It has been brought to my attention that one or both of your campaigns may already be planning or intending to pursue litigation against the Texas Democratic Party. ...Such action could prove to be a tragedy for a reinvigorated Democratic process.

The letter to the two campaigns did not specify what procedures or rules might trigger a lawsuit. But one party official said the campaigns were most concerned about the caucus process, or, as the party refers to it, the "precinct conventions." Texas has 228 delegates, the biggest single cache remaining.

But only 126 delegates are doled out based on the selection voters make at the ballot box. Sixty-seven delegates -- more than many states' entire share -- are to be apportioned based on the number of people who participate in the caucuses that begin in over 8,000 precincts once the polls close at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

The intense competition between Obama and Clinton has made every delegate a precious commodity. In past years, the caucuses generated little attention or interest. Now, questions are being raised about procedures, whether there's enough space to accommodate participants and how the results will be recorded and reported. Democrats have described the enthusiasm in Texas, as evidenced by the record turnout among early voters in the most populous counties, as a sign that the party is undergoing a revival after years of decline under virtually unchallenged Republican rule.

Dunn, the Democratic Party attorney, said it could all be for naught if the Texas nomination battle winds up in court.

In the segment aired Sunday [on 60 Minutes], north Alabama lawyer Jill Simpson said Republican strategist Karl Rove in 2001 asked her take a compromising photo of [former Democrat Gov. Don] Siegelman with one of his aides.

Prosecutors contended [HealthSouth founder Richard] Scrushy bought a seat on a state health board with $500,000 in contributions to Siegelman's 1999 lottery campaign.

Siegelman was also convicted on an unrelated obstruction of justice charge that he hid $9,200 he received from a lobbyist.

I just want to piggyback a bit on the excellent post by Neil Stevens at RedState on erstwhile wannabe mullah Muqtada al Sadr's most recent declaration that his "Mahdi Army" will continue its "truce" for another six months with these quick notes:

Sadr keeps extending this "truce" because he has no army, has no more devotees, and has no control whatsoever. He makes these declarations not as a leader, but as a follower -- he has his finger in the air, and has again gotten the clear sense that the militia fighters whom he once counted as allies or minions haven't, at the moment, the stomach for continuing the fight, so he declares postemptively that there will be another "truce."

It's sort of like wandering into the middle of a one-way street, seeing that all the cars are going West, then stepping up to the podium and decreeing that "All traffic on this road shall now move West!"

Every time he does this (I count this as at least the fifth time, but I could be off by a half dozen or so), he risks being entirely outed as the fraud of a "leader" that he is -- each misjudgment of which way the wind is blowing on these issues takes another chunk out of the Wizard of Oz persona that he has presented both to the world and to his own countrymen. There's a man behind the curtain, and that curtain has been steadily drawn back over the last couple years.

In conclusion, I think Neil made an outstanding point when he said the following:

"I find it interesting that the way to gain prestige in Iraq now is to present yourself as a peacemaker, someone trying to help build Iraq back into a thriving country."

Among the major proposals in front of lawmakers right now [to reform Georgia's health care system and help those in need of coverage to be better able to attain it] is a move by Gov. Sonny Perdue to embrace high-deductible health care plans and accompanying health savings accounts. Also getting attention is a pair of proposals from Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, one that would give a financial boost to free clinics and another that would provide more information to health-care consumers. Rounding out the bunch is a proposal by Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine to force health insurance companies to get his approval before they can raise premiums.

Critics, though, question how valuable some of those free-market ideas might be and tend to focus on efforts to expand what they see as tried-and-true government programs, like the joint state-federal Medicaid health insurance plan for lower-income Georgians.

Reps. Chris "Has Rafael Palmieri gotten his 300th hit yet?" Shays (Rumored to be "R"-CT) and Jim "I'm such a nobody that not even I've heard of me before" Langevin (D-RI) announced their new plan to solve America's health care problems last week. They're billing their new legislation, called the "American Health Benefits Program," as "the first bipartisan universal health care plan to originate in the U.S. House of Representatives."

Claiming that their plan (which won't be available to the public until later today or tomorrow at earliest) will "cure the health care system," Shays and Langevin want to play up "managed competition" and "shared responsibility" -- awesome, brand new ideas that mean "government control of the market" and "doctors need to take less and do more while taxpayers pay more for their countrymen's health care" -- to make health care "efficient and affordable."

Oh, and they would create yet another government bureaucracy, the Health Benefits Administration, to oversee this program, and to implement and enforce provider rate controls. But hey, don't let a couple simple little things like those turn you off; there's so much more to love about this plan!

For example, under this program, individuals who did not sign up for a plan would be automatically enrolled in one in their region. Further, its estimated $540 billion price tag (a low estimate, as *all* health care program estimates are) would be funded by "employer contributions" -- i.e., as always, a new payroll tax. Hit those nasty corporations where it hurts, and get health care for the people! Yeah!

Only it doesn't work that way, as anybody with the most basic concept of economics can tell you. Just because the federal (or state, or local) government snaps its fingers and implements a new tax on employers doesn't mean that that employer miraculously has more *money* with which to pay that tax. When it comes to payroll tax increases, workers' salaries don't rise in response to the levy, allowing employees to take home the same amount while the business they work for takes a larger financial hit from the new tax. Instead, that money comes straight out of the funds used to pay workers, causing one of two things to happen: (a) wages are cut to make up for the money lost to the new tax, or (b) jobs are cut to make up for the money lost to the new tax.

Capital is a finite resource in business, and countless tax increases eat into that finite total. This is something which those in government -- the one organization which, due to its power to legally take resources at the point of a gun, has the least finite resources of all -- seem chronically unable to understand. When more money has to be given to the government, that money is taken from a different area of a business's operation. In the case of an increased payroll tax, that money can only come directly from the cash set aside to pay workers' wages.

But this is madness! says Langevin, who uses as his rationale for cosponsoring this plan his belief that "We're the only industrialized country [in the world] that doesn't have a universal plan." Very astute, Mr. Congressman. We're also the most advanced, the most successful, with the best health care system, and a great deal of that comes from the fact that we have been blessed with the wisdom to avoid being just like the rest of the world on so many issues, including government-run health care.

In the end, I believe, this entire argument will be moot anyway. Nobody really cares about what two no-names like Shays and Langevin have to say about this issue. Further, this bill will never be subject to a floor vote, because there are myriad Reps with a lot more respect, pull, and seniority than these two who are already queued up to have their versions of socialized medicine heard and voted on.

The next round.

It isn't flashy. It's floor procedure and a leadership team that is holding the votes together. This is how a minority saves FISA.

Yesterday, we prevented them from doing a short-term extension. Now they can either take up the bi-partisan, senate-passed FISA bill that protects America - or - they can let it expire and leave our people vulnerable. It's up to them.

In a news cycle driven by gossip and baseball, serious business that fundamentally effects our ability to fight the war is on the line and happening on the floor.

An Act to make provision for and about the interception of communications, the acquisition and disclosure of data relating to communications, the carrying out of surveillance, the use of covert human intelligence sources and the acquisition of the means by which electronic data protected by encryption or passwords may be decrypted or accessed; to provide for Commissioners and a tribunal with functions and jurisdiction in relation to those matters, to entries on and interferences with property or with wireless telegraphy and to the carrying out of their functions by the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Headquarters; and for connected purposes.