One wonders if such things are just coincidence, or copycat deaths. Two Reagan administration officials have died in as many days. First, Lyn Nofziger yesterday, and today (according to Fox News–no link yet) Cap Weinberger, one of the architects of the downfall of the Soviet Union. RIP in both cases.

The FEC has decided that campaign finance “reform” doesn’t apply to the Internet.

Bloggers would be entitled to the same exemption from the campaign finance law that newspapers and other traditional forms of media receive.

“There will be no second class citizens among members of the media,” Toner said.

I fearlessly predict that McCain and Feingold, and some “members of the media,” who do in fact think of the unannointed as “second-class citizens,” and don’t want to give up their monopoly on political speech, will be up in arms to get new legislation to end this “loophole.”

John Fund has found a more worthy student for a Yale scholarship than a former Taliban propaganda minister.

A lecture on democracy, at Columbia University, from Moammar “Looneytunes” Gaddafi:

He touted Libya’s political system as superior to “farcical” and “fake” parliamentary and representative democracies in the West.”

“There is no state with a democracy except Libya on the whole planet,” Gaddafi said to the conference at Columbia University in New York.

Libya’s Jamahiriyah system, under which Libyans can air their views at “people’s congresses,” is genuine democracy, said Gaddafi, who spoke through a translator and was dressed in purple robes and seated at a desk in front of a map of Africa.

I loved this:

Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, one of two U.S. moderators, said some of Gaddafi’s comments might have sounded jarring to Americans.

Gee, ya think? Talk about an ivory tower.

With his precious EU project in tatters, and unemployment rates in “old Europe” (i.e., Germany and France) at all-time highs, and students rioting because they won’t be guaranteed employment for life, Jacques Chirac decided to walk out of an economic conference of the EU because one of the French industrialists had the temerity to speak in the “language of business.” That is to say, English.

A series of debates between David Horowitz and “Chuch” (aka Ward Churchill, about whom, by the way, it should be asked–why does this creature continue to suck money from Colorado taxpayers?).

In continuing to report on the apparent injustice in the case of Cory Maye, Radley Balko reminds us of the ongoing war on our civil liberties in the name of the War on (Some) Drugs:

On my first day in Prentiss I met Debra Brooks, a 28-year-old white woman who says that in March 2004, officers from the Task Force raided her home after a confidential informant said she and her family were running a meth lab inside.

At around midnight, police kicked down her two outside doors without first announcing themselves, then stormed her home when her boyfriend opened the inner door to see what what going on. They trained their guns on the three young children inside, still in their beds, and held Brooks in a bedroom at gunpoint while they searched the house for contraband. They found no drugs, or evidence of meth manufacture. They did find a bong, brand new and unused, and a bottle of vodka, illegal in dry Lawrence County (Lawrence is adjacent to Jefferson Davis County). Police never produced a search warrant.

Police arrested Brooks’ boyfriend at the time, Landas Pate, and her brother, James Wesmorland. Pate would be held in prison for several months before his family could post bond. Wesmorland’s family couldn’t make the $40,000 bond. So he was held in the Lawrence County jail for 280 days, until December 2004. Remarkably, on December 30 of that year, Wesmorland was released. No charges. No explanation. He had been held on suspicion of selling meth and pills within 1,500 feet of a church. Police told him they had video surveillance of these alleged sales. They never showed him any video.

“…Words and music by Scooter Libby. From a true story about a D.C. trainwreck and the half-cocked engineer who failed to brake in time.”

A great description of (see comment #33) the current state of the l’affaire Plame/Wilson, based on the latest reporting from Byron York. It looks like Libby is going to force the trial to be about what Fitzgerald was originally hired to investigate–who gave Plame’s affiliation to the press? I have a hunch that the press and the Dems won’t be happy with the outcome (as the man once said, they can’t handle the truth).

Worst. Fitzmas. Ever.

And Tom Maguire has further thoughts.

I’d love to see a class-action suit against Elliot Spitzer.

That’s what a supposed spokes(wo)man for the Donkeys says:

It was thus curiously refreshing to hear a Democrat admit what everyone knows: the Dems have no policy and see no reason to offer one. The particular context was the war in Iraq. Interviewing Rosen on this evening’s Hardball, Chris Matthews asserted: “I don’t think your [your?] party has a policy.”

Acknowledged Rosen: “It doesn’t have a policy. It doesn’t need to have a policy. What’s the point of a Democratic policy?”

Going to break, a palpably shocked Matthews exclaimed: “I can’t believe you said that!”

Believe it, Chris.