No one would confuse me with a Hillary booster, but if the following is true, the kudos to her.

"This is a tribute to her hard work and the depth of support she's built," said Ann Lewis, communications director for Clinton's campaign. Lewis added that 95 percent of Clinton's contributions were for $100 or less.

Senator Clinton has raised 39 million dollars to this point and has about 20 million in the bank (which can be transferred to an expected presidential campaign...).

Now contrast this with George Will's screed

The "problem" Republicans addressed is that in 2004 Democrats were more successful than Republicans in using so-called 527 organizations -- advocacy groups named after the tax code provision governing them. In 2002 Congress passed the McCain-Feingold legislation banning large "soft money" contributions for parties -- money for issue-advocacy and organizational activities, not for candidates. In 2004, to the surprise of no sensible person and most McCain-Feingold supporters, much of the money -- especially huge contributions from rich liberals -- was diverted to 527s. So on April 5, House Republicans, easily jettisoning what little remains of their ballast of belief in freedom and limited government, voted to severely limit the amounts that can be given to 527s.

Perhaps its as confusing for you as it was for me--a conservative criticizing Republican action on a McCain-Feingold loophole allowing rich liberals to contribute--as in the case of George Soros--as much as 25 million dollars? Actually Will is using the recent Congressional action on 527s to criticize McCain-Feingold, which enjoyed bi-partisan support, but for which Will insists the current Republican majority should be punished.

The 211 Republicans who voted for big-government regulation of speech will have no principled objection. How many principled Republicans remain? Only 18. The following, who voted against restricting 527s:

Roscoe Bartlett (Maryland), Chris Chocola (Indiana), Jeff Flake (Arizona), Vito Fossella (New York), Trent Franks (Arizona), Scott Garrett (New Jersey), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Jeb Hensarling (Texas), Ernest Istook (Oklahoma), Walter Jones (North Carolina), Steve King (Iowa), Connie Mack (Florida), Cathy McMorris (Washington), Randy Neugebauer (Texas), Ron Paul (Texas), Mike Pence (Indiana), John Shadegg (Arizona) and Lynn Westmoreland (Georgia).

On this remnant of libertarian, limited-government conservatism a future House majority can be built. The current majority forfeited its raison d'etre April 5.

George Will--ever the example of reasoned conservatism, has of late been experimenting with an "angry right" persona. I think he liked being a conservative better when Republicans were a minority party.

But I digress.

What is clear from the Clinton PAC's claim is that political credibility comes a hundred bucks at a time. Why is that? Well lets do the math. 95% of 39 million divided by 100 is about 370,000 individual donations. Now money talks in politics, but votes talk louder and 370,000 people committed enough to Hillary to write her a check for a hundred bucks speaks volumes about her viability as a candidate.

On the other hand, what would the implication be if 25 million of Hillary's stash came from one donor?

If you can answer those questions honesty, you grasp the crux of McCain-Feingold, which hasn't turned out to be the bugaboo it was initially represented as--in a representative form of democracy, the danger is that money will talk louder than actual voters. We see this all the time with how the elite media call the tune on what's news and what isn't--Generals critical of Rumsfeld? News. Generals supportive of Rumsfeld? Not news. Bush leaker in chief? Front page, above the fold. Fitzgerald amends his filing? Page eleven.

Notably, the FEC recently clarified its rules on bloggers and elections and bloggers came out extremely well, because as well as being free speech, its more importantly democratic speech. In other words, we are getting more representative speech within the American polity and I have to think that's a objectively good thing.

Its an obscenity to have George Soros' voice count more by orders of magnitude than anyone elses, yet the practice does have its supporters--notably from those in the minority who have failed to convince the public through argument.

Hillary demonstrates that Democrats can raise significant hard money donations (or appear to, which at minimum concedes the point...). Its tougher than simply making a trip to Hollywood or calling the bagmen, but utlimately I think its better for the party and the country in the long run.

Taking a cue from the incumbent protection crowd in the U.S. Congress, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez plans to nix renewal of Radio Caracas television’s license – the second largest broadcaster in Venezuela. Radio Caracas had the audacity to support Hugo Chavez opponents. (h/t Captain's Quarters)

Meanwhile Feingold insists it’s a crime to say this over the airwaves:

On television, a man prepares for work as he reads the paper, shines shoes and pays bills. The voice of a narrator chimes in to explain.

"There are a lot of judicial nominees out there who can’t go to work...because a group of U.S. Senators is filibustering – blocking qualified nominees from a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote.”

“Contact Senators Feingold and Kohl and tell them to oppose the filibuster,” the narrator says.

No word yet from the Supreme Court’s Justice Kennedy on how Hugo Chavez’s announcement will influence the Justice’s “international take” on the probable appeal.

A guy holds up a 15 foot banner across the street from his Juneau, Alaska highschool during the Olympic torch run. The principal suspended him.

Why a case like this makes it to the Supreme Court is a mystery to me. Setting aside from the Rastafarian sentiments of the banner, the lad was on a public sidewalk. The behavior may have been controversial, but it wasn't disruptive and it doesn't really challenge the right of school officials to control behavior on the premises of the school, since it occurred off-campus, so to speak.

No brainer. Move on.

Tom Grubisch, formerly of the Washington Post, complains about the Internet:

These days we want "transparency" in all institutions, even private ones. There's one massive exception -- the Internet. It is, we are told, a giant town hall. Indeed, it has millions of people speaking out in millions of online forums. But most of them are wearing the equivalent of paper bags over their heads. We know them only by their Internet "handles" -- gotalife, runningwithscissors, stoptheplanet and myriad other inventive names.

The gist of Grubisch's argument is that who you are should be more important than what you say--which is pretty much consistent with the left's view of free speech.

Imagine going to a meeting about school overcrowding in your community. Everybody at the meeting is wearing nametags. You approach a cluster of people where one man is loudly complaining about waste in school spending. "Get rid of the bureaucrats, and then you'll have money to expand the school," he says, shaking his finger at the surrounding faces.

You notice his nametag -- "anticrat424." Between his sentences, you interject, "Excuse me, who are you?"

Apparently, if the person had a name tag with "Sheryl 'One Sheet' Crow" on it, the statement would have been entirely appropriate and everyone would nod in approval.

What is at work here is the anguish of journalists all over the country, working at failing newspapers, realizing that finally getting that piece of real estate on the editorial or city page is all or naught because people are reading Powerline and Huffpo instead.

The nonsense about all these bag-obscured nitwits monopolizing the podium is ridiculous--the reality is that 99.999% of all the really egregious idiocy occurs in the comment stream, which is usually so long that no one except Che2621 and his buddies are ever going to read it.

The reality is that blogs are read for their content, not for who the writer is. When was the last time you read Gov. Jerry Brown's blog or Rep. Tom Delay's?

Anonymity simply isn't a significant problem and I think what's really bugging Tom is that his profession is toast.

I personally think the tradition of nom de plume (pen name) is a fine one, allowing an argument to stand on its own without inordinate bias in the form of the person's identity. Sometimes the illustrious reputation of an author lends more authority to their words than is objectively merited. Sometimes perceived negative factors, such as age, race, religion or national origin produce a prejudice that obscures the logical power of the proposition. Allowing the words to stand on their own merit is both fair and right.

The fact that a professional journalist doesn't seem to understand this is more than a little scary.

While our deepest national embarrassment is to be seen as weak, a Canadian's deepest embarrassment is to be seen as morally inferior, especially if its contrast to the barbarians in the south.

It is that dynamic that is working in Ezra Levant's favor as he defends himself from the Stalinist reeducation camp euphemistically referred to as the Alberta Human Rights Commission. As you might expect, there are not human rights in a Canadian human rights commission. Lee Duigon explains it best.

It derives its authority from a Canadian law that makes it a hate crime to say or write anything that might—whether it actually does or not is totally immaterial—expose some individual belonging to one of several favored minority groups, at some indefinite time in the future, to some unspecified kind of hatred or contempt. Because there is no substance whatsoever to such a complaint, there is no possible defense against it.

As an added inducement to thin-skinned prigs to take offense, the state will pay all the plaintiff’s legal fees. The accused, of course, must pay his own. The Kangaroo Kourt is not bound by law, or rules of evidence, or precedent. It is not obliged to consider whether anything the accused said might happen to be true. After all, the fact that some doofus says he found the defendant’s speech offensive is proof that it offended somebody and therefore must be punished.

I've mentioned any number of times that socialism mandates fascism as a matter of survival. The imposition of policy "for the good of the people" is simply code for stealing from Peter to provide an entitlement from Paul.

Peter is going to resent it and it will be necessary to intimidate Peter into compliance.

In Canada, the socialist experiment has been underway for decades. First the confiscation, then the disarming and now the silencing.

This from one on Canada's principle "human rights" commissars, Dean Steacy.

MS KULASZKA: Mr. Steacy, you were talking before about context and how important it is when you do your investigation. What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate one of these complaints?

MR. STEACY: Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value.

MS KULASZKA: Okay. That was a clear answer.

MR. STEACY: It's not my job to give value to an American concept.

Sobering isn't it? All those nice Canadians north of us, polishing their jack boots?

Its rather odd, but I find myself siding with Marc Lemire and other white supremacists fighting the real Nazis. Root for the racist--its important.

On March 25, Lemire will get a chance to cross-examine members of the CHRC about their undercover activities (posting anti-semitic and racist remarks on the taxpayer dime...). The degree to which the Canadian government has gone to infiltrate and entrap white supremicist is reminiscent of the FBI's efforts to do much the same with the Civil Rights movement.

Apparently no one has considered just having a public debate...