Ezra:

The first year of the Obama presidency has been a long tutorial on the difference between liberal ends and liberal means. If I told you America has a president determined to pass large amounts of Keynesian stimulus spending (that's particularly concentrated in impoverished areas), a near-universal health-care plan, and a bill addressing climate change, you'd say liberals had recaptured the White House. Ambitious liberals, even.

So, this is news? It says absolutely nothing except the media will report anything at all no matter what the source or level of accuracy.

A Waldo man accused of urinating on a police officer during his fifth drunken-driving arrest has been sentenced to a year in jail. Court records released Wednesday show 36-year-old Daniel L. Shilts Jr. of Waldo was also fined about $3,600 and had his driver's license revoked for three years.

The Sheboygan Press said according to the criminal complaint, Shilts was pulled over in November 2008 in Plymouth after an officer saw his vehicle hit a pole at a gas station.

The complaint said Shilts failed field-sobriety tests. It said as he was taken to the police station he urinated in the back of the squad car, spraying the back of the officer's head.

Link

A subcommittee in the South Carolina state House voted against an impeachment resolution against Republican Gov. Mark Sanford on Wednesday.

The constitutional laws subcommittee voted 6-1 against the impeachment resolution, which was introduced by the subcommittee's chairman, GOP state Rep. Greg Delleney - the only vote in favor.

The news means Sanford will likely serve out the rest of his term, as the will to oust the governor has been waning in the months since he admitted to an affair with an Argentine mistress.

Sanford still must face a vote of the full House Judiciary Committee, but numerous South Carolina lawmakers suggested Wednesday that the resolution will likely face a similar fate in front of the whole committee.

It's been obvious since the start of the cycle that Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd would face the toughest campaign of his long political career. Even Dodd has publicly acknowledged his vulnerability. He got his campaign up and running early and started running flights of ads last spring.

Still, it is increasingly clear to both independent analysts and Democratic leaders that Dodd is just too badly damaged to have a decent shot at getting re-elected, almost regardless of who wins the Republican nomination. Democrats have given Dodd time to attempt to repair his problems, but nothing appears to have helped enough to salvage his position....

These numbers jibe with our view that Dodd is about as unelectable as unindicted incumbents get. And now that Democratic leaders have reached a similar conclusion, the question is how public they have to get before Dodd takes the hint that it is time to exit the race, and how messy the situation becomes...

As a general policy, the Cook Political Report does not rate unindicted incumbents worse than "Toss Up," at least until Labor Day of the election year since some endangered incumbents have a tendency to make comebacks despite appearing hopeless early in the cycle. There have been some rare exceptions to this policy over the years, and Dodd now joins that small group. The race moves from Toss Up to Lean Republican.

And right now, Ras (yes, I know) has Toomey leading both Specter and Sestak.

The telephone survey of 1,200 likely Pennsylvania voters finds Toomey leading incumbent Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter, 46 percent to 42 percent, in general election Senate matchup next year. Four percent said they would vote for another candidate, while 8 percent were unsure.

Specter, who has held the Senate seat since 1980, left the Republican Party to become a Democrat last April, just as he was facing a primary challenge from the more conservative Toomey. A former representative and president of the anti-tax Club for Growth, Toomey has also led Specter in previous Rasmussen surveys.

An October poll showed Toomey ahead of Specter by 5 points, winning 45 percent to 40 percent.

In a matchup against Rep. Joe Sestak, Specter's primary challenger, Toomey's lead expands to six points, 44 to 38 percent.