DRAFT FRED.

NIFONG UPDATE: Lots of new developments in the Duke (non) rape case. K.C. Johnson is all over them, and Tom Maguire has some thoughts, too.

AN EVALUATION OF THE PORKBUSTERS CAMPAIGN: Given its low (i.e., zero) budget, it’s been highly cost-effective. But we’ve got a long way to go.

FROM STRATEGYPAGE: gloomy news about Iraq’s Sunnis, and good news about the war on al Qaeda.

Meanwhile, read this from Bill Roggio.

ER, HOW EXACTLY DO YOU “DECLARE” THAT? “Did the President Declare ‘Secret War’ Against Syria and Iran?”

UPDATE: Hmm. “Three strong explosions jolted southern Iran on Thursday, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, but gave no information about possible casualties. . . . Khuzestan, the heartland of Iran’s oil industry, has been simmering with unrest among the province’s mostly Arab population for more than a year.” Hmm, again. If this report is true, it may or may not mean anything. The Iranians are vulnerable to a tit-for-tat strategy on support for insurgents, and it’s possible that the CIA or someone is doing just that. On the other hand, this sort of thing has happened before without outside assistance. Or the report could be wrong. (Via Ace).

ANOTHER UPDATE: The explosion article above is no longer available; I guess Reuters has pulled it. Meanwhile, this newer story puts the explosions down to “mine-sweeping activities.” The original story is still available here, for the moment.

MORE: I blame UFOs.

GREG GUTFELD COME HOME: Pajamas Media is ready to negotiate!

OIL FALLS BELOW $52 a barrel, and the Dow hits a record high.

I suspect this means the markets think Bush’s plan will help. Of course, the markets aren’t military strategists.

UPDATE: Larry Kudlow reads it this way, too. I think it’s at least safe to say that the markets don’t regard the plan as likely to lead to disaster.

MORE ON PORK: Here’s video of Harry Reid criticizing Nancy Pelosi’s earmark reform plan along with the DeMint earmark reform plan. According to Reid, the House moves too quickly, and doesn’t think enough.

JOHN HAWKINS is running a GOP STRAW POLL: Vote if you like.

FRED THOMPSON ON BUSH’S SPEECH:

I was struck by a couple of things he said that indicated not just a change in tactics but a whole new attitude with regard to what’s necessary. He’s taking the gloves off. . . . I’ll bet that a lot of folks who support the president on this are asking themselves “what if we’d taken care of business this way two years ago?”

Indeed.

ROMNEY’S RAPID RESPONSE is noted by CNN’s Abbi Tatton. Scroll down for the update.

UPDATE: More here from Danny Glover.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Meanwhile, McCain’s staff denies being behind the video.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The “100 Hours” is looking pretty lame, as Senate Democrats try to shoot down the Pelosi pork reform proposal. Andy Roth reports:

The Senate is boiling with excitement right now. For background, the Senate is proposing very weak earmark reform rules. In contrast, Speaker Pelosi and the House Democrats implemented some very strong earmark rules in the lower chamber last week.

In response, Senator Jim DeMint, who is a very strong advocate for more transparency, figured, “Let’s just offer Pelosi’s reforms as an amendment to the Senate bill.”

It was a very clever strategy. Dick Durbin, the Majority Whip, threw a fit on the Senate floor and offered a motion to table it (kill it).

Let’s be clear about the rich irony here. Senate Leadership tried to kill a bill that House Leadership supported and passed. Harry Reid and Dick Durbin are basically saying that they want their pork no matter what, even if it embarrasses their own party.

So when the motion to kill the bill came to a vote, Durbin and the Democrats lost!

It should be noted that a majority should never offer a motion to table if they aren’t sure they can win. It was very embarrassing. Especially since Durbin was trying to kill a proposal that his Leadership colleagues in the House offered!

Anyways, after the motion failed, DeMint asked for a voice vote, which is common. It’s basically used to save time since de facto support of the bill was decided when the motion failed. However, Big Ted Kennedy objected, which is all that it needed to skip a voice vote.

The Dems are now off the floor whipping the hell out of their members for when they take a real roll call vote later this afternoon.

And now they’re back. Roth is updating, and this looks like a real embarrassment. The Democratic reforms in the House don’t mean a lot if the Senate is going to vote for business as usual. Harry Reid, apparently, is much less committed to ending the “culture of corruption” than Nancy Pelosi.

UPDATE: More here: “Reid and Durbin are determined to feed at the trough no matter how embarrassing it is to the party.”

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: TPM Muckraker is pretty hard on Harry Reid: “Showing he can be every bit as bullying to advance a bad idea, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) held open a vote on his watered down earmark reform legislation today in order to round up enough votes to push it through. . . . According to Craig Holman of Public Citizen, Reid’s version, if it had been applied to earmarks as part of legislation passed last year, would have disclosed the sponsor of only approximately 500 earmarks. DeMint’s amendment would have forced sponsors to be known of roughly 12,000.”

DEAN BARNETT OFFERS A TROOP SURGE FAQ that’s worth reading.

I’ve been an agnostic on the “more troops” argument — see this post where I wrote:

This question — how big should the Army be — is only loosely related to the question of whether we should, as John McCain wants, send 35,000 more troops to Iraq, except insofar as this wouldn’t be such a big issue if we had a bigger Army to begin with. Whether 35,000 more troops will make a difference or not is unclear to me, and it’s a matter on which the generals themselves seem to be divided.

As Barnett notes, though, this is not merely an increase in troops but also, and more importantly, a change in tactics. Will it be enough? I don’t know. I have to say, though, that it’s been amusing to see the same people who were recently demanding that Bush send more troops suddenly reverse and criticize him for . . . sending more troops. The question of troop numbers is one where reasonable people can and do differ, but that doesn’t mean that lame political oppositionalism isn’t recognizable as such.

UPDATE: Maybe these decisions shouldn’t be made by people who think that we’ve been in Iraq for 5 1/2 years.

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, hitting Bush for sending too many troops and not enough troops in the same column surely qualifies for some sort of award.

MORE: Sober thoughts from Stephen Bainbridge and Michael Young. [Bainbridge is sober? — Ed. Despite the wine-blogging, it happens.]

TEST-DRIVING THE D-BOX GAMING CHAIR: It costs as much as some cars, and looks nearly as likely to cause whiplash. . . .

Plus, resurrecting the electric car.

MORE ON THAT ATLANTA NO-KNOCK SHOOTING:

An Atlanta police narcotics officer has told federal investigators at least one member of his unit lied about making a drug buy at the home of an elderly woman killed in a subsequent raid, according to a person close to the investigation.

In an affidavit to get a search warrant at the home Nov. 21, narcotics officer Jason R. Smith told a magistrate he and Officer Arthur Tesler had a confidential informant buy $50 worth of crack at 933 Neal St. from a man named “Sam.”

But narcotics officer Gregg Junnier, who was wounded in the shootout, has since told federal investigators that did not happen, according to the person close to the investigation. Police got a no-knock warrant after claiming that “Sam” had surveillance cameras outside the Neal Street residence and they needed the element of surprise to capture him and the drugs.

The resident at the home, Kathryn Johnston, who is reported to be either 88 or 92, was startled by the sound of her burglar-bar door being battered in, and she fired her revolver at the officers. She was killed and three officers were wounded by gunfire or shrapnel.

Buddy Parker, a former federal prosecutor, said that officers who lied to the magistrate could face serious charges in addition to making false statements to a judge.

And if they lied, they should.

THIS POST by Jason van Steenwyk suggests that when I was at the CES writing about Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD, I should have spent a little time at the conference next door. . . .

REPORTEDLY, JAMIL HUSSEIN ISN’T.

Allah comments: “Flopping Aces and Confederate Yankee consider this big news. I do not, notwithstanding the fact that AP’s own standards and practices forbid the use of fake names.” It does, however, make AP look kind of shifty.

MORE TROUBLE FOR JIMMY CARTER:

Fourteen members of an advisory board at the Carter Center resigned today, concluding they could “no longer in good conscience continue to serve” following publication of former President Jimmy Carter’s controversial book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.”

“It seems that you have turned to a world of advocacy, including even malicious advocacy,” the board members wrote in a letter, a copy of which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “We can no longer endorse your strident and uncompromising position. This is not the Carter Center or Jimmy Carter we came to respect and support. Therefore it is with sadness and regret that we hereby tender our resignation from the Board of Councilors of the Carter Center effective immediately.”

I have never been a fan of Carter’s myself, but he does seem to have gone off the deep end in recent years.

UPDATE: Thanks to reader John Palmer, here’s a link to another story that doesn’t require a subscription.

IN THE MAIL: Josh Chafetz’s new book, Democracy’s Privileged Few: Legislative Privilege and Democratic Norms in the British and American Constitutions. It looks quite interesting — and highly relevant in the wake of the William Jefferson office search brouhaha. And it’s strongly blurbed by bigshots who say that it’s not only very good, but also beautifully written. Josh probably picked up those writing chops over at Oxblog . . . .

HAROLD FORD, JR. has been asked to be the next chair of the Democratic Leadership Council, according to this report. Kos is unimpressed.

I think it’s a good choice for the DLC; Ford’s a smart guy and a good communicator. Our podcast interview with him is here.

MICHELLE MALKIN is now blogging from Iraq. Lots of cool photos, too; very impressive.

Plus, Bill Roggio, recently returned from Iraq, comments on Bush’s new approach. Excerpt: “On Sadr and the Mahdi Army: We’ve created this monster, and now its time to put it down. We failed by not taking the opportunity to kill Sadr after his Mahdi Army was roundly defeated in the Najaf uprising in August of 2004.” I think that’s right. At the time I figured the Administration knew something I didn’t; in retrospect that seems unlikely.

And Bill Ardolino continues to blog from Iraq, and has lots of thoughts of his own.

UPDATE: Howard Mortman notices something in Michelle’s photos.

A PROTEST RALLY IN DC THURSDAY on behalf of imprisoned Egyptian blogger Abdelkareem Soliman Amer.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: “After listening tonight to Wesley Clark, Dick Durbin, Tom Vilsack, Nancy Pelosi, etc. I still can’t for the life of me learn what they want to do.”

I think they want to be President, mostly.

UPDATE: And some tough symbolic votes! (Via Dan Riehl.)

IT’S A FINAL COUNTDOWN to Bush fascism!