That would be Harry Reid’s worst nightmare come true. According to the latest Rasmussen Poll, only 41% of Americans now support the Obama health care plan. And if the Senate Democrats are forced to go home and face voter wrath head-on over the Christmas holidays, it could spell the end for the legislation in the 111th Congress.

With that being the case, even some House leaders are wondering why McConnell doesn’t simply require unanimous consent on any, or every, amendment that comes to the floor. The maneuver would force Reid to get 60 votes before proceeding on each amendment. And some of the bill’s opponents are suggesting it could sideline it until next Christmas.

Of course, it is looking more and more likely that Mitch McConnell actually wants the legislation to pass. He seems to be gambling that if it passes, he becomes Senate Majority Leader.

• Last week former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld reacted strongly to the White House’s allegation that military commanders in Afghanistan were denied troop requests under the previous administration.  Actually, that’s too weak a statement: Rumsfeld denied that anything of the sort had happened under his watch.
• Which, in point of fact, it did not: the administration was referring to events in 2008 - under Rumsfeld’s successor, Robert Gates (who is also the current SecDef, by the way) - and said events can be more accurately described as a ‘delay,’ not a ‘refusal.’  The requests were made by General David McKiernan.
• Yes, the David McKiernan that Gates fired.
• When pressed on this, current White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs must have felt backed into a corner.  After all, he was trying to justify the White House sneering at a policy implemented by a Secretary of Defense that the new administration had retained, and at the expense of a military general that the new administration had sacked.  Gibbs being Gibbs, he took the opportunity to try to change the subject by sniping at Rumsfeld some more.
• Because, of course, this administration is terrified of ever, ever admitting being wrong about anything.  Sort of like what the Left pretended that the previous administration was like, only for real.

All of this is context for the response from Rumsfeld’s office:

The administration now claims President Obama was actually referring to denials of troops by his own Secretary of Defense in 2008.  This is obviously not what the President meant.  If it is what the President meant, he owes an apology to General McKiernan for dismissing him, for it was General McKiernan who sought additional forces in 2008.

This looseness with the facts seems to be a pattern in the current administration’s efforts to blame their challenges on their predecessors.  Nearly one year into this administration, that approach is wearing thin.

My only quibble with that is the use of the phrase  ‘wearing thin.’  It wore bare months ago.

Full statement after the fold.

Statement by Keith Urbahn
Office of Donald Rumsfeld
December 4, 2009

Washington D.C. –

“White House officials are not credible in denying President Obama’s intended meaning when he said on Wednesday night that ‘commanders’ were ‘repeatedly’ denied additional troops and resources in Afghanistan.

The administration now claims President Obama was actually referring to denials of troops by his own Secretary of Defense in 2008. This is obviously not what the President meant. If it is what the President meant, he owes an apology to General McKiernan for dismissing him, for it was General McKiernan who sought additional forces in 2008.

This looseness with the facts seems to be a pattern in the current administration’s efforts to blame their challenges on their predecessors. Nearly one year into this administration, that approach is wearing thin.

Afghanistan has always posed challenges, but in the judgment of the commanders at the time, Afghanistan was properly resourced for at least the first five years of the conflict. Those resources were aligned with proper and achievable goals: eliminating an al-Qaida sanctuary and preventing further terrorist attacks against the United States.”

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded greenhouse gases are endangering people’s health and must be regulated, signaling that the Obama administration is prepared to contain global warming without congressional action if necessary.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson scheduled a news conference for later Monday to announce the so-called endangerment finding, officials told The Associated Press, speaking privately because the announcement had not been made.

And by ‘reward’ I mean of course ‘betrayal.’  The intention here is to use the EPA to impose by executive fiat what the Senate has sensibly refused to do by legislative action: use the Clean Air Act to shut down businesses that they don’t like.  And, given that the dislike is based on religious grounds - and much, much, much worse; the people with the religious objections don’t see themselves as being religious - forget about trying to compromise.  The ‘compromise’ is that the industrialists don’t go to jail, a monastery, or the gibbet*.

In short: elections have consequences.  Here, have some.

Moe Lane

(H/T: AoSHQ)

*Obviously, being burned at the stake isn’t really carbon-neutral.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

[UPDATE]: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) summed up my reaction to this pretty nicely:

“With double-digit unemployment and over 3.5 million jobs already lost this year, the administration inexplicably continues to push for a job-killing national energy tax—either through legislation or regulation.”

But, cap and tax legislation threatens that safe, abundant and affordable food and fiber supply.  The agriculture industry, as we know it, will not survive under the heavy burdens of a cap and tax policy.

This week the Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy, and Research held two important hearings to learn more about the economic impact of climate change legislation.  Despite the fact that the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed the Waxman-Markey climate change bill last June – a bill that I voted against—this is only the second time Members of the Agriculture Committee have had the opportunity to explore specifically the economic impact of climate change legislation on the agriculture sector.

Witnesses at the hearing included the chief economist from the U.S. Department of Agriculture as well as members of academia. They highlighted and discussed various studies that have been completed on the costs of cap and trade on the agriculture industry.

Although these studies make different assumptions or have different end results, the overwhelming conclusion from each one is that the cost to agriculture is real.  Our farmers and ranchers have much to lose and very little, if anything, to gain.

During the hearing, Dr. Joseph Glauber from USDA said, “there is no question that agriculture is an energy intensive sector… [and] agriculture will be hit by higher energy costs.” Another witness, Dr. John M. Antle from Montana State University, testified that the current economic studies “have tended to under-emphasize the costs of adaptation” for farmers. Dr. Patrick Westhoff from the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute added that “the House-passed legislation would raise energy costs and this would translate into higher farm production expenses.”

It is expected that higher energy prices and higher operating costs will decrease farm income anywhere from $5 billion to $50 billion per year.

Dr. Glauber also testified that a cap and trade program would dramatically reduce livestock production by double digits by 2050, which is particularly alarming.  If USDA’s analysis is true then U.S. agriculture will no longer be able to provide food security for the U.S. population, which is expected to grow by 130 million Americans by 2050.

What this all means for the American consumer is higher food costs or worse a dependency on foreign nations for our food supply.  I believe we can find alternatives to cap and trade that will not have these overwhelmingly negative effects on our farm economy.  We should be exploring these alternatives.

Meanwhile, a vote on the Senate version of a cap and tax bill is not expected until sometime next year.  This legislation seems to be just as bad if not worse than the Waxman-Markey bill.  I give credit to Oklahoma’s senior Senator, Jim Inhofe for pushing his Senate colleagues to have a deliberative debate on this issue.

My friends, the agriculture industry and rural America cannot afford the devastating economic effects of cap and tax.  We must remain alert on this issue.

Frank Lucas represents Oklahoma’s Third Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives and serves as the Ranking Member of the House Agriculture Committee.  For more Frankly Speakings, please visit Rep. Lucas’ Blog at http://www.house.gov/lucas/frankly-speaking/index.shtml.

Anyway, I generally don’t plug my TNL work here because the political stuff I write there is mostly cross-posted here anyway (the rest is sports and pop culture). But I do have a long essay up today that’s not posted here, the second part of my mammoth 3-part series on Science and Its Enemies on the Left.

Part I is here.

Part II is here.

Excerpt below the fold.

Politicized science is, itself, a subset of the most profound problem of scientific integrity: the temptation presented when science is freed from the restraints that accompany all other forms of human activity, from accountability to moral opprobrium to external civilian oversight. When experts rule, the first casualty is the quality of their expertise.

+++

The constant insistence by the Democrats that scientific progress should brook no moral restraint, and that anyone standing in the way of this particular scientific project was a dangerous theocrat, was positively chilling. Because science, with its great power not only over human liberty but human life itself, is if anything one of the human activities most in need of our most strenuous moral faculties. Biochemists and climatologists need to be subjected to civilian oversight and the moral conscience of society for precisely the same reasons as soldiers, economists, central bankers, lawyers, spies, diplomats, epidemiologists, rocket scientists, urban planners, and every other form of expert.

The temptation of the unrestrained expert comes in two stages. First, the expert in pretty much anything is subject to tunnel vision, and the greater the expertise, the greater the risk of such a focus. The expert is apt to have a limitless appetite for resources while ignoring competing social priorities. He may demand policies that maximize the ends sought by his discipline, while ignoring countervailing considerations and interests. He may refuse to accept any moral restraints or limitations on his methods or the uses of his creations.

Tunnel vision is only the beginning, however. Because the expert who learns that the recitation of jargon and the appeal to authority effectively exempts him from moral or social scrutiny has made the most dangerous discovery known to man: the ability to get away with virtually anything. Because if people will let you talk your way into money and influence with good science on the grounds that they do not understand it or have no right to obstruct it, what is to stop the expert from using bad science from accomplishing the same end, if they layman isn’t equipped to tell the difference between the two?

+++

In a society not yet as far gone as Nazi Germany, Climategate is what happens when scientists think nobody is looking, or at least that nobody is competent or willing to call them out. Given power, or the ability to influence those in power, the scientists have acted the way human beings have always acted around power. And because the Left provides greater scope than the Right for the exercise of power over civil society in the name of what science says is good for us — and because it denies the sources of moral remonstrance that can stand as a bulwark against scientific hubris — it will continue to offer the greatest temptations for scientists to be seduced by power.

See Exhibit A, a poll conducted by Mason Dixon released Sunday showing Incumbent Democrat Congresswoman Dina Titus tied with relative unknown Joe Heck in the race for the Congressional seat in NV-3.  You may never have heard of Dina Titus before; that’s because her district is one of the more reliably Democrat districts in the entire country - Democrats have an 18 point registration advantage in this district.  In keeping with what you would expect from a representative of such a heavily Democrat district, Rep. Titus voted “Yes” on all three of the major prongs of the Democrat legislative agenda for this year: Yes on the Obama Stimulus, Yes on cap-and-trade, and Yes on Obamacare.  Furthermore, Dina Titus does not have any major corruption or personal issues driving up her unfavorables like Jon Corzine did or like Chris Dodd does. It also can’t be that voters are punishing Titus for the failure of the Democratic legislative agenda in general; the House passed all three measures and Titus was a contributing factor to all three.

The only reasonable explanation of the evidence here is that even in this heavily Democrat district, the policies currently being pushed by Obama and the Democrats are simply not popular.  The Mason-Dixon poll indicates that Obamacare is currently opposed by residents of the district by a margin of 47-41.  Although crosstabs aren’t available for this poll yet, Mason Dixon claims the respondents are appropriately weighted for the district’s party registration, which leads to the conclusion that Titus (like Corzine and Deeds) is getting clobbered among independents by a huge margin.  The problem is not that the American people don’t know what the Democrats stand for; the problem is that they have seen clearly what the Democrats stand for and they don’t like it.

The online left is pushing the “you’re unpopular because you’re insufficiently liberal” meme for a very transparent reason: they are attempting to force through as much of their legislative agenda as possible during this two-year window, and are willing to sacrifice large numbers of elected Democrats to accomplish it. If I were a Democrat interested in keeping my job, this poll would make me very nervous about following their advice or about cloaking myself in Obama’s policies.  Marching in lockstep with Obama might have looked very smart for Democrats 6 months ago, now it looks to be a road to electoral defeat.

December 7th is usually a day we remember the brave men who died at Pearl Harbor.  Many of them died fighting, responding instantly to the cowardly Japanese attack that  came without warning.  

This is a day to honor bravery, resolve and sacrifice.  But this December 7th is different.  Today — because lawyers are far too involved in running this war and commanders are deferring to them far more than they should — two Navy SEALs are being arraigned on charges they abused an Iraqi terrorist after they captured him three months ago. A third will be arraigned at a later date and their courts martial could occur next month.

As Rowan Scarborough reported two weeks ago, the three SEALs — Julio Huertas, Jonathan Keefe and Matthew McCabe — were part of a platoon from SEAL Team 10 that captured one of the most-wanted terrorists in Iraq, Ahmed Hashim Abed, in a nighttime raid on or about September 1.   Abed is believed to be the man behind the barbaric March 2004 ambush of Blackwater security guards in which four were murdered, their bodies mutilated and then hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

In this coming election year, we have the chance to get some nice guys (and ladies) elected.

Over the past few years, the establishment GOP has become bloated, corrupt, greedy, inept, licentious, devoid of ideas, and weak. It has passed legislation to grow government while talking about cutting it. Its leaders have excoriated the lobbyist culture while lining their pockets. It has bungled campaigns and strategy to block Barack Obama’s legislation. The problems extend from Washington into the states.

This year, the story the media is not covering is the rise of the GOP grassroots against the GOP establishment. From Florida with Marco Rubio, to Texas with Michael Williams, to California with Chuck DeVore, and to Pennsylvania with Pat Toomey, we the conservative grassroots have a chance to defeat the GOP Establishment that has led us from a majority to a minority, from 55 Senate seats to 40, from a small government to a large one.

But it is not just at the federal level. We have an obligation, regardless of where we live, to help at the state level too. We must make sure the nice guys who fight with us are successful across the board.

That requires us, whether we live in South Carolina or not, to help Nikki Haley.

There are several good people running in South Carolina, but all of them are products of the Republican Establishment. They are men who talk of smaller government without actually fighting for it. They are men who talk of less regulation while regulating. They are men of good will who mean well, speak well, but will not government well.

Then there is Nikki Haley. She worked in her parents’ small business. She knows first hand the way government screws the little guy. She is not a big business supporter, but an entrepreneur’s best friend. Nikki Haley is worth supporting.

We have until the end of this month to make a serious impact for her. I want December to be Nikki Haley month at RedState. The whole nation is talking about Marco Rubio because of what we have done. Same with Michael Williams. Same with Chuck DeVore. Now let us help Nikki Haley in the same way.

We must help within the states too — if the federalist experiment is to survive, it must be supported inside the states, not just at the federal level. Supporting Nikki Haley does just that.

Nikki Haley is one of us. Now we need to stick up for her and fund her. If you have money, give it. If you have time, give it. If you have prayers, offer them up. Let’s pray for her, fund her campaign, and work to get Nikki Haley elected as the next Governor South Carolina.

In 2002, Republicans took over the Georgia State Senate and Governor’s Mansion for the first time since the Civil War.

In 2004, the GOP took over the State House of Representatives.

In 2006, the GOP completed its take over of the State of Georgia, capturing the Lt. Governor’s seat, the Secretary of State’s Office, and solidifying its hold on the legislature.

In 2008, when the GOP was crumbling everywhere, it was a banner Republican year in Georgia.

In 2010, the Republicans might be annihilated from the State of Georgia. They would deserve it.

A Lt. Governor caught with his pants down, a Speaker of the House who tried to commit suicide, and a host of potential leaders waiting in the wings all with adultery problems — the GOP deserves destruction in Georgia if it does not clean its own house immediately.

Put simply, while breaking out the guillotine to chop off Speaker Glenn Richardson’s head, the Georgia Republican Party needs to line up Mark Burkhalter, Ben Harbin, Casey Cagle, and a few others behind him. Do it all at one time.

Cleaning up all the blood at once will be far cheaper in the long run.

Georgia Speaker Glenn Richardson two weeks ago announced he had tried to commit suicide. The Speaker went through a very messy divorce. His best friends were all killed in one day in a plane crash together. He had undertaken an affair with a lobbyist that did not work out well. He admitted to suffering severe depression. People were willing to give him a second chance.

But then his ex-wife spoke out. She had the text messages and voicemails of a belligerent Speaker threatening to use his power to destroy her. What’s more, additional revelations into the Speaker’s affair showed that he might have used his power to help his mistress’s company — Atlanta Gas Light — get some sweet legislation passed.

While many had wanted to give the Speaker the benefit of the doubt, his ex-wife’s television interview and the new revelations sealed the deal. He had to go.

Under Georgia law, when the Speaker prematurely leaves office, the Speaker Pro Tempore automatically becomes Speaker until an election can be called within the House of Representatives. That election must happen in around 100 days.

Meeting in back rooms, late into the night, and with the Governor, a deal was hammered out. Speaker Richardson will resign. No, not now. That would make too much sense. The Speaker will hang on until the first of the year, be replaced by Speaker Pro Tempore Mark Burkhalter, who would then call an election and throw his support to House Majority Leader Jerry Keen. In exchange, the Speaker Pro Tempore will get appointed by Governor Perdue to lead the Georgia World Congress Center — a cushy job.

There is just one problem — the Speaker Pro Tempore has his own sex scandal.

A few years ago, Mark Burkhalter, took a lobbyist funded trip to Daufuskie Island, SC with a group of strippers. He claimed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he sure enjoyed himself.

Burkhalter, who agreed to the deal to step aside in favor of Rep. Jerry Keen is now having second thoughts and is considering staying on as Speaker, image problems be damned.

Georgia House Republicans would be wise to throw him out. He is no friend of social conservatives and truly is no real friend to fiscal conservatives — he’s from the school of Republican thought that believes he represents the highest bidder.

And strippers. Lots of strippers.

Jerry Keen, the House Majority Leader, might actually be a good Speaker. He is not scandal plagued. He keeps his pants on. But he has also been part of the team that caused all the problems. He also entered into this backroom deal that, while it might assure him the Speaker’s chair if Burkhalter keeps his word (a nebulous hope), it does so at the expense of clean up.

Then there is the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Ben Harbin of Augusta. Representative Harbin was arrested a while back, charged with DUI, and found to be in the company of a certain young lady who is not his wife. Allegedly, there are still issues.

The House GOP has been perfectly willing to keep Harbin in his Chairmanship. In fact, pretty much every philanderer, tax cheat, con artist, and crook has remained undisciplined by both the House and Senate Republicans. They are behaving more like the national Democrats in their support of Charlie Rangel and Jack Murtha than as Republicans.

If the Republicans in the Georgia House of Representatives do not find someone who is willing to keep his pants on to be their Speaker, they might as well hand the reins over to the Democrats. No one is looking for a Saint Speaker, but one without a propensity for philandering with lobbyists would be nice.

If that is not bad enough, let us turn our attention to the Georgia State Senate. In the Lieutenant Governor’s Chair sits Casey Cagle, the man who destroyed Ralph Reed’s chances of ever getting into elected office. Cagle intended to run for Governor of Georgia this year, but due to “back surgery” he felt would make running for statewide office too burdensome, he decided to seek re-election as Lt. Governor — also a statewide office.

Rumors have long circulated that Cagle has a philandering problem too. This is the point where we get into wink-wink-nod-nod territory as there have been long, assorted, and firm denials (puns kind of intended), but pretty much anyone you talk to treats the stories as fact.

Basically, the main story goes (and this story is not new), after Cagle got elected Lt. Governor and before he actually took the office, a secretary whose name many of us know walked into his office looking for him and found him standing receiving . . . well . . . let’s call it a Lewinsky . . . from a lady not his wife who shortly thereafter allegedly parted ways with Cagle’s campaign wherein she had been employed.

And that’s not the only rumor about the Lt. Governor and not the only woman allegedly connected to the Lt. Governor. The latest story, recounted nearly identically to me by a couple of people, circulating about the Lt. Governor involves earrings that went missing in his vehicle — he wanted someone’s head for the supposed theft until it was politely pointed out that the incident would create a record and Mrs. Cagle might wonder exactly which pair of her earrings had gone missing.

Sadly, unlike the Speaker, the Lt. Governor is an elected office by the voters, and there is not much anyone can do except marginalize him in office. That is precisely what the GOP must do.

Cagle, not a very effective leader anyway, should be treated as the Republicans treated Mark Taylor, the former Democratic Lt. Governor, once the GOP had taken over the Senate. Taylor became a figure head with virtually no power.

If the Georgia Republican Party will not clean up its own house, the voters will. We saw that happen to the Republicans at the national level in 2006 and 2008. Georgia Republicans need someone with the fortitude to clean up the culture of scotch and strippers that now permeates the Georgia General Assembly.

There are signs the Georgia GOP is learning its lessons and will clean house. I hope it will. And I hope it does so quickly and thoroughly. It is unpleasant to write about this, but sunshine is terrific disinfectant. Allegations, innuendo, and rumor are never the stuff that should bring down a person or party, but let’s be honest — everyone is using the words “rumor,” “allegation,” and “innuendo” knowing that there have been no admissions except from the Speaker, but plenty of loose lips, quiet nods, and hushed laughter.

Let the sunshine in. Off with all their heads. Quickly please.
————————-

EXIT QUESTION: For those of you, particularly the men who are named herein and their employees, crying foul about me daring to actually talk about the rumors and say precisely what those rumors are, answer this question. Why is it that the people most concerned about these stories and pushing them hardest are not political enemies of these men, but their political friends?

Suspicions were growing last night that Russian security services were behind the leaking of the notorious British ‘Climategate’ emails which threaten to undermine tomorrow’s Copenhagen global warming summit.

An investigation by The Mail on Sunday has discovered that the explosive hacked emails from the University of East Anglia were leaked via a small web server in the formerly closed city of Tomsk in Siberia.

(Via JammieWearingFool) Specifically, the Russian FSB, which is of course the successor organization to the KGB. You know: the organization that Vladimir Putin used to run.  And if you’re wondering why a slightly institutionally paranoid nation-state that’s a major producer of fossil fuels might be interested in publishing compromising materials involving groups trying to cut fossil fuel production… well, read that again until you work it out.

On the bright side, maybe this will encourage Democrats to start pushing back on (unrelated) Russian attempts to aggrandize themselves at our expense.  It could happen: Ted Kennedy is dead, after all.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

A prominent global warming scientist has threatened New York Times reporter Andy Revkin because Revkin dared to run a lighthearted piece about the prostitutes in Copenhagen.

Schlesinger emailed Revkin and told Revkin he was about to experience “the ‘Big Cutoff’ from [scientists]” who think they can no longer trust Revkin to just parrot their talking points.

Wow.

As Steven notes, these people really are humorless.

Slowly and mostly unnoticed by the major news media, the air has been going out of the global warming balloon. Global temperatures stopped rising a few years ago, much to the dismay of the climate campaigners. The U.N.’s upcoming Copenhagen conference–which was supposed to yield a binding greenhouse gas emissions reduction treaty as a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol–collapsed weeks in advance and remains on life support pending Obama’s magical intervention. Cap and trade legislation is stalled on Capitol Hill. Recent opinion polls from Gallup, Pew, Rasmussen, ABC/Washington Post, and other pollsters all find a dramatic decline in public belief in human-caused global warming. The climate campaigners continue to insist this is because they have a “communications” problem, but after Al Gore’s Nobel Prize/Academy Award double play, millions of dollars in paid advertising, and the relentless doom-mongering from the media echo chamber and the political class, this excuse is preposterous. And now the climate campaign is having its Emperor’s New Clothes moment.

Read the whole thing.

Professor Sinninghe Damste’s research, as discussed on the site of the Dutch Organization of Scientific Research (DOSR) — a governmental body — shows that the icecap of Kilimanjaro was not the result of cold air but of large amounts of precipitation which fell at the beginning of the Holocene period, about 11,000 years ago.

The melting and freezing of moisture on top of Kilimanjaro appears to be part of  “a natural process of dry and wet periods.” The present melting is not the result of “environmental damage caused by man.”

Guess that Al Gore’s going to come up with a new talking point - HA! I kid, I kid. He’ll ignore it completely, of course. Doesn’t fit the religious orthodoxy.  It’s too good an iconic image for proselytizing efforts.  Can’t confuse the faithful, no?

[pause]

Eppur e’ meno umido.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

But the left is starting to flex its muscles and are beginning to be annoyed, and really concerned about all the compromises that have been made thus far.

The pro-abortion forces know that there is a good chance the bill will not go to conference, where the leadership can change it at will. The first thing that would go would be the abortion restrictions — but having a House-Senate conference is not a certainty. The fastest way to the President’s desk, is to send the Senate bill directly to the House for an up or down vote – if it passes.

As you, dear reader know, I do not think the bill will make it past the Senate floor, but many on both sides disagree — pessimistic opponents and rose-colored-glasses-wearing-proponents. I am mentioning the “ping-pong” strategy of skipping conference because the pro-abortion forces cannot take the risk that Senator Nelson’s demands make it into the bill and the bill goes to the House, without going to (as they see it) the cleansing conference. (I am assuming, in this the bill will die prediction, that the Senate GOP Leadership stops their insane agreements to Senator Reid’s unanimous consent requests. As long as ObamaCare is on the Senate floor, Republicans must stop agreeing to any unanimous consent agreements regarding votes on amendments — but more on this in another post.)

Enter, on Friday, Senator Nelson’s “line in the sand” comment and Politico’s story with the following quote:

“I don’t ordinarily draw a line in the sand, but I have drawn a line in the sand,” Nelson said Friday.

There are those who will say that Senator Nelson will fold like a house of cards and cave on his demands, but here is what Politico is reporting:

“There is a worry that Sen. Nelson means business,” said a senior Senate Democratic aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss strategy. “Unlike with public option, there is very little ground liberal Democrats are willing to give on this issue. Abortion, not the public option, may be the cause of our first official defection.”

The dirty little secret among the Democratic Senate leaders is that their consensus call on the abortion issue, their collective and conventional wisdom was that they could roll the pro-abortion Senators. Maybe they could have if Stupak had not passed the House, but now the pro-abortion forces must win. They have no choice. (From their perspective, they are incredulous that they are facing massive abortion restrictions when their friends and allies are running the show — President Obama is in the White House and the Democrats control both Houses of Congress. Political shock to any constituency usually means anger.)

Senator Nelson, however, is effectively kicking sand in their face by making sure that God and everybody knows that he is going to prevent abortion being funded by taxpayer funds in this bill.

The size of the loss of the by the pro-abortion forces in the House was another shock to both sides of the debate, and if the pro-abortion forces lose again in that Senate they will begin to face a series of restrictions on abortion in the years ahead since they are clearly weak, (and weakness invites pain in Washington,)

So again, the health care debate hits the pause button on the issue of killing babies with taxpayer funds.

And over the next week we will find out if the pro-abortion forces will be rolled in the Senate, as the Democratic leadership believes, or, if the pro-abortion forces will find a Senator or Senators to draw their own line in the sand.

Stay tuned, but the Senate health bill is weak on its feet, and swaying with the repeated body blows it is taking, as the Democrats in Congress and the President continues to sink in the polls.

The fact that the entire health bill has been a political failure for the trillion-dollar President and the Democratic Congress is beginning to catch up with the Democrats. This is merely a symptom of a that political failure.

The Dems safest political option is walk away and let the bill die. It will surprise me if the risk adverse members of the Senate do not take the safest route, pounding their chest about abortion or the public option as the cover story for letting the bill die.

And given Obama’s political weakness, his cries about destroying his Presidency are moot, since he and his Jonestown Kool-Aid gang (here, drink this, everything will be fine — we promise we can revive you) at the White House has had the greatest hand in its destruction. Congress is not responsible, nor can it undo the self-inflicted damage — except to stop continuing political injury being caused by ObamaCare.

But now, the day comes that Google gets further into the ISP business. Google is launching its own public DNS server. Ignore the misleading Register header, but read the content. The Google Public DNS is a direct launch of a service that ISPs provide, and that puts Google even further into the role of a gatekeeper. They can already make a site disappear from the Internet from the perspective of their searchers, with no transparency in the process whatsoever. Now they can make a site entirely inaccessible to its users because without a DNS lookup, your webpage, your email, your everything will create error messages instead of connectivity.

So here’s the question: Will Google obey its own Google/Obama/Genachowski Net Neutrality principles, or will Google Public DNS be as non-neutral and non-transparent as every single other service Google provides? Will Google deny DNS forwarding for any domain they deem a ’spammer’ and deny ‘Pagerank’ to?

The world awaits an answer.

I do not dislike Carly Fiorina. I don’t really know her, though we’ve met a couple times. She seems like a very nice person. One day I’m sure she will be an excellent elected or appointed official.

Today is not that day in my mind.

I have tried to stay out of California. My gut tells me California is a sink hole that Republicans will not get out of. Barbara Boxer, as obnoxious as she is, is probably safe, though I understand the rationale of giving her a run for her money to distract the DSCC. However, as the NRSC has already broadcast that this is their goal, the DSCC will probably not be distracted.

Carly Fiorina gave a very good speech today, but I think it was inappropriate of the Republicans to put her, a candidate in a highly contested primary, up as their spokesman on health care.

The NRSC has, every time anyone has pointed out they have endorsed Fiorina, said they have not. They have. Frankly, I haven’t blamed them. I thought Fiorina was a good recruit and I have said so.

But I think Chuck DeVore has done everything he has needed to do to be treated as a credible candidate. His fundraising is good. His message is solid. His support is growing. His polling is equal to Fiorina’s.

The NRSC has not learned its lesson. The Republican establishment has not learned its lesson. Mitch McConnell, in his effort to lose the health care debate by making Olympia Snowe the foundation for victory, John Cornyn, who claims to want conservatives, but keeps supporting moderates, and a host of other Senators have come out for Fiorina.

Where the establishment goes, we should all be worried. Just as they led us from 55 seats to 40 seats in the Senate and just as they are leading us off a cliff in the Senate through failed messaging tactics, the establishment is going to lead us off a cliff in 2010.

I just can’t keep my mouth shut on this one. I have no problem with Fiorina, but my heart and mind are with Chuck DeVore. He is one of us. He will be a leader, not a Mitch McConnell follower. DeVore will stand with Jim DeMint. Fiorina would be no better and no worse than Kay Bailey Hutchison, drifting with the present failed Senate GOP leadership.

Friends, we need men and women of action. Chuck DeVore fits the bill. I know there are some here who will support Fiorina. That is fine by me. California is not my hill to die on. But as we fight our way back to power, I stand with Chuck DeVore because Chuck DeVore stands with me.

He can win this primary. He can give Barbara Boxer a tough race. But we must help. And better still, a DeVore victory means the GOP Establishment will not deserve and will not get any credit.

Join me. Stand with Chuck DeVore for California.

The Met Office plans to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.

The new analysis of the data will take three years, meaning that the Met Office will not be able to state with absolute confidence the extent of the warming trend until the end of 2012.

The Met Office database is one of three main sources of temperature data analysis on which the UN’s main climate change science body relies for its assessment that global warming is a serious danger to the world.

Just in time for Copenhagen, which relied heavily on the climate change data that CRU provided, and can no longer even remotely back up.  Meanwhile, the President - who seems to have a real gift at walking into these controversies at the worst possible moment for him - seems determined to use the luster of his name to ensure results at the Copenhagen thing.  Personally, I think that it’d be good for the planet, the country, and his political party if the President just dropped the trip entirely.  Which he won’t, of course.

Via Q&O, who thinks that they should completely cancel Copenhagen; and Hot Air, who thinks that the British government should stop trying to keep the Met Office from pushing the reset button.  And if either actually happens, all three of us will be massively surprised.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.