Jonathan Strong of The Daily Caller assesses the chances that Democrats will sneak through the "DREAM Act" partial immigration amnesty in the waning days of the lame duck Congress. As feared, the conclusion is murky, given the criss-crossing array of potentially soft Republicans and potentially tough Democrats in the Senate. But a) a "proprietary vote simulation and prediction engine" called WhipCast gives DREAM a 33% chance of passage; b) Microsoft and other tech companies are pushing for it; and c) even more worrisome, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell's spokesman gives a shockingly nonchalant answer when asked if stopping DREAM is a priority:

“I don’t have a whip count on it. … Our priority is making sure no one gets a tax hike and funding the government while reducing spending.”

I take that as a "no."
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DeMint et al will KILL the Dream Act…….

The Democrats are total morons for not finding their own hot mama before the Republicans did so first, or maybe I should have left off the qualifiers and called it straight: the Democrats are just plain morons, at least where women are concerned. The right wing, for whatever weird reason, has been much more receptive to outrageous and attractive female commentators who are varying degrees of insane or inane, but in any case are given a platform on Fox News and at their conservative confabs. Look at how great life has been for Megyn Kelly and Laura Ingraham and the assorted lesser lights. But there are no Democratic blondes, no riot grrrls on the progressive side of politics, no fun and fabulous women in the liberal scene who could pave the way for a Palin
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Read it all.

The LEFT is insufferable

Cabinet secretaries, top congressional leaders and an exclusive group of senior U.S. officials are exempt from toughened new airport screening procedures when they fly commercially with government-approved federal security details.

Aviation security officials would not name those who can skip the controversial screening, but other officials said those VIPs range from top officials like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and FBI Director Robert Mueller to congressional leaders like incoming House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who avoided security before a recent flight from Washington's Reagan National Airport.

The heightened new security procedures by the Transportation Security Administration, which involve either a scan by a full-body detector or an intimate personal pat-down, have spurred passenger outrage in the lead-up to the Thanksgiving holiday airport crush.
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Uh No…..

The Washington Post boasts some of the top liberal bloggers, such as Ezra Klein and Greg Sargent. Now the paper's bringing a conservative into the blog stable.

The Post has hired Jennifer Rubin, previously with Commentary magazine, to launch a new blog next month that "will provide critical news coverage and commentary, with an exacting eye on conservative policy-making and Republican campaigns, pundits and politicians," according to a memo obtained by The Cutline.

David Weigel wrote a blog on the conservative movement until June, when private emails surfaced in which he was harshly critical of some leaders on the right. He resigned over the flap.

But Weigel, now at Slate, didn't write his blog from a conservative perspective as Rubin is expected to do–even if some readers, and Post managers, thought he would be doing so. Another difference: Weigel was on the national staff, whereas Rubin and Sargent fall on the opinion side of the paper.
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A good edition

The Harris County Tea Party near the Alabama border campaigned far and wide in this month's midterm elections. Donations were mailed to tea-party candidates in Nevada and Alaska. There were multiple overnight bus trips to rallies in Washington, D.C.

The next stop, however, is closer to home: the local school board.

"Don't get me wrong, we're still going to engage in Washington, but now we're going after what is here locally. Our focus is turning to our community," said Kathy Ropte, the group's founder, over cola at a Blimpie sub shop, a popular local tea-party meeting spot off the town square. Aware that education consumes a big chunk of local property taxes, group members are combing through the salaries of every county school employee from the superintendent down.
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And, will increase their membership in gearing up to replace Obama in 2012.

A San Francisco community college student awaiting deportation to his native Peru won a temporary reprieve Friday when U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation halting immigration enforcement proceedings against him.

Steve Li, 20, had been due to be separated from his parents and sent back to Peru last Monday, but federal immigration officials pushed back the deportation at Feinstein's request while the California Democrat prepared the private relief measure that would allow him to remain in the U.S.
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Wonder when Feinstein or Boxer will save Meg Whitman's illegal alien maid, Nicky Diaz?

If Sarah Palin does run for president next year, at least one high profile journalist will be forbidden access to the former Alaska governor.

Speaking to Fox New's Sean Hannity in an interview to air Monday, Palin said she wants nothing to do with Katie Couric, the CBS Evening News anchor who's line of questioning facilitated one of the most memorable political foibles of the 2008 presidential campaign.

"As for doing an interview, though, with a reporter who already has such a bias against whatever it is that I would come out and say? Why waste my time? No," Palin told Hannity of Couric, according to excerpts obtained by Time's Mark Halperin.
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Yeah ti was a set up and then Couric received a USC journalism award for tripping up Palin.

Huge budget shortfalls are prompting a handful of states to begin discussing a once-unthinkable scenario: dropping out of the Medicaid insurance program for the poor.

Elected and appointed officials in nearly a half-dozen states, including Washington, Texas and South Carolina, have publicly thrown out the idea. Wyoming and Nevada this year produced detailed studies of what would happen should they withdraw from the program. Wyoming found that Medicaid accounts for 63% of the state's nursing-home revenue.

The idea of abandoning Medicaid as a solution is so extreme that even proponents don't expect any state will follow through, but officials are floating the discussions because dire budgetary pressures have forced them to at least look at even the most drastic options.
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And, now who thinks ObamaCare will work?

Right!

Nobody

A new poll shows President Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in a statistical dead heat for the White House.

The Republican edges Obama by one percentage point, 45-44 percent, in a Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters released Monday. Among other top GOP contenders, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee trails Obama 46-44 percent and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is behind by eight points, 48 percent – 40 percent.

The poll suggests a clear frontrunner has yet to emerge from the GOP field. Palin, Romney and Huckabee, the three leading challengers in the poll, only receive 19 percent, 18 percent and 17 percent support, respectively, from Republican voters.
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If the economy does not measurably improve within 6 months, no matter who the Republicans nominate will beat Obama

A newly discovered exchange of e-mails led the House ethics committee on Friday to delay its trial of Representative Maxine Waters, a California Democrat accused of helping steer bailout money to a bank in which her husband owned shares.
The e-mails are between Mikael Moore, Ms. Waters’s chief of staff, and members of the House Financial Services Committee, on which Ms. Waters serves. The e-mails show that Mr. Moore was actively engaged in discussing with committee members details of a bank bailout bill apparently after Ms. Waters agreed to refrain from advocating on the bank’s behalf. The bailout bill had provisions that ultimately benefited OneUnited, a minority-owned bank in which her husband, Sidney Williams, owned about $350,000 in shares.
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Read it all

The London Guardian published a story today titled: “Sarah Palin drops 2012 presidency hint with staff visit to Iowa“. The article included the following paragraph:

Some of her staff now appear to be putting the pieces in place in case Palin does decide to run. One of the aides, who only eats kosher food, told a local rabbi he was looking into longer term arrangements in Iowa.

“He was looking to be able to accommodate the needs of those coming down looking to set up shop here for campaigning in the coming years,” said Yossi Jacobson of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in Des Moines

This paragraph is factually incorrect.
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For now……

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, one of three 2012 GOP presidential prospects in Iowa this month, said Sunday the next one on the schedule, Sarah Palin, would be a strong contender, should she decide to run.

“No question, she will be a very, very strong presence and force, if she gets in,” Huckabee told reporters in Des Moines Sunday. “You know, she may run away with it. And that’s one of those things everyone needs to be prepared for.”

“If I get in, I prefer she not and that she endorse me,” Huckabee then joked.
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If Sarah Palin runs, she will be the GOP nominee against Obama

Also, when faced with frivolous, baseless ethics charges made by political operatives, which was costing her state millions of dollars and her staff thousands of hours to refute, kudos to Palin for having done the right thing. That’s right, she resigned. And it wasn’t to preserve her political future. It was to ensure that the Governor’s office could get back to what was important – the day-to-day work of protecting Alaska and its citizens.
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Read it all

They’re the leading contenders for now for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, and, perhaps not surprisingly, they’re the best liked of 14 top party players among likely GOP primary voters.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of those voters finds that 82% have a favorable opinion of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the party’s vice presidential nominee in 2008, while just 17% view her unfavorably. That includes 50% with a Very Favorable opinion and eight percent (8%) with a Very Unfavorable one.
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Sarah Palin's nomination is hers to lose.

Sarah Palin has dropped another hint of her intention to run for the White House in 2012, dispatching aides to scope out office space in Iowa, the first stop in the presidential race.

The "will she, won't she?" speculation about Palin in 2012 has become a Washington parlour game – as well as generating free publicity for her new book, which goes on sale this week.

In the course of making arrangements for that tour, two aides organising Palin's visit to Des Moines on 27 November told locals they were looking into office space and other logistical needs for the coming year, the Guardian has learned.
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Making preparations yes.

I believe Sarah Palin will announce on or immediately after Ronald Reagan's 100 birthday celebration next February 6th