Of course, not one delegate was actually awarded last night -- but the fact that he has now won more contests than Romney or Gingrich -- and as many as the two of them combined -- is important.
Rick Santorum had a breakthrough night Tuesday, winning GOP presidential contests in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado, all of which is expected to breathe life into his struggling campaign and slow Mitt Romney’s march to the Republican presidential nomination.The Santorum triumphs promise to, at least temporarily, alter the face of the campaign going into the crucial “Super Tuesday” contests, as the caustic tone of the primaries is expected to continue and intensify. Romney and his allies have signaled that they will use their financial advantage to launch stepped-up attacks on Santorum and on former House speaker Newt Gingrich, the other main challenger.
Santorum solidly defeated Romney in Minnesota and Missouri, and he narrowly edged the former Massachusetts governor in Colorado, according to state GOP officials.
None of this negates Romney's financial advantages, nor does it eliminate the problem that Santorum has not even made the ballot in every state. And as pointed out by the Romney campaign, John McCain lost 19 contests in 2008. But this does serve to keep Santorum -- a candidate who I could gladly vote for -- in the mix for the next several weeks, probably until mid-March at the least. But it also means stepped-up attacks from his GOP rivals -- and from the Left. Expect the former Senator and part-time radio host (he was the fill-in for Bill Bennett for a while) to be the object of some real hits in the days to come.
And as the FiveThirtyEight blog points out, last night's showing also indicates that Romney is vulnerable in the Heartland -- something he must overcome if he gets the nomination and expects to beat an incumbent president from the Midwest.
I didn't think the congressman could be any more of a pathetic joke than his faux-minister daddy -- but I guess I was wrong.
Jackson, speaking before the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board on Monday, vehemently denied any wrongdoing, saying that a campaign donor’s purchase of a plane ticket for a woman he had an extramarital affair with, though at his behest, did not break the chamber’s rules.
“[It was] not a personal benefit to me, I don't believe, under the House rules. A benefit to the person for whom he bought the ticket. He didn't buy tickets for me. Did I direct him? I did," said Jackson, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Now let me get this straight -- getting a big donor to fly a woman to you so you could get laid doesn't constitute a personal benefit? Are you freakin' kidding me? Apply the laugh test to this one to see if it passes muster.
I’ve not written on the Obama Regime’s new regulation forcing the Catholic Church to pay for abortion and birth control for employees. I’m working on something about it, and will post on the topic soon. But this statement from the ACLU merits comment due to its fundamental misunderstanding of the First Amendment.
The American Civil Liberty Union announced today that President Obama's decision to mandate coverage for birth control does not violate religious liberty.The ACLU's Alicia Gay warns that the "powerful lobbying arm of the Catholic Church" mistakenly claims that the HHS contraception mandate violates their religious liberty.
Individuals who choose not to pay for employees' contraceptives, the ACLU counters, are forcing their beliefs on their employees.
"The fundamental promise of religious liberty in this country doesn’t create a right to impose those views on others, including ignoring civil rights laws or denying critical health care," Gay insists.
Director of Washington Legislative Office Laura Murphy insisted on NBC's Today Show this morning that individuals could still "practice their religion as they see fit," by not using birth control.
Here’s the problem with tat argument – the First Amendment doesn’t say what the ACLU says it does. Here’s what the First Amendment does say.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Now given that the rulemaking authority under which the Obama Regime is acting comes pursuant to a congressionally passed statute, the First Amendment applies here. And requiring that a religious organization act in a manner directly contrary to its religious teachings. In the case of the Catholic Church, its teachings are clear on birth control and sterilization – and abortion. Regarding abortion, the Catholic Church actually imposes the penalty of excommunication upon those who procure or directly participate in an abortion. Requiring that the Catholic institutions fund abortion therefore opens Catholics up to grave ecclesiastical penalties. Moreover, the new regulation creates the bizarre twist that Catholic hospitals may not be required to perform abortions or supply abortifacient contraceptives, but will be forced to fund them through their insurance plans.
Still, the absurd argument put forward by the ACLU here needs to be refuted. The ACLU seems to thinkt that if Catholic institutions are not forced to pay for the birth control, sterilization, and abortions of their employees that some substantive right is being violated. That is nonsensical – as nonsensical as arguing that a Jewish nursing home with a kosher kitchen failing to provide bacon and pork products to its non-Jewish employees is somehow an unlawful and illegitimate imposition of Judaism upon those employees.
The reality here is that the ACLU isn’t concerned about the First Amendment here. It is instead concerned about the perpetual extension of the abortion culture in America. As a result, they are willing to see the federal government require that those with moral scruples against abortion be forced to burn a little incense at the altar of Margaret Sanger – or be crushed by the instruments of the state in the same way that the ancient Romans sought to crush the early Christian community for refusing to make such sacrifices at the altar of the emperors.
I’ll be honest – I think this man’s birther beliefs are absurd. But that does not mean he should not be permitted to practice medicine.
A Kansas board that denied a licensed doctor of osteopathic medicine a license was primarily concerned about the man's political views. The Kansas State Board of Healing Arts is a 15-member panel appointed by the governor and decides the fate of doctors in Kansas.Terrence Lee Lakin rose to the ranks of lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. He served on the front lines in Afghanistan and the war zone in Bosnia as well as a medical mission to Honduras. He saved lives around the world and received a Bronze Star for his service.
"I like helping people," said Lakin. "And I've been, since college wanting to be in medical field and help others."
But a dispute over whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States led to Lakin being forced from the military and apparently led to the Kansas board in October denying him a medical license to practice in the Sunflower State.
The board repeatedly refused comment on their decision, but a transcript of Lakin's shows board members didn't concern themselves with Lakin's 18-year spotless medical record.
"They hammered me for my political views," said Lakin.
It apparently took the board all of 18 minutes to conduct a political inquisition and determine that his having stood up for his political views made him unfit to practice medicine – on the theory that his refusal to deploy potentially endangered soldiers in the theater of war. But the same board apparently is willing to license physicians who present an active danger to patients – such as this one.
KCTV5's investigation reveals that in 2008, the KSBHA board approved the license of another doctor with a history of medical mistakes and malpractice payouts. One patient died after a drill mishap in the operating room. A surgical error caused repeated electrical shocks to a second patient. And a third patient wasn't even that doctor's patient. The physician didn't notice, ended up performing brain surgery on the wrong man and caused permanent damage.
Fine – Terrence Lakin is a political loon. So is Dr. Ron Paul. However, I know the latter to be a fine physician, and by all accounts Lakin is as well. I’d rather see either of them treating patients than the fellow who Kansas did see fit to license despite apparent incompetence.
I am not one who has been active in the Tea Party movement, despite my sympathy with many of its aims. I’ve never attended a Tea Party event, nor have I joined a Tea Party group. What’s more, I’ve at times found myself in conflict with some Tea Party activists. I note this because I want it recognized that I write as one outside the movement, rather than as an insider.
So do I believe the Tea Party is dead, as obituaries like this one indicate?
But after months of wondering how the Tea Party would change the primary game, leaders inside the movement admit they never came in off the sidelines. For the Tea Party movement, the 2012 presidential primaries have been a bust.“The Tea Party movement is dead. It’s gone,” says Chris Littleton, the cofounder of the Ohio Liberty Council, a statewide coalition of Tea Party groups in Ohio. “I think largely the Tea Party is irrelevant in the primaries. They aren’t passionate about any of the candidates, and if they are passionate, they’re for Ron Paul.”
Littleton is one of the many who have endorsed the Texas congressman; he blames the other GOP candidates for the lackluster energy they have generated in the grassroots that hosted a revolution two years ago.
From where I sit, only a couple of miles from Ron Paul’s congressional district, I don’t see what Littleton is seeing. The major Tea Party group in my area seems to have been dominated by Herman Cain Supporters, not supporters of the local congressman in the race. In addition, many of the Tea Party people here in Texas were drawn in by the Perry campaign – after all, our governor was a Tea Party favorite in the state in 2010. And I know some Tea Party activists who, having their eye on the movement’s stated goal for 2012 -- getting rid of Obama and ObamaCare, -- have been firm Romney supporters.
And that, you see, is the thing. The Tea Party was never a monolith. It was instead a coalition of disparate factions aimed at certain mutually acceptable goals. In 2010 it was obvious how to reach that election year’s incremental goals, but in 2012 it was less obvious. And that has been the undoing of Tea Party influence this year as those different coalition partners have each pursued their different directions.
Of course, this loose structure and the resulting fragmentation is not what some folks – among them Chris Littleton – expected or desired. Some wanted an opportunity to make money off the movement, while others wanted to create a top-down structure which would have leaders directing followers how to vote. The hucksters can be dismissed, but the latter group were really looking to replace an “establishment” they distrusted with an establishment that they themselves led – or at least a parallel establishment to counter what they see as an “insider” establishment out to impose itself on the grassroots.
I encountered that attitude during the last election cycle. I received a communiqué from the campaign manager/spouse of a neophyte candidate in which I was informed that the candidate’s Tea Party involvement made the candidate “the grassroots” and that I, the local GOP precinct chair, had better fall in line with “the grassroots” or prepare to be swept aside with the rest of the “corrupt establishment”. I didn’t – I had the audacity to ask some questions about the candidate, make some observations regarding the initial contact from the campaign, and pointedly criticize the way in which the campaign was being handled in its crucial early stage. After being lambasted NATIONALLY by a handful of the candidate’s early allies, the extent to which this “grassroots candidate” represented anyone was demonstrated in the primary – I was reelected precinct chair with some 70% of the vote in my precinct, while the candidate lost the nomination to the incumbent by a margin of 4-to-1. While I have since come to count the candidate and the spouse as friends and often allies as we struggle to keep the local GOP on a conservative course, it is also clear from this experience that the desire to become a new establishment is very much on the mind of some within the Tea Party movement – though that is not what much of the GOP base is looking for.
But if the Tea Party isn’t dead, what will come of it? I think that it will, for a time, remain an activist force in the GOP – and I find that an encouraging thing. It will bring new blood – like the couple mentioned above – into the GOP and into leadership positions. I find that a positive. But in the end, the Tea Party will survive ONLY by becoming part of the GOP coalition and proving that it is prepared to work within the party. In doing so, it will be responsible for a shift akin to that brought about by the Goldwater Republicans of 1964 who persevered to elect Ronald Reagan 16 years later. But change comes slow – and those who would bring change need to take the long term view rather than expect immediate results.
UPDATE: An interesting counterpoint to this post from Ben Shapiro, with whom I agree in part and disagree in part.
Erick Erickson of Red State and I have had a few conflicts over the years -- including one which led him to block me on Twitter (and I consider blocking anyone on Twitter to be among the most petty of responses to disagreement). But he seems to have come around to something akin to my position on the current GOP field of candidates. Set aside all the silliness about the "sweet meteor of death" and it comes down to this.
Erickson said he’s hoping for a brokered convention, where some other candidate might emerge in a last-ditch effort to derail the Romney campaign.
As I've been saying, we need someone besides the current crop of candidates. A brokered/deadlocked/open convention gives us the chance to get such a candidate. Jindal, Ryan, Cantor, Bolton, Daniels, Pawlenty, or Jeb Bush could become the consensus guy around whom we all can unite. And that's what we need -- a consensus candidate who makes a case for his (or maybe her) election in the fall.
Look what they did to one of your National Parks -- McPherson Square in Washington DC.
BEFORE:
![mcp-500x281[1].jpg](http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/images/mcp-500x281[1].jpg)
AFTER:
![mcpafter-500x281[1].jpg](http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/images/mcpafter-500x281[1].jpg)
With the partial eviction of Occupiers over the weekend, McPherson Square is no longer full to the point that the local community cannot enjoy it. Instead, it is a mud-bowl that no one can really enjoy. Occupiers managed to undo most of a $400,000 park renovation that was completed last year with stimulus funding.
But not to worry -- besides destroying the landscaping, benches, and much of the rest of the park AND desecrating the statue of the Civil War hero for whom the park is named, the Occupiers did introduce some new fauna into the park -- RATS.
May I suggest that 99.99% of Americans are disgusted by the deeds of the Obama base?
And mockingly echoes the language of the Gingrich true believers I've been encountering over on Twitter.
According to the ABC News entrance poll, he beat Gingrich among “very conservative” voters by a 2-1 margin. Those darn RINO squishes! They’re everywhere now.
Not that this negates my argument that we need someone from outside the current crop of candidates to be nominated in Tampa
Unfortunately, there will be no consequences for this showing of prejudice, any more than there were consequences for Jonathan Martin of Politico and Chuck Todd of MSNBC for referring to parts of Florida as "cracker counties".
Somehow I suspect that a reference to "President Negro" or "chocolate counties" would not be nearly so tolerated.
Without further ado, here are this week’s full results:
Newt Gingrich's scorched earth campaign against Mitt Romney -- which is akin to what General Sherman did to Gingrich home state of Georgia during the Civil War -- appears to be having the intended effect. And in the mean time, the heavily despised Gingrich is still held in contempt by the overwhelming majority of Americans. That leaves us with the following situation.
Overall, 55 percent of those who are closely following the campaign say they disapprove of what the GOP candidates have been saying. By better than 2 to 1, Americans say the more they learn about Romney, the less they like him. Even among Republicans, as many offer negative as positive assessments of him on this question. Judgments about former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who denounced Romney on Saturday night in Nevada, are about 3 to 1 negative.
Rick Santorum (my personal favorite out of the last four standing) lacks the organization to win the nomination and Ron Paul lacks the sanity to to be elected president. We clearly need someone else to be the GOP standard-bearer in November -- and at this point the brokered convention/open convention/deadlocked convention is the only scenario available for getting such a nominee.
I therefore urge my fellow conservatives and other Republicans to vote in upcoming primaries and caucuses in such a manner as to make sure that no candidate has a majority of delegates on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention in August, so that a consensus candidate can emerge from a later ballot as the standard-bearer of the GOP -- a candidate who excite4s America and is liked by America.
The Obama-backed Islamist regime in Cairo has decided to put foreign poll watchers on trial -- including the son of a member of Obama's cabinet.
The son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is among 19 Americans being referred to criminal trial for allegedly receiving foreign funds illegally and being involved in banned activity in Egypt, several news agencies reported Sunday.In all, Egyptian officials say 44 non-governmental organization workers will be put before the court after investigating judges claimed they had reason to try the democracy and rights workers.
Sam LaHood and 18 other Americans have taken refuge in the US Embassy in Cairo -- bur we learned in 1979 that the Muslim world does not respect the diplomatic immunity of an American Embassy -- and the rioting crowds of outraged Muslims that have attacked embassies over cartoons and other faux outrages in recent years show that we can expect no better today. Having worked to put this regime in power, will Obama stand up to the Egyptians? Or will he continue to mouth platitudes, send them money, and continue to follow a Carteresque policy in the Middle East?
Texas grocery chain HEB ran this commercial down here in Texas during the game.
Personally, I think it is up to any of these national ads that got praised.
My buddy Darren from Right on the Left Coast directs us to this fantastic quote from one of the great men of the era before the Civil War:
“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”
Look at the current occupant of the White House. One can hate his policies but still concede that he means well. And yet meaning well is not enough -- because his policies are destructive of our liberties. We must rid ourselves of him.
We got what looks like some good news on the economy today.
President Barack Obama Friday seized on an unexpected surge in job creation last month to pressure Congress to extend the payroll tax cut for more than 160 million Americans and keep the economy improving, warning lawmakers, “Don’t muck it up!”The economy flexed its growing strength with the surprising addition of 243,000 jobs in January, cutting the unemployment rate to its lowest point in nearly three years — to 8.3 from 8.5 percent — and putting some wind in the president’s sails as he heads into his reelection campaign.
But if what of the additional 1.2 million people who have given up looking for work, and so are nut included in the unemployment rate? It is all well and good that there are these new jobs, but given the number of folks who have left the labor force out of despair and hopelessness can we really say that those new jobs have made a dent in the REAL unemployment rate? After all, 87.9 million Americans not even seeking work is not a good thing -- and that is about 28% of all Americans.
And then there are these questions, too.
If the economy is getting better, then why did new home sales in the United States hit a brand new all-time record low during 2011?If the economy is getting better, then why are there 6 million less jobs in America today than there were before the recession started?
If the economy is getting better, then why is the average duration of unemployment in this country close to an all-time record high?
If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of homeless female veterans more than doubled?
If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of Americans on food stamps increased by 3 million since this time last year and by more than 14 million since Barack Obama entered the White House?
If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of children living in poverty in America risen for four years in a row?
If the economy is getting better, then why is the percentage of Americans living in "extreme poverty" at an all-time high?
If the economy is getting better, then why is the Federal Housing Administration on the verge of a financial collapse?
If the economy is getting better, then why do only 23 percent of American companies plan to hire more employees in 2012?
If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of self-employed Americans fallen by more than 2 million since 2006?
If the economy is getting better, then why did an all-time record low percentage of U.S. teens have a job last summer?
If the economy is getting better, then why does median household income keep declining? Overall, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% since December 2007 once you account for inflation.
If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of Americans living below the poverty line increased by 10 million since 2006?
If the economy is getting better, then why is the average age of a vehicle in America now sitting at an all-time high?
If the economy is getting better, then why are 18 percent of all homes in the state of Florida currently sitting vacant?
If the economy is getting better, then why are 19 percent of all American men between the ages of 25 and 34 living with their parents?
If the economy is getting better, then why does the number of "long-term unemployed workers" stay so high? When Barack Obama first took office, the number of "long-term unemployed workers" in the United States was approximately 2.6 million. Today, that number is sitting at 5.6 million.
Yes, we have seen some ephemeral good news about the economy -- but are we really looking at the right things?
UPDATE: Don Surber linked to some additional analysis.
From Zero Hedge:“In January, the number of Part Time workers rose by 699K, the most ever, from 27,040K to 27,739K, the third highest number in the history of this series. How about Full time jobs? They went from 113,765 to 113,845. An 80K increase. So the epic January number of 141.6 million employed, which rose by 847K at the headline level: only about 10 % of that was full time jobs: surely an indicator of the resurgent US economy… in which employers can’t even afford to give their workers full time employee benefits.”
I am not that pessimistic. From little acorns, oak trees grow. But this also may reflect a reluctance to add full-time staff that gets you in Obamacare trouble. If Obamacare gets the Supreme Court Seal of Approval, look for employees to be replaced by private contractors throughout the USA to avoid an expensive mandate.
That said, Zero Hedge laid out the case in another post for putting the unemployment rate at a more realistic 11.5%. The participation rate has dropped to a 30-year low.
No, those numbers really aren't that rosy. And as one of his commenters points out, the U6 number is at 15.4%.
Probably not -- it would undoubtedly be declared RAAAAACIST!!!!!
Specifically, note Holder's comment that "maybe this is the way you do things in Idaho, or wherever you're from."
So we have our black Attorney General dismissing a Hispanic Congressman because he is of Puerto Rican ancestry. Odd that the media isn't making a big deal about this -- you know, like if someone were to say to Obama "maybe this is how you do things in Illinois, or wherever you're from." Guess that is just a part of the double standard.
From whom did Obama inherit the bad economy? Not from Bush, but from the Democrat-run Congress that he had been a part of for four years.
For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is “Bush’s Fault,” think about this:
January 3rd, 2007, the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress:
- The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77
- The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%
- The Unemployment rate was 4.6%
- George Bush’s Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB CREATION!
Remember that day…
January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.
The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?
BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!
THANK YOU DEMOCRATS (especially Barney) for taking us from 13,000 DOW, 3.5% GDP and 4.6% Unemployment…to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES!
SO the next time you hear a Democrat talk about "the mess Obama inherited from Bush", be sure to remind them of what the economy looked like when the Democrats took power over the law-making and budget-writing power in 2007. Then remind them of how much damage was done by the Democrats (including Barack Obama) in the two years that followed -- damage that they used to make the case for electing Barack Obama. And now, after three years of Obama, has the situation improved? No, it has not -- the economic reality is worse in every single one of those categories thanks to Democrat policies.
I first became aware of Charlotte Bergmann a bit over a year ago when she sought election o Congress as a Republican from a heavily black, heavily Democrat district. She seems like a good woman who wants to accomplish some good for her community.
She lost, but is seeking the nomination for the seat again. But it appears that racism may be a problem for her.
No not racism from white people – racism from influential blacks. Consider this video.
Matthews quickly became upset with Bergmann when she wouldn’t answer directly about any affiliation with the Tea Party. Then he launched into a 16-minute argument filled with curse words and accusations that added up to her being too close to whites and not really having the interest of the black community in mind. Eventually, Bergmann bowed out of the conversation, and that’s when Matthews really let her have it — not only did he accuse her of being a “token negro” for whites, but he also slipped in references about Martin Luther King and even refused to shake her hand because he was afraid her “whiteness” would rub off on him.
He doesn’t want the “whiteness” to rub off of this black woman and on to him.
The irony, of course, is that this is the congressman she is trying to unseat.
![steve_cohen_hi_res[1].jpg](http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/images/steve_cohen_hi_res[1].jpg)
Yep – that is Congressman Steve Cohen. A white guy. I somehow doubt that Thaddeus Matthews would refuse to shake hands with the incumbent Democrat because of fear that the “whiteness” would rub off. Or maybe he would – maybe he has been a part of the racist and anti-Semitic attacks on Cohen by black “leaders” in the Memphis area.
And I’m sure that Matthews would have a conniption fit if someone were to express concern about the “blackness” rubbing off Barack Obama in various parts of the White House – he would rightly call it racist. Just like I rightly call the actions and words of Thaddeus Matthews towards Charlotte Bergmann to be racist.
Nothing says “sore loser” like this headline.
Report: Newt Gingrich to challenge Florida primary
This is Virginia all over again. Only after he fails does Newt demand that the rules be changed.
Do we really want such a man in the White House?
The race-baiting deadbeat baby-daddy used to think that "speaking truth to power" was the height of Americanism. But that was before Barry Hussein entered the White House. Now he thinks something very different.
MSNBC’s Martin Bashir and Jesse Jackson try to link President Obama’s political opponents to potential violence against him.Jackson says Jan Brewer’s finger in Obama’s face and Rep. Allen West saying “get the hell out” of the country is “dangerous” and even links it to someone shooting an AK-47 rifle at the White House.
Jackson said “ignorance and hatred and violence is a certain pattern” that led to JFK and Martin Luther King Jr. being assassinated.
Got that -- you are a racist who wants the president dead if you criticize the current regime.
By the way -- I wonder what the not-so-Reverend Jackson has to say about folks who utter words like these?
Clearly a dangerous extremist who needs to be banned from the airwaves and shunned by all decent people as a threat to America.
Egypt is refusing to allow a group of American citizens -- including the son of a member of Obama's Cabinet -- to leave the country after working with an NGO to monitor Egypt's recent elections. Now the Islamist-controlled regime won't even accept diplomatic communication from the American government regarding the matter.
The Egyptian justice minister returned a letter Tuesday from the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt asking him to re-examine the issue of Americans barred from leaving the country.The snub is the latest in a spat between the allies over a politically charged Egyptian investigation into foreign funded groups.
Egyptian security forces raided 17 offices of 10 pro-democracy and human rights groups last month then barred at least 10 foreigners, including six Americans, from leaving the country.
Among those stuck in Egypt is Sam LaHood, son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. On Monday, three of the Americans took refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.
What does all of this mean? It means that the Egyptian government is telling the American government that its treatment of American citizens is not the business of the United States -- despite some $1.5 billion in US aid that the Islamist regime is set to receive from the US this year.
This ought to be front page news in every paper and a top story on every news broadcast. Why the relative media silence?
Beating the combined totals of Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.
Mitt Romney rolled to victory in the Florida primary on Tuesday, dispatching an insurgent threat from Newt Gingrich and reclaiming his dominant position as he urged Republicans to rally behind his quest to capture the party’s presidential nomination.The triumph by Mr. Romney offered a forceful response to the concerns that were raised about his candidacy only 10 days ago after a stinging loss to Mr. Gingrich in the South Carolina primary. It stripped Mr. Gingrich of his momentum and raised questions about his effort to persuade Republicans of his viability.
“A competitive primary does not divide us,” Mr. Romney told his cheering supporters. “It prepares us. And we will win.”
He urged Republicans to focus on defeating President Obama, declaring, “I stand ready to lead this party and to lead our nation.”
The vote tally shows Romney with 46.4% of the vote, Gingrich with 31.9%, Santorum with 13.4%, and Ron Paul with 7%. The next few stops (Nevada, Maine, Arizona, Michigan) are thought to be Romney strongholds, meaning that he is likely to continue to extend his lead in the delegate count.
As most of those who have made even a cursory study of modern British history will tell you, Queen Victoria was genuinely in love with her husband, Prince Albert, and was quite lost after his sudden death. Though she reigned for another four decades following this crushing loss, she was never quite the same afterwards. A bit more than a century later, another queen reigns – and the love between her and her husband is quite remarkable.
Giving his personal reflections on his grandmother in a rare and candid interview to mark her Diamond Jubilee, Prince Harry raised the sensitive subject of the monarch’s advancing years and her ability to cope with her massive workload as she approaches her 86th birthday.* * * Prince Harry, he said, reflected on “her ability to turn up, still smiling, at places she might not want to be”.
“These are the things that, at her age, she shouldn’t be doing, yet she’s carrying on and doing them,” said the Prince in an interview just before the 90-year-old Duke of Edinburgh had an operation on a blocked artery at Christmas.
“Regardless of whether my grandfather seems to be doing his own thing, sort of wandering off like a fish down the river, the fact that he’s there – personally, I don’t think that she could do it without him, especially when they’re both at this age.”
I’ll say it – there is a book there. Probably several books, to be honest. And I really think I would love to see someone like Prince Harry write one of them, written with the loving respect of a grandson rather than the reverence of a monarchist or the skepticism of an anti-monarchist. Because while the relationship between Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip is one that has been in the public eye since almost the beginning, but the wall of privacy they have erected at times has prevented the world from seeing how very human the couple are.
Well, some are insisting that the answer is no. And if you look at the number of delegates available to be won after today, they are right.
After Tuesday, when Kentucky's (and Indiana's petition -- see footnote 17 above) deadlines pass that total will drop below 1144 to 1066.No matter how you look at it, then, there are or would be enough delegates for a late entrant to possibly get to 1144, or in the more chaotic, yet more likely late entry (if it were to happen), scenario after Tuesday, earn enough support to keep another candidate from getting there, sending the decision to the convention; a brokered, uh, deadlocked convention.
Josh Putnam goes on to suggest that no candidate could get on enough ballots and organize himsef/herself enough to make a real run at winning a brokered/deadlocked convention. I don't know that I agree. Imagine a situation in which such a late entrant comes to Tampa with 600 or more delegates, with Gingrich and Romney splitting the bulk of the rest more or less evenly and a sizable group of uncommitted delegates. A Jeb Bush could grab enough delegates on the second round of voting to reach 1144 delegates. So could Sarah Palin. For that matter, I think that maybe a Bobby Jindal could do so. Who knows -- Tim Pawlenty could yet see the revival of his fortunes.
Of course, who such a candidate would be would likely be contingent upon the outcome of today's vote in Florida and polling results from the next couple of days based upon those results. And I agree with Putnam that this scenario would be a long-shot -- but no longer than my proposed scenario of a deadlock with someone emerging at the convention after having no delegates.
Quite simply, he says what so many of us think in the face of stupid criticism from the Left.
It’s open war in New Jersey, where Gov. Chris Christie ripped a pro-gay marriage state assemblyman as “numb-nuts” on Monday in response to the state lawmaker’s suggestion that the governor would have supported pro-segregation leaders.“You have numb nuts like Reed Gusciora who put out a statement comparing me to George Wallace and Lester Maddox. Now, come on guys, at some point, you’ve got to able to call BS on those kind of press releases,” Christie said, according to a video posted on the New Jersey Star-Ledger’s website.
“I think quite frankly that those who say things like that like Gusciora should be ashamed of themselves, that they’re that desperate to try to change the topic on this issue that they would actually raise those folks, reprehensible people in America’s history,” the governor said.
Frankly, Christie got it exactly right. There are legitimate reasons to hold a position contrary to the liberal fringe on gay marriage. Heck, even Barack Obama holds such a position (at least he says he does). It is therefore perfectly reasonable to treat folks who would claim that opposition to gay marriage is the same thing as supporting racial segregation or the Holocaust as the sort of moral and intellectual lepers they really are.
The New York Times (among others) have noted the silence of Jeb Bush in the days leading up to the Florida Primary.
An unspoken question hovering over the Republican presidential race here is why Mr. Bush, the state’s popular former governor and heir to the nation’s aging political dynasty, has not added his voice to the party establishment’s support for Mr. Romney in his increasingly bitter duel with Newt Gingrich.
From where I sit, the answer is obvious.
The bitterness and division that have increasingly come to characterize the GOP nomination process is likely to result in no clear frontrunner headed into the convention in August. The degree to which the party is split means that we are quite likely to see no candidate get the nomination on the first ballot – at which point the delegates are released from their commitments and are free to switch to one of the other candidates – or to someone else who has not been in the running up to that point. By staying out of the conflict in Florida, Jeb Bush will have positioned himself to be the choice of the delegates on the second or third round of balloting. He has both conservative and establishment credentials – and by not making an endorsement he can serve as a unifier.
And if there is not a brokered convention and one of the current crop of candidates is the nominee, Jeb Bush is well positioned to be the 2016 nominee if that candidate loses.
Seems to me that the better question to ask is why Jeb Bush would even want to make an endorsement at this point.
Here’s the key point.
“Rubio has to decide,” said Presente Action co-founder and strategist Roberto Lovato, “if he’s a Latino or a Tea Partino.”
Got that? Leave the Democrat hacienda and they will try to strip you of your ancestry and ethnic identity. On the other hand, Republicans welcome independent-minded minorities of every sort.
And lest anyone claim this campaign by Presente Action is not racist, consider what sort of outcry we would have if a conservative group were to declare that people have to choose between being white and voting for Barack Obama.
And not about the fact that Michelle Obama may or may not be spending a bunch of money on frilly undies and lacy nightgowns – the focus on how much she is spending on clothing generally.
The White House today issued an angry denial following claims that Michelle Obama indulged in a $50,000 shopping spree at a luxury lingerie boutique in New York.According to a report in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday, Agent Provocateur's boutique in Madison Avenue, New York, was partially closed off for the U.S. First Lady.
But Kristina Schake, director of communications for First Lady Michelle Obama told MailOnline this morning: 'This story is 100 per cent false.'
Come on, folks – unless the woman is spending government dollars on a special flight to New York for her shopping trip or spending government dollars to buy her clothes, is this really relevant? Seriously – does the First Lady’s clothing tab matter worth a damn? I’d argue it doesn’t matter – it is her husband’s policies that are the problem.
And frankly, those making the clothing argument are getting perilously close to the Occupier arguments that have been thrown at Mitt Romney by Newt Gingrich. I don’t care how much Ann Romney – or Calista Gingrich or Karen Santorum or Carol Paul – spend on their wardrobe or what kind of underwear and nightgowns they wear. Let’s deal with substance, not trivial gotcha games – otherwise we are legitimizing the class warfare tactics of the Left.
It is time for a BUYCOTT of the companies that the Jew-haters want you to boycott.
![buycott-poster-front[1].jpg](http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/images/buycott-poster-front[1].jpg)
Stand with Israel -- Buy Israeli products.
Proof they are not the 99% -- and do not represent the beliefs, values, and interests of 99% of Americans.
I pledge allegiance to a flag of the imperialistic, capitalistic dictatorship.
And to the plutocracy for which it stands, depravity owned central bank, under the Jews
With an inequality and injustice for the 99.
Yet somehow these folks are painted as heroes by the media,, while the Tea Party is somehow outside the mainstream.
Here are this week’s full results:
See you next week!
I've been following this one over the last couple of days, and want to make an observation or three about it.
![120127-obama-photo-hmed-9a.grid-8x2[1].jpg](http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/images/120127-obama-photo-hmed-9a.grid-8x2[1].jpg)
The Secret Service said Thursday that it was looking into a photograph posted on the Internet that showed a group of young Arizona men posing in the desert with guns while holding up what appeared to be a bullet-riddled image of President Obama’s face.The photograph showed seven casually dressed young men, four of whom clutched weapons and one of whom held up a T-shirt covered with small holes and gashes and bearing a likeness of Mr. Obama above the word “HOPE.” The weapons held aloft appeared to be a revolver, a bolt-action rifle and two assault rifles.
“We’re aware of it, and we’re conducting the appropriate follow-up steps,” said Ed Donovan, a Secret Service spokesman in Washington.
Now let's consider a few things here.
First, I don't have any problem with the Secret Service investigating this one. However, I don't think that it will turn up much other than some folks who are disaffected with the current regime using their Second Amendment rights to exercise their First Amendment rights by doing damage to an inanimate object. And as I've noted from time to time, the exercise of the First Amendment does include tasteless displays that depict the deaths of politicians, up to and including the President of the United States -- and that is according to the Left, which did such things often during the Bush years.
But as I noted several years back regarding the investigation of a teenager who posted a "Kill Bush" picture on MySpace, there is good reason to investigate.
Suppose that, instead of an ill-informed little brat raised by overly-indulgent parents, the site was operated by a nascent Dylan Klebold or Eric Harris? No one took them seriously before they attacked their high school and murdered 13 people. How was the Secret Service to know that your daughter wasn’t a mentally and morally disturbed sociopath? What is over the top, sir, is that you think they should NOT have pursued the matter as they did.
Frankly, it is a question of doing their due diligence to ensure that we do not lose a president to an assassin.
For that matter, I don't have a problem with the police department conducting an investigation of Sgt. Pat Shearer, who posted it on his website. Is he a threat? Is he giving kids access to weapons inappropriately?
But I do have one other concern -- and it is based upon this tidbit in the story.
Danielle Airey, a spokeswoman for the Peoria Unified School District, said district officials were conducting an investigation and working to identify any students involved.
Frankly, there is absolutely no place for the school district to involve itself in this investigation. The incident did not occur at school, nor was it directed at the school. This is a law enforcement matter. And should it be found that there was no violation of the law (as is likely the to be the case), any effort by the district to punish the students would be an infringement on their First Amendment rights.
Oh, and while I'm at it, let me edit the picture to make my own editorial comment on it and what it depicts.
Ain't Free Speech wonderful!
After all, Hitler and the Nazis did other things besides run death camps.
Bishop Joseph McFadden of Harrisburg has attracted criticism from the Anti-Defamation League and others for comparing the monolithic nature of the public education system to the education systems of 20th-century totalitarian regimes.“In totalitarian governments, they would love our system,” the bishop said last week as he discussed his support for voucher legislation. “This is what Hitler and Mussolini and all those tried to establish a monolith so all the children would be educated in one set of beliefs and one way of doing things.”
Bishop McFadden defended his remarks after the Anti-Defamation League’s regional director said they trivialized the suffering of victims of the Holocaust.
As Bishop McFadden points out, totalitarian regimes -- including that which ran Germany from 1933 through 1945 -- try to take control of education in order to indoctrinate young people with loyalty to their ideology, and seek to guarantee that competing educational institutions are co-opted or destroyed. Recognizing that the Nazis used this technique does not minimize the evil that was the Holocaust -- it paints a fuller picture of the malignant nature of the Hitler regime.
Here’s Gingrich on some of Romney’s investments.
Governor Romney owns share -- has an investment in Goldman Sachs, which is today foreclosing on Floridians. So maybe Governor Romney in the spirit of openness should tell us how much money he's made off of how many households that have been foreclosed by his investments? And let's be clear about that."
Let’s stop for a minute. You don’t get foreclosed on unless you aren’t paying your mortgage. Does Gingrich really believe those who don’t pay their mortgages should get to stay in their houses, while those who are owed the money don’t get paid? Sounds like he’s moved away from the Reaganite view of the “ownership society” and into the Occupier view that property should be redistributed from the 1% to the 99%. Will someone explain to me why so many conservatives are now supporting a man who is clearly a socialist?
The folks at Spirit Airlines decided to tell their customers the unvarnished truth about a new government regulation on advertising airfares – and Beastly Babs is spitting mad about it.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is sharply criticizing Spirit Airlines for its response to new price advertising rules from the Department of Transportation.Spirit, a discount airline based in Florida, has protested DOT's requirement that advertisements for airline tickets include all taxes and fees in the prices that are listed for flights. The airline placed a pop-up ad on its website that says “new government regulations require us to HIDE taxes in your fares.”
But Boxer, writing to Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza about the new rules, which took effect this week, said that "nothing could be further from the truth."
The problem is that Spirit is exactly right. By requiring that the airlines tell only the total cost of the ticket rather than breaking out the government-imposed taxes and fees, DOT has hidden those taxes and fees from the consumer. That keeps the consumer (You and me) from knowing how big a cut that the government is getting of the ticket price.
This is akin to what is done with gas taxes. We see the price at the pump and blame the oil company or the station operator. But the reality is that if the price were broken down it would look like this:
In other words, government is getting many times more in taxes than the oil company and gas station are in profits. The DOT regulation hides taxes in the same way -- and will allow the government to engage in scuch price gouging without us ever knowing that they were the culprit!
So I would like to praise Spirit Airlines for telling us the truth – and urge them to keep doing it.
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I like Santorum. When I saw the great picture of he and his family my response was "why would he want to be president? He should enjoy his life and enjoy his family". He seems like a genuinely nice person. I suspect most of his new popularity is related to sympathy over his daughter. But in my opinion none of that matters. I don't think he is tough enough or experienced enough to be president. Having said that I admit he would be an enormous improvement over the president we now have. But the world is getting more dangerous every day and our economy is falling apart. We really need a strong and capable leader. Someone who would probably upset or anger every other country on earth. Someone who is FOR America first. Santorum is a nice guy and will play well on the news as he tries to console us when each new disaster strikes. I can see him now in a sweater in front of the fireplace telling us to conserve fuel, be polite and nieghborly in the food lines and not to worry that Iran just obliterated Israel and China destroyed Taiwan and or military doesn't have ammunition to practice with, and oh yeah we have to raise taxes to pay for the free health care for all the illegal aliens who have streamed across the Southern border in the wake of massive violence by the drug cartels. He will then offer a national prayer to calm us all...
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