In a “hastily arranged” press conference, conservative leaders “initially blamed schedule problems for their decision, saying they could not put off the [budget] vote any longer given Friday’s holiday. ‘Members have grown concerned they’re not going to get home for their Veterans Day events,’” said conference chairwoman Deborah Pryce (R-OH). (Roll Call, sub req’d)

On Wednesday, Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-MO) was “convinced” that the budget would get to the House floor today and pass:

Eventually we’re going to take something to the floor that is a test of the members more than we intended to test the members, because that’s just going to happen. I’m convinced that we’re going to be fine when we take this to the floor on Thursday.

Things change quickly:

House Republican leaders scuttled a vote Thursday on a $51 billion budget-cut package in the face of a revolt by lawmakers over scaling back Medicaid, food stamp and student loan programs. The development was a major setback for the GOP on Capitol Hill and for President Bush, who has made cuts to benefit programs a central pillar in his budget plan.

on Dover vote: “I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city.”

Conservative leadership in the House just announced they don’t have enough votes to pass their own budget. RawStory has more.

On Tuesday morning, Princeton’s daily student newspaper published on article online about Samuel Alito that caused a momentary storm. The paper wrote:

[Alito's senior thesis adviser Walter] Murphy said he and Alito agree that the 1973 landmark abortion-rights case Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided.

On Tuesday morning, the story began to quickly gain wider circulation. Fred Barbash at Washington Post’s Campaign for the Court blog emailed Murphy to determine whether the reporting was accurate. Murphy adamantly claimed that he “did NOT say that Sam & I agreed that Roe was wrongly decided.” He offered this striking clarification:

The point I was trying to make was that, even if Sam thought that Roe was wrong, he would not necessarily vote to overturn it.

The Princetonian subsequently offered a correction, claiming there was a “misinterpretation.” It was hard for us to believe. So we contacted the Princetonian and asked the paper if Murphy had told them that he believed Alito would not vote to overturn Roe. Here’s their response:

Based on a review of our transcript, Professor Murphy did not tell us that even if Judge Alito believed Roe to be wrongly decided, he would not necessarily vote to overturn it. Though we’re not sure why it was suggested that this was said in the interview, we’re reluctant to draw any conclusions. That said, had the transcript reflected the assertion that Judge Alito would be unlikely to overturn Roe, we would most certainly have included the point in the story, given the importance of this claim.

What we know is Murphy’s account dramatically changed once he realized that his comments were receiving greater media attention. What we still don’t know is Alito’s true opinion on Roe.

Thursday that while he believed illegal activity should not take place at detention centers, he believes the leak itself poses a greater threat to national security and is ‘not concerned about what goes on‘ behind the prison walls.” Or as Fox News might ask, “Why all the fuss?“

On Tuesday — three days before Veterans Day — House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyer (R-IN) announced that for the first time in at least 55 years, “veterans service organizations will no longer have the opportunity to present testimony before a joint hearing of the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees.”

Remember that Buyer was handpicked by criminally-indicted Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) to replace former veterans committee chairman Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), who had been extremely vocal about the consistent underfunding of veterans causes.

The Disabled American Veterans, the “official voice of America’s service-connected disabled veterans,” just issued a scathing release calling the move “an insult to all who have fought, sacrificed and died to defend the Constitution.” The timing, they said, “could not have been worse.”

Read the full release here. (More from The Hill.)

“Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., who said in 1990 that he would disqualify himself from cases involving his sister’s law firm, was a member of an appeals court that reviewed a 1995 case in which his sister’s firm represented one of the parties…It is at least the third instance in which there is no indication the Supreme Court nominee recused himself from the kind of case he had promised a Senate committee he would avoid as a federal judge.” (Via AmericaBlog)

A few months ago, Townhall contributor and right-wing pundit Michelle Malkin attacked Air America for raising money through pledge drives. Here’s what she wrote:

Al Franken’s liberal radio network, Air America, is now scraping the bottom of the barrel for investors. Having taxed the patience of deep-pocketed liberal sugar daddies, Air America execs have cooked up a new campaign to hit up their own listeners for cash donations.

You might be surprised to learn that pledge drives prop up Malkin’s work. Her columns are featured on the conservative website Townhall.com, which has started their fall pledge drive. The site urges its readers to “Contribute to Conservative Success: Use the form below to make your donation. All major credit cards accepted. Mail-in, Paypal options can be found at the bottom of this page.”

We’ll be waiting for Malkin’s upcoming attack on Townhall’s fundraising pitch.

Michael Brown finally off FEMA’s payroll.