A new poll indicates that nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults believe in creationism – the belief that God created human beings.
Harris Interactive
Bush and Litmus Tests
Last night, I was listening to Tucker Carlson’s show as I drifted off to sleep, and before I actually fell asleep, I heard this exchage:
CARLSON: Luckily, you’ll be back tomorrow, Rachel Maddow. But e-mail it, if you know, because I don’t.
Next situation, the battle for Supreme Court. President Bush says there’s, quote,
California National Guard
The LA Times has a follow up on this story about he California National Guard that states that the authorities are launching an investigation into allegations of tracking civilians:
U.S. military authorities Wednesday began investigating whether a California National Guard unit was established to spy on U.S. citizens, as about 30 demonstrators outside Guard headquarters confronted officials backed by armed soldiers.
The federal inquiry into the country’s largest National Guard force involves the Army’s inspector general, the federal National Guard Bureau’s inspector general and the National Guard Bureau’s legal division.
The unit has raised concern among peace activists that the Guard is resorting to the type of civilian monitoring that characterized Vietnam War-era protests, when the military collected information on more than 100,000 Americans during the 1960s and ’70s.
Under scrutiny is a California National Guard unit with a tongue-twisting name
Limbaugh’s Medical Records
I don’t like this one bit:
A judge gave some of Rush Limbaugh’s medical records to prosecutors Wednesday, allowing their long-stalled investigation into whether the conservative commentator illegally purchased painkillers to move forward.
Circuit Court Judge Thomas Barkdull III returned other of Limbaugh’s records to his attorney, Roy Black, who had argued some of the records contained privileged, even embarrassing, details about medical procedures, symptoms and other issues unrelated to the criminal investigation.
None of the records’ contents were revealed.
After the hearing, Black said he believed the records given to the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office would not support a criminal charge.
Limbaugh has maintained his innocence throughout the investigation, which became public in November 2003 after investigators used search warrants to seize his medical records.
“The records show that Mr. Limbaugh received legitimate medical treatment for legitimate medical reasons,” Black said in a statement.
Prosecutors seized the records after learning Limbaugh received painkillers from four doctors in six months at a Palm Beach pharmacy near his oceanfront mansion. They have said the records will prove Limbaugh engaged in “doctor shopping,” or illegally deceiving multiple doctors to receive overlapping prescriptions.
I hope the privacy loving liberals who pushed this poilitically motivated prosecution are happy with themselves. Thanks a helluva lot, guys.
Jeralynn is 100% completely, totally, unequivocably right:
I am not comfortable with this at all. It’s far too slippery a slope. While many liberals would like to see Rush taken down, this is not the way to do it. The man was addicted to pain pills, he entered and completed treatment. Who is to say how many pills he needed to combat his pain? And why should the Government, rather than the patient, be the arbiter of that?
Instead of clamoring for the Government to fry Rush, liberals should be demanding that the Government keep its laws off our bodies.
But they hate Rush too much to think straight. And for those of you who want to argue this isn’t a politically motivated prosecution, we have been through this before and I am not wasting my time arguing that again. It is. Check the archives.
Wi-Fi Theft
The first case of this I have seen:
Police have arrested a man for using someone else’s wireless Internet network in one of the first criminal cases involving this fairly common practice.
Benjamin Smith III, 41, faces a pretrial hearing this month following his April arrest on charges of unauthorized access to a computer network, a third-degree felony.
Police say Smith admitted using the Wi-Fi signal from the home of Richard Dinon, who had noticed Smith sitting in an SUV outside Dinon’s house using a laptop computer.
The practice is so new that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement doesn’t even keep statistics, according to the St. Petersburg Times, which reported Smith’s arrest this week.
Innocuous use of other people’s unsecured Wi-Fi networks is common. But experts say that illegal use often goes undetected, such as people sneaking on others’ networks to traffic in child pornography, steal credit card information, and send death threats. Security experts say people can prevent such access by turning on encryption or requiring passwords, but few bother or even know how to do so.
I am sure we can expect more of this in the future.
Good Grief
Unless someone can come up with a really good explanation, I am with Malkin and Sharkansky on this one:
The State Parks and Recreation Commission has assembled data showing that many blacks, for a variety of reasons, are not frequent users of the state’s 250,000 acres of parkland, particularly for activities like camping. This, in a state with an abundance of natural beauty
Why The Nomination Is So Important to Many
Mike Krempasky has a pretty reasonable round-up on why the full-blooded conservatives are so adamant about the SCOTUS nominee:
I’ve been thinking more about what a Gonzales nomination could mean for conservatives – and it’s not good.
We’ve watched over the past 5 years as President Bush has, politically, made many gains. He’s done so with extraordinary performance at the ballot box, at least in the Senate. Last year’s elections were extraordinary – not at the top of the ticket where the President beat John Kerry by a tiny margin using the most sophisticated and professional campaign in history – but in the US Senate elections across the country.But we’ve also watched this White House snub its nose at the conservative agenda. Those of us who believe the Republican Party is the best vehicle for conservative principles have become all too practiced at the art of excuse-making for the President.
– Steel tariffs in an attempt to satisfy unions
– An education bill that the President brags about, and Ted Kennedy smiles about.
– An unacceptable delay in signing the Partial Birth Abortion Ban
– Campaign finance regulation, despite the President’s insistence that it failed the constitutional test
– Support for the extension of the so-called assault weapons ban
– The largest entitlement expansion in forty years, one that adds a burden to our children that makes Social Security look tameThroughout it all, we have supported the President (if sometimes grudgingly). His support for economic freedom generally, and political freedom (around the globe) specifically, is worthy of praise.
But the real determinant of our support has been and will be (certainly in the continued absence of any real leadership on cultural issues) the President’s firm and demonstrated committment to putting good men and women on the federal bench.
Let me be clear: We have given the President MANY a pass almost SOLELY because of his judicial appointments.
He is right, to some extent- everyone feels somewhat betrayed by this administration (insert obligatory “see- Bush IS a uniter” quip here). They have spent so much time triangulating, signing bills I would never want supported, that for many conservatives, this is it- the judicial nominations are all that are left.
Yesterday, I described my unwillingness (to be honest, I also forgot to get a ticket) to attend the Bush rally here in my hometown:
Not to mention, I don’t fit into the two defined categories, that of Bush-supporter or Bush-hater. If they had a separate section for “Republicans who voted for Bush and support the war in Iraq but who are so pissed off by everything else this administration is doing they don’t want to be perceived as giving blanket support to the President” (John Cole, party of one), I might have gone.
The only people Bush has left are the social conservatives, and he is, it appears, going to have to dance to their tune in order to remain viable for the next few years. My only hope is that whatever conservative is nominated will have a real libertarian streak and everyone will be wrong about the nominee. I doubt it, and thus, my ‘Sullivanesque hysteria’ regarding the demands from the social cons.
I don’t agree with the agenda of the religious right, but I FULLY understand why they are making so much noise and demaninding they get what they want. They did go to bat for this administration. So did I. If I had received more in the way of what I wanted, I might be willing to look the other way about some of these issues, but instead, I have received the worst of both worlds. A fiscally reckless administration that appears to betray all of the core conservative beliefs while giving too much say (in my opinion) to the religious right. And administration that speaks in code words about homosexuals while signing McCain-Feingold. An administration that is supposedly free trade, while implementing steel and shrimp tariffs (not sure where we stand on sugar subsidies- I thought they were working to end those). You get the point.
Where to go from here…
Why The Nomination Is So Important to ManyPost + Comments (33)