NATIONAL ID MAY HAVE helped kill the immigration bill.

I had a column on why National ID was a bad idea over at FoxNews.com over five years ago — I can’t find it now, but I still think it’s a bad idea.

UPDATE: Heck, it was nearly six years ago — thanks to Don Surber for finding the archived version.

LIBERTY VS. EQUALITY at Vassar College. “In the fifties, the liberties of many universities were suspended under pressure of McCarthyism. Today, they are under siege from their own faculties, administrations, and student bodies.”

FRED THOMPSON ON THE IMMIGRATION BILL: “This has been a good day for America.”

My advice for next time:

(1) Make the process open, transparent, and timely, with hearings, drafts on the Internet, and no last-minute bills that no one has read;

(2) Earn people’s trust, don’t demand it, and treat enforcement like it matters;

(3) Respect people who follow the law, and make legal immigration easier, cheaper, and simpler, rather than the Kafkaesque nightmare it is now;

(4) Don’t feel you have to be “comprehensive” — address the problems you can deal with first. The trust needed to deal with other problems will come later, after you’ve shown some success and some good faith.

THIS IS COOL:

You don’t have to pack your bags quite yet, but passenger travel to the Moon is on the flight manifest of a space tourist company.

The price per seat will slap your wallet or purse for a swift $100 million – but you’ll have to get in line as the first voyage is already booked.

Space Adventures, headquartered in Vienna, Virginia, is in negotiations with the customers who will fly the first private expedition to circumnavigate the Moon.

“I hope to have those contracts signed by the end of the year,” said Eric Anderson, Space Adventures’ president and CEO.

I’d go, but I’m a few bucks shy of the ticket price. Maybe if I put up a special PayPal button . . . .

BACK TO BASICS: “Hey, Jobs! Forget the iPhone — fix my iPod!”

REID AND PELOSI, having suckered Bush into angering his coalition and weakening himself with the immigration bill, are trying again to force a withdrawal from Iraq.

I don’t think Omar will approve.

“FAIRNESS” DOCTRINE GOOD NEWS: “The House votes 309-115 for a Mike Pence amendment barring the FCC from imposing it.”

AL GORE’S $100 MILLION MAKEOVER.

BILL QUICK: The world turned upside down. This is the happiest I’ve seen him in months.

UPDATE: And one of his predictions is already coming true. Well, in a small way.

I AGREE:

The most fundamental duty of the federal courts is to overrule and remedy governmental violations of the Constitution. In some cases, an award of damages is the only adequate remedy available, or even the only possible remedy of any kind. Consider, for example, the case of an innocent man victimized by an unconstitutional search or seizure. The standard remedy of the exclusionary rule is useless to him – at least if he is going to be acquitted anyway. The only feasible way to compensate him for the violation of his rights is an award of damages.

In some cases, other remedies are available, but they are not sufficient to fully remedy the violation of the victim’s rights. The Wilkie majority opinion concedes (and Thomas and Scalia do not dispute) that this was true in Wilkie itself. In such situations, it is axiomatic that the courts have a duty to provide a remedy that fully compensates the victim for the violation of his constitutional rights. Any other approach is both unjust to the victim and provides poor incentives for the government by allowing it to avoid bearing the full cost of its actions.

Justices Thomas and Scalia seem to believe that judicial decisions ordering a damages remedy somehow constitute judicial policymaking in a way that decisions ordering other kinds of remedies do not. I agree that damage remedies are sometimes unwise and often inferior to other available remedies. However, I don’t see why a damage remedy is inherently more “activist” or more intrusive on the powers of the political branches than alternative remedies such as injunctive relief or facial invalidation of a statute – remedies that Thomas and Scalia consider to be perfectly legitimate. In many cases, an injunction or invalidation of a statute will actually constrain the political branches more than damage payments do.

By all appearances, we need more remedies for illegal conduct by officials. And if damages are inappropriate, Congress can always legislate an appropriate scheme.

A LOOK AT THE IMPACT of the Bear Sterns meltdown.

DICK CHENEY should hire Beldar to make his case.

EVAN COYNE MALONEY’S FRIEND STUART BROWNING is supposed to be on Fox in a minute, talking about his film on the Canadian healthcare system, and Michael Moore’s film on the American healthcare system.

I just caught Newt Gingrich while I was waiting — he was there to flog his new novel, but wound up talking mostly about the immigration bill defeat, which he said was a victory for every GOP candidate except John McCain. Er, and Sam Brownback, I guess, but Newt probably forgot him, as most people seem to have . . . .

UPDATE: Ian Schwartz has the video of Browning’s appearance. And here are some more short films on healthcare by Browning.

HIGH-SCHOOL ASTRONOMERS photograph space station from the ground. The quality is impressive.

ALLAH LOOKS AT THE IMMIGRATION VOTES IN ORDER and discovers a pattern. Plus, Sam Brownback voted for it before he voted against it: “Sam Brownback turned out to be the weaseliest ‘no’ vote of all. He voted yes right at the very beginning, during the alphabetical vote, probably thinking that cloture was going to pass. Then, when it died, he switched to a no. I almost wish he was pulling more than 1% in the presidential polls so we could hammer him into oblivion with that. As it is, I’ve captured his moment of shame for posterity on video.”

UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ed Morrissey has thoughts on what to do next.

HILLARY CLINTON’S NEW “PICK MY SONG” CONTEST.

I THINK THEY’RE SAVING THE PLANET by staying home. Bravo!

I think I’ll do the same.

YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY about making promises you can’t keep?

A government spokesman guaranteed the safety of Chinese exports on Thursday in a rare direct commentary on rising international fears over Chinese products. . . .

The statement was among Beijing’s most public assertions of the safety of its exports since they came under scrutiny earlier this year with the deaths of dog and cats in North America blamed on Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine.

Since then, U.S. authorities have turned away or recalled toxic fish, juice containing unsafe color additives and popular toy trains decorated with lead paint.

Still, it’s nice to see that they’re taking the problem seriously.

“HOUSE REPUBLICANS CHOOSE MONEY OVER MAJORITY:” Robert Bluey has an unflattering take on the Congressional pay raise.

UPDATE: On the other hand, you have to give them credit for standing up against a Fairness Doctrine renewal. Rep. Obey’s slamming of alt-media is pretty self-serving, given the pasting he’s taken over pork lately.

SCORE ONE FOR ALT-MEDIA: Immigration bill fails. “The bill’s Senate supporters fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to limit debate and clear the way for final passage of the legislation, which critics assailed as offering amnesty to illegal immigrants. The vote was 46 to 53 in favor of limiting the debate.” That’s a big margin.

I think it was the YouTube campaign that made the difference.

UPDATE: Mickey Kaus modestly foregoes credit, but observes: “Fifteen Dems (plus Sanders) vote against cloture, making it somewhat difficult for Sen. Reid to achieve what seemed to be his unadvertised dream: A failed bill he could blame on the Republicans.” Plus, why Rupert Murdoch is a loser.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Minute-by-minute coverage of what went on while I was taking the Insta-Daughter to the doctor and the mall.

MORE: Don Surber is glad the bill failed, but also offers praise for legal immigration:

God bless those legal immigrants. they went through the paperwork. They studied hard. Many had to learn a new language. They showed a commitment to a nation that most of us take for granted.

Yes. The anger over the bill was never so much over immigration, as it was over the contempt that many of the political class seemed to display regarding people who — to coin a political phrase — work hard and play by the rules. Those crafting another bill at some point in the future would do well to bear that in mind. [LATER: Prof. Joseph Olson emails: “Congressmen neither work hard nor play by the rules. There is no reason to expect them to respect those who do.” Ouch. But that’s not fair — they do work pretty hard, actually.]

And here’s the Washington Post story on the bill’s failure.

More: “Today’s defeat of the Senate amnesty bill was more than a run-of-the-mill legislative victory, representing as it did a self-organizing public’s defeat of combined force of Big Business, (some of) Big Labor, Big Media, Big Religion, Big Philanthropy, Big Academia, and Big Government.” Wow. Somebody should write a book about this phenomenon.

MORE: On legal immigration, a reader emails:

I’m a professor in California and my wife holds a masters degree in accounting. We’ve already spent thousands getting work permits. We’re now in the process of applying for green cards … they’ve make it so complicated you can’t reasonably do it without legal help, and all up (legal fees plus government filing fees), it’s costing us over $9000 for my wife and I to apply for Green Cards. On July 30th, they’re increasing the filing fees. Currently it’s $940 for me and $740 for my wife. Come August, it’ll cost $2200 for the main applicant and $1725 for the spouse. On top of that, they wouldn’t let me pay tax as a married person until I’d been in the country for 10 months, so not only was there no “tax amnesty” for me, I was in fact paying more taxes than an American in the same position. I find Americans are always shocked when I tell them how much it is costing us. It seems like every few months they make it more difficult for people who want to do it legally.

Tellingly, he asks that I not use his name for fear of retaliation.

STILL MORE: Dean Barnett rounds up winners and losers.

MORE STILL: Reader Christopher Fox is worried: “Great, we dumped the immigration bill. Success! Now we have to watch out for retribution by a vengeful Congress looking to put us in our place. Don’t be surprised when all pretense of border controls are dropped, as the elites decide to show us how bad it can REALLY get if we don’t do it their way.”

That would be amazingly stupid. Which, based on past performance, suggests that it’s hardly out of the question . . . .

THE POLITICO: Hillary’s pollster caught testing attacks.

IN THE MAIL: Shackleton’s Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer. Looks very interesting.

MAKING A LIVING off of disaster relief.

FREE SPEECH UPDATE:

Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin got his long overdue comeuppance in the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday. The court ruled the senator is not above criticism before an election, no matter what law Feingold may author.

And three justices even reminded him that Wisconsin is not Morocco. . . . A key provision of this “reform” is a restriction on political ads just before an election.

Oh, not on the ads of the politicians. Senators can run all the TV ads their fat-cat supporters are willing to buy.

No, the politicians restricted what ads the citizenry may run on TV before an election.

This “campaign reform” is like a drunk “curing” his alcoholism by telling his wife she cannot imbibe.

I hope that there’s a lot of publicity in this vein, as I fear we’re about to see another bipartisan effort by the inhabitants of Incumbistan to shut down criticism.

JUST BACK FROM IRAQ, J.D. JOHANNES HAS A COLUMN ON RICHARD LUGAR: “Is it possible to win a war on the ground, and lose it in Congress?”

UPDATE: “We’ve done it before.”