I will be out of town for a few days, starting tomorrow; I will have access to a laptop, and I’m pretty sure the hotel has internet access… so I may be able to blog about Disneyworld, Epcot, and Disney-MGM (for the Hollywood Tower of Terror), which is (you have gathered) where I’ll be. But posting will be light, of course.
Since I live just a short drive from Disneyland, the Disneyland Hollywood Tower of Terror (which I haven’t seen), and of course the real Hollywood, it will be an interesting exercise either in déjà-vu, if they’re really similar, or befuddlement, if they’re completely different.
The last time I was at the Orlando facility was about twenty years ago. Maybe more.
I will be getting all my news online — not too different from being at home, except I often watch Brit Hume as well as read the online editions of various newspapers and blogs. I’ll be particularly following the Senate confirmations, now that two of the three named winners have been confirmed, to see at what point the Seven Dwarfs (Republicans) and the Seven Sirens (Democrats) diverge — and what the reaction of the former will be when that happens, as inevitably it will: Bolton? The first judicial nominee other than Pryor?
The best thing from our point of view would be if the Democrats were successfully to filibuster Wiliam Pryor himself (which would require a couple of the Sirens to renege on the deal), as that would absolutely force most of the Dwarfs to pull out and vote for the constitutional option. But I highly doubt the Democrats will do it; they’re not utter fools!
UPDATE: And indeed the Senate ended the filibuster of Pryor, voting cloture by a resounding 67 to 32. He will presumably be confirmed tomorrow, along with the two Michigan nominees, David McKeague and Richard Griffin. But according to AP, that will end the judicial voting for a while… as it looks like Frist is once again going to let this slide for some unfathomable reason (they could simply finish out this week and the next and get either votes or filibusters on all the pending nominees: Myers, Saad, Kavanaugh, and William Haynes; but that would be too simple and logical for Dr. Fristenstein).
Next most likely is that several of the Sirens will vote against cloture on one of the judges not named in the Deal — I don’t mean Saad or Myers, but someone else, such as William James Haynes — he was the nominee the American Spectator’s Prowler column suggested would be used as a test case, to see what the Seven Dwarfs would do if the Democrats went ahead and filibustered, despite the lack of anything a reasonable person would call “extraordinary circumstances.”
In any event, if the Dems filibuster a normal nomination, and if the Republicans in the Deal refuse to vote for the constitutional option, then we know there was a secret agreement to scuttle everyone but the three named winners. Contrariwise, if there is a successful cloture vote on Haynes (or some equivalent), then it’s likely there was a secret deal to let all the nominations go forward except for Saad and Myers. And if there is a filibuster, and if the Republicans pull out of the deal and vote for the option… well, then, problem solved.
In either case, we should know in two or three weeks (unless Frist once again delays everything until it’s too late).
UPDATE (ctd): Which, of course, he evidently has… at least according to AP.
Dafydd