made in the comments of his blog and mine.
I encourage people to read the report and then check the sources, and make up their own minds on the report’s credibility.
LAST UPDATE: It looks like The Commissar and Pat from Brainster did a better search at Open Secrets (I searched on Occupation) and found an additional couple of donations to George BUsh for 2004, around $4,000 between him and his wife. It looks like Lunde did a Zell in 2004. Again, read the report and check the sources for yourselves. (Thanks to the Commissar and Pat for dropping me an e-mail on the subject.)

Islamic Jihad’s Bad Aim A National Scandal: PA

Now we know what it takes to get Palestinian terrorists to stop killing Israelis long enough to allow them to withdraw from the Gaza Strip — terrorists with bad aim killing Palestinian children. Islamic Jihad announced that it will observe a cease-fire intended to allow Israel time to get out of Gaza after they killed a 5-year-old Palestinian boy in a botched missile attack in Beit Hanoun:

A major Palestinian militant group promised Wednesday it would fire no more rockets at Israelis during Israel’s planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, after a barrage inadvertently killed a 5-year-old Palestinian boy. …
There was no claim of responsibility for the assault Tuesday night, which was aimed at a large gathering of Israeli withdrawal opponents in the town of Sderot just over the Gaza border.
Instead, the rudimentary rockets hit a house in the Palestinian town of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, killing the 5-year-old and wounding 10 other people, including six children. Four are children of a former Palestinian Cabinet minister, Hisham Abdel Razek, a senior official in the ruling Fatah party.

Neither Islamic Jihad nor Hamas would take responsibility for the botched attack, but IJ had spent the past few months defying the cease-fire as part of the triangle strategy I’ve described often here at CQ. That allows two of the three main terrorist factions — IJ, Hamas, and Fatah — to endorse cease-fire agreements while the third ignores them. When Israel responds in kind, then the other two blame Israel for violating the cease fire and begin attacking again. This strategy has played itself out more regularly than Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, and yet people routinely take the Palestinians seriously when they pronounce their willingness to stop terrorist attacks on Israeli buses, pizzerias, and so on.
The Palestinian Authority singled out this one incident for particularly harsh criticism. Cabinet minister Mohammed Dahlan stated:

“What took place last night is a national scandal,” Dahlan said. “This is unfortunately not the first time that Palestinian victims are being killed. … We should put an end to this by any means, by force, or by pursuing and convincing.”

The Palestinian minister makes the argument, therefore, that only those terrorist attacks that kill Palestinians by accident, rather than ones that kill Israeli civilians on purpose, qualify as a “national scandal”. The scandal appears to involve the aim and training of the terrorists rather than the attacks themselves.
Do the world and the US propose these leaders at partners for peace, as the basis for a stable sovereign government? From their actions and rhetoric, it appears that all we’re getting is a secular Taliban, or a Ba’ath regime without the ideology, that intends on providing aid and shelter to terrorists — as long as their aim improves.
UPDATE: The peace didn’t last long. IJ now denies it will honor any cease-fire:

Official Islamic Jihad sources on Wednesday denied a news report that quoted the organization as having foresworn Qassam rocket attacks until after the completion of the disengagement. …
[Islamic] Jihad agreed to a truce earlier this year but it has since been behind a number of deadly attacks, including a suicide bombing in Netanya last month.

Israel should remain on high alert and respond to IJ provocations, as necessary. Palestinians, meanwhile, should learn to duck.

A Blogger In Need

One of the first blogs I ever read was Electric Venom, the domain of Venomous Kate and a nice blend of political debate and personal venting. She taught me a bit about the etiquette of blogging and gave me some good advice early on. If one can be said to be an “old-school” blogger, Venomous Kate certainly qualifies.
Now she needs our help. She went cycling with her young son and had a bad accident which has knocked out a number of her teeth. In order to pay for the enormous dental bills, she has asked for donations to her PayPal account. As far as I know, this is the only bleg Kate has ever staged at Electric Venom, amazing since a visit to her site shows how much time and money she has spent on the aesthetics. If you can, drop a few dollars in the PayPal account. After all, how can we have an effective Venomous Kate without her teeth? (via Instapundit)
Note: You may need to use the PayPal link on her left sidebar rather than the one on the post. The post link doesn’t seem to work.

Questionnaire Provides More Answers On Roberts

The Washington Post reports this morning that a questionnaire and other documents released by the White House provide more answers about the judicial philosophy of John Roberts, revealing his impulse towards judicial restraint and deference to Congress in fashioning law and policy. These revelations should soothe conservative nervousness about the potential for Roberts to become another David Souter, while causing more liberal anguish and opposition:

Responding to a question about judicial activism, Roberts said, “When the other branches of government exceed their constitutionally-mandated limits, the courts can act to confine them to the proper bounds. It is judicial self-restraint, however, that confines judges to their proper constitutional responsibilities.” …
The new documents disclosed by the archive that reflect Roberts’ skeptical views regarding a “fundamental” right to privacy include a lengthy article on judicial restraint that he apparently drafted for publication in a journal of the American Bar Association under the name of then-Attorney General William French Smith, his boss.
The article approvingly quoted from a dissenting opinion by Justice Hugo Black in a 1965 court decision, in which the majority held that a Connecticut law forbidding the use of contraceptives was unconstitutional. Black’s opinion, as cited in the draft, complained that the court had used “a loose, flexible, uncontrolled standard for holding laws unconstitutional.” The draft article said that “the broad range of rights which are now alleged to be ‘fundamental’ by litigants, with only the most tenuous connection the to Constitution, bears ample witness to the dangers of this doctrine.” …
A second memo, sent by Roberts to the attorney general on Dec. 11, 1981, summarized a lecture six years earlier by then- Solicitor General Erwin N. Griswold at Washington and Lee University, which touched on the same theme. Griswold’s lecture, Roberts said, “devotes a section to the so-called ‘right to privacy,’ arguing as we have that such an amorphous right is not to be found in the Constitution. He specifically criticizes Roe v. Wade.”
The words “so-called” do not appear in Griswold’s lecture. But Roberts drafted a letter to Griswold, signed by Smith, saying he was cheered that Griswold made “many of the same points” that the administration had about these matters.

Those quotes should get NARAL and its political allies into overdrive, and indeed the Post quotes the pro-abortion group president as accusing Roberts of running a “lawyerly” political campaign, intended on deceiving people into thinking that he has an open mind. Open-mindedness, however, isn’t what NARAL or the Left want from a Supreme Court nominee; they want someone who will parrot the party line on privacy rights, primarily Roe v Wade, without opening their minds to the poor legal craftsmanship of the decision. NARAL and Senators who rely on the abortion-lobby support want a nominee who will pledge to be bound by stare decisis, which means applying a bullheaded closed-mindedness to any new cases which might substantially challenge previous court precedent.
Nor does the reporting from the Post sound exactly neutral in this case. The Post breathlessly tells its readers that “the White House did not previously disclose Cheney’s role in questioning Roberts more than two months before he met Bush,” and leads with the shocking information that the administration had started interviewing candidates for a potential Supreme Court opening months ago, including Roberts. Mike Allen and R. Jeffrey Smith make it sound quite conspiratorial, later noting that he met several times with AG Alberto Gonzales, Bush advisors Andrew Card and (cue the Imperial Theme) Karl Rove, among others in at least three separate interviews before Sandra Day O’Connor stepped down.
Well, excuse me for noting the obvious, but people have talked about the certainty of at least one Supreme Court nomination during this Bush term since the 2004 Presidential campaign. In fact, for both parties, the issue generated plenty of fund-raising fodder, hardly making a secret of the point. One would hope that any president who had this many potential openings facing him would have already begun to develop a short list of potential nominees to fill the spots. One does not start narrowing down candidates without first meeting with them to judge their temperament, their philosophies, and their willingness to go through the ever-increasing insanity necessary to get confirmed.
Common sense tells us that any administration could not possibly conduct its due diligence on a key position such as this court opening in the couple of weeks between O’Connor’s resignation and the announcement of Roberts as her replacement. Even at that, the media griped at the length of time Bush took to make his decision — and then later claimed he rushed the announcement to distract people from the Plame leak investigation. The lack of ‘disclosure’ that Cheney and others met with Roberts prior to O’Connor’s resignation means nothing, and in the context of this article, sounds rather silly.
The documents released show that the White House does not feel the need to hide Roberts’ view from the Judiciary or the American public. It strengthens their case that the remaining unreleased documents have been withheld for principled reasons, protecting the Executive attorney-client privelege. The Senate has plenty of information from which to derive their assessments of John Roberts as an attorney, a jurist, and a Supreme Court nominee. Now, conservatives also have their answers on Roberts’ dedication to judicial restraint and conservativism as well, and can reasonably deduce that he will not transform into the Second Coming of Souter, once installed.

Dafydd: Imminent Domain

This one slid under the electrified fence, wriggled through the bales of razor-wire, and nearly escaped. Fortunately, my elf-eyed wife Sachi caught it in the spotlight at the last moment.
After the Supreme Court held in Kelo v. New London that the city of New London could seize non-blighted residential real estate and sell it to a developer for no other “public use” reason than the fact that pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Inc. would pay more property tax on that land, many of us predicted that it would be open season on private property… and not just residential, either. Why not seize a group of small businesses, throw the owners out with a cut-rate payout, and sell the land to a much larger corporation? Wouldn’t the public be better served by a brand, spanking new commercial apartment complex than some dirty old auto-parts stores?
Well, I know you’ll be shocked, shocked to learn that the City of Oakland — whose mayor is the former governor of California and champion of the little guy Jerry Brown — has done exactly that, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Thriving businesses, including Revelli Tires and Autohouse, the latter owned — formerly owned — by first-generation immigrant Tony Fung, have been told to pack up and move out, find somewhere else, go away, because Oakland needs their property for a wonderful new private apartment complex.

Oakland also evicted Tony Fung, Revelli’s next-door neighbor and the owner-operator of Autohouse on 20th Street. “I am a first-generation immigrant, ” Fung told me. “This is my American dream.”
To hell with Fung’s dream — the City of Oakland seized it, so that someone else can build on it. And without offering enough money for Fung to relocate his business, he says.

It’s all part of Oakland’s downtown redevelopment. When reporter Debra J. Saunders caught up with Brown, he was in full Captain Renault form:

“I know Revelli,” said Brown. “He fixed my brakes, twice.” Brown lives seven blocks away from Revelli’s shop. He admitted that Autohouse and Revelli Tires are not blighted, but told of other buildings nearby that were crime- ridden and vermin-infested before the city pushed for redevelopment.
“You cannot have a downtown with this kind of abandonment,” said Brown. And: “There is a greater good here,” in eradicating the blight and replacing it with homes.

I’m shocked, shocked to find that Eminent Domain is going on in here!
Your takings, sir.
Lest we think Jerry Brown might not have a heart of gold, but perhaps some other element (Plutonium springs to mind), he hastened to reassure us that he’s still fighting for the little guy:

The mayor also made a pledge: “It’s not easy, but I personally pledge to do everything I can to get [John Revelli] located.” Fung, too.

It almost raises a lump in the throat. Or perhaps one’s gorge.
So until and unless each and every state in the Union gets busy and enacts a state constitutional amendment insisting that “public use” actually means, you know, use by the public, don’t imagine for one second that your own property is secure. Assume all property is under imminent threat of Eminent Domain whenever the local Eye of Sauron notices its existence.

Let The Lawsuits Begin

In Ohio’s second Congressional district, the GOP has apparently held the seat against a well-funded challenge from a Democrat who recently returned from Iraq. Jean Schmidt beat Paul Hackett by four points and 3,500 votes, a margin that in ordinary circumstances would suggest that recounts would be pointless. However, given the high profile assigned to this race by Democratic activists trying their best to elect an anti-war veteran to Congress, Ohio’s voters should expect more of the same hysterical charges of election stealing that we saw after the 2004 election.
Barbara Boxer will be warming her voice up for the morning talk shows after her first cup of coffee, I presume.
Lori at Polipundit has followed this story much more closely than I have, for reasons which I’ll cover in a moment. She says that the media will spin this as a loss for Bush, even though she sees it as a win, or a hold at the least. Perhaps. However, Hackett did come a lot closer than Kerry did in 2004 in this same district (Bush 64-36); the Democratic full-court press had its effect. I’m not sure anyone could make a case for anything better than a draw here.
In the end, it doesn’t matter much, because in 2006 this district simply won’t get the national attention it drew here. The Democrats will not have the resources to dedicate to this one single seat that they did in an off year special election. Without the overwhelming focus on this rock-solid conservative seat, it will revert to a fairly easy GOP race next year — especially if the Democrats foul the atmosphere with a slew of pointless lawsuits.
The Blogometer — a great new service (and free!) from the National Journal — notes that MyDD noted my lack of interest in this race, although Chris complimented me in being effective at influencing races. It’s true; I didn’t have much of a dog in this race. Congressional races tend to be more about the local politics in the district rather than national issues, a fact which the Democrats discovered tonight. Since I have little information about the district, I decided to keep my mouth shut and just follow the coverage during the stretch run. Part of building an influential voice is knowing when to use it, and when to let others use theirs and stay silent.
Addendum: Michelle Malkin notes that the stolen-election meme has already arisen at the once-sane Talking Points Memo, courtesy of Josh Marshall:

Late Update: Schmidt pulling ahead late. Did the call go out to Diebold?

However, it gets worse at the usually-rational MyDD (in the comments, not the posts):

In a 50-50 race, the last county reporting, after a huge time gap, is the Republican stronghold. They blame the delay on the WEATHER (which can’t be too different from the other counties) and their website goes offline before they finish the count.
Does anybody DOUBT that something’s rotten in Clermont?
Hackett must have observers there, and I hope they’re taking notes. We need to be ready for rapid reaction to any hints of what the GOP pulled tonight.
The Clermont County Board of Elections has to go under the microscope, starting NOW. …
“Just reported on local news here in Cincinnati (channel 19)that there were “voting irregularities” (*channel 19’s words not mine) in Clermont & that the remaining precincts were being counted by hand.” …
First time post on mydd.com. My friend is the assistant financial director for Hackett and for the past week or so has been calling me to do “opposition research”. I simply checked the blogs and forwarded the info, they loved it down there so thanks for all the comments from everyone. Even though my friend is currently at the Hackett party, she is again calling me for the numbers and info, I second the notion that mydd has the best election coverage.
More importantly, can anyone tell me how 50% of a county reports at the exact same time, and how the other half sits around waiting?
PS does anyone have more details on those “voting iregularities?

No lead holds any meaning to the True Believers, and they’ll all be hiring lawyers in the morning, unless Hackett concedes soon. Failing that, we’ll be hearing Max Cleland comparisons for the next couple of months. Feh.